GERMANY: DAVID CRONENBERG'S LATEST FILM "EXISTENZ" , BASED ON THE SALMAN RUSHDIE AFFAIR, IS PREMIERED AT THE BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 704337

  • Title: GERMANY: DAVID CRONENBERG'S LATEST FILM "EXISTENZ" , BASED ON THE SALMAN RUSHDIE AFFAIR, IS PREMIERED AT THE BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 20th February 1999
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 16, 1999) (RTV) SOUNDBITE (English) DAVID CRONENBERG, DIRECTOR: Before I met Salman (Rushdie) "I was of course fascinated, as anybody would be, by his situation, and horrified by it and I really did see it as a sort of clash between two different realities, which in another way is the subject of the film. That is to say Salman wrote his book in t
  • Embargoed: 7th March 1999 12:00
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  • Location: BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA3F2ZKZ3QO6NLHOD5WC2PXCNO0
  • Story Text: An anxiously awaited sci-fi thriller about the hazards of virtual reality games has premiered at the Berlin Film Festival.Director David Cronenberg said the film had been inspired by the life of controversial Muslim writer Salman Rushdie.
    "eXistenZ" blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, telling the story of a young game designer, played by versatile U.S.actress Jennifer Jason Leigh who is being hunted by fanatical "realists".
    The Canadian director admitted that his film, with its guns made of animal tissue and fleshy "game pods" which plug into players' spinal columns, did not resemble Rushdie's more traditional storytelling.
    But Cronenberg said the central theme of a "clash of realities" was common to both his script and to Rushdie's real-life nightmare.
    "Salman wrote his book out of the Western liberal tradition of freedom of expression and it was received by quite a different tradition in which that doesn't exist," he said."I was fascinated by his situation and and horrified by it."
    The game designer in "eXistenZ" faces a five-million-dollar bounty on her head for "subverting reality" with her games.
    A character in the film even refers to this as a fatwa, the term for a religious decree pronounced by a revolutionary leader.The same term was used by former Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whom in 1989 called for Rushdie's death in response to his novel "The Satanic Verses".
    The 10th anniversary of the death order passed on Sunday (February 14).
    Cronenberg said he had met Rushdie and that they had spoken about the question of whether a game could be art.
    "We both felt it would probably be impossible because you expect an artist to have a vision, to reveal things to his audience that they cannot reveal to themselves," Cronenberg said."But the game allows the player to control the game.
    "Art is not a democracy, it is a collaborative tyranny,"
    he said.
    Industry officials and reporters crowded the Berlin theatre on Tuesday (February 16) to see the latest feature by Cronenberg, who directed such critical favourites as "The Fly"
    and "Naked Lunch".
    "eXistenZ" is one of 25 films competing for the Berlin festival's prestigious Golden Bear prize.
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