A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE Discussion

Erm.....Tom and his wife had a discussion in the car about how she wished she knew him in high school....later, she pulls out an old cheerleader outfit and pretends they're back in high school.

Not exactly a mystery.

Out of place? A husband and wife have sex in a fun way, and it's out of place?

I'm sure there's some husbands out there who would say that a husband and a wife having sex in a fun way IS out of place.

That sex scene worked on so many levels (hehe).

1. It let the audience know that the two of them didn't know each other until a bit later in life.

2. It illustrated just how comfortable/passionate/in love the two of them were.

3. When contrasted with the "angry" sex later in the movie, it helps to illustrate that we're really dealing with two separate personalities in this man, not just a guy sublimating his youthful rage.

IMHO.

Why is the cheerleader sex scene the first thing people bring up when talking about this movie? For some reason people think that it's an uncomfortable scene but then are perfectly okay with the violence in the rest of the movie. It shows once again how fucked up NA audiences are that we respond negatively to unusual sex but are fine with unusual violence.

the first uncomfortable scene in this film happens right at the beginning with the two drifters at the motel.

I really need to pick this up, the movie that was really shafted in the Academy Awards.

Especially when the Hurt nomination was sorely undeserved.

Actually I was talking about no best picture nod, and I'll totally agree that there were other supporting roles with more meat than his in that movie.

I would have rather had Viggo, Bello, and Harris all nominated instead of Hurt but I don't understand the folks who were turned off by Hurt's performance. He basically had 10 minutes to create a character that would tell you everything you needed to know about Joey's upbringing. Hurt accomplished that brilliantly.

Picked this one up today. Has anyone noticed the tone of the ads hyping the DVD release on TV? They're a lot different than how it was marketed for its theatrical release. The disc is really being sold on the premise of it being a typical action bonebreaker. It's fine with me, if that gets more folks to watch it.

I still thought he was overacting the role.

Then again, the stuff at the end irked me for the most part anyways.

The stuff with Hurt at the end works for me because it makes you understand why Joey is "so good at killing people." It's in his blood and no matter how far he ran away from it the only way to seperate himself from his past was to meet it head-on. What makes it even better is the scene at the dinner table when you realize that Joey's problems are far from over.

Sure, Hurt camped it up but it was the type of role that called for such bravado.

Same here. Once we found out that Viggo's character really was the mob guy, for me the film went downhill from there.

I've got to go out and pick this up sometime this week. My grandma is an Ed Harris nut so she's eager to see it. His part isn't as big as she may hope it is, but oh well. She gets a kick out of Viggo too; she enjoyed Hidalgo quite a bit. Watching the raunchier bits of the movie with her might be a little awkward, but aside form that I can't wait to see it again.

It's really cool that you're related to one of Gen. Francis Hummel's testicles.

You must take photos of this event. Playing it out in my mind just isn't enough.

Hurt was good (except for the "Broheem" nonsense. What the heck was that?), but I much preferred the quiet menace of Harris.

I liked the movie, but I've got to say I wish it was an action bonebreaker. When was the last real action film to come out on DVD? Mr. and Mrs. Smith? That was 3 months ago and not even that great. What's with the dry spell Hollywood?

I liked the "broheim" stuff, but that aside Harris should have been nominated instead of Hurt mainly because he's been nominated a bunch of other times without winning. He should have an Oscar by now.

There are some nice badass moments to satisfy action fans, but that's not really HISTORY'S purpose. It's a character driven film and it's those characters that will help it build a good following in the coming years.

She certainly seems to have a thing for showing the uh, lawn. I'm surprised she didn't get the call for Basic Instinct 2.

Check out Running Scared, if you haven't yet. Plenty of action, sex, and violence to satisfy all your wants and needs.

Bravo to you, Sir!

Also, I don't even consider this to be an Action film. It does have bits and pieces of it, but it's not entirely fitting with the genre label. I'm not even sure it's classified correctly as a Thriller. It's incredibly dramatic, taught, and engaging. I'm not quite sure what genre to put it in. And for that, I commend Cronenberg.

Such an incredibly good film.

