baracine

kitkat
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Location: Oakland, CA Quote:
Originally Posted by rw2516
Sorry the spoiler tag didn't work. First time I tried it. What'd I do wrong?



You left out an "/". The second tag should be [/spoiler].
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03-15-06, 11:11 PM #27
DVD King
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Originally Posted by kitkat
I think he was trying to infuse the movie with graphic novel sensibility, but he didn't go far enough for someone who wasn't expecting it going in, so it just fell flat.



Cronenberg didn't know Josh Olson adapted the screenplay from a graphic novel until half-way through production.
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03-16-06, 03:08 AM #28
Artman
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Location: Seattle, WA Just watched it - I thought it was very good, with some reservations... Mostly the same nitpicks that've been stated already. I've only seen this and The Fly - but it seems Cronenberg doesn't really go out of his way to get everything perfect, he just kinda shooots it and lets the scenes happen. Some scenes came off pretty awkward. (mostly the sons - though his lines were largely to blame I think)

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03-16-06, 10:13 AM #29
slop101
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Location: Tustin, CA Yeah, I really dig this movie too (I'm a huge Cronenberg fan though).

I just feel that this movie is a lot more truthful about human nature than a movie like, say, Crash (the Haggis one, not Cronenberg's). The big lie perpetrated by Crash is that most people are awful on the outside, but are essentially good on the inside. I think this is a crock of shit.

HoV shows the truth of humanity in that we are actually very good and nice on the outside, but inside we are nasty, nasty people.

But I do have to say that I absolutely cringe at the high school scenes in HoV. And not in a good "Cronenberg way". They are poorly acted, staged and shot. They are very awkward and unintentionally hilarious and embarrassing. It's almost as if Cronenberg doesn't remember what high school was really like and he looked to some cheesy '80s TV show as to how high school kids behaved.
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03-16-06, 10:28 AM #30
kitkat
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Originally Posted by DVD King
Cronenberg didn't know Josh Olson adapted the screenplay from a graphic novel until half-way through production.



Well, there goes that theory!
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03-16-06, 10:39 AM #31
DealMan
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But I do have to say that I absolutely cringe at the high school scenes in HoV. And not in a good "Cronenberg way". They are poorly acted, staged and shot. They are very awkward and unintentionally hilarious and embarrassing. It's almost as if Cronenberg doesn't remember what high school was really like and he looked to some cheesy '80s TV show as to how high school kids behaved.



Yeah I agree 100%. The weird part is, this movie, as whole, felt very amateurish to me, Almost like a first time director who has not found his style yet. Very weird considering I do like Cronenberg a lot. Most notably the opening scene and the high school scenes, nothing really felt real or organic, very scripted feel to the dialog, etc.

Hard to believe History of Violence was made by the same guy who directed Dead Ringers or Videodrome.


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03-16-06, 09:57 PM #32
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Location: Rhode Island I just watched this today....excellent movie.
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03-18-06, 09:36 PM #33
Snowmaker
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Location: Michigan I just watched it today, and aside from the three main killing scenes, I was bored. I don't get what all the hype was about.

When I saw that it was 96 minutes, I was concerned that it would be too short, but while watching it I couldn't wait for it to be over. A lot of the stuff was just painful to watch. Two completely pointless sex scenes, and the one on the stairs was just stupid.

It was almost as if they did not know how to fill in the time between the violent scenes.

I LOVE movies like Payback and Pulp Fiction, and this one was nowhere near as good.
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03-18-06, 11:53 PM #34
matrixrok9
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Join Date: Oct 1999 This movie had some funny (intentional or not) moments, especially with Ed Harris and William Hurt. I thought the movie would be more realistic, but with that said, I still enjoyed it.


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03-19-06, 12:36 AM #35
Boot
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Location: The backwoods of Arkansas Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowmaker
I just watched it today, and aside from the three main killing scenes, I was bored. I don't get what all the hype was about.

When I saw that it was 96 minutes, I was concerned that it would be too short, but while watching it I couldn't wait for it to be over. A lot of the stuff was just painful to watch. Two completely pointless sex scenes, and the one on the stairs was just stupid.

It was almost as if they did not know how to fill in the time between the violent scenes.

I LOVE movies like Payback and Pulp Fiction, and this one was nowhere near as good.



I can see how some people might find this film slow, as the pacing is deliberately methodical, but I don't see how you can call the sex scenes pointless, especially the one on the stairs. It was a sudden surge of passion that just consumed her in the moment. She was so passionately furious that it became a sexual energy. Notice that afterwards, she looks at him with disgust and then later finds it hard to even look at him at all.

I actually had something similar happen to me once although admittedly not as extreme. When my relationship with a girl I had dated, and whom I passionately loved at the time, was ending, all I could think about in the moment was fucking the shit out of her. At the time, everything around me was falling apart, and I think it manifested itself in a sexual way.

I guess that's why I found that particular sex scene to be very real for their situation.


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03-19-06, 01:10 AM #36
slop101
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Originally Posted by Snowmaker
Two completely pointless sex scenes, and the one on the stairs was just stupid.

Actually, I thought those were two of the smartest sex scenes I've ever seen in a movie, as they both conveyed more about the characters, their behavior and their relationship than any other action or dialog could have. Showing, not telling - that's cinema.
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03-19-06, 01:17 AM #37
FinkPish
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Location: Los Angeles I watched this tonight, and I agree with most of what has been said already. I thought there were some weak parts (the high school "drama" specifically), but I liked the slow pacing throughout.

