EPISODE 238: Caitlyn Cronenberg and her horror film family
TRT 35:58
BETH ACCOMANDO Meet Caitlyn Cronenberg.
CAITLYN CRONENBERG: I come from this horror film family. I'm super proud of my lineage and my father and my brother's films.
BETH ACCOMANDO Her father David gave us Scanners, Dead Ringers and Videodrome, and her brother Brandon recently directed Infinity Pool. Caitlyn made her feature directing debut last year with Humane, a film rich with her family’s DNA but also uniquely her own.
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BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to listener supported KPBS Cinema Junkie, I'm Beth Accomando.
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BETH ACCOMANDO Caitlyn Cronenberg’s Humane is a delicious social satire and savage family drama. But it does not announce any of its intentions instead, it lets its story slowly unfold so that the attentive viewer can have the pleasure of discovery. It’s a smartly crafted film with Cronenberg revealing a confidence and maturity not usually found in a first time director. But perhaps that’s the benefit of being raised in a creative family. I talk to her about growing up as David Cronenberg’s daughter and about making her feature directing debut.
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BETH ACCOMANDO I need to take one quick break and then I will be back with Caitlyn Cronenberg
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BETH ACCOMANDO Welcome back to Cinema Junkie. I’m Beth Accomando. Here’s the trailer for Caitlyn Cronenberg’s Humane, which stars Peter Gallagher, Emily Hampshire and Jay Bear-uh-shell.
TRAILER While we every day bear witness to the catastrophic ecological collapse that is plaguing our planet, we must not forget that this is above all, a human crisis. I am in favor of this government doing whatever it takes to win this war. It's not a war. Wars have opposing That humanity is the opposing side. We are engaged in nothing less than a life and death struggle against our own extinction. We are so happy you Paul joins us tonight for a family dinner. What is going on? We've decided to enlist. What? She's gone. I'm sorry, I can't do it. I will always love you. Hi, I'm Bob. It's them. Arthur early. You're not going to like this, but we're here to collect two bodies. I already told you Dawn left. And that's unfortunate. But the rules are the same for everybody. Think about your lives. I'm sure one of you is going to realize that it's not all that great. I know we're family and all, but if Bob needs a second body, it's not going to be mine. What are they still doing in the house? Based on my experience in similar situations, I want to say, yeah.
BETH ACCOMANDO Caitlyn, I am very excited to find out that Humane is going to start streaming on Hulu, which means I get to recommend it again and more people get to see it. First of all, just tell people what this film is about.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG What is this film about? Well, it is at its core a family drama, but then if you go one step further, we like to refer to it as a family thriller. Humane is about a future present, which we hope doesn't happen, where the government has introduced this voluntary euthanasia program in order to call the world's population after an environmental collapse, where we realize we just do not have enough resources to support the population as it stands. It sounds very heavy, it sounds very environmentally fraught, which it is, but the story really does focus on one family and how they exist in this crazy world.
CLIP I’ve made mistakes…
CAITLIN CRONENBERG So although you're getting hints about what's happened worldwide, the world doesn't feel as large as the logline or the synopsis sounds.
BETH ACCOMANDO How did you come upon this story? What made you decide to make this? Because this is your first feature directing, correct?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Correct, yes. Well, so Michael Sparaga, who wrote the film, has been a friend of mine for a very long time. Up until this point, I was on his projects as a photographer, which is my career up until this point as well, and continues to be. But he sent me the script out of the blue and said, Have you ever thought about directing features? And I had been thinking about it, but I hadn't mentioned it to him. So it was fortuitous timing. And when I read the script, I just couldn't get over... Well, first of all, it was very dark and funny, both at the same time, which is something that I really love. But it was so original and it was so smart. It was telling a large story in a small way, which I felt like was something I could do taking on a first feature. However, I forgot and didn't realize until we were on set that almost every scene has four people in it. It's a really hard thing to do to figure out where all these people are going to go and have all of their dialog. There's a lot of dialog, which was hugely fun, a great challenge, and just so different from anything else I'd ever done.
CLIP Why should we trust you?