It's true, one of the picture's main strengths is its ability to defy a specific genre. Calling it just a drama or action film is sort of like a calling KISS KISS, BANG BANG just a detective flick.

I enjoyed Running Scared a lot, although it's more suspense than action.

This movie was great. Without a doubt the best time I had at the movies on a Friday afternoon with my mom and sister in 2005! I think I'll rent it just to see if it holds up a second time.

Got to pick this and Good Night and Good Luck up last week. (My local video store always puts stuff on the shelf early) Both were great films.

I agree with the sentiment that History was shafted at the Oscars. I'm surprised that no one mentioned Cronenberg for director though. Bello gave the best performance hands down this year. A travesty...

Really enjoyed this film. Thematically, it seemed quite similar to 'Irreversible'. The cheerleader sex scene also helped to foreshadow Joey role-playing as Tom, imo - it wasn't out of place at all. The mansion scenes felt a little more light-hearted and almost comical (which could have been intended) but it was still great. When Tom officially turns back into Joey (insert-nose-bone-into-brain, once, twice) was pretty terrifying - even without the acts of violence that followed.

And then the entire fucking point of the film would be soundly defeated.

Excellent movie just not for everyone

Excellent movie just not for everyone. Whether you like this movie or not will definitely depend on your taste in movies. Fans of films such as Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, American Psycho will definitely enjoy this movie. For mr that was just exellent.

The DVD is pretty okay too. Not stacked, but certainly enough.

I saw it three times in the theaters, and I can't wait to own it. I plan to head to a local Best Buy with fists outstretched, so look out, people.

My favorite bit, and maybe it's just me, is when Tom sees the suspicious car parked outside of his diner and he limps home as fast as he can. There's a steadicam shot as he's running on an open road, so he's bobbing in and out of the frame- pretty sure this scene is meant to illustrate Tom beginning to mutate into Joey to save his family. As he's moving in and out of a solid frame, his face is twisted in a painful grimace of fright and injury, and the way the camera slightly blurs him, it's almost as if his transformation, thanks to Mortensen's really bizarre face, is physical. Check this on freeze frame on the DVD, it's such an odd little thing. If Cronenberg did some digital altering just for that shot, I wouldn't be stunned, nor would I had the shot been untouched.

Having recently watched this again, it's clearly one of the best films ever made, and thus, sits at the top of my all time best list.

I thought those looks were because he was running home on a foot that just got stabbed like a week ago. I'd be grimacing like that too if that were the case.

I don't mean to be a ball-breaker, but this little gem of film review made me laugh harder than anything else this week.

Uhh, actually I think Mrs. Bello's lawn could've used a cut.

my mini review-

So I'm watching this movie, very entertained by the slightly askew (often funny) way in which Cronenberg presents the events unfolding, but waiting for the real kicker. Sure there was already quite a lot going on during the run-time. We were presented the idea that there is violence underneath American life, and that it leaves a legacy that never fully goes away and gets passed on. We are also shown the connection between sex and violence, given a commentary on violence in film, and all the while Cronenberg is playing with the audience the way only a great filmmaker can. But I didn't feel really connected to the material because, as much as there is violence in American life, there is no real relation with what is happening here. And also, frankly, as unique as Cronenberg's films are, I felt like this thematic ground had been covered before.

Then we get the final scene, and I'm like "okay, now it all fits." (I love it when films can do that.)

What I found was that the Stall/Cusack family at the end of the film was completely different than the one at the beginning. Yeah, you're probably gonna get that when you just found out the patriarch is a completely different person with a murderous past and all of you were just baptized in blood. But it wasn't just that their "in film" situation was different, it was the way the family felt to me as a viewer. There they are, sitting at the dinner table, and there is fear, disconnection, uncertainty, and an almost eery sense of routine or ritual as the daughter hands daddy his plate and the son passes him the meatloaf. For the first time they feel like a real family, and we understand that the film has been a journey to imbue this movie family with the darker psychological underpinnings of an actual one.

fab mentioned the injury...