I didn't know a whole lot about this movie before I watched it, so I thought the tension was built up well after the opening scene with the serial killers up until the first shooting. After that, I didn't really know what to expect, and at first I was caught a bit off guard, but after I caught up with what was going on, I really liked it. I also lik ed the fact that the ending was left largely open; I think it would have been disappointing to have some happy wrap-up after everything that had happened.

No offense to anyone, but I would never compare this movie to Payback or Pulp Fiction. Only on a superficial level are those two films related to this one.
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03-19-06, 01:52 AM #38
cfloyd3
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Join Date: Dec 2003 I just watched this and I cannot believe how just terrific it was. The high school drama stuff as said was pretty obvious to the story but I think very useful in its execution. This is the best film I have seen in a really long time. I think what affected me most was the way it was filmed. Truly original in its design and use of color I thought, it intensified the story and was just so uniquely overwhelming. I am disappointed in myself for not rushing to the theater for this one. Shame on me, a Cronenberg and cinematic masterpiece.
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03-19-06, 08:31 AM #39
baracine
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto I guess it's not "gratuitous" violence if they charge people money to see it...

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Here is a two-part message I sent to dvdtalk's DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) while I was watching this film on DVD. DVD Savant wrote a rather flattering review of this film (in my humble opinion) (http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s1915viol.html).

This is the first part of the message:


Quote:
"This film came out on DVD in Toronto today. Twenty-eight minutes (and six unspeakably grisly deaths and mutilations ) into the movie, I had to go back to your review for some kind of confirmation that what I was doing was not a complete waste of my time and God-given talent. Yours is the only positive review I have ever read on the subject, if I'm not counting an opinion piece that remarked on the fact the the film's dialogue has most movie audiences in titters at all the wrong places. I know I should have been forewarned by the fact the Cronenberg (although Canadian) is one major sicko-psycho and that my taste runs more to "Howl's Moving Castle" than "Sin City". But, so far, I am reminded of a comment by Bill Watterson, in "The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book" (1995, p. 171) to the effect that: "You can make your superhero a psychopath, you can draw gut-splattering violence, and you can call it a 'graphic novel', but comic books are still incredibly stupid." I'm going back to the movie now."



DVD Savant wrote back the following:


Quote:
"Uh oh ... I found it troublesome but not entirely offensive .... I thought my review had grave misgivings about the movie! Sorry if I messed you up, Benoit ... Glenn"



After finishing the movie I wrote back the following:


Quote:
"I will have to re-read your review for any "grave misgivings about the movie". I just watched the movie in its entirety. The words "unspeakably evil" and "profoundly deranged" come easily to my mind, despite (or because of) the talents involved. But the worst part is that its moral seems to be that there's nothing wrong with violence that a suitably effective quantity of violence can't make right, which was pretty much the toxic moral of "Mystic River", come to think of it. You could at least have warned your readers, without spoilers, that the film is very disturbing."

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03-19-06, 08:44 AM #40
Snowmaker
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Location: Michigan Quote:
Originally Posted by FinkPish
No offense to anyone, but I would never compare this movie to Payback or Pulp Fiction. Only on a superficial level are those two films related to this one.



I only used those because those are also movies with violent scenes surrounded by a lot of dialog.

I think I hated the sex scenes because my wife was bitching throughout them on how stupid and pointless they were.

The other thing that bugged me was the abrupt ending. OK, so they accepted him back at the table and she was able to look him in the eye again. They didn't have to just cut it right there.
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03-19-06, 09:28 AM #41
DVD King
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Location: Twin Cities Baracine, if you can't handle graphic violence being used to make a point then don't waste your time. Especially if this is the only message you got out of it:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Baracine
But the worst part is that its moral seems to be that there's nothing wrong with violence that a suitably effective quantity of violence can't make right, which was pretty much the toxic moral of "Mystic River", come to think of it.



and you'd think the back of the DVD reading rated R for "strong, brutal violence" would be some indication.
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03-19-06, 10:16 AM #42
baracine
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Location: Toronto Quote:
Originally Posted by DVD King
Baracine, if you can't handle graphic violence being used to make a point then don't waste your time.



It's a fact that I can't handle graphic violence in general but in the case of this film, what exactly is the "point" that the director is trying to make? I saw him in some interviews saying that he was commenting on the violence of everyday American life, which would appear to be a serious point (like, for instance, that he disapproved of violence?), and then, when asked why viewers laughed outloud during his film at the over-the-top "Billy Jack"-type comic-book super-hero violence present, say something like "They're supposed to laugh." So, of course, I'm confused, though maybe not as much as Cronenberg himself.

My personal opinion, of course, is that Cronenberg has nothing really serious to say; he just likes blowing up people real good.

Barring that possibility, the "points" made by the film are either one or several of the following:
1. Violence is sexy; it turns women on.
2. Violence is a good way out of an intricate situation, like getting rid of a school bully or erasing one's past.
3. Violence is an excellent tool of father-son bonding and it tightens family relationships in the long run.
4. Violence is a worthwhile way of life, especially if you're on the winning side.
5. The medias glorify violence because it is entertaining.
6. Violence is always good for a few hearty laughs.
7. If you can't find a serious, self-respecting writer to go along with the points you're trying to make, you can always adapt a comic book, sorry a graphic novel, to the screen.

Gee, thanks, Mr. Cronenberg! You're such a profound thinker! I don't know how America ever got along without your precious insights!
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03-19-06, 11:40 AM #43
MoviePage
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Wow, talk about totally and completely missing the point...


