Post-release: History Of Violence

It's playing here in Vancouver also [Cause us Canadians love us some Cronenberg]

Seeing Corpse Bride today though, so i'll have to squeeze it in somewhere this weekend...

Saw it at Pacific's The Grove here in LA. Twice.

My initial response was good. I liked it alot. It's definitely Cronenberg (sex, extreme violence, brooding atmosphere). This is definitely the crowd pleasing Cronenberg though, and it wasn't as violent as I was hoping, but the violence was shocking and disturbing in the way it was done, and incredibly disgusting at times (not sure if spoilers are allowed, so I wont mention the scenes, or actually the shots... but you'll know them when you see them) The two audiences I saw it with loved it.

William Hurt was fucking great. Stole the show.

Ed Harris was frightening. The makeup really added to the character.

What was with the casting of the little girl though? She was awful. Worse than Jake Loyd in Phantom Menace.

Cronenberg has done a fine job with this movie, and makes me wish he was doing more mainstream work, because he has a crowd pleasing ability he may not be aware of or particularly like. The great thing about him is he shocks and disgusts you, but keeps you wanting more.

Why the hell isn't this playing in Annapolis? I wanted to see it tomorrow, but it's not like I can take the fucking commuter bus into DC on Saturday.

Color me pissed.

Funny how all the reviews keep calling this an examination of violence. I actually think it's an examination of manhood and male identity (violence is simply a biproduct of male instinct). Just look at the relationships and dynamics of all the men in the movie (father/son, brother/brother, man/enemy).

I loved it. I understand that Spider was a sacrifice/labor of love for him, but History of Violence was a fantastically entertaining pulpy ride.

Hurt was excellent, but I think Tom Stahl's kid had all the great lines. Plus that look while he was eating his Honey Bunches of Oats was gold.

Very weird that the real life Dead Ringersesque OB/GYN twin brother rape scandal broke this week too...

http://www.hypocrites.com/article15150.html

I am seeing this in a couple of weeks and am really excited about seeing a Cronenberg movie and not knowing what is going to happen. So I am trying to keep myself information free, unfortunatly if I want to access chud I have to put up with reams and reams of film footage playing across the top of the screen...

Fantastic film. I love Viggo's transformation through the film, and the last shot of his face was stunning.

Definitely one of the year's best.

It's a normal strategy with a film like this...a film that is not exactly sure fire box office, but one they think might have the potential to be a profitable film. Open it in the big cities if you think it will get rave reviews and then you move out into the smaller cities you have strong reviews to quote...since this is the kind of film that critics can make or break.
So you have to wait a week. Wow, what an outrrage.

I got to see this on friday night. It was really great. Viggo did a great job, and I agree that the son was a highlight. Definitely had some good lines. Th bully/jock/punk kid was a complete ass, but I guess that's the point. My favorite part was when he got whupped. I shouldn't have enjoyed that as much as I did, but I can't hide the truth. William Hurt was great. I'd never seen him in a role like this. He was completely different than I was used to and that's what made it so entertaining.

Joey going nuts near the end and getting out of a nearly impossible certain death situation was awesome, as was Richie's reaction. Hilarious and exciting. Richie getting locked out and fumbling for his key in confusion was nice too.

Great movie.

edit: I'm still bummed that I passed on the chance to see this before it came out at a screening with Cronenberg present for a Q&A session with the writer. That would have been awesome. The timing would have been an issue, but I would have worked it out had I not already had plans to visit my grandma. Heh heh.

In some of the reviews I've read they've compared this to Out of the Past. To those of you who've seen it, is that a valid comparision?

F.T.W. Kid

This movie seems to living up to it's expectations.
It's #1 on my list for this weekend.
Too bad that another thriller I was looking forward to, "Revolver", appears to be a total disaster.

Yes, though really only in the basic plot setup.

If I go and visit billylove at his new digs in Atlanta this weekend, we're definitely gonna go and see this.

Ok, either I didn't get this movie or a large portion of the audience I saw it with tonight really didn't get it. I felt like the whole thing was a very somber, sobering look at violence and yet you would have thought that all the violence in the movie was being played for laughs.

