Time & Perspective Quote by David Cronenberg

Cronenberg is refusing the flattering myth of the all-powerful director, the puppeteer who can “make” an audience feel exactly what he wants on cue. Coming from a filmmaker branded as the high priest of body horror, that refusal lands with extra bite: if anyone has been accused of manipulating viewers, it’s the guy whose movies make you flinch at your own skin. His point is that cinema isn’t a closed system; it’s a collision. The screen offers stimuli, but meaning is manufactured in the spectator, using whatever raw material they show up with.

The list matters. “Whole sexual history” comes first, not as provocation but as a reminder that watching is embodied. Desire, shame, trauma, curiosity - these aren’t side notes; they’re the lens. Then he moves through “literary history” and “movie literacy,” marking how trained audiences are by previous stories and genres. A gore scene isn’t just gore; it’s also every slasher you’ve seen, every moral panic you’ve absorbed, every taboo you’ve rehearsed. By the time he gets to “language” and “religion,” he’s widened the frame: even basic comprehension and moral interpretation aren’t shared baselines.

The subtext is an ethics of spectatorship. Cronenberg isn’t abdicating responsibility; he’s rejecting coercion as an artistic ideal. “I can’t possibly” admits the limits of authorial control; “nor do I want to” declares a preference for instability, for films that behave differently in different minds. It’s a quiet rebuke to both moral crusaders who blame art for people’s reactions and to artists who pretend they can engineer them. In Cronenberg’s cinema, the real special effect is the audience exposing itself.