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A History of Violence: David Cronenberg
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A History of Violence is a motion picture directed by David Cronenberg, and written by Josh Olson, based on the graphic novel of the same name by John Wagner and Vince Locke. The film was released in 2005 and features Viggo Mortensen as the owner of a diner who is thrust into the spotlight after killing two robbers in self-defense. Most of the film was shot in Millbrook, Ontario, and the final scene being shot at the historic Eaton Hall Mansion, located in King City, Ontario, Canada. [1] The film was put into limited release in the United States on September 23, 2005 and wide-release on September 30, 2005. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for William Hurt and Best Adapted Screenplay for Josh Olson. It has the distinction of being the final major Hollywood motion picture released on VHS.[2]
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Craft: Whatever one ultimately takes from the film, the craft on display in A History of Violence is as formidable as anything found in Cronenberg's filmography. The movie LOOKS great. Cinematographer Peter Suschitzky adds to his already impressive collaboration with the director, and the performances--especially Maria Bello and Ed Harris--are note perfect. One can look at the film only as a thriller and enjoy it--something along the lines of 1950s-era programers like, say, The Narrow Margin or Cape Fear. Evident from the first shot, it is expertly made.
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"A History of Violence" is an adaptation of a graphic novel from John Wagner, who ... created "Judge Dredd" (the comics, not the crappy Stallone flick). This gives you an idea of the kind of iconic and, well, graphic visuals filmmaker David Cronenberg is working from. The other main influence felt through is Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, as both pictures are about a man who lives a quiet life with his family on a farm until circumstances reveal the violence and the dark history he'd been repressing. Westerns in general are also referenced, right from the long, deceivingly calm opening shot introducing the bandits, not unlike at the beginning of "Once Upon a Time in the West".
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New Line's release of A History Of Violence has been generating a bit of buzz on the internet. This is the R-rated theatrical cut of the film, as opposed to the ever so slightly bloodier "international version" shown overseas. According to Cronenberg's commentary, the differences were so small that he didn't see the point in releasing two different cuts of the film. Censorship it might be, but Cronenberg is right — the differences are literally of no consequence (they are limited to two shots, adding a couple of spurts of blood to two already vicious images) and if the filmmaker isn't complaining, then why should we? Beyond this point of contention, this is a first-rate release. The 1.78/16x9 transfer looks superb — colorful, razor-sharp and unaffected by edge enhancement issues and the like.
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The past that catches up with A History of Violence's Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen)--even his name evokes a temporary abeyance--involves violence, flight, and denial before the eventual, inevitable embrace of the Jungian shadow, collective or personal. It opens languidly with a conversation between two drifters that ends with a shock-reveal, proceeding into the introduction of a pastoral small-town setting where Stall is a beloved, diner-owning member of a Rockwellian Midwest community. The drifters intrude like monsters from the Id (they're driven, it seems, by the same base concerns as Cronenberg's sexual parasites), and Stall fights them off with the kind of heroism that leads to national news crews camping out on his front lawn. The attention attracts the notice of one-eyed mobster Carl Fogaty (Ed Harris, in his best performance in years), henchman for mid-level kingpin Richie Cusack (William Hurt, ditto), asking the key question of Tom's wife, Edie (Maria Bello): how she supposes mild-mannered Tom knows how to kill so well.
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"A History of Violence" has been adapted by Josh Olson from a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, and Cronenberg seems to have attempted to duplicate the deliberate, flat dimensions of a comic book. The early first scenes of the picture often seem like a gravely serious cartoon, which, ironically, frees the movie to be funny, though without ever feeling frivolous. In fact, the film's equilibrium is poised on a line between comedy and peril, a precarious balance best demonstrated in the contrast of two sex scenes between Tom and Edie.
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David Cronenberg