To me, if you are laughing at all the violence and the emotional turmoil, the movie has no payoff or point at the end. It's gone nowhere. I was thinking back to something like Taxi Driver and thinking that you couldn't make a movie like that today because people would react to the violence and alienation with the post-Pulp Fictiony ironic detachment that would completely sour it in a theater. I think this film will be a victim of a market that's so oversaturated with meaningless violence that the idea of the movie is lost. Or I'm lost, one of the two.

Well, some of the movie is actually funny. It's hard not to laugh at William Hurt. And some of the laughter is from people who don't know any other way to deal with seeing violence. I hope they go out and tell their friends it was funny and great. As long as people get their asses in the theatre, does it really matter why they showed up? People frequently 'don't get it'. But if enough of them pay anyway, Cronenberg can keep making movies for those who do.

I agree with Russ that there were some legitimately funny bits and I think the laughter was allowing people to get through some of the tenser stuff. I guess it just depends on the individual. I thought it was a good movie. It had a very high quality feel to it; if that makes any sense. I thought the acting was good, for some reason I liked the sheriff, and I didn’t have too much problem with the daughter. She wasn’t great, but her only job was to be cute and innocent. I thought Viggo did an awfully good job and Ed Harris is pretty much one of my favorites.

I’m not sure if the movie was intended to reflect on the nature of violence, violence spawning violence ( I think I read that around here somewhere) or the relationships of men. What I got out of the way the results of violence were shown and the pacing of some things was that real violence, at least how it is portrayed here, is not pretty and does not always come with a crescendo of music with the good guy smiting the bad guy. It was shown to be quick, ugly and scarring.

Mike

Some of the violence and the shots of its effects are so grim and horrendous, all I could do was laugh for an emotional release.

Slang.

But it's a great film and Cronenberg delivers, the way he always does. Well worth seeing.

The audience at the Atlanta screening (present company excluded) was fucking terrible.

"Oh, Damn!" "No he dinnunt" "Aw, dat's right!"

I hope some of these people get a shotgun to the back.

But the movie was good.

Seeing this on Sat and CAN NOT WAIT!! I'm averting my eyes to anything spoiler-ish....but from what I've heard from friends....its brutal. Glad to see Viggo in something worthwhile again.

Yeah, that really was one of the most inappropriate audience reactions to a movie that I've been witness to for a long time. I don't think it was entirely the audience's fault as there seemed to be some odd choices on Cronenberg's part that gave the movie a very uneven tone, but there was no excuse for some of the emotional retardation on display.

I endorse this movie, and think everyone should see it. I'd say more if I weren't busy thinking about how you punch a man's nose off.

Gah. First real good shot of someone's nose being punched into the brain. The violence and sex where graphic but not out of place nor overwhelming.

William Hurt was an excellent surprise. I also really enjoyed that there was a lot more to the plot than what's in the trailer.

Yeah. I had no idea William Hurt was in the movie, and that Ed Harris' character wasn't the only antagonist in the story. Nice surprise.

People forget that Cronenberg has a wicked sense of humour and a number of the violent scenes in this movie are funny in a very Cronenberg way. I understand why people think laughter is inappropriate at this film but I think its a very accurate emotional response to this movie. We don't laugh because the violence is cool, we laugh because of the absurdity of the violence and partially because of the shock/juxtaposition of the violence. Keep in mind that laughter is an emotional release, the same as crying, and while some people may have Spock like control over their feelings, or have a sad reaction to what's on the screen, some will laugh as an outlet.

I found History of Violence to be incredibly tense and a well told story with great performances. I think it's a movie that everyone will walk out of with very different ideas of to what is actually being said. I found it to be a much better anti-violence film then Fight Club or Natural Born Killers. It was more akin to Falling Down but with less clunky directing. Meanwhile one of the people I went with agreed with one of the posters above in that it was a great comment on what it means to be a man in America and yet another thought it was a metaphor for the id versus ego. Different interpretations, same thought: one of the great movies this year.

This movie will go over the heads of so many people.

I DO DISCUSS SOME SPOILERS, SO JUST WATCH OUT




It was very good though, with lots of layers and lots of things to say about the nature of violence.

One thing I was curious about was whether or not Cronenberg deliberately made the actors play it more "wooden" near the start of the film. It might have just been me, but everything before the diner shoot-out felt somewhat artificial, and the performances and film got more "real" as the violence escalated. Maybe I'm seeing things, but that's what I though.

