The Cronenberg Thread

David Edelstein at Slate writes an incredibly stupid review that seems to have little to do with the film and a lot to do with his own issues.

-- dar1a g (dar1a_...), September 25th, 2005.

I enjoyed his review. His enthusiasm makes me count down the days when it opens in South Florida.

The sudden bloody discharges are lightning-fast and deliciously satisfying—orgasmic, even. But they also leave you sickened, because Cronenberg cuts briefly—in an extra frame, like a comic book's (sorry, graphic novel's)—to men with heads shattered and faces beaten, literally, to bloody pulps. But here's the thing: Those extra frames don't sicken us morally. Even though A History of Violence is suffused with loss—[..]—the right people are always on the right end of the (righteous) violence.

No, no, no..

Edelstein, fwiw, has been grappling with violence and vigilantism in film for a while now. See, for example, his reviews of In the Bedroom and Kill Bill. He worries about the bloodiness in History of Violence, but I never thought it was overdone. I agree with Rosenbaum, who said (in a review that apparently isn't online yet) that the shots of bloody faces don't dwell on the gore in a fetishistic way but linger on them just long enough to convey the real-life consequences of shooting someone in the head.

http://www.moviepublicity.com/image_assets/history_of_violence_DF_00511.jpg

Now, the score was intrusive and overwrought at the start, this was deliberate. Same for acting seemed to be v awkward and wooden in the opening scenes as well. I guess what I am saying is, do you think this stuff wasn't deliberate & therefore that is why the film wasn't good, or that regardless, even if it was meant to come across that way, it was just a bad idea that didn't work?

Everything was so telegraphed and cliched, moments like when Maria Bello says "because we were never teenagers together" (or whatever) were so awkward and incongruous and screamed ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

To me, this was like an Oliver Stone movie gone emo. It's like, if you're going to have a good pulp scenario, fucking work it! Don't give your movie a title like "The History of Violence" and act like it's some sort of treatise on identity and the universal human condition! Don't have stupid teenage bully revenge scenarios and boring gangsters in dark cars with SCARY eyes! John Dahl used to be really good at this kind of thing. Or yeah, make everything really stupid and overblown, make U-TURN, at least it would be fun. But instead with Cronenberg all we get is the weak, wibbly middle-ground that tries to sell itself as "complex". Ugh.

I still love and respect all of you and your opinions, though!

not very. The sex scenes actually had both of us laughing out loud!

I loved the film. The acting is certainly not wooden: in the case of Viggo Mortenson, he makes the transitions between cornfed Midwesterner and gangsta like a pro I never expected him to be. Maria Bello quivers and rages with an intensity she's never quite shown before (her greatest moment: the look of disgust she gives Mortenson after their tryst on the stairs). As for William Hurt - well. Talk about a pro. If this had been a play, I would have given him a standing ovation. His ham-on-rye performance summons the pity, terror, and comedy that the film's schematic, over-explicit script (its weakest element) wants us to understand.

Cronenberg's work with sex and gore are pretty consistent. This film doesn't try too hard to shock or make a bold statement, but places it right in the middle of the completely ordinary. I don't see it as some sort of artistic contrast or shocking "My god, there is weird shit among this normal town," it's just kind of... there. And people have to deal with it. Seriously, if the film was filled with "You must deal with these things you've been through! You're tearing this family apart!"-style arguments filled with a rising in the score, it'd be every other schlocky film.

He was marvelous. I especially loved the scene in which he blasted Ed Harris with the double-barrelled shotgun. He looks at his father with the creepiest mixture of contempt, love, and fear.

The teenage son was great, by the way.

the pastiche of hunky dory domesticity was so over-the-top hollow that it was tough for me to take (so many lines in the early going -- the script was horrible)

Sure. Very true, and interesting that it got less hollow and wooden as it progressed. I suppose Cronenberg could have tried to find a way to not play it this way at the beginning, but didn't do so. I read that it was a work for hire so he probably looked at this kinda awful and generic Hollywood script and thought, now what can be done with this?

as for the sex scenes, i thought they were handled very well... i actually thought they were totally erotic. some douchebag in front of me was taking camera phone pix though and after putting up with it for about 15 seconds i leaned forward in my chair and said in his ear quite loudly, "Put your phone down." apart from that distraction, which well and truly took me out of the movie, i thought the sex scenes were great. maria bello and viggo mortensen are both very sexy, sexual seeming people. i thought that when maria bello said 'we never got a chance to be teenagers together', she didn't mean it to be serious. she meant it as an enigmatic setup to a fantasy that she had always wanted to live out. the sex scene on the stairway is a surprisingly common fantasy among a lot of women. to be raped safely by someone who loves you. this was obviously a little bit removed from that, but it did have the added notion of just being another role playing exercise. i don't know how to get into the mechanics of explaining it, but i've been with girls who have fantasized about that. danger/thrills are sexy to most people.

the scene with william hurt was hilarious... for some reason, the setup actually reminded me a little bit of the cremaster thing in the guggenheim... sort of similarly videogame-esque.

and to end it the way this ended, knowing that a happy ending would probably come eventually, but not feeling the need to go on any longer showing it happen, left it feeling very real and honest.

and other thoughts....

I've seen every movie of note he's made in the last 20 years, except for M. Butterfly.

Did I mention I also hated Sin City?

Magnum Force is a'ight.

...

I sure am! Both Dirty Work and the Cronenberg film are agreeably superficial examinations of violence.

Also, they should have just tried to hire Adam Brody as the son rather than getting someone with the same mannerisms and the same hair.