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03-19-06, 11:41 AM #44
baracine
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Location: Toronto Quote:
Originally Posted by MoviePage
Wow, talk about totally and completely missing the point...



The "point" being?
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03-19-06, 11:44 AM #45
RichC2
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Join Date: May 2001 I watched this movie early this morning and liked it a great deal, nice to have the Cronenberg touch and mood on what would otherwise be standard material.


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03-19-06, 12:05 PM #46
FinkPish
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Location: Los Angeles I didn't see the message of the film being about the "violence of everyday American life," there wasn't a hint of violence in Tom's world until 25 minutes in, and at first that seemed like a fluke. The message, to me, seemed largely Shakespearean; he was so far into blood, that going back would be as difficult as going through to the end. I never saw the violence as humourous; I would say that people who were laughing at it were laughing out of discomfort or just plain stupidity. If that is really what Cronenberg wanted, though, then I'd say he failed because I didn't see it as funny.

On a side note, baracine, do you really think snarky comments that you make actually add to the discussion of the film?
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03-19-06, 12:08 PM #47
Rival11
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: New York - The upstate part Just watched it last night and well..........I don't know what to think yet. I'm going to have to give this one another spin.

Like a few others, I just didn't get the second sex scene and kinda laughed at it, I don't know if that's what DC was going for but maybe on a second viewing I'll understand it better (it was pretty hot though, that chick has a nice body and the first sex scene was very nice).

As for the way the violence was shot.....freakin' brilliant, just perfect. I strolled through some of the special features afterwards and heard Viggo say something I noticed while watching the movie....."the action scenes weren't shot in the traditional way" and they weren't, IMO there some good original shit thrown in there, damn good.

I can't say that some of the films shortcomings really bothered me (i.e. the police not being all over the incidents that took place, the "shotgun" scene, etc...) and I think these areas were sacrificed (not hit on more) for all of the scenes showing the details on the familys life that came befoe which I have no problem with.

It was just such a different movie. It was sort of already mentioned; DC took an already familiar story and made it his own and I think he did a great job (it was actually a freaky story) so thumbs up to him there.

So after all this typing, I guess for now I can say I liked it and I'm hoping after I watch again soon I'll find even more to like.

Also, anothet thing that was mentioned.....I couldn't stop thinking about the movie after it was over.

A few of my favorite things from the film:

- Ed Harris & William Hurt were freakin' fantastic and I wish they had more screen time.
- Viggo was excellent in the lead role
- That opening scene was brilliant


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03-19-06, 12:13 PM #48
baracine
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Location: Toronto Quote:
Originally Posted by FinkPish
On a side note, baracine, do you really think snarky comments that you make actually add to the discussion of the film?



Only if you care about the film's intent and meaning. Its "point", if you will.
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03-19-06, 12:16 PM #49
FinkPish
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Location: Los Angeles Quote:
Originally Posted by baracine
Only if you care about the film's intent and meaning. Its "point", if you will.


That didn't answer my question. I was wondering, in general and not specific to this discussion (since you seem to make these comments in every discussion), have you ever gotten a positive response out of someone for one of these sarcastic comments?
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03-19-06, 12:29 PM #50
baracine
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Originally Posted by FinkPish
That didn't answer my question. I was wondering, in general and not specific to this discussion (since you seem to make these comments in every discussion), have you ever gotten a positive response out of someone for one of these sarcastic comments?



I am obviously trying to get the closeted anti-violence types to come out of the closet, with little success so far, I admit. People would much rather get their jollies from seeing heads blown off in great detail than reflect about what they have just seen and draw conclusions.
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PopcornTreeCt

To be fair that thread should've never existed as it was a duplicate History of Violence thread.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....ght=cronenberg

baracine

03-19-06, 12:45 PM #51
FinkPish
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Los Angeles Quote:
Originally Posted by baracine
I am obviously trying to get the closeted anti-violence types to come out of the closet, with little success so far, I admit. People would much rather get their jollies from seeing heads blown off in great detail than reflect about what they have just seen and draw conclusions.


That last sentence is exactly what I'm talking about (which by the way, is just oozing irony); making some sweeping generalization instead of just sticking with the discussion of the film. I'm not trying to lecture you, but just letting you know that this kind of stuff gets so tiresome.
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03-19-06, 01:35 PM #52
slop101
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Location: Tustin, CA The past that catches up with A History of Violence's Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen)--even his name evokes a temporary abeyance--similarly 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.

It's not just the skill, of course, it's the relish, and the way Cronenberg and Mortensen approach Tom's gradual reawakening to the call of his lizard brain is, in its way, as sly a character deconstruction as Dennis Cleg's in Spider, or that of Dead Ringers' Mantle brothers. More so than usual, Cronenberg's character implosion becomes a meta-commentary on the audience for the kind of questionable entertainments this film represents--Stall is the director's first genuine "everyman": no outsider, not unbalanced by ambition or the urge to evolve into a biomechanical form, he is the insect that dreamed he was a man from his The Fly--and for maybe the first time, we cheer his inhumanity rather than mourn the loss of his humanity. Confounding (astounding) in its ambition, A History of Violence has even larger aspirations, tackling the lie of the myth of the bucolic, prelapsarian small-town with the twisted, literary dread of Ray Bradbury's "Mars is Heaven". Each member of Stall's family is singled out for bemused scrutiny (most jarring about A History of Violence is Cronenberg's trademark scalpel intellectualism applied to the "innocents"), purified in the crucible of our lowest animal motivations. Edie's sexual fantasies, son Jack's nascent rage, young daughter Sarah's budding complicity in dad's reintegration into society post-metamorphosis: each is manipulated metaphysically in turn, each is challenged by Cronenberg's precise, machinelike inquiries to reveal the beast hiding in the skin.