CAITLYN CRONENBERG But it was really his script that just stuck with me. I read it, and then it became COVID. He wrote it pre-COVID. As we were living through COVID and talking about this idea, we started to see things that we never thought we would see in our lifetime, like billboards for masks for children and all of these terrifying ads about dying from COVID if you don't do this or that. It just made us so much more passionate about the project because we thought, Okay, well, we're all living through this. We don't want to make a movie about this, but it's almost a reimagining of a different way that it could have gone, where more extreme steps have to be taken.
BETH ACCOMANDO You've implied a little bit about the tone of this film. It's really tricky to navigate. I'm curious. I mean, it is darkly funny. It's chilling. It is a family drama. So tackling that as a director, how do you navigate that tricky tone and make sure you're hitting the right notes in each scene?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG I mean, so much of it did come together tonally in the editing room. The thing is that our cast was just so good. You're working with comedic actors who are also dramatic actors, but they all have phenomenal senses of humor and great comedic timing. We were really able to get such a range from from take to take. No two takes were the same. No take was a waste. In the edit, as we watched the film through, it was either this is too bleak for this moment. Let's find a take where Jay did something funny, just the delivery being different. But I think for me, I come from this horror film family. I'm super proud of my lineage and my father and my brother's films, but I didn't see this as a traditional horror film in any way. It really... Some people have called it a horror film. Some people are upset by people calling it a horror film because it doesn't follow the traditional tropes of horror. But it was interesting to watch it play out and say, wow, okay, he's coming through really sinister right now. That's good. We want him to be, or we're not ready for this character to show this side of their personality yet. I didn't think about it too much beforehand. It was Every day, it's you shoot the pages, you get the best performances out of these phenomenal actors, you feel happy, and then you go to the editing room and say, Let's make it feel like the flow makes sense, which was very challenging because I'd never edited anything either or been in an editing process. There are so many possibilities and ways that you can change things. You can change the story. You can do all of this magic, which is as I prepare to hopefully at some point make another film, the awareness and the experience that I now have from making this film goes a long way. But yeah, I think I didn't overthink it. I think I just went with feeling and said, I want to do justice to this script written, and the actors felt the same way, and I gave them all my trust because they're all veterans, and I've done this many more times than I have.
BETH ACCOMANDO How does your photography background play into this in terms of how you decided to shoot this?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Well, I definitely needed to team up with a DP who was as nerdy about lighting as I am, but actually has the technical know-how and the ability to shoot motion. Doug Co is our DP and he's nerdier than I am, which made it even more fun. But we talked a lot about each moment being beautiful, even the most mundane feeling moments needed to feel beautiful. Again, it's just having this team where people understand the things that I felt were important, and they felt that they were important, too. That gave us the ability to really lean in. But there was a point in the pre-production and during production, where I gave in completely because you cannot micromanage any of these departments. You say, Okay, I've given you my trust entirely, and let's do it. We had such a great, wonderful crew, and there was no misstep in that. Of course, it's a low budget film. We're working with what we've got. Very few days making the most of our days and trying not to burn out. But Doug was so wonderful as a collaborator, and he and I would look at paint chips because we painted the inside of the house because every single scene takes place in this house. We're thinking, Okay, well, let's look at these chips. We looked at them outside. We looked at them under different kinds of light. We're thinking, Okay, how are we going to select? Just the dedication just gave me all the confidence that I needed to go forward. Everything was beautiful. That was number one for me is anytime you freeze a frame here, it should be beautiful.
