Net Gains: Cronenberg's cronies

www.netlink.co.uk/users/zappa/cronen.html

David Cronenberg, the cult movie director behind Scanners, Videodrome and Crash, has a new film, eXistenZ (right), due to hit our screens in the coming months (www.existenz.com).

Cronenberg has been one artist to benefit heavily from the Internet. Directors like him, who shun mainstream projects in favour of more extreme forms of film-making, tend to build up serious followings among Web-based communities. Although the Canadian director's attitude to this kind of technology is at best ambivalent (The Fly, his most commercial film to date, offered a negative view of the threat that technology poses), there are plenty of Net-heads queuing up to praise him. Unfortunately, many of the better sites are foreign, but the David Cronenberg Home Page (which is run by a fan) is probably the best of the English-speaking ones. The site, while graphically uninspiring, is comprehensive, and includes a filmography, a collection of interviews and a picture archive.

If you want to understand more about Cronenberg's work and what fires his imagination, then head for the interview archive, which includes a fascinating discussion between Cronenberg and Salman Rushdie, which originally appeared in Esquire magazine. The picture archive includes stills from virtually all Cronenberg's films, and some shots of the man himself. The site also has links, not only to Cronenberg, sites, but also to those dealing with people connected with his work, such as JG Ballard and William Burroughs.