Cronenberg is somehow getting better as he goes along. He's funnier and more cocksure than he's ever been in A History of Violence, a superb comedy of manners and as devastating an indictment of the thin veneer of civilization as Lars Von Trier's Dogville. Tellingly, it's almost as challenging a text: its artificiality in design and logic is an instant mnemonic throwback to a certain kind of B studio production (wry in that this is Cronenberg's alleged "sell out" to big studio backing and A-list stars), understanding that just the fact of that "period" feel fuels the idea of the past imposing itself on the present. And its last scene, the last shot of Tom's face twisted by some ambiguous emotion, is haunted in its understatement and the vastness of its implications; the true aftershocks of A History of Violence aren't that things will never be the same, but the infinitely more troubling possibility that things may never have been--and, indeed, can never be--any different

***edit - I'm not trying to "pass off" anything - I thought it was a good review, and brings up some good points. I thought it was pretty obvious that I copy/pasted it...
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03-19-06, 01:39 PM #53
FinkPish
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Location: Los Angeles Are you going to credit a source on that or is your name Walter Chaw?
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03-19-06, 01:54 PM #54
baracine
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto Quote:
Originally Posted by FinkPish
That last sentence is exactly what I'm talking about (which by the way, is just oozing irony); making some sweeping generalization instead of just sticking with the discussion of the film. I'm not trying to lecture you, but just letting you know that this kind of stuff gets so tiresome.



FinkPish, I'm not lecturing you either, but why is it that whenever we're in a discussion together the subject invariably veers away from the film to an analysis of my own personality? Who's sticking to the subject here?

To get back on track... I'm, as you know, against violent films. Cronenberg is a schlockmeister who started small. Since he is a Canadian and Canada is a smaller country than the United States, we Canadians have had no choice but to follow his meteoric, often government-subsidized rise to international fame. His early films are an embarrassment today. He only got bigger budgets because America's tolerance of graphic violence on screen has increased tenfold over the past 20 years. Now, people take him seriously and he has become "respectable". When a piece of morally ambiguous putrid schlock like "A History of Violence" fails to impress critics because of its comic-book sensibility, its dubious morality (my main concern) and its numerous plotholes and the public rolls in the aisles laughing at his unrealistic dialogue and his over-the-top gut-splattering violence, Cronenberg knows how to spin things around with vapid statements like "I was really making a black comedy which is a comment on the perception of violence in America today". But the fact remains he's still into schlock for schlock's sake. Always was, always will be. His only intellectual pursuit is the production of grosser and messier brain explosions.
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03-19-06, 03:06 PM #55
Seantn
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Join Date: Dec 2001 Quote:
Are you going to credit a source on that or is your name Walter Chaw?




Ha, whoa, you're right. He actually just copied and pasted a guys review from Rotten Tomatoes. Are you Walter Chaw, or are you just trying pass yourself off as someone who analyzes movies?
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03-19-06, 03:21 PM #56
baracine
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Location: Toronto Quote:
Originally Posted by Seantn
Ha, whoa, you're right. He actually just copied and pasted a guys review from Rotten Tomatoes. Are you Walter Chaw, or are you just trying pass yourself off as someone who analyzes movies?



The original review: http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/scr...hinghistory.htm
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03-19-06, 03:52 PM #57
baracine
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto Maybe I'm just ahead of my time... I'm actually looking forward to a day when "talkies" will replace "killies"...

From Future Dictionary of America (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...lance&n=283155), an imagining of what a dictionary might look like about thirty years from now, when the world's problems are solved and our current president is a distant memory. This entry is by Jonathan Ames and also appears in his book of essays, “I Love You More Than You Know” (Grove/Atlantic, 2006):


Quote:
Talkies (tok’eez), n. A cinematic projection of a story involving human beings who talk to one another and don’t try to kill each other. This was a word that had briefly flourished in the late 1920’s with the advent of sound in cinema, but was eventually dropped from the OED as the age of “silent pictures” (the converse of talkies) was more or less forgotten. Then, in 2022, movies started to be officially called “killies”, since all films were now about killing. Then, in 2033, rebel filmmakers began to make small, underground, humanistic dramas in which people actually talked and no firearms or piercing weapons were allowed; it was a strict form of cinema and the word talkies came back into being, though with a slightly different connotation than its earlier meaning, which simply referred to “talking” that could be heard, whereas talkies now implied a whole worldview (pacifist in nature). By 2054, these underground films had become so popular that they replaced “killies” as the leading form of cinematic entertainment.

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03-19-06, 04:52 PM #58
Tarantino
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Quote:
Originally Posted by baracine
Maybe I'm just ahead of my time... I'm actually looking forward to a day when "talkies" will replace "killies"...



Stick to movies like Good Night, And Good Luck...and probably avoid titles with the word VIOLENCE in the title.

I'll stay with "killies" for my entertainment.

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03-19-06, 06:30 PM #59
GoldenJCJ
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Location: Castle Rock, CO Quote:
Originally Posted by Rival11
That opening scene was brilliant


agreed. I didn't start noticing until about 3 minutes in but was that first shot (about 4 and a half minutes) one continuous take?

