David Cronenberg interviews Salman Rushdie

It's like Batman meets Muhammad Ali. Utterly glorious and totally weird.

Cronenberg: Faint! Well, that's very good. I've done that, but it's-

Rushdie: I did it at a reading!

Cronenberg: Oh, at a reading. I was going to say, it's easier to do with film, because you have a group of people and it's a visceral thing. I think with The Fly I had some people go down.

Rushdie: I did a reading in Germany for Midnight's Children, several years ago, and there's this scene where the boy gets a piece of his finger chopped off when he slams the door on it. And when I read this I suddenly saw people leaving. And I thought, "Oh God, they don't like it." And then I realized they were carrying someone out. This lady had passed out.

Cronenberg: What power.

Rushdie: But I think crying is better. Actually both is all right.

Cronenberg: I think crying is harder. I shouldn't say that. I've seen some films, Forrest Gump is an example, that become so sentimental, and yes, you get people crying. But so what? Because it's easy to provoke crying, you know, you kill the kid's dog and you'll get people crying.