J.G. Ballard shocked journalists by saying David Cronenberg's film was better than his own book.
David Cronenberg starts with clothes. On the couch, the sweatpants and hoodie are not much of an outfit, which is exactly why they work as an opening. He talks through comfort, warmth, airplanes, and habit, calls it COVID wear, then admits he was already dressing this way for many years. The elegance joke stays loose. It gets the episode out of fashion-as-status mode and into something better: what clothes say when nobody is trying too hard. From there, Cronenberg goes wider. Life on Earth still feels strange to him, partly undiscovered, bizarre, beautiful, and driven by the life force. He wonders whether there may be no other life in the universe, not as a boast, more like a chill. If Earth is singular, ruining it looks even more ridiculous. The host gives him room. When he says he may not have answered the question, she catches the answer in the detour. Then comes Debbie Harry's brunette look in Videodrome, and a question about character without pinning it flat. Cronenberg keeps it plain: he was casting a character, not Blondie, and the stage image might have got in the way. He still calls her brilliant. The last turn is pure dry mischief: Kate Moss, heels, nakedness, balance, age, and Louis Vuitton.
