A History of Violence...and love in Hollywood

On second viewing, A History of Violence, is quite an extraordinary film. While I am unfamiliar with David Cronenberg’s other films, and I have heard that A History is considered a weaker one of his films, I would like to explore the film in some depth here.

The story of A History of Violence is centered on an outstanding dad in rural Indiana who, in a surprising display of bravery saves himself and those in his restaurant from a pair of nomadic killers. This is picked up by the national news media who celebrate him as an all American hero. Shortly afterwards his diner is visited by some professional mob folks from Philly, who claim that the main character, Tom is actually named Joey, that he is from Philadelphia where he was a professional killer (by circumstance and pleasure) and where he disfigured the main mob character’s eye with barbwire before disappearing. Tom claims that he doesn’t know these men but things escalate and he with a last second save from his nerdy yet not that nerdy son, kill the mobsters though not before making it clear that Tom really is Joey, putting the family into crisis. During this crisis Joey receives a call from his older brother and mob boss Richie asking him to visit him, without telling anyone Tom/Joey drives to Philly where he ends up avoiding being killed by his brother and instead kills all the mobsters in the house, discards the evidence and returns home. He enters the house at dinnertime and in a dramatic gesture his young daughter gets him a plate, his high school age son passes his some bread, and finally he and his wife look into each other’s eyes and the movie ends, without conclusion. There is also a nerd-bully relationship with the elder son and some jocks at school which ends with the son beating the bully so hard that he ends up in the hospital, and two extended sex scenes between Tom/Joey and his wife which are unusually specific and which represent Tom and Joey respectively.

Before going into any analysis then it should be said then that A History of Violence is in many ways a typical ‘small town’ Hollywood film, combined with more ‘urban’ motifs of bullies, sex, and violence. But despite this, the gaze of the filmmaker and the script defamiliarizes us to these common stories making them unfamiliar.

There are two interpretations that readily come to mind: 1) a kind of cross between the rural purity and urban corruption as is located in the duality that is Tom/Joey, and a sense that the countryside too, however removed from the city is and ‘modern culture’ is still subordinate to it; and 2) an argument that our society is based on a kind of original (male) violence, and what happens when we become aware of this, however ‘new-age’ and ‘sensitive’ are men become, really we are still imperialists and as such must continue to renew this external violence to keep the idyllic domestic peace in tact. This is justified by the double violence of Tom/Joey, in both rural and urban settings, eliminating local predators and far-away threats, and is reinforced by the beginning of the film, which starts with the two killers, in a constant, unenjoyable run from the law; their actions and attitude are never explained, indeed they are perhaps just another symptom of this devastating modern era.

While these interpretations have great merits and I could with a bit of effort present them quite clearly with the text of the film, it seems to me that both fail to adequately explain what is most crucial to the films structure. Instead, I would like to explain both of these interpretations in view of a larger and more important discourse within the movie, one that is almost universally present in Hollywood films, and through how this theme works in this film, attempt a critique of this discourse in Hollywood films generally. The theme, of course, is—love.

The entire film, excluding the uninterpretable evil that begins it, is centered around love, specifically love between the main character Tom/Joey and each member of his family, his wife, his 17 or so old son, and his 6 or so year old daughter, who being younger and having no apparent understanding of what is going on is basically important only insofar as she allows for the parents to be threatened and to initiate what might be a unification at the end of the movie.

Ok. This started out as a lazy post and is going to be lazier. While I could go in depth, find some interesting pieces in this movie, instead I am just going to cut to the chase and say that love in Hollywood movies is a way of containing or explaining away all individual conflict, and as Hollywood only creates movies centered on individuals, love is the primary mechanism by which we refuse to see other, real, politic, etc, conflict both individually and in a larger sense. That is not to say love is not a good thing, it really is, you know? but that by using love as a guarantee for the continuation of our rather dubiously constructed society I would like to 1) find a new way both to talk and think about love (insofar as it creates a unity with life) and 2) encourage the making of movies that display love that does not serve this purpose, and as such is far more true to life and to what life should be.

As always, DB

P.S-i don't know how much longer this blog thing will continue but yeah.

So a few days ago I was sitting on my parents' front porch in a warm summer night starting to write a short story about walking out on a warm summer night and noticing a pile of ice in the lawn, which naturally there was for some reason. However, a friend came and disrupted my writing (however pleasently) and when asked about what he'd do next in a story he avoided the question but took much joy in through up the ice, leaving little puddle stains on the driveway, and as such answering my question, however belatedly. I then found myself up early, having basically not slept on an airplane after almost missing the flight and having to get my ticket from a person and not for my flight but as a standby for the next flight, which got me through security and through a bit of luck on the original plane. I was told because I was the last one on that I could take any seat I wanted and did so, choosing the first fully open lane. I layed sideways and was thus able to get a brief sleep.

Now I am in St. Paul and have contacted all the people I was supposed to do stuff with but they have not responded (yes I should have contacted them earlier) and am typing happily in the yet to be unpacked living room of the house I am subletting with people I don't know but, are good people according to a quality source. Because of this, and the fact that everyone here is rather dispersed and I am phoneless, I have gotten pulled into various books and am in a strange story world of theory that says through me: "art is about defamiliarizing the object so that you don't ignore it as commonplace" and that perhaps should we consider life as art, and as such this provides a rather strange slant on political action, including the fact that to act for the underprivileged classes is to in a sense either to work for their nonexistence or to glorify them both of which would be rejected be rejected by indegenous people who serve as an interesting reference point for such questions. In any case the band Hayden is a good one, having ceiling fans is nice, and I am applying for a staff job that I will not get due to lack of qualifications and failure to remain long enough in an single geography. There you have it. Now hopefully my goals will solidify with such specificity in the next few days.

With love,

David