BETH ACCOMANDO As a first-time director on a feature, how did that defined setting play out for you in terms of was it helpful or was it a challenge because it was like this... Sometimes for artists, I feel like restrictions are actually a good thing. It makes them more creative But I was just wondering how you felt about that limited space.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Yeah, I think it was both. I think it was a help and a hindrance at times. Having the house to explore and using the actual layout of this physical house as the layout in the film. It did give us a chance to, as a unit, the cast, we didn't have time to spend time together as a family. You hear about people who are about to play sibling and they spend all this time together getting to know each other. We didn't have that. But we were all in the house all the time. The green room was in the house. Everything was in the house. In a way, it was great because we did get to know the inner workings of this house, but there were days when we would all joke, Okay, we're back in the foyer again. How are we going to make this look different than the previous seven times we've been in the foyer this week? But it was fun to work with Doug and with the actors during blockings to say, okay, well, what can we do? Where did you stand last? How can we make the entrances and exits more interesting? You do think that it will be easier being in one location in many ways, and in many ways it is, production-wise. But it does force you to get creative with things that you never thought you'd have to get creative with. But again, we knew that was the case. However, when I'm sent scripts that take place largely in one house now, I'm thinking, I think I'll branch out. I think we'll move past this and maybe have a couple of additional locations.
BETH ACCOMANDO One of the things I really loved about this film and about your brother's film and your dad, but your film drops us into the future, but you don't take a lot of time explaining that. There's a lot of films where they'll take all this exposition and they'll say, Oh, we're in this year and this happened. I love in your film and your brother's, you're in some place that feels like the real old, but slowly you start to realize there are some things that are very, very different for reasons you don't yet understand. I love that you don't treat the audience like idiots. You let us go like, No, I'm going to let you figure this out.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Thank you for saying that. That was a goal of ours is to give in and trust the audience and understand that these are smart people that are watching this film, and we shouldn't be too expository. Let them figure out what's happened. But part of that is we didn't have the time. We didn't have an additional half hour of the movie and an additional 10 days to shoot it. But I liked that challenge. And Michael Spraga, the writer, we like that challenge together to think, how can we use these little blips on the radio and on the TV to show the extent of what's happening here? But at the same time, we wanted it to feel as scary as it could possibly feel in terms of this could happen to us. The clips that we pulled off the TV to show, those are all real. Nothing was made up. The fires, gosh, and with the LA and with everything that's happening. You think about these environmental disasters and how close we are to them, just period, full stop. Things are happening all the time, and it's only getting worse. The idea that it an alternate present. You still have the same cell phone. You're not in a flying car, but your car does tell you what the UV index is. You're in the same house, but you do need film on your windows. The idea was that we weren't even a full year into this environmental collapse so that those who were more well off were able to actually get the official window coverings and the fancy cars and the good umbrellas. Those who were struggling a bit more financially would have to make their own umbrellas with tinfoil inside and close up their own windows. I liked that it could feel very normal. Then there would just be these little moments with lighting we played with. The fact that We played with the fact that we actually put this film on the windows that stopped down the light coming from outside, and we would have the sunlight blasting through, but it wouldn't be as strong coming in. There would be a mix of this stop down daylight and lamplight. In the middle of the day. That was something that it's eerie, and you may not totally clue in to what it is, but you can sense that there's an eeriness happening. Those are the kinds of things that the kinds of details that we like to add in without explaining them. And then it's fun because people can discover them if they feel like they want to. And if not, they're feeling an eeriness as they experience the film, whether they understand why or not quite.
BETH ACCOMANDO Well, in some of those details you mentioned, also go to the layers that are in the film because they do also imply this social class structure where it's not just this environmental issue that's going on, but Yeah, some people have it easier than others. How does that play out in the world? How does that make us feel?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Yeah. I think having the character of Bob be the one to really express that he doesn't go to houses like this very often. He's not often in neighborhoods like this. He has sat with all of these different people from all these different walks of life, and he sees their struggles, and he himself has been through this struggle. Is it a social commentary? Yeah. I'm not trying too hard to be political. I'm not trying too hard to really lean into that because I really just wanted the film to play out and everyone's willingness to look into it and to think about it is exciting, and I love that. But it is part of our day-to-day life. Every person that we encounter has their own life in their own situation and their own state of well-being or not. I think it feels very real to encounter people day to day and not necessarily know how to interact with them in a way. There's always this of unsettling. You're trying to figure each other out. That was part of this, the Bob's journey through navigating this family dynamic.
CLIP Bob
BETH ACCOMANDO I need to take one last break and then I will be back with the rest of my interview with Caitlyn Cronenberg who explains what it’s like to grow up with David Cronenberg as her dad.
