David Cronenberg

“So one very particular and interesting film for me was this film: Federico Fellini’s La strada. And the reason that it had a special meaning for me was that in Toronto – we’re talking about the 1940s, 1950s – every Saturday there would be a… like a swarm of lemmings, there were children who would come to a particular cinema called the Pylon. And one day I came out of that cinema, having seen the traditional kind of what for us were kids’ movies, and across the street from the Pylon was a new...”

“English films were a big influence, too... And one in particular for me was this one: Odd Man Out, with an actor I absolutely adore, James Mason. I would have loved to work with him. He had the most wonderful voice and presence. Directed by Carol Reed. And it was an incredibly powerful, melancholy, surprising film that was… as I say, had a particular English feel that you would not find in the rest of Europe or certainly not in Hollywood also. Fantastic to have this film in my hand.”

“David Lynch’s film Eraserhead. Very American and saying some really interesting kind of sublime things about American culture and the American ethos and zeitgeist that you wouldn’t see in a Hollywood film, but you also wouldn’t see it in a European film. This is a really special film that had a big impact on me. I can’t say that it was an influence because I had already been making films by this time, but it was… it was significant for me. And I met David and we got along very well.”

“This immense collection. Quite fantastic and really heavy. And you could use it in your workout.”