I thought it was a very good film. I actually enjoyed the high school scenes. They seemed a little awkward but I though the bully/bullied dynamic was great. Everything from the bully always having his friend around to back him up to sneaking up behind someone and pushing them to make yourself look tough and yet showing your cowardice at the same time. The only thing I didn't like was the locker room "speech" from the son to the bully...A little too Hollywood.


My question is this: How did Joey become Tom? Did he kill a Tom Stall and Assume his identity? or did he just make the name up? If he did kill the real Tom Stall, then you have to wonder, was the real Tom a good guy or a bad guy? My thinking would lead toward good. If Joey killed another bad guy then he really wouldn't have made much progress, however if he kills a good guy he can steal his identity and live life outside his violent life.

Now If he did actually just kill a good guy, that makes Joey even darker, more violent, and more loathsome in my interpretation of him.

Just some thoughts I had after the film.
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03-19-06, 07:29 PM #60
Rival11
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Location: New York - The upstate part Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenJCJ
agreed. I didn't start noticing until about 3 minutes in but was that first shot (about 4 and a half minutes) one continuous take?

I thought it was a very good film. I actually enjoyed the high school scenes. They seemed a little awkward but I though the bully/bullied dynamic was great. Everything from the bully always having his friend around to back him up to sneaking up behind someone and pushing them to make yourself look tough and yet showing your cowardice at the same time. The only thing I didn't like was the locker room "speech" from the son to the bully...A little too Hollywood.


My question is this: How did Joey become Tom? Did he kill a Tom Stall and Assume his identity? or did he just make the name up? If he did kill the real Tom Stall, then you have to wonder, was the real Tom a good guy or a bad guy? My thinking would lead toward good. If Joey killed another bad guy then he really wouldn't have made much progress, however if he kills a good guy he can steal his identity and live life outside his violent life.

Now If he did actually just kill a good guy, that makes Joey even darker, more violent, and more loathsome in my interpretation of him.

Just some thoughts I had after the film.



I believe it was all one continuous shot up until the younger dude walked into the office - good stuff.

I just watched it again ealier today and I now love it. The film is actually a lot better the second time around (for me it was anyway).

I believe he just picked Tom Stall, go back to where he was in the hospital when his wife asked "where did you get Tom Stall from" (or something to that extent) and he said "It was available".

I don't know what it is about this flick but it just sits with me in a weird way....and that's a good thing.

mods - maybe add "untagged spoilers" to the thread title?


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03-19-06, 07:53 PM #61
GoldenJCJ
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Location: Castle Rock, CO But by saying "it was available" does he mean, it was a name no one had, so he could use it, or did it mean it was available because he killed the guy who was using it?

BTW, I think this point was purposely left open for the veiwer to ponder, so there's no right answer.
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03-19-06, 07:56 PM #62
cfloyd3
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Join Date: Dec 2003 I am not going to attempt to speak to baracine about his thoughts because he is knowingly stubborn and that is fine but I just wanted to gather in what he has to say. To pretend that violence should not be shown is in essence rejecting the outside world in general. Turn on your local news anytime what is on the television? Violence, violence, and more violence, especially lots of gun violence. The film to me is not condoning violence it is showing the horrors of it, albeit much worse than actually seeing it in person obviously. There is an unflinching and pulp eye turned toward the violence that made me cringe and I was disgusted briefly, I will admit.

There is a family unit here and there is a head of a family that is exposed for what he is. Inside us as humans there is this nature of violence I do believe, why else does all the violence occur? This film does not sit around glamorizing violence by any stretch in my opinion. Cronenberg seemingly to me is rejecting and discovering the nature all in one. Surroundings and influences those are the natures of violence as much as anything. His son after his talk and discussion with him has begun to feel this which is deep inside of him causing his attack on the guy at school. Maybe he has this violence inside of him like his father he may be thinking, I don't know for sure. There is a bubbling up here in the film then a release. Cronenberg has this primal element in the film that is unmistakable and to me very rare and important. I will continue to think about what this film is for some time.
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03-19-06, 08:01 PM #63
Original Desmond
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Great movie, i loved it
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03-19-06, 08:28 PM #64
Rival11
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: New York - The upstate part Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenJCJ
But by saying "it was available" does he mean, it was a name no one had, so he could use it, or did it mean it was available because he killed the guy who was using it?

BTW, I think this point was purposely left open for the veiwer to ponder, so there's no right answer.



I think it really was available just by the way he said it (sounded sicnere) but then again, he did a damn good job of faking it in front of his wife while talking to Ed Harris so......who knows.

Definitely, there are multiple scenes left open for interpretation.....as it should be.


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03-19-06, 08:45 PM #65
gryffinmaster
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Location: Floating on a raft with a penguin, a cougar, and one crabby llama. Quote:
Originally Posted by Rival11
Definitely, there are multiple scenes left open for interpretation.....as it should be.


Just like Cronenberg's consistent style - but this flick was on another plane.

Loved the movie ... and I think it might be one of the best paced films in recent history. The shorter run time was like a rollercoaster ride from start to finish - one worth taking time after time.
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03-20-06, 09:52 AM #66
baracine
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto Quote:
Originally Posted by cfloyd3
I am not going to attempt to speak to baracine about his thoughts because he is knowingly stubborn and that is fine but I just wanted to gather in what he has to say. To pretend that violence should not be shown is in essence rejecting the outside world in general. Turn on your local news anytime what is on the television? Violence, violence, and more violence, especially lots of gun violence. The film to me is not condoning violence it is showing the horrors of it, albeit much worse than actually seeing it in person obviously. There is an unflinching and pulp eye turned toward the violence that made me cringe and I was disgusted briefly, I will admit.