CAITLYN CRONENBERG We had a mugwump in our basement for a while and a typewriter with an anus.
MIDROLL 2 [currently at 00;18;09;13]
BETH ACCOMANDO I follow Francis Ford Coppola on Instagram, and I love seeing every now and then he runs these old home movies or something where he's showing his kids performing or doing something creative. You've grown up in a very creative family. Your brother, your father, your aunt are all very creative. I'm just wondering, what a childhood did you have in the sense of was creativity supported, encouraged? What was that like?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Oh, for sure. Creativity was everything in our family. My brother and I were always drawing, doing art projects. I think our parents were hugely supportive of any endeavors. If I said, I want to make a chair, I want to build something, off we would go to Home Depot, we would buy lumber, they would let me use power tools. It was a very free feeling to explore things and try things. My brother wanted to... When he went to film school, obviously, that was exciting for everybody, but I went to school for fashion design. I then picked up geography, there was never a time where my parents said, Okay, but also you have to be a lawyer, too. Obviously, being a successful artist is very hard and very rare. There certainly days when I think maybe I should also be a mailman because it would be nice to have a steady job. I've thought about that many times, and I know many artists who have, too, or often we all have day jobs, but it never came from our parents. They were, and still are, very excited about any of our creative endeavors. But my mom used to always say that I would fill whatever space I was in with projects, and I could never just be in one project. I would have to make something. I would always have to be making something. So I would be making a house for my hamster or drawing a giant something. It was just allowed. I was allowed to do that. And that, I think, has given me all of the structure and just even my mom's no longer alive, but just knowing that she would have been supportive of anything that I wanted to do. And my dad remains supportive of everything that we want to do. It It does give you this confidence, even from a young age, that art is good. And I try to give that to my kids, too, and give them the freedom to, sure, use all the paper, cut out my printer paper and make little robots on it and do whatever you need to do, and then they'll find what they want. But if they have art as a way to express themselves, even if it doesn't end up being their career, then it's always there just to be an outlet. And I think that that's really valuable.
[00:19:59.28] - BETH ACCOMANDO
And did you and your brother grow up on your dad's sets? Do you remember visiting sets or were you kept separate from that?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG No, we would always visit. It would be the biggest treat, especially if it was a night shoot, because then you think, Oh, it's dark and it's past my bedtime and I get to be here and the smell of the sets that had just been built, the carpentry smell, was something that ingrained in my mind forever. But for us, it was mostly the excitement of getting snacks on the craft truck and seeing all the crew members who had known us for our whole lives. It was super exciting. But he shot most of his stuff locally when we were of a certain age. But we did spend several weeks in Beijing when he was shooting at Butterfly. I think before I could really remember we were in London for several things. It's a very special thing, but you learn to appreciate it as a job instead of idolizing it. And I think that's one of the reasons that a lot of children of filmmakers become filmmakers or children of actors become actors, because you can see it as a job and you see it as accessible because you're thinking, well, all these people are here doing this job.This could be my job. People who haven't had that closeness with the industry might think, well, this is a job that is untouchable. And so I think that's why it's so encouraging for family members to follow in the footsteps as it were. My kids have come to my photo sets for their entire lives. That changed a bit during COVID because they weren't allowed to come anymore. But my older son got to visit us on the set of Humane. They both got to come and visit my dad on his last set, too. It's all very sweet. Everybody is so kind to children on set, and you've been working these long days and here come these little faces, and you just want to feed them gummy bears and watch their eyes light up as they see the the cameras and the lights, and it is really a magical thing.
BETH ACCOMANDO You refer to your family as a horror family. When you went to these sets, were you aware as a child that the stories that were being told might be scary, or was it just like, Hey, I'm with dad at work?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Well, I mean, you would see things, certainly. We had a mugwump in our basement for a while and a typewriter with an anus sitting on the coffee table. So you know that things are not quite as straightforward as maybe some of other friends' parents' jobs. But it depended on the set and the day. I think that probably my parents kept me away from the really, really gory, heavy sex days. But you would certainly see interesting props and understand that this doesn't feel like a kid's movie. I probably won't see this one, that thing. But you get a sense of what's going on. It's so funny because as a family, we're very We're quiet. I would say we're quiet people. My dad and my brother are big readers, very cerebral. Everybody's very sweet, unpretentious. We love hanging out, eating dinner, playing boggle. It's not what people may think we would be like, or at least them. I'm an open book.
