Cronenberg wants you to repeat History
VIOLENCE REACTION
David Cronenberg thinks you’d enjoy seeing his new movie more than once. “I’ve been saying to people that when you see this movie the second time, it will be a completely different experience,” he says, enthusiastically but snifflingly, battling a head cold during the recent Toronto International Film Festival. “ But I’ve never had the experience of walking into it cold.”
The film, A History of Violence, had its Canadian premiere at the festival this month. It opens in select cities on Friday, more next week. It’s the story of Tom Stall ( Viggo Mortensen), whose peaceful small-town life is shattered when two thugs hold up his diner. Fighting back creates a chain of events that eventually entangles his wife (Maria Bello), his son (Ashton Holmes) and an out-oftown gangster, creepily played by Ed Harris.
Not surprisingly, given the title, there is mayhem in the film, and the Toronto director chose not to shy away from it. “I want the audience to be complicit in the violence,” he says. “ And they are; they tend to applaud and cheer, and then when they see the aftermath it usually stops.
“I’m basically saying, ‘ Well, if you like this, how about that? Because that’s the natural consequence. We’re doing damage to the human body, and even though these are bad guys and maybe you think the violence is completely justifiable, nonetheless the same violence is done as if it weren’t justifiable.’ Without getting preachy.
“ It’s nasty what happens when you shoot somebody,” says the man who was making heads explode back in 1981’ s Scanners. “ And the characters involved respond to that nastiness. I want the audience to as well.”
The film also has a definite western vibe, from Stall’s country home to the one-sheriff town to the bad men who mosey in to stir up trouble — even to the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks.
“I remember in the western movies that we used to see there were always these wooden sidewalks, and people saying hello to everyone on the street,” Cronenberg says. “ That has to me not just a small-town feel but an iconic, western small-town feel. Of course, they’re not wearing hats.”