| | Filmmaker David Cronenberg gets French Legion of HonorAuthor: GMANews.TV
Column: Entertainment TORONTO - Acclaimed filmmaker David Cronenberg was awarded France's Legion of Honor on Wednesday, a distinction he said left him "incoherent with joy and pride."
France's ambassador to Canada, Francois Delattre, bestowed the prestigious medal on behalf of President Nicolas Sarkozy in a private ceremony in Toronto.
Although proudly Canadian, Cronenberg said he also felt a strong connection to France.
"I feel that France is also my country, another parent who has been proudly indulgent when it has been best and sternly critical when that was best, all for the benefit of David, their spoiled child," Cronenberg, dressed in a black suit, said in a brief bilingual ceremony.
"Thank you all for your indulgence. Vive la France, vive le Canada et vive la cinema".
The medal, France's highest honor, designates Cronenberg a "knight in the order" and recognizes outstanding service to France.
His catalogue of films include the horrors "Dead Ringers," ''Scanners," and "The Fly," as well as the more recent gangland thrillers, "Eastern Promises" and "A History of Violence." Cronenberg said the award was a validation of his sometimes controversial artistic choices.
"I see this medal as a talisman, an amulet with magical powers that makes it a shield against punishment, punishment for the committing of the crime of art," Cronenberg told the crowd assembled Wednesday.
"France has always understood the complexity of the artistic process - the tension that exists between the innate wildness of art and the desired order of society."
Cronenberg, who lived in France in the early '70s, was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1990, and is an honorary citizen in three French cities.
His cinematic achievements there include a Cannes Film Festival prize for 1996's "Crash," and a critics' prize for 1983's "The Dead Zone." He also served as president of the Cannes jury in 1999.
Last summer he directed his first opera, The Fly, and its world premiere was in Paris.
These days, the 66-year-old Cronenberg says he's working on a spy thriller, and is in talks with Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise as possible stars.
The story is based on Robert Ludlum's 1979 book "The Matarese Circle," about rival spies who join forces. - AP Source: GMANews |
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