BETH ACCOMANDO Well, I feel the same way. I've interviewed Clive Barker, and I feel like with your dad and with Clive Barker, if you met them at a cocktail party and didn't know who they were, you would never guess like, Oh, these people make the craziest body horror and terrifying movies and books.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Yeah, and I feel like that works, too. I think personalities don't often reflect the work of artists. It goes both ways, of course, but especially artists who have been doing it for so long, it feels like they really use the art as their outlet, and that doesn't seep into their personality as a whole.
BETH ACCOMANDO One of the things that I think is great about your work and your brothers is you can obviously see that you have your dad's DNA, it's clear, but you both have unique voices as well. I'm just curious, what do you feel about the way your creativity was greeted by your parents that helped you develop those unique voices instead of, Oh, be like me, I mean, I think they never...
CAITLIN CRONENBERG The messaging was never be like me. And it was always, you can do what you want. You don't have to do this. But my brother, because he writes his material as well, and I haven't at this point been... I didn't write my first feature. But he's always been just an incredibly creative person with his own voice, writing stories, drawing pictures, coming up with these really intricate characters. And so it was always... That was always what it was going to be for him once he decided that he would be part of this industry. I think for me, because I spent so long as a photographer before I delved into the directing side of things, I think my voice developed differently because it was a visual-first voice. I think, growing up in a family that embraces darker themes gives you permission to explore them in your own way, which is very, very... I mean, it's very supportive feeling. I could have easily gone into rom-coms only. I watch a lot of Gilmore Girls. It could have gone either way for me, and it still might. I would never say, no, I'm never going to make a rom-com because I enjoy those kinds of films, too. But I think it was very freeing to explore my own inner darkness and love of the strange and the way that strangeness and beauty intertwine. But exploring that in photography is much easier than exploring it in film because you can really just take your camera out and shoot whatever, whatever is in front of you. Filmmaking is a team sport. So is photography, but photography can be an alone sport, too. I think just when your family says, oh, yeah, I want to make a book of just 200 naked people that you're just shooting alone in your studio in your 20, that's cool. Just make sure you're safe and make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable and do your thing. Then I would print these. I have this self-published book called Poser with just portraits of naked strangers and naked friends. I would just print them out and show them to my mom and say, look, this is what I shot. She'd be like, oh, that's really cool. I really like their facial expression. That's not every family. So there is a safety net. You feel safe to explore anything you want as long as you are safe and no one else is in danger. You're not making anyone feel unsafe. That is certainly something that I don't take for granted. However, also my parents always felt like parents. They felt like my anchors and my rocks. And even though they give me and my brother, they gave us a lot of freedom, we always had this, and still do with our dad, this very close friendship and relationship. But I think now that I'm a parent, I mean, I've been a parent now for nine years, and something that is very important to me is to make sure that my kids know that they're going to have lots of freedom to do various things, but there will still be roles, and I'm still their parent. But I think as a kid, you really crave that. You want that stability from your parents. You don't want your parents to only be your friends. You need them to be the shoulder.
