David Cronenberg has had a fascinating career. It’s strange that the guy responsible for Scanners and Videodrome is also behind A History of Violence and Eastern Promises.

Next up he’ll direct The Talking Cure, a movie based on Christopher Hampton’s play. The play, which starred Ralph Fiennes and Jodhi May during it’s London run a few years back, is described thusly on Amazon:-

“Overshadowed by portents of the coming wars, Zurich and Vienna are the setting for this tale of emotional vicissitude and intellectual debate. The Talking Cure is an intimate picture of the birth of psychoanalysis and of two intense and inextricably interwoven relationships. Carl Jung uses Sigmund Freud’s “talking cure” on Sabina, a young Russian hysteric with whom he will fall in love. Impressed with Jung’s results, Freud anoints him his successor, but when Jung develops his own theories they part ways. Sensitive and intelligent, The Talking Cure illuminates the origins of one of the twentieth century’s most influential schools of thought.”

Cronenberg has gravitated towards themes of personal identity and invested his films with subtle psychological nuance in recent years so this project would slot nicely into his ouvre.

Hampton will write the movie with Jeremy Thomas producing, shooting is to take place in Austria and Germany. Interestingly Ralph Fiennes - who starred in the play as Carl Jung - also worked with Cronenberg on Spider. Perhaps a reunion could be on the cards?