I saw A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE Friday night. Here are some of my thoughts on the film itself and responses I've seen or heard elsewhere to it. I originally posted this at MHVF.net, a pretty fantastic film discussion board.

Generally, I felt it was another success for Cronenberg, a very understated, sly, and satirical thriller, that respects you as a thinking audience member to not spell it all out for you and trusts that you will meet the movie halfway. Cronenberg tends to bring out all time best performances out of already great actors. Viggo Mortensen, Ed Harris, William Hurt... yeah, I'd concur there. The whole cast is excellent.

This is definitely a Cronenberg film, and fits in well with any in-depth auteuristic view of his films. Like I said, he's not interested in always spelling things out for you, but it's there if you look for it. There is as little chance I'll continue discussing AHOV without any MASSIVE SPOILERS as there'd be that I'd take out my left eye with barbed wire, so beware...



Tom Stahl/Joey Cusack, or Joey/Tom depending on your thinking, is a classic Cronenbergian character as a freakish outsider who attempts to cope with his human condition through some sort of duality or change. For reasons ultimately unimportant to the plot, Joey decides that his identity as vicious expert killer is not "really him" and he undergoes a transformation into innocent sweet small-town cook Tom. This is eventually as gooey and destructive a metamorphosis as in THE FLY, but most of it is under the skin. Look at how it rips up and changes his entire family, like a cancer, with the acts of violence and attitudes about it changing them rapidly. There is a disturbing organic Cronenbergian quality about the behaviors and instincts we learn and inherit from our parents. Anyone who recognized these similar laughs, quirks, gestures, or beliefs can understand that haunting feeling that asks "How much of this is really me, and not just too much of them?" Joey/Tom, and the entire Joey/Tom family, are in civil war within themselves as much as Brundlefly, The Mantle Twins, or Samantha Eggar attempting to birth her rage out of her body.

Random Cronenbergian moments for me: The rough sex bruise on Maria Bello's back, much like in CRASH...Tom talking about Joey like he was another person, or a dead siamese twin he had removed...the 69 sex scene, suggesting the strange interactive ying-yangs of character we will see later...the staircase sex scene, turning everything from the first scene on it's head while pairing it and giving us another all-time great sex scene in terms of staging and acting as in DEAD RINGERS, CRASH, etc. ... of course, the violence, in all of its intimacy to flesh and horrible destructiveness to flesh...William Hurt's incredible first meeting with Joey, touching heads together as if joined there, both homoerotic and strangely biological at the same time... any others, fans?

I am a little confused as to the reactions to the film's content, both from my audience and other comments online. I can understand nervous laughter here and there, but I was hoping for a little more sophistication from a Lincoln Center area movie audience. People seemed to have a difficult time handling an oral sex scene without joining in with some giggles. Similar giggles spread through the theater during the entire diner robbery and violence. "Yeah, really ****ing funny," I remarked to my friend. Is it that Cronenberg can take a general Cape Fear-type thriller and twist each element on its ear to the nervous discomfort of any average American audience not prepared for his approach? Or am I not getting the satiric element of the diner scene? I would love to hear more in depth comments from those who think the film is purely funny or purely a satire. I certainly can see the satire in Joey picking the place and wife, and eventually raising a family, that are as most opposite of himself as he could. Hence the humor of the little blonde girl.

As the movie ended, I heard someone comment behind me "Well, I guess there's a justification for violence sometimes." Huh??? Protect our borders and right justifies might? That's all this person got out of it? This reminds me of how someone was overheard leaving GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS saying "Well, now I know not to trust real-estate salesmen over the phone!" or more specifically how many people saw the climax of UNFORGIVEN as justified revenge worth whooping up and cheering for. Yeah, I wanted to see Joey emerge from Tom like The Hulk and kill all those sonofabitches just as everyone else did. In the context and aftermath, the violence is exposed more fully for what it is, in very uncomfortable and unrewarding ways. And is it justified? In this film, most of the violence is metted out by Joey in order to continue to hide Joey. Tom would say it is to protect his family. Well, did he? What exactly did he preserve about his family, other than their lives? Everything that these people thought they were or wanted to be either is a lie or has been totally transformed. New Flesh indeed. I suppose it's a troubling question nowadays: Is something worth protecting if you totally transform its integrity?*

I like the thought of this film as the anti-superhero movie. It's the story of an arch-villian with "super-powers" to kill fast and quickly with no remorse, travelled here from a strange far-away land called Philly, who hides his secret identity by posing as mild-mannered short-order cook Tom Stahl. His Metropolis or Gotham City is his immediate family and home, plus where he works. His identity confusion seems on par with Bruce Wayne's, especially in the way Tom talks about Joey. And despite his Superman-level of community acclaim for Joey's ability at killing, Joey/Tom is still that cold-blooded monster who wasn't content with just killing a man but half-blinding him with barbed wire instead. If more goons were to show up in that town to be dealt with, would his sheer brutality continue to meet cheers? Would he necessarily be even heroic in anyone's eyes? Would they even see the difference between those killers and their killer? I definitely have to read the graphic novel, even if the film is a very loose adaptation.

So, in short, go see it. Cronenberg triumphs again in his continuing probing of the human condition with his cinematic instruments for operating on the sensibilities of mutant audiences. This would work excellently in a film series with STRAW DOGS, FARGO, and UNFORGIVEN.

*Before anyone turns those comments into a big political thing, let me remind y'all that Cronenberg himself has resisted any current political connections, gently mentioning that America doesn't have a monopoly on the use of violence in it's creation/mutation/cronenbergian transformation.