Another thing, note how Tom/Joey rises through levels of prestige with the more people he kills. First he kills the two robbers, and his diner business shoots up and he becomes a hero. Then he kills Fogerty and his men, and he ends up going to a damn mansion. It says something that the final acts of violence take place in the most opulent of settings.

And of course, with Cronenberg, the sex. The first instance of Tom and Edie's intercourse is playful and peaceful, cunnilingus being probably the most relaxed form of sexual intercourse. After the violence surrounds them, their love making reaches the levels of actual rape, the most violent of intercourse. Good to see ol' Crony's still analyzing what he likes best.

Very good film, and a good litmus test to see how intelligent someone is when it comes to really understanding films. The people who see this as a simple revenge movie and get pleasure from the violence are, well, stupid.

People who see it as a simple revenge film are stupid, but not those who get pleasure from the violence. That was actually the point of the movie - the violent acts ARE pleasurable. What's important is that we see the physical repercussions of the violence, and that we analyse ourselves in just why we felt good watching it. I loved that all the violent acts didn't just end with the act - we see the physical and emotional aftermath of the violence. We root for the son to kick the bully's ass but we forget that he is the first one to throw a punch. I thought the film was brilliant. Plus - SPOILER - seeing William Hurt's toupee fly off his head as he gets shot was fucking cool, and I feel very strange and weird in thinking that. At one level I felt totally satisfied with it, and on another level I'm thinking "What in the hell am I thinking?!" - END SPOILER

That's a terrible background/end to the story -- the one in the graphic novel, I mean. It's weak. It's a pussy backstory which doesn't give the main character credit for being strong enough that we want to ask and answer certain questions about him.

One point of the film is that there is no good reason to kill anyone; the end result, physically and mentally, is the same. Why does it make Tom's past (and present and future) more palatable if he was originally killing for the 'right' reasons?

If that's how the book ends, then the film is more powerful. Is Tom's life -- that of a good man -- enough to balance out Joey's? We're not supposed to like his past, but can we forgive it, since he's worked so hard to leave it behind? Can his family? Should they? If it's a truly unforgivable past, that's a far more potent question.

Watching this with different audiences could add to the film as much as watching a comedy with a crowd. In my audience there were flinches and giggles in equal measure. This film does act as a mirror to our reactions to violence. Or, at least, why we watch violence in movies.

See for me this might be a satisfying ending in the sense that we have resolution but I think it makes for a worse movie. I think the movie leaves the ending, and the middle, open to interpretation. As I said out of five of us who went to see it we had three different opinions on what it was about and two undecided. And I freely admit I'm starting to lean towards undecided because I think it depends on the mood you are in when you watch it. Your view of it is constantly changing and I think that makes for much better entertainment and pretty decent art.

I'm currently leaning towards it being a biblical tragedy commenting on the violence inherent in man but tomorrow I could see it as an absurdist comedy about seething violence in a middle american family. I think it's safe to say this movie has made me think more about it's layers and it's meaning then any movie since Fargo.

So far this is one of the better films I've seen this year. Everyone in the cast comes off well. I've liked Viggo for a long time, not really even for LORD OF THE RINGS, so to see him get another chance to carry a film like this was great. Ed Harris looked like he was having a ball with his role especially when he delivered that line "We should leave before he goes all Dirty Harry on us." I was also impressed with William Hurt, I knew he was in the film but I didn't know what type of character he would be playing.

Maria Bello really did a nice job here. I was expecting her character to find out about her husband and do the routing thing of standing by her man and helping him as much as possible. Not so at all, she's pissed about his past and that was refreshing.

In regards to the bully, he sure seemed to fly off the handle by merely hitting a pop fly to right field. I could see if the son had made a great play on the ball but that dude was a jerk to feel like he got shown up.

This is going to be a film that people view in different ways. It's not a revenge film, unless you look at it through Ed Harris' eye(s). But I don't think there is anything wrong with being glad when Tom/Joey takes care of business. He doesn't want to do it, his hand is forced and the men he's dealing with can't be reasoned with. There certainly isn't much to cheer about when it comes to the early scenes of violence in the picture but I think Cronenberg stages the end in a way that makes it impossible not to get some satisfaction. I'm sorry but there are genuine funny moments in that last sequence, mainly coming when Hurt is asking how one of his henchman could have fucked up.

The more I think about this film, the more I like it, but I wouldn't want to watch it again unless I was writing a paper on it.