There is a family unit here and there is a head of a family that is exposed for what he is. Inside us as humans there is this nature of violence I do believe, why else does all the violence occur? This film does not sit around glamorizing violence by any stretch in my opinion. Cronenberg seemingly to me is rejecting and discovering the nature all in one. Surroundings and influences those are the natures of violence as much as anything. His son after his talk and discussion with him has begun to feel this which is deep inside of him causing his attack on the guy at school. Maybe he has this violence inside of him like his father he may be thinking, I don't know for sure. There is a bubbling up here in the film then a release. Cronenberg has this primal element in the film that is unmistakable and to me very rare and important. I will continue to think about what this film is for some time.



It's nice to see a member who is actually thinking about the film's meaning. Although, as you said, you will not make me change my mind about the film's moral being evil, I will grant you that Cronenberg didn't get where he is today without learning how to push a few buttons along the way. Cronenberg knows how to show primal violence because that is his specialty, the thing that made him rich and famous. One of his manipulative devices, in this film, is hiring Viggo Mortensen as a kind of surrogate (and younger) Clint Eastwood in the principal role. You may have noticed that very few critics have singled out Mortensen's acting in this film for the very simple reason that he is only asked to go through the motions of the script (talk slowly, serve clients, kill people, comfort his son, rape his wife, what have you) with a totally blank expression or, occasionally, that of a sad puppy. That is so the audience can do all the work of projecting whatever feeling they want on his character, like they do on "the man without a name" in spaghetti westerns. But the fact that the actor was also the "knight in shining armour" (not to mention "a man of mystery") in "Lord of the Rings", that he shows all the right moves of "Billy Jack" and that the Howard Shore score is a retread of the "Lord of Rings" heroics sort of make you want to root for him, despite his troubled past and the ambiguous situations he finds himself in. The film would not have worked at all in the heroics department if the main character had been somewhat less than superhuman in his ability to dispatch the living. What we are admiring in him, first of all, is his ability to kill, with a gun or with his bare hands and with an apparently untroubled conscience. But if the hero had been anything a little less than a perfect killing machine, the film would have actually gained in humanity and realism and carried some kind of useful message. As it is, it is nothing more than the screen adaptation of comic book violence glorifying the "hit man lifestyle", with a little something extra in production values for the loafers to chew on while they are nibbling on their free hors-d'oeuvres at the Cannes film festival.

Violence is going to be shown anyway in commercial films, whether I like it or not, because that is what people want to see more than anything right now. I of course prefer films that do not glorify violence in a direct or indirect way. Films that glorify violence in a direct way are called schlock. Films that glorify violence indirectly, like "A History of Violence", are hypocritical schlock. And that is the worst kind of violent film, in my humble opinion. The kind that wins awards and gains respectability. (See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399146/awards)
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03-20-06, 03:04 PM #67
Tarantino
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Actually baracine, the movie does not glorify violence. There were even a few seconds trimmed because Cronenberg thought that they would fall along those lines. As I said before...if you don't like violence, stick to movies without the word VIOLENCE in the title. Then you might not be so offended.

Also, about the hospital scene...

He says "It became available", implying that he basically did kill the original Tom Stall.

= J
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03-20-06, 03:31 PM #68
Richard Malloy
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Join Date: Sep 2000 The film doesn't glorify violence... except when it does. And then it tends to recontextualize that violence (or another act that calls to mind the former one) in an effort to make you reconsider your response. And then an additional recontextualization complicates matters further.

And the film isn't morally dubious... except when it is. Or at least when its characters are. And ultimately aren't they all? Daddy is welcomed back into the fold after coldly dispatching of anyone who might further intrude on the family and the life to which its members have grown accustomed. The wife's repulsion and attraction to "Joey" is clearly dramatized in the second sex/rape scene, but by film's end she has compartmentalized her repulsion sufficiently to enjoy a nice meal. By now, all are complicit. And accepting of the fact that sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

Or is "Joey" a pathology that once introduced will inevitably lead to ... ? Something to mull over as you recall previous inversions of your responses to the film's acts of violence.


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03-20-06, 04:31 PM #69
baracine
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Malloy
The film doesn't glorify violence... except when it does. [...] And the film isn't morally dubious... except when it is.



I will assume this is directly lifted from one of Cronenberg's muddled but self-serving interviews.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Tarantino
Actually baracine, the movie does not glorify violence.



Tarantino, if this film didn't glorify violence, you wouldn't have bothered seeing it and you certainly would not like it.
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03-20-06, 04:57 PM #70
Tarantino
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Quote:
Originally Posted by baracine
Tarantino, if this film didn't glorify violence, you wouldn't have bothered seeing it and you certainly would not like it.



Oh, that's right...I forgot, you know exactly which movies I like and don't like...



I've just realized something that an above poster had already mentioned...you're impossible to discuss topics with/talk to. Oh well. To my ignore list you go.

= J
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03-20-06, 05:12 PM #71
pankwindu
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: MN Quote:
Originally Posted by kitkat
Oh, I don't think so. I found it flawed, but I generally enjoyed it, and it seems a few others in this thread had a similar reaction. It was a good story, I liked Viggo and Maria, and the build up of tension in the first half was very nice. I also had no problem with the gore. I thought it was justified.

I did think Cronenbureg laid on the whole happy family/upstanding small town citizen thing a little too thick at the beginning. I also noticed some of the nitpicks flixtime did, particularly regarding the son in the shotgun scene, and the mall scene, and I found it ridiculous that Edie had no idea where her daughter went, yet marched straight to her.

