Saturday, February 18, 2006
A History of Violence
Here's my IMDB review of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.
A History of Cinema, 9 October 2005
10/10
Author: Fred (thurberdrawing@yahoo.com) from Long Island, USA
THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. I'm writing this comment not only because I thought this was a very good movie but also because its detractors seem to have misunderstood it. To misunderstand a movie or a book or a song is different from finding it good or bad. I've seen movies I have not understood and have withheld judgment until I've gained perspective on them. Many of the reviewers here clearly have bumped into a work too difficult for them to grasp and their reaction has been to express astonishment that anybody has found satisfaction in it. So, let me say this: The opening scene showing two extremely violent men committing their crime is, in itself, absolutely realistic. It's stark. It's neither exaggerated nor underplayed. The rest of the movie is deliberately off-center, because what the viewer is supposed to be thinking throughout the whole thing is "Will this movie return to the soulless violence of the first scene?" The crime at the start of the movie is unmatched. Gruesome things happen later, some of them rather comic, some silly, and some shocking, the most shocking ones being a slap, a moment where someone vomits as a result of emotion. Masks are torn off. But everything in this movie stems from the first scene, even though the plot itself doesn't relate to it. The main characters don't seem to know that the crime in the first scene has happened, but the mood its sets informs everything they do, if only because the person watching the movie always has this scene in the back of his mind. The first scene traumatizes the viewer. It softens him up, if you will. THIS is the world we live in, Cronenberg is saying. It's as if TAXI DRIVER had started with the climax. If this is a funny idea, then I suggest Cronenberg expected people to laugh at inappropriate moments, which is what has happened at many theatres, as a glance at three or four reviews here will show. People were laughing at the showing I saw, but I think they LIKED laughing at these inappropriate moments. This movie invites that type of laughter. We're supposed to find it funny. But there's one scene nobody laughs at. That's the first one. That's the one that's supposed to stick in your head and make you say "This world shouldn't be this way." I'm going to list a few things that show Cronenberg did a lot of things on purpose in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE: When the cop comes to the house to question Tom/Joey about whether or not he's in the witness protection program we see children's building blocks on a shelf on the wall. They're two blocks with the letters "E" and "T." Tom (or Tom/Joey, if you will) is an alien in his own land and runs the risk of being driven from his home. I won't argue about this obvious reference to E.T. But it is only one of several flags Cronenberg has set up as a way of saying "There's precedence for what I'm doing, here." It doesn't matter if you're rooting for Tom or not. You can't deny he's the classic fish-out-of-water whose at the center of many, many movies: THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE WRONG MAN, RAINMAN, FORREST GUMP, and, of course, E.T. are all variations on the theme of the stranger at risk. Apple pie and coffee play a conspicuous part in this movie--a reference to the obsession with apple-pie and coffee in TWIN PEAKS. PULP FICTION informs the proceedings, with the prevalence of diners and wise guys. The family threatened? There's precedent: THE DESPERATE HOURS, CAPE FEAR, STRAW DOGS, THE BIRDS. The family threatening? THE GODFATHER. If it's played over-the-top (the scene with the brother) or below the radar (the son) it's because Tom's dual nature is being highlighted by his ridiculously bad brother and his milk-and-cookies son. Tom/Joey is his own SHANE, disrupting and protecting his own family. If you want something MORE grisly than this, but which influenced it, take a look at THE UNFORGIVEN (an update of SHANE.) References to other movies don't make a great movie, but they do indicate that things can be put in place for a reason. I don't think a frame of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is wasted. It's entertaining, thoughtful and chilling.
A History of Cinema, 9 October 2005
10/10
Author: Fred (thurberdrawing@yahoo.com) from Long Island, USA
THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. I'm writing this comment not only because I thought this was a very good movie but also because its detractors seem to have misunderstood it. To misunderstand a movie or a book or a song is different from finding it good or bad. I've seen movies I have not understood and have withheld judgment until I've gained perspective on them. Many of the reviewers here clearly have bumped into a work too difficult for them to grasp and their reaction has been to express astonishment that anybody has found satisfaction in it. So, let me say this: The opening scene showing two extremely violent men committing their crime is, in itself, absolutely realistic. It's stark. It's neither exaggerated nor underplayed. The rest of the movie is deliberately off-center, because what the viewer is supposed to be thinking throughout the whole thing is "Will this movie return to the soulless violence of the first scene?" The crime at the start of the movie is unmatched. Gruesome things happen later, some of them rather comic, some silly, and some shocking, the most shocking ones being a slap, a moment where someone vomits as a result of emotion. Masks are torn off. But everything in this movie stems from the first scene, even though the plot itself doesn't relate to it. The main characters don't seem to know that the crime in the first scene has happened, but the mood its sets informs everything they do, if only because the person watching the movie always has this scene in the back of his mind. The first scene traumatizes the viewer. It softens him up, if you will. THIS is the world we live in, Cronenberg is saying. It's as if TAXI DRIVER had started with the climax. If this is a funny idea, then I suggest Cronenberg expected people to laugh at inappropriate moments, which is what has happened at many theatres, as a glance at three or four reviews here will show. People were laughing at the showing I saw, but I think they LIKED laughing at these inappropriate moments. This movie invites that type of laughter. We're supposed to find it funny. But there's one scene nobody laughs at. That's the first one. That's the one that's supposed to stick in your head and make you say "This world shouldn't be this way." I'm going to list a few things that show Cronenberg did a lot of things on purpose in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE: When the cop comes to the house to question Tom/Joey about whether or not he's in the witness protection program we see children's building blocks on a shelf on the wall. They're two blocks with the letters "E" and "T." Tom (or Tom/Joey, if you will) is an alien in his own land and runs the risk of being driven from his home. I won't argue about this obvious reference to E.T. But it is only one of several flags Cronenberg has set up as a way of saying "There's precedence for what I'm doing, here." It doesn't matter if you're rooting for Tom or not. You can't deny he's the classic fish-out-of-water whose at the center of many, many movies: THE WIZARD OF OZ, THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, THE WRONG MAN, RAINMAN, FORREST GUMP, and, of course, E.T. are all variations on the theme of the stranger at risk. Apple pie and coffee play a conspicuous part in this movie--a reference to the obsession with apple-pie and coffee in TWIN PEAKS. PULP FICTION informs the proceedings, with the prevalence of diners and wise guys. The family threatened? There's precedent: THE DESPERATE HOURS, CAPE FEAR, STRAW DOGS, THE BIRDS. The family threatening? THE GODFATHER. If it's played over-the-top (the scene with the brother) or below the radar (the son) it's because Tom's dual nature is being highlighted by his ridiculously bad brother and his milk-and-cookies son. Tom/Joey is his own SHANE, disrupting and protecting his own family. If you want something MORE grisly than this, but which influenced it, take a look at THE UNFORGIVEN (an update of SHANE.) References to other movies don't make a great movie, but they do indicate that things can be put in place for a reason. I don't think a frame of A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is wasted. It's entertaining, thoughtful and chilling.
# posted by Fredwemyss @ 3:37 AM 
