David Cronenberg on 'Painkillers'

[Scott W. Davis]

Over a year ago, a New York performance artist who specialized in body art and self-mutilation said she would be involved in an upcoming David Cronenberg film called PAINKILLERS. No one took much seriously at the time, since Cronenberg was involved in SPIDER and the report had the smell of self-promotion.

Now, it turns out that Cronenberg's next project is called... PAINKILLERS. reports that Cronenberg will be rewriting an older, unproduced script to get the project rolling. Cronenberg says the project involves, "performance artists in the future, but in the near future."

The project has attracted the interest of a couple big names currently pursuing more experimental work, including Ralph Fiennes ( SPIDER ) and Nicholas Cage ( ADAPTATION ). "No one has made a deal. But yes, Nic Cage has read the first draft and liked it and said he was interested, Cronenberg said. "And, yes, Ralph has read the same script and said he would be interested in doing it. So that's good. Maybe I should get them both in the movie. Now that would be interesting."

[DevilMan]

Well, I was excited at first to read that DAVID CRONENBERG was gonna make a new, possible sleazy film (ala DEAD RINGERS, VIDEODROME, and NAKED LUNCH) but after seeing who the actors might be, I was let down.

PAINKILLERS is such a great title and makes me think of the Japanese "Category 3" flick, NAKED BLOOD in which a drug causes it's victims to enjoy pain to the point of sexual ecstasy.

Leave it to HOLLYWOOD to screw up a good idea!

-Steve

[chuk hell]

Well I'll be damned....

I was wondering if this was all a bunch of bullshit but it seems ORLAN spoke the truth.

http://www.artcomnews.com/artistes/orlan/visu/zoom02.jpg

She's a French performance artist BTW. Here's her website, but it's in French:

ORLAN (http://www.orlan.net/)

Here's the story as it came out almost 2 years ago:

David Cronenberg's Painkillers: French daily newspaper France-Soir talked with local artist Orlan (a woman famous for using her own body as art and has had no less than nine plastic surgery operations to achieve it - thank god she's not into cubism) who dropped a hell of a bomshell: "David Cronenberg wrote a movie called Painkillers, based on my treatise on “L’Art charnel” and the fight against pain. I will be playing my own role and I also know that Nicolas Cage will be part of the cast. As for when shooting will begin, I will know more about that during this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where I will be presenting my work to the public".


from
DAVID CRONENBERGNEWS (http://www.blue-bottle.co.uk/Cronenberg_news2002.htm)

But I think it originated on DARK HORIZENS....


Well I want to see it for damn sure.

[chuk hell]

Hey Scott! What's your source for this?

Is there any further news.....I just noticed the post is dated from Febuary...no wonder I couldn't find it on the main page!

[chuk hell]

Originally posted by DevilMan@Aug 3 2003, 03:13 AM


Leave it to HOLLYWOOD to screw up a good idea!

-Steve
Cronenberg is about as anti-Hollywood as you can get. Why do these actors want to be in one of his movies?

Artistic credibility.

[chuk hell]

:blink:

[JohnShaft]

Originally posted by chuk hell@Aug 6 2003, 07:12 AM
Hey Scott! What's your source for this?

Is there any further news.....I just noticed the post is dated from Febuary...no wonder I couldn't find it on the main page!
Hi Chuk, it appears to be from this article (http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/art-main.html?2003-02/14/13.00.film) from the SciFi channel. My code had butchered the link.
[BTW Scott I've been meaning to ask you to hit refresh on the blank News Admin Page for ages - it should no longer be incorrectly displaying the News posted to the forum ]

Scott's original story, with above link, can be found here! (http://www.horrorexpress.com/news.php?id=122)

[chuk hell]

THANKS JOHN!