You couldn't see it coming from the second he caught that ball and pissed the kid off?

The biggest shock for me to come out of the bully stuff was Tom hitting his son, though not very violent it was one of those moments that really left a mark on that father/son relationship.

I'd be lying if I didn't imagine this script being handed over to some studio exec who demands more one liners and some more bone cracks and then sending the script Overnight Delivery to the pony tailed one.

I think the first half is brilliant--a surge of visceral, all-consuming, heavy filmmaking; a rare piece of work that will likely stick with you days later.

The last third left much to be desired. The resolution, if you want to call it that, just wasn't as satisfying or narratively pristine as the first hour.

Note left on forehead: Maria Bello looks fucking hot in a cheerleader outfit. And even better taking it off.

i think its uneven throughout. some of the relationships/scenarios could have been drawn out and really paid off, and they werent. i didnt like the 'flip of the switch' change that overtook both tom and his son.

liked the movie though. i love the ending.

See, I think that scene with the son and the bully is what the movie is all about: Tom/Joey may be a good man now, he may have "escaped" his past (although that's debatable), but he will be reminded of it--through his son, whether the son never has another violent episode again or not--every day. That's the "History of Violence" that the title implies to me.

Anyway, I really loved this movie. Easily the best one I've seen so far this year, and certainly the best rumination on what it means to be violent and, as others have pointed out, to be a man in America, since "Unforgiven."

I also agree with the praise for William Hurt. He was absolutely phenomenal, and I'm hoping this kicks off a career resurgence for him. The guy deserves some more attention.

>William Hurt annoyed me to all ends - well - his character did - he played the KEMISOBEE role to a perfect tiget woods tee.

Oh cmon. "How the fuck did you mess that up?!" Great stuff, man.

Easily the best movie I've seen this year. Cronenberg is just firing on all cylinders with this one - it's as visually elegant as his best films, and it's his deepest, most emotionally honest film since the one-two punch of The Fly and Dead Ringers. This is absolutely Viggo Mortensen's best performance - his gentleness in the opening scenes makes the rest of the film all the more disturbing. Maria Bello is great too; I've always liked her work, even in dreck like Coyote Ugly, so it's nice to see her in a truly great film. The son was great; for me, the scene where he fights back is the most devastating in the film. Ed Harris managed to take a character without a lot of background on the page and make him effectively spooky; William Hurt was just what the film needed when it got to his character - weird, funny, and unnerving. Howard Shore's score was, naturally, brilliant. If the Academy wants to be at all relevant, they'll give this a bunch of nominations.

Weird sidenote. A man in his fifties was seeing the film with his wife a few seats away from me. During the first sex scene he groaned and said "Oh, that's disgraceful." And then he proceeded to laugh and cheer during every single act of violence. So I guess if the film had been called "A History of Vagina," he would have avoided it.

Fantastic movie. One of the things I find most interesting about it is if you do look at the story through Ed Harris's eyes, and wonder if the story was told through him, who would be the bad guy in that movie?

Cronenberg has always been one to push boundaries. This is probably his one shot at a best directing nod. I would have to watch the awards if that happened, that would be classic.

Anyone see the box office for this weekend? Outperformed Into the Blue on half as many screens. Nice.

Yeah, it was nice to see Viggo bash Paul Walker's nose off at the box office.

Because of William Hurt I no longer have 2 older brothers, I have 2 older broheims.

I saw this yesterday and really liked it. I really can't wait for the DVD so I can analyze this one at my leisure.

Oh, and this flick has to have one of the best endings ever. All in all, though, the movie's just rock solid.

Best film I've seen in theatres this year (although, that's not really saying much). Gorgeously shot, so well written it's disgusting... in fact I cannot think of a single thing to say about it that's negative. I will be thinking about this one for a while. It is very interesting to see how people react to violence (on screen and off), and how certain key factors change people's outlook and conclusion. Killing two men (or even say a million) can make you a hero, violence can spawn violence, who's the good guy/bad guy in a given situation (and who determines that?), killing two men (or say a million) can brand you a serial killer, violence is used to deter future violence... Soooo many questions were brought up in such an effective and striking manner in this film. Some of it felt like satire as well. fuck.

My favorite Cronenberg film is Dead Ringers... but after seeing this... I don't know. The whole thing is just so excellent it's disgusting. And exciting. And depressing. And badass. And inspiring. And...