I love Delillo but didn’t like Cosmopolis at all (probably my least favorite book by him). It seems like a strange novel for his first adaptation to the big screen. That said, I trust Cronenberg with anything so if there’s a director who can pull it off, it’s probably him. I’m hoping for Viggo Mortensen in the lead (although that would require making the protagonist older than the novel).
Glad to see Cronenberg working again. After reading The Body Artist and White Noise, I’ll never be reading another Delillo book again.
Cronenberg better return to the Scanners and Dead Ringers days because after his 2 latest sappy efforts,i’ll start thinking if pre-retirement is the best for him…
I wasn’t fan of the last two either, Dimitris. But this…I’m thinking this could be interesting. One set. Some creative uses of the external city. The challenge of shooting in a confined space. This could be something.
I certainly hope Cronenberg gets back to shape with this films, whose producer is my fellow countryman Paulo Branco. I miss the disturbing psychological games, the surreal and outright supernatural strength of his best works.
I remember reading Cosmopolis a couple of years ago, and it´s definitely not what I would have associated with Cronenberg. I could imagine Cillian Murphy to be a fitting lead though, Viggo Mortensen would definitely be too old.
Has anyone heard anything about Cronenberg’s novel, and when it might be published? He must have turned it in by now.
Not a big fan of his source material/subject choices in recent years and personally, haven’t really been feeling Cronenberg since SCANNERS in ’81 (though, yes, THE FLY remake I tend to leave on in the background if I happen across it on TV, and I do sort of dig THE DEAD ZONE a little bit with the passing years).
But yeah, I miss the raw ’70s Cronenberg. Then again, I say the same thing about Romero, too.
Really?
Absolutely.
But hey, that’s probably just me, I don’t know. I’m kind of dyed-in-the-wool old school when it comes to my non-mainstream genre tastes—not that Cronenberg’s really all that much of a “genre” director anymore anyway, which, I guess, is why I miss the old Cronenberg. :)
Edit: Alexander – maybe you were referring to the Romero part above? Not sure now.
I wonder the same about the Cronenberg novel. Haven’t heard anything new about it either. He’s one of the few directors who I can imagine writing a good novel. I don’t get people harping on his recent stuff. Some of his best work, me thinks.
Interesting. It’s one of the lesser DeLillo novels, but it’ll be interesting to see what Cronenberg finds in it.
I’m not a big Delillo fan, but thankfully in transference from medium to medium it’ll lose his snarky, hip phrasing. And that’ll leave plenty of room for Cronenberg to do with the structure what he wants, which means it’ll be ultimately more than adequate. I don’t want to get into the argument on whether or not Cronenberg’s “lost it” with his last two films or not, but I will say this; if that’s your opinion, then you’re missing out.
I think Cronenber latest works are really interesting, and more important, I feel that Cronenberg do what most filmmakers don´t; try to expand his stories and characters and don´t stuck in a label, risking a lot (a proof of that I think is Eastern Promises, which I don´t like much, but keep changing the subjects of his other works).
No argument that Suschitzky has contributed greatly to Cronenberg’s present stature. Spider is my favorite of their collaboration.
His style evolved into something more conventional with the last two. I liked them, but they were not as interesting as Crash, my favorite of his, or Dead Ringers. Viggo did well in Violence and Promises, but I don’t know about three of the same in a row. I will be anticipating the release date of whatever he does. I’m a fan. Have been since Scanners.
The subject matter is certainly more conventional. I don’t think that they’re necessarily less ambitious or coherent stylistically, though,
ARI, I only read Cosmopolis and I loved it, so I would really like to be guided to other novels by Delillo. Please let me know what I should read! Infinite thanks.
Underworld is, I think, pretty widely acknowledged to be his masterpiece. I won’t dispute that although I’d have a hard time picking between that and Libra. The prologue to Underworld is unbelievably good, the best thing he’s written. White Noise is probably his most widely read work and lives up to the hype. I also love Mao II and The Names. His stuff from the 70s is good but not as good as what followed in the 80s and 90s (some of them like End Zone and Great Jones Street seem dated; others have ideas that I think he worked out better in other novels). Since Underworld, I don’t know what’s happened to him. Come to think of it, I was off on Cosmopolis being my least favorite of his novels. I think Falling Man is his worst novel although I gave up on it midway through reading it. A shame since if anyone seemed destined to write the great 9/11 novel, it’d be him. I think he may have creatively exhausted himself after Underworld (although the Body Artist is not bad).
Florence,
Everything DeLillo published after Great Jones Street and before The Body Artist is excellent. Underworld is his masterpiece, but not necessary a good point of entry to his work. I would actually recommend that you start with Players, which seems to me eerily prescient to a lot of things that happened in the Bush-era US.
Matt,
Thanks a lot. really appreciated.
I am only seeing that now and I have made note of your precious advice.
Re: DeLillo: I read White Noise first and then went straight to Underworld, which is probably my personal favorite novel.
The Cronenberg and DeLillo combination interests me, even though Cosmopolis isn’t quite, well, Underworld. Does anybody know for certain that this is still on?
What the fuck? Casting decisions are apparently in and it’s Robert Pattinson as the lead?!? I guess he’s replacing Colin Farrell (who would have made a much better choice). I guess Viggo was too old for the role (since the character’s supposed to be late 20s) but still……
Irony is that Farrell apparently opted out of this to do a Total Recall remake (irony since Cronenberg should have done the original and should also do the remake).
Maybe Pattinson is so great in Water for Elephants that Cronenberg is using him
doubtful but u never know. It is a stupid decision by both parties. It sullies the director’s film a bit out of the gate and it is not exactly box office friendly for the actor who could use a non-Twilight hit to avoid being Hayden Christainsen
The DeLillo novels crying out for cinematic renditions are White Noise and The Names. Not Cosmopolis.
Farrell in Total Recall seems like another idea that is bad even in the on paper stage.
I bet u couid switch the Pattinson and Farrell projects and the box office would be the same.
Not that box office matters much (I dont think any of my top ten films of the year made a dime) but these kind of projects fail and it is the chancy little films that fail to get produced.
Yes, I agree with you, Z. Bart, especially about The Names. Cronenberg would actually be perfect for the Names. Actually, I think Point Omega would make for a pretty good film perhaps. I said it above but Cosmopolis really was the weirdest choice for the first DeLillo adaptation to the screen.
Yeah, Pattinson is a real dud as an actor. Unless Cronenberg can use his blandness to his advantage.
KJ
From: The Measure
Delightful news: Don DeLillo’s underrated 2003 novel Cosmopolis is to be adapted and filmed by David Cronenberg.
At first it sounds disastrous, this pairing of the intensely visceral Cronenberg — the director of subjective physiological horror stories A History of Violence and The Fly is sometimes called, with DeLillo, who deals in iconography and technology, and whose most characteristic passages work to detach ideas from their physical correlatives.
Cosmopolis, an allegory of collapsing global financial markets, the instantaneous digital future, and impending ruin, takes place primarily inside a trader’s monitor-studded limousine over the course of an epic ride across midtown Manhattan. Or, put another way: TV screens and cars.
(For the structure of Cosmopolis, incidentally, DeLillo cannibalized a then-unproduced screenplay called Game 6; it was later turned into a not very good movie.)