It was completely obvious that Tom wasn't who we thought he was after seeing how deftly he dispatched the two baddies, so there was no surprise there. I don't think there was supposed to be. That does, of course, make the whole premise a bit far-fetched, and I'm not sure that that was the most interesting story that could have been told. Instead of, say, being the about effects of extreme violence on an ordinary guy, how his family reacts, violence & society, etc., it kinda turned into just another gangster movie. (BTW, I know a far-fetched premise is central to many, many great flicks. I'm just trying to explain how I reacted to this movie.)




The entire "surprise" premise is the major flaw in my opinion. After the first meeting, does Tom honestly believe that Fogarty has the wrong guy and is just going to go away? Sure, he did the whole 3 years in the desert thing and is supressing his Joey persona, but on some level he still knows he is Joey, as evidenced later in the movie. It's just not credible that he goes on with business as usual when a bunch of mobsters from his past show up with a bone to pick, as if continuing to convince himself, his wife, and his community that he's Tom is going to make a bit of differece to Fogarty. If the director's intent was that he didn't realize he was still Joey until they came to his house to take him, then it wasn't very convincing, at least to me.



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03-21-06, 08:27 AM #72
Richard Malloy
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Join Date: Sep 2000 Quote:
Originally Posted by baracine
I will assume this is directly lifted from one of Cronenberg's muddled but self-serving interviews.


Nope.

I haven't had the pleasure of listening to Cronenberg's latest commentary, but I suspect it will be engaging, intelligent, self-critical, and on the whole a much more gracious and interesting discussion than any one might have with you. Jerkwad.
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03-21-06, 09:22 AM #73
baracine
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Toronto A History of Hilarity...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What happened at the Cannes screening:

Quote:
The issue of intentional vs unintentional humour arose during a raucous press screening of A History of Violence, David Cronenberg's film about a small-town family man who may have secrets to hide. The movie provokes a queasy tension due to the juxtaposition of abrupt violence and bravura emotional moments that could've come straight out of a '40s western. A great combination of commercial imperatives and time-honoured Cronenberg-isms, A History of Violence is a bloody genre piece that also functions as a savvy enquiry into the nature of violence and, as the director said at the Monday press conference, "its impact on society, families and human bodies." Some of the laughter at the screening was the tension-relieving kind but it intermingled with the jeers of those unwilling to go where Cronenberg was headed. All the noise got to be too much for one gentleman. "You fucking film critic pieces of shit!" he yelled. "Start taking this movie seriously!"

Things quieted down, partially because no one could come up with a line to top it. But as Cronenberg admitted on Monday, some of those pieces of shit were right to laugh. "I don't think it's tongue-in-cheek," he says, "but I do think it's funny. It's possible for a film to be funny and serious at the same time."

(From: http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_...ilm/cannes.html)

One of the most groan-inducing lines at the screening probably was "It became available", I'm sure.

Comments from "The Movie Mark - Real Reviews for Real People" (http://www.themoviemark.com/moviere...yofviolence.asp):


Quote:
* Don't listen to the critics claiming this is one of the best movies of the year. They're the types who like to look for social commentary and subtext that just isn't there. I saw this movie with 6 other people and every single one commented on how disappointed and unimpressed they were.

* The fact that this movie is at over 85% on Rottentomatoes shows that most mainstream critics are clearly out of touch with mainstream audiences.



On the other hand, this New Dehli review acknowledges the laughter, partly disapproves of it, and fairly assesses the film's strong and weak points without giving it high marks. It also has interesting links to Cronenberg interviews: http://jaiarjun.blogspot.com/2006/0...f-violence.html

The concluding paragraph is particularly funny to me, though:


Quote:
This continuing shift in the film’s tone is very relevant to what the story has to say about our buried natures coming to the surface when circumstances allow them to. At the film’s end, when Tom returns home, his wife and children are sitting stiffly at the dinner table. Eventually his little daughter gets up and lays out the cutlery for him (out of context, this would have been a “cho chweet” moment). The family is whole again but one senses they will never be the same – they’ve been stained not just by the violence of Tom’s past but by knowledge of their own primitive impulses. At this point one isn’t even sure whether it’s a good idea to have all those knives and forks around.


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03-21-06, 10:45 AM #74
slop101
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Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Tustin, CA Quote:
* Don't listen to the critics claiming this is one of the best movies of the year. They're the types who like to look for social commentary and subtext that just isn't there. I saw this movie with 6 other people and every single one commented on how disappointed and unimpressed they were.


I have to call bullshit on this way of thinking. Each person brings something different to a piece of art (be it a painting, music, literature or a film), and what we draw from it relies heavily on our own personal experiences. A 7-year old girl isn't going to get much out of Citizen Kane, does that mean it has no commentary or subtext?

Each person's evaluation of a piece of subjective art is valid for that person, but making blanket assessments that it "doesn't mean anything" is just plain wrong. I could go on, but true art goes far beyond whatever the artist's intent may have been, and if it connects with people, it takes a life of it's own. The true intent of an artist is to bring something out of people - and what that is, is an individual experience specific to each person.
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03-21-06, 10:57 AM #75
awmurray
Senior Member


Join Date: Sep 2005 Baracine,

This is the best review I've seen on the themes of HoV. See what you think:
History of Violence Review [ http://www.christianitytoday.com/mov...violence.html]
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(I am recopying the message alerts I got by e-mail. It's the best I can do...)

