[UA] Cronenberg Movie

[Michael Daisey]

Thought this would be of interest to the many Cronenberg fans
and game designers in general.



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Tuesday February 16 2:47 PM ET 

Cronenberg's 'eXistenZ' Inspired By Rushdie Fatwa

By Deborah Cole

BERLIN (Reuters) - An anxiously awaited sci-fi thriller about the
hazards of virtual reality games
premiered Tuesday at the Berlin Film Festival, a film that cult director
David Cronenberg said had
been inspired by Salman Rushdie.

``eXistenZ'' blurs the lines between fantasy and reality as it tells the
story of a young game
designer, played by versatile American 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'' that 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 his script and
Rushdie's true-to-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 horrified by it.''

The game designer in ``eXistenZ'' has a $5 million bounty put on her
head for ``subverting reality''
with her games.

A character in the film even refers to this as a fatwa, the term for the
religious decree by Iranian
revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for Rushdie's
death in response to his
novel ``The Satanic Verses.''

The 10th anniversary of the death order passed Sunday.

Cronenberg said that he had met Rushdie and that they had talked 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 theater to see the latest
feature by Cronenberg, who
made such critical favorites as ``The Fly'' and ``Naked Lunch.''

``eXistenZ'' is one of 25 films competing for the Berlin festival's
prestigious Golden Bear prize. 

-- 
Michael Daisey
----
"It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the
oath." Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.), Greek dramatist. Fragments, no. 385.