BETH ACCOMANDO Here in San Diego, we put on a rave party for Videodrome…
CLIP Rave music
BETH ACCOMANDO And we were looking for images to put on a wall of TVs from the film and also from elsewhere. I discovered something called The Death of David Cronenberg, which we put a clip of on there. Then I found out you were involved in that. Oh, yeah. I'm just curious How did you approach your dad to say, Dad, I want to do this thing where it's you and your corpse?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Well, the concept was his. It was his concept. I was exploring the NFT space for a while and selling my art as NFTs and really getting into understanding this phase of digital art and where it might be going. I've since stepped back only because it is all-encompassing. You really have to stay plugged in. I wanted to explore filmmaking. I have many friends who are NFT artists, and I know that they're grinding every day. But for me, I needed to take a step back. But I said to my dad, it would be really cool to collaborate making a bit of a name for myself in the NFT world. What if we collaborated and made a short film that was just an NFT? It was only meant to be sold as an NFT and not seen anywhere else, not exhibited, not published, nothing else. He's a big technology junky, and he loves new tech, and he thought that was really cool. Then he remembered that there existed this corpse of him made by the incredibly talented ladies at Black Spot FX, and they had done it for a show called Slasher, where he is a corpse. He thought, maybe if I can reach out to them and see if they could lend us this corpse, then we can make this. They did, and they brought the corpse, and we placed it in the bed in my childhood bedroom, and I filmed it. He acted in it and directed it. I produced and filmed it, and then we sold it as an NFT. Since then, so many people have discovered it. It's been places. But that was its origin story. It was a really cool way to work together while also exploring something totally different that none of us had had any experience with.
BETH ACCOMANDO It was a crazy little film.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Yeah. It really was. Very disturbing for me.
BETH ACCOMANDO Yeah, I was going to say. Seeing your dad's dead body on the- Yeah, it was cool.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG It was awful. It was just the worst. Push yourself as an artist. You never know what will happen.
BETH ACCOMANDO I am just curious It's on the set, was your dad laughing about this? Was he trying to make you feel comfortable? Because it is an odd situation.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG The set, it was just us, just the two of us in my old bedroom. He was in character. I'm both taking it very seriously. I don't usually shoot motion, so it was an interesting challenge for me, too. But when it was done, I exhaled and said, Okay, that was That was something. I don't think I need to necessarily do that again. But no regrets for anything that you do that's creative and that takes you out of your comfort zone because it really does push you as an artist, even if you never look back It takes you to a place where it's just... I think anything exploratory as an artist is useful.
BETH ACCOMANDO Well, your dad gave me one of my favorite quotes of all time, which was he was talking about Hollywood, and he said, Hollywood's always talking about comfort, like the comfort of this contract or the comfort of this or the movies. He said, I'm just not interested in comfortable cinema.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG That's so great. Perfect.
BETH ACCOMANDO I feel you and your brother believe that, too.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG I think so. I think so. It's fun to Strangely, though, you do feel a comfort working on a film. You're comfortable on set thinking, you know what? I'm going to really push past everyone else's comfort zone because we're all just hanging out as friends on set. So why don't we make something really going to disturb people. There is a fun to it. I can't lie.
BETH ACCOMANDO And what do you have next?
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Great question. I am having lots of conversations. Exciting things will hopefully follow these conversations. At this point, nothing is official, nothing to officially disclose. But I am certainly hoping that I'm lucky enough to have an opportunity to make more films, maybe television, all of these things. This is the goal. I love being a photographer. This will always be my first love and looking forward to a productive 2025 in both realms. And then all the while, I am parenting. It keeps you humble. It's like we've got two kids, we've got an almost one-year-old dog. There's never a dull moment, and it gives your brain a real challenge of trying to focus on work while also focusing on everything else. But I think that's why I'm also uniquely positioned in a different way than my dad and my brother. It gives me a different voice and different experiences. It's something I'm very appreciative of. My family is excited to see what I'll do next, too.
BETH ACCOMANDO Well, so am I. Thank you so much for your time, and I am really looking forward to what you do next.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Thank you. You'll be the first to know.
BETH ACCOMANDO All right. Yes. Keep me posted.
CAITLIN CRONENBERG Will do. Thank you so much.
BETH ACCOMANDO
That was Caitlyn Cronenberg, director of Humane, which just started streaming on Hulu.
That wraps up another edition of KPBS listener supported Cinema Junkie. If you enjoy the podcast, then please share it with a friend because your recommendation is the best way to build an addicted audience. You can also help by leaving a review. And check out Cinema Junkie presents Middays Movies video podcast on the KPBS YouTube Channel.
Till our next film fix, I’m Beth Accomando your resident Cinema Junkie.