[Baracine's posts are missing from this page. I know I answered awmurray congratulating him on that review, which was balanced. I said something to the effect that Christian reviewers showed more respect to Cronenberg, because of his celebrity, than I did. Other posters disagreed with my statement that a Christian can extract a positive reflection from most any disaster, like a traffic accident, but that is no reason to condone traffic accidents or Cronenberg movies. If anybody has the missing posts on this page, it would be great if they could post them...]

ShagMan has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - A History Of Violence..What a ride! - in the Movie Talk forum of DVD Talk Forum.

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Saying that his earlier films are an embarrasment, and most of the rest of that statement, just offends me. But that's why this is a forum, everybody gets to air out their opinions. Cronenburg's worst movies, IMO, were some of his later movies, like Existenz (sic). Now that was a crap movie.

I liked History of Violence, it seems to be a pretty intelligent open-ended film that really makes you think.

Long live the new flesh!
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[I answered something to the effect that "Scanners" is laughable nowadays, which is the fate of all schock films: they grow old as soon as new technologies for representing violence emerge.]

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What? Can you just accept that you don't like the film and never will? Your reasoning is just plain looney.

And that is a well written review, I almost closed it out after seeing the christianitytoday tag.
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Now his movie Crash (not the recent Best Picture movie) was a great movie. Talk about Controversial.
I enjoyed this moving having just seen it this past weekend. I don't think it glorifies Violence at all.

[I answered this by quoting the plotline of "Crash" from the IMDb, which pretty much shut everybody up: Since a road accident left him with serious facial and bodily scarring, a former 'TV scientist' has become obsessed by the marriage of motor car technology with what he sees as the `raw sexuality' of car-crash victims. The scientist, along with a crash victim he has recently befriended, sets about performing a series of sexual acts in a variety of motor vehicles, either with other crash victims or with prostitutes who they contort into the shape of trapped-corpses. Ultimately, the scientist craves a suicidal union of blood, semen and engine coolant, a union with which he becomes dangerously obsessed.]

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I just rented this the other night. I thought it was a really good movie, Cronenberg never dissapoints.
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Dude was a straight up ninja !! That's all I gots to say.
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I watched it on DVD. The acting by the kids could have been better. Their delivery was forced and ackward. That knocked the wind out of the movie for me. As far as the voilence goes, I've seen Jack Bauer do worse in one hour of television...on a Monday night...for free.
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I'm sorry for bumping this thread but after watching the film and reading this thread I still have no clue what the point of the film is. It started well enough and was engaging up until Tom goes medevil on the two killers in his diner. While the scene is slick and was needed to help flush out his real identity it all but ruined the film from that point on. It becomes the obvious & overdone he is not who he says he is and eventually confronts his dark past. Sprinkle in some unrealstic death scenes & human behavior and finish with a ludacris ending. Not to mention characters you know nothing about or how they arrived to the point in their lives where they were at.

This quote baffles me, "I liked History of Violence, it seems to be a pretty intelligent open-ended film that really makes you think." Open-ended how? Will Tom stay the family man he has so longed to be or become the ruthless killer of his dark past? How strong is the bond of a family built on lies and deception; will Tom be able to make it work? Will Tom's son stray to the dark side or follow the path his Dad has tried to follow and abide by? Tune in next time to who gives a crap because the characters aren't likeable anyway. I hope that isn't what you mean.

I guess I'm being narrow-minded. Either that or I'm really dumb and obviously missed the point 'cause I don't see one worth discussing. I guess reading Ebert's review frustrates me more:

"This is not a movie about plot, but about character. It is about how people turn out the way they do, and about whether the world sometimes functions like a fool's paradise."

No plot. Check. No character development. Check. We don't even know why Joey turned out to be a killer before he became Tom or even why he decided to leave that life behind, but one can probably guess. We have no knowledge as to why any of the characters act out violently except for Tom's son who stands up for himself against the bully and defends his Dad when he is going to be killed. There is no in depth explanation or attempt to explain why we turn out the way we do. Instead, just confirms why humans will act out of character when pressed with a situation that could be life-threatening or life-changing.

I feel better.
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Jadow

I just saw this last night for the first time, it's a movie I've had on the "to do" list for quite awhile.

I really really enjoyed it. The action was great, I could just watch Viggo the killing machine go around for 2 hours. And the movie clocked in at about 92 minutes, a perfect time for a concise story with tightly packed action, sex, and a B story involving his son. There is no need to drag a movie over 2 hours when it can be economically done in 90 minutes. I applaud the filmmakers for that.

And all in all great flick that didn't get the cred it deserved.

The Bus

I... I don't know what to think. I really want to like this film and there's no overall aspect of it I don't like. But... violence breeds violence? Really? That's it, that's the message? Hasn't everyone learned that from day one?

The whole "split personality" thing seemed tacked on, almost soap-opera-ish.

But... this is Cronenberg we're talking about. He made a movie that in many's hands could be C-grade slop and turned it into something extremely watchable (that is, aside from the disturbing violence).

My favorite shot is the one shortly after Tom shoots Fogarty's men. We are inside the house, looking out the windowpane. The men are dead or dying on the grass, crawling. On the window is a fly, lazily buzzing around in the same half-steps the dying men are.

Also, for some reason, I expected to see the son holding his spoon with cereal, starring down the stairs at the rough sex his parents just had. That image had me .

I'd give it a B+. Solid work, but not "Best of the Year" material.

Buttmunker

A little late to the party, but I was surprised that William Hurt was the one nominated for an Academy award. Not only were other performances better in this film, but I thought Hurt's performance was overacted and not very good.