That dinner table ending is what justifies the wild antics at William Hurt's house. When Joey is stomping on throats and snapping necks at the mansion it's impossible to watch it without the joy you normally have in a film when the "hero" takes care of the bad guys. But Cronenberg forces the viewer to do an immediate switch in emotion when Joey goes back to his family. It's a reverse in tone that you don't even seen handled so well in a movie.

Watched it on disc this morning and it holds up superbly on a 2nd viewing. The only extra I've been able to check out so far is the deleted scene involving Tom's dream. It was cool to watch as an extra but I'm glad it wasn't kept in the film.

I'm sure that scene would've annoyed me in the theater also, but in hindsight, now I like scene 44 a lot. Though I don't know if I'd want it in the film.

I don't know what it is about this film though. I like it a lot, but feel something is missing, can't put my finger on it. Hence I don't feel the need to own it on dvd. It's still one of the best films of 2005 though. Maybe I'll pick it up after a while.

I don't buy as many DVDs as soon as they are released as I used to but HISTORY was a definite must own.

Scene 44 just seemed like too much of a standard "It was just a dream" moment and also an excuse to get a little more gross out make-up on Ed Harris. Fine as an extra but I agree with what Cronenberg states about how it feels like it's a scene from another movie.

I see what you're saying, and I think you're right... but only insofar as that applies to the movie you've just been watching. what I think happens is that the final scene reveals something new entirely. we see a different family. instead of simply saying "oh look how tragic all this violence was. look how it has harmed this family." the film seems to be saying "fuck you, that other family doesn't really exist. this is how it has always been." suddenly the slightly unreal, slightly comic tone the film had is gone, and we're left with a portrait of reality.

I like the movie, I never caught it in the theaters, but I heard nothing but good things about it, and when my folks went upstate two days ago, my mother bought it for me while they were there. After seeing the dvd, it really is a good movie. I'm still puzzled on how william hurt got nominated for an oscar, but he was really good in the movie, likewise for ed harris.

Most folks are unfamiliar with Cronenberg and other directors with similar sensibilities. His typically-wonderful commentary track mentions that he was told this was the first (non-porn) film to feature a 69 sex act, so that might have been the main factor that caused such a reaction in so many unenlightened people. He also mentions that precious few films bother to explore sexuality between a happily married couple.

Hurt's performance, also according to Cronenberg's commentary, was meant to insinuate, just perhaps, that we were dealing with a homosexual gangster-wannabe. It certainly was an excess of personality, but Moltisanti is dead-on when he says that Hurt had to accomplish quite a bit with very little screen time.

I was thrilled to finally get to see a Cronenberg flick in theatres and the DVD is a must-buy (but "Action/Thriller" it aint, New Line). One of the greatest character pieces I've seen in a long while.


I don't understand the comparison, but I'm glad you liked it.

The sex-on-the-staircase scene works twofold for its characters--Joey attacks, basically, desperate to enforce some kind of rule over the wife that now spites him. It starts off, basically, as rape, but then we see something else happen: Edie fights back--not to free herself, but to assert herself back at Joey, removing the possibility of him dominating her. She matches him in the aggression, basically as a "fuck you, you don't scare me" gesture. It makes it so that Joey can't get a foothold over her, can't control her. Edie's aggression in that scene scares her a little as well, since she's been claiming moral high ground over Joey's actions, and instead finds that she has the ability to be just as vicious (look at Bello's face when she walks out of the bathroom later, before storming out on Joey). It brings the horrifying reality that much closer to the audience--when we discover Tom's true past as Joey, it would have been much simpler for both the viewer and the director to paint him as a two-dimensional monster, and to totally disassociate ourselves from his nature (see: Harrison Ford in What Lies Beneath). That scene doesn't let us do that--like so many parts of the movie, it grabs the viewer and refuses to allow us to take the easy way out, which is why this was a far more deserving Best Picture contender than Crash.

I'd like to chim in after renting this film.
Near flawless.

Previous posts echo my sentiments on the film, and why this film didn't get better oscar representation is insulting.

Great film. One of those great films that's too visceral yet not hip enough for the Oscars.

And for a single DVD, it's pretty goddamned stacked. The best one, obviously, is the 'US vs. International version' where they show Mortensen repeatedly stomping that guy's throat.