This sounds extraordinary. I can’t wait to see it.
Wasn’t this called The Talking Cure? It sounds good although I wish Cronenberg would make a return to a more flesh themed film (it’s been too long!).
shit that sounds good
Hampton’s play was called The Talking Cure, yes.
very excited just by the cast alone
Reminds me: I’ve been meaning to watch Elisabeth Marton’s My Name Was Sabina Spielrein.
This does sound fantastic. So is this replacing Cosmopolis as his next project or is that already filmed?
Sounds excellent. With this, Videodrom on Blu, and the Eastern Promises followup, life is good for Cronenberg fans.
@ Ari
Cosmopolis was supposed to start filming in Toronto later this year, so I’m not sure what happened exactly— whether Cosmopolis is off or will just be shot later.
It sounds like it could be really, really good. I hope it’s not another Look How Prettily Damaged the Pretty Damaged Girl Is movie.
Sounds like Cronenberg is very busy. Cosmopolis is still on too. And a Fly remake?
http://www.sbs.com.au/films/blog/single/117877/Cronenberg-s-A-Dangerous-Method
Huh, I would’ve loved Christoph Waltz as Freud…
Sounds cool. Glad Fassbender is in this.
Interesting that the SBS article mentions that Cronenberg’s “Spider” was a flop. I didn’t think that it had been a flop – I thought it was probably the best thing Cronenberg had ever done, and after seeing it again recently, I still think that. Stunning performance from Ralphe Fiennes.
interesting.
Spider is a great film, but it “flopped” at the box office. It cost about $10 million and only grossed a shade under $6 million (most of which was business done outside the US).
Oh lordy I’m excited. I absolutely LOVE Cronenberg, and the idea of him making a movie about Jung AND Freud simply makes my pants tight.
Two doctors divided by a woman? Wasn’t this Dead Ringers!? lol
This sounds great. As long as Cronenberg doesn’t slip in a scene where a drill goes into a dude’s dickhole or something along those lines, I don’t see how this can be bad.
sounds SO GOOD.
set photos here for anyone who may be interested.
Excited!
is this going to be another middle of the road effort like his last 4? or are we going to see a return to the daring, obsessive films he used to make from Videodrome right up till Crash?
@JOKS
I agree with your commentary. Cronenberg’s last films seem to mark a turning point towards a more “conventional” filmmaking. With such a director this conversion is, at least to me, very troubling.
I was hoping that title would imply a more searing approach to psychoanalytic nonsense, but I guess there’s still hope. Replace the crazed doctor in Videodrome with Jung and you’re on the right track.
I have no problem with Cronenberg’s “middle of the road” efforts. In fact, I think History of Violence is one of his best works. Much as I love them as well, he couldn’t keep making films like Videodrome or Crash.
^^yeah, in retrospect, Existenz was not just a summation of the previous 15 years of his career, but also an end point. the end of that ‘era’.
I thoiught History Of Violence was poor actually. should give it another watch though.
I must have missed this thread before. The news of it makes me heart aflutter with joy.
And I like Spider and Eastern Promises , and have over time learned to appreciate A History of Violence for what it was (it was the first Cronenberg I saw, so I didn’t get it).
I really, really want to see him slip in a moment with an electric drill going up some dude’s dickhole, though. That would make this movie so much more rad. (Dont’ you hate it when you see movies titled things like When Nietzsche Wept and you just know that nothing that happens in the movie has anything to do with Neitzsche? Hopefully this will be the talking cure for that effect!)
—PolarisDiB
Yea, there’s no doubt Cronenberg has “mellowed out” considerably, but he couldn’t keep making insanely out-there films like Crash forever. I thought Existenz was god-awful, a terribly conceived retread of Videodrome’s ideas, and showed that he needed to go a new direction if he was to remain a challenging, relevant director. Spider and History of Violence are very intelligent, original, and all-around excellent films, among his best in my opinion. He has gotten so amazingly good with his actors over the years, if nothing else. Eastern Promises was excellent as well, but I did feel it was a bit too “middle of the road” typical and unoriginal for Cronenburg, so I am hoping for a bit more of that old singular genius and magic in the future.
^^I don’t know, for some reason the acting didn’t work for me in History, and i felt he was trying to make a big deal out of a pretty superficial story. I like Eastern Promises, but it felt incomplete to me.
Spider, on the other hand, just felt like an old Alan Parker film ;-)
Matt Parks
(from Film Comment):
David Cronenberg’s latest project, A Dangerous Method, aims to bring the talking cure into the multiplex. Based on the play by Christopher Hampton, the story focuses on Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and his treatment and affair with Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a daughter from a prominent medical family whose parental abuse has led to nervous ticks and sadomasochistic tendencies. Mentor Freud (Viggo Mortensen) was equally fascinated with Spielrein, but tensions rose with the arrival of a depraved patient (Vincent Cassel), driving a permanent rift between the two men. Spielrein’s case—and her own theories (she later became a psychoanalyst)—equally influenced Freud’s thinking about the “death wish” and Jung’s views on “transformation.” Set to begin filming in May, Cronenberg remarked, “I have long been drawn to the story of erotic daring between these two good doctors and the woman who both divided and defined them. History can only hint at the psychological and physical terrain they opened up, but a film can explore it.”