Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence

History of Violence Quotes

These reports from Cannes Film Festival only had brief mentions of A History of Violence, so we excerpted the interesting bits.

From there to the Majestic Beach (it's a beach, and it's majestic — no, it's at the Majestic Hotel, which explains things), where we conducted interviews for David Cronenberg's cracking return to form, A History Of Violence, in which Viggo Mortensen's unassuming family man is thrust into action when his dark past comes knocking on his door. More mainstream than recent efforts from the cerebral Canadian, and certainly less Cronenbergian in theme (at least, on an initial viewing), the movie is short (96 mins.), searing and often shocking, with sudden flashes of gruesome violence, two illuminating and character-building sex scenes between Mortensen and his screen missus Maria Bello, and cracking, menacing turns from Mortensen, William Hurt and Ed Harris.

And thoroughly enjoyable they were too, with Maria Bello on fine wisecracking form (also, she seemed to be wearing jeans under her shimmering see-through dress, perhaps to save her blushes), newcomer Ashton Holmes (who plays Bello and Mortensen's teenage son) revealing that he doesn't drink (but he does smoke), and Mortensen — sporting a pearler of a 'tache — lamenting the fortunes of his football team, Argentina's San Lorenzo. "This year," he cried, "they are the worst!"

But it was Cronenberg that was the big draw. His films can be cold, clinical and chilling, but the 62 year-old Canadian was anything but, snapping shots of Empire before we started ("French Premiere magazine asked me to do this. It's a fish-eye lens, so you might all look like fish") and proving to be warm, friendly company. Brain the size of a Buick, too.

Auteur filmmakers Michael Haneke and David Cronenberg, both with very accessible pictures, have emerged as the consensus front-runners for the Palme d'Or among many critics and attendees at the halfway point of the 2005 Festival de Cannes.

Whatever their fate in the hands of the Competition jury, Haneke's "Cache" (Hidden), an inventive and suspenseful indictment of First World indifference to Third World troubles, and Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," an intelligent and exciting thriller about a family threatened by mobsters, are destined to perform much better in most international markets than their directors' most recent films. Cheering and applause followed the press screening of the Cronenberg film Sunday night.

An Early Tip, Punters
In fact, the film of the festival so far has been David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen as the owner of a small-town diner who becomes a national hero when he somehow kills a couple of unsavoury heavies who try to rob his till. It is adapted from a slasher graphic novel that, as Mortensen said afterwards, almost any other director would have made into a revenge-by-numbers action film. He didn't want to do that and, he said frankly, since making Lord of the Rings he hasn't had to do anything he didn't want to do.

"But it was David Cronenberg," he said, "so you think, well, it's going to be interesting somehow."

And he was right. In the Canadian maestro's hands, the story becomes a layered study of multiple identity; of the darkness lurking in the most benign human heart; of the fragility of our most apparently profound relationships and of the weirdness of American gun culture.

Colour-graded and shot to look like a '50s western, it feels off-kilter from the moment we descend on the town's main street. The real glory of it, said Mortensen, is that, from the first frame, you don't know what to make of it: "You think: is this a bad movie? Is this really bad acting or is it good? You can't tell. But 10 minutes later, you stop asking yourself those questions."

.. The other two films, made by Canada's most admired directors, Cronenberg and Egoyan, unravel the darker shades of American life. Cronenberg's A History of Violence, featuring Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris and William Hurt, is cast in the mould of an updated version of western transported to a small-town America setting.

The film has loads of shootout scenes and twist-a-neck sort of action. But in Cronenberg's hands, they are turned into superbly choreographed, wonderfully witty cinematic moments. He does not use violence for its own sake, as genre movies so often do, and employs the conventions of the thriller to present a fine study of an individual, a family and an entire society. ...

This is Cronenberg's most conventional film in years and those expecting Crash-like visual and narrative dynamics are sure to be disappointed. But those tired of Hollywood thrillers that go nowhere, here is a film that reveals the true potential of the genre, when it is served up with a slice of wit and sense of distance.

The other new trailer now online is for a very different sort of comic book movie, David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. Based on the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, this Josh Olson-scripted drama made its world debut recently at the Cannes film festival where it's quickly become a frontrunner to win the fest's most prestigious award, the Palmes d'Or. If it does it would be a first for a film based on a comic book.

"History of Violence" is an annihilating thriller right in this fest's noir vein, with small-town cafe owner Viggo Mortensen and his family exposed to increasingly heinous bullies and killers -- because, we learn, something in his past is drawing them out.

