Kristen Stewart says she’s not offended that some Cannes Film Festival moviegoers were so grossed out by her new movie, “Crimes of the Future,” that they felt the need to exit the theater.
The actress spoke to Insider about her personal reactions to the film, as well and why she felt that, ultimately, the excessive gore was necessary for the artistic vision.
“We, the actors, spent every single day after work being like, ‘What the f*** are we doing?’ But then I watched the movie last night and it was so crystal clear to me,” Steward told the publication. “It so exposing, and it does feel like you’re hacking up organs when you’re making something, and if it doesn’t feel that way it’s not worth it.”
In the movie, Stewart plays a bureaucrat who obsesses over an artist as he performs live surgeries for an audience. The surgeries are explicit, which spurred multiple walkouts at Cannes for viewers who couldn’t stomach them.
“There are some very strong scenes,” director David Cronenberg said in May, per IGN. “Some of the people who have seen the film have said that they think the last 20 minutes will be very hard on people, and that there’ll be a lot of walkouts. Some guy said that he almost had a panic attack… But I’m not convinced that that will be a general reaction.”
“Everyone loves to talk about how his movies are difficult to watch and it’s fun to talk about people walking out of Cannes screenings,” Stewart told Insider. “But every single gaping, weird bruise in his movies, it makes my mouth open.”
“You wanna lean in toward it,” she continued. “And it never repulses me ever. The way I feel, it is through really visceral desire and that’s the only reason we’re alive. We’re pleasure sacks.”
The film’s Canadian director said the project has been in the works for some time, but he felt now it was important to share as “ownership and control” becomes a topic of conversation with the likelihood of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Cronenberg said, “In Canada … we think everyone in the U.S. is completely insane. I think the U.S. has gone completely bananas, and I can’t believe what the elected officials are saying, not just about Roe v. Wade, so it is strange times.”
“You could feel, even then, that this was coming,” the 79-year-old Toronto native continued. “A kind of oppressive ownership and control. It’s the constant in history, that there’s somewhere in the world that wants to control its population. That means, once again, body is reality. You control people’s bodies – that’s speaking, expressing themselves. That’s control.”
“Crimes of the Future” will premiere nationwide on June 3.