Cronenberg has always had a gift for movie violence, and here he mixes the brutal action scenes with truly dark humor -- mostly emanating from the virulent villains played by Stephen McHattie, Ed Harris and, especially, William Hurt. If Mickey Rourke of "Sin City" deserves some acting prize consideration for his noir-soaked portrayal of the ugly revenger, so do Cronenberg's heavies.

If Cronenberg's well-reviewed "A History of Violence" hits big, it won't be because of his name above the title, distributors say. Its star, Viggo Mortensen, will pull in the crowds, playing a rugged peace-loving Midwesterner who is forced to pick up a gun to protect his family. (New Line opens the film in December.)

Cronenberg once again showed his real gifts for taking audiences to the edge of fear and disrupting all complacency. "Violence" is about a small-town Indiana father and cafe proprietor, Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, who shows unexpected heroism in disarming and killing too extraordinarily vicious killers during a robbery.

This feat wins him national notice on the news shows and the attention of a group of increasingly deadly gangsters who are convinced Tom is actually Joey Cusack, one of their number who disappeared years ago after permanently disfiguring a made man (Ed Harris), leaving behind a top gang boss brother (William Hurt).

"Violence" is an obvious wish fulfillment fantasy about beating bullies. But it's also dark comedy that gets lots of mileage out of its villains: Stephen McHattie as the predatory, cold-blooded stickup guy, Harris as the embittered mobster and finally Hurt as Mortensen's genial but amoral brother. Because, like "Sin City," "Violence" is based on a comic or graphic novel, it's somewhat stylized and obvious. But in Cronenberg's hands, that stylization is so immaculately done that, as usual, it communicates an enduring chill.

In this gathering of the world's movie royalty, ...the actor seen neatly groomed in his latest movie role might show up for his press conference with long hair and a shaggy mustache as Viggo Mortensen did a few days ago. ...

The complicity of the audience is ... important to David Cronenberg. His crowd-pleasing "A History of Violence" takes him in a new and relatively action-packed direction. Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) a clean-living family man who runs a rural diner, thwarts a savage robbery attempt and saves his customers and staff by killing the two intruders, both wanted murderers. The resulting national media attention brings Tom more visitors, organized-crime goons from Philadelphia, who are convinced that he's the long-lost cohort who once crossed them up.

At its most violent, "A History of Violence" provoked bursts of applause and uneasy laughter in the world-premiere press screening at Cannes. Cronenberg actually took this as a good sign, saying at his press conference the following day, "I'm not surprised that the audience would applaud the violence because they are complicit in it; I wanted them to be involved. You have to ask yourself what about that is attractive?"

Among 21 films in the main competition was Canadian director David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen as a family man fending off mobsters who insist he's a long-lost crony from their past.

The consensus among Cannes crowds was the main competition produced a solid but unremarkable crop of films.

Canadian veteran David Cronenberg has made his most commercial and approachable film in years with A History of Violence, a tale as taut and compelling as a 1950s James Stewart western. Here Viggo Mortensen is a pillar of a small-town community whose gangland past returns to haunt him and his family.

All of [the above] were potential Palme d'Or contenders when the jury announced their deliberations last night. It has been a steady, solid Cannes festival.

In A History of Violence, a mild-mannered guy named Tom (Viggo Mortensen) is shocked to find himself accused of having been a big-city hit man 20 years earlier. The film snakes through all manner of twists until the last scene, when Tom returns home and ... now what?

A good movie, even a good mystery, may have more to do with mood and character than with revealing whodunit or what happens next. Hidden is directed with the unblinking, unmoving eye of a surveillance video, and acted with power and subtlety. Violence has the same cinematic confidence in telling stories through images and gestures, the same powerful ambiguity in Mortensen's performance. Both films are among the most powerful and supple works of their esteemed directors. Yet the Jury gave only a thanks-for-coming Best Director prize to Haneke, and snubbed Cronenberg completely.

The past that comes back to haunt you is also a theme in several other films. Canadian director David Cronenberg's A History of Violence is a clever and disturbing updating of classic films noir such as Out of the Past (1947). Viggo Mortensen plays a small-town cafe proprietor who is happily married to a lovely wife (Maria Bello) and the father of two children. But his world falls apart when a couple of killers (who, in the chilling opening scene, have been shown to be merciless) arrive at the cafe with violent intent. Though he turns the tables on them, his heroism brings unwanted publicity. Consequently, his past career as a gangster, a life his family knows nothing about, catches up with him. This classic theme results in a superior suspense thriller.