David Cronenberg interview

The acclaimed director discusses his new film 'A History of Violence' with Geoff Andrew.

Sep 22 2005

Has David Cronenberg mellowed? Like hell! It's 30 years since he first found international success with such groundbreaking horror classics as 'Shivers' (the venereal slugs movie) and 'Rabid' (the poisonous-penis-in-the-armpit pic, with porn star Marilyn Chambers), but the most controversial of Canada's many quirky film-makers shows no signs of wanting to behave.

Indeed, his 1996 version of JG Ballard's 'Crash' was, if anything, a more shockingly cool contemplation of human desire than earlier, more obviously generic movies like 'Videodrome' and 'The Fly'.

'Crash' also suggested a new maturity, confirmed by the narrative complexity and self-referential wit of his next film, 'eXistenZ', and by 'Spider', an Oedipal tale of murderous mental turmoil so rigorous in all regards that this writer was not alone in rating it his masterpiece.

Now, however, he's followed it with an equally fine film. Those who claim 'A History of Violence' is merely a stylish, violent mainstream thriller should look again. In depicting what happens to an apparently ideal, almost blissfully happy American family after two homicidal hoodlums turn up at dad's small-town diner, Cronenberg hasn't only made a thoroughly entertaining genre film; it's also a slyly satirical, supremely timely critique of American mythology.

It'd be wrong to reveal too much of the story, which boasts several twists both pleasurable and thematically important. Let's just say that, while under ever more serious threat from various lowlifes showing up in their hitherto idyllically tranquil white-picket-fence town, Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), his wife Edie (Maria Bello) and their two kids are forced to reassess their relationships with one another and to the past.

While initially it looks likely to turn into a besieged-family film in the mould of 'Desperate Hours' or 'Panic Room', soon it becomes clear that the Stalls' situation is more complicated than simply desperate; any panic here is profoundly existential.

Though the film's origins lie in John Wagner and Vince Locke's graphic novel, Cronenberg insists he didn't adapt the book. 'My agent sent me the project, which was then a screenplay by Josh Olson. I developed it with him; Josh did rewrites under my supervision. Then I was about to do my own rewrites, at which point one of the executives at New Line mentioned the graphic novel. I said, "What graphic novel?" He said, "Didn’t anybody tell you? You should read it!" So I did, but we'd moved so far from the novel, it was by then irrelevant to us. It was much more about the Mob, less about the family, and there were no sex scenes at all.'

Ah yes, those sex scenes. In the first, apparently perfect couple Tom and Edie make out like teens, fantasising a relationship for the years before they met. Later, after violence has entered their lives, their love-making (if it can be called that) is very different; disturbing because it’s more carnal and, since the passion appears more spontaneous and less to do with cute role-playing, more authentic. The first scene is make-believe; the second is for real. And that dynamic discreetly informs the film's wholesale dissection of the American Dream.

'Right,' says Cronenberg, whose agreeably modest manner belies the provocative nature of his work. 'The first sex scene deals in types, people they'd like to be; they snap into codified mythic characters – the cheerleader, the jock. America is a perpetual adolescent. But the second one's more about reality. Edie sees something scary but attractive in Tom, and is repelled by her response to him. And the film as a whole is about how the family only becomes 'real' once violence comes into their lives. They live in what's like a ['Twilight Zone' creator] Rod Serling version of the perfect little American town; so perfect it's spooky. And what makes it spooky is partly the effort that goes into sustaining that perfect façade. In that respect it's like the villages in Disneyworld, and reflects my feelings about America's fantasy of its own past.'

The film's title refers not only to a simple tale of violent events but to the idea of a person having a history of violence, and to an allegorical reading of the film as a parable about how violence can come about, grow and multiply.

'That's what I discussed with Viggo – who's politically very astute and active – when I was persuading him to do the film,' says Cronenberg. 'Though the film is not overtly political, it asks questions regarding the human condition: is it inevitable we should live this way? Is there no way out of a circle of violence? But there's also the level of a nation having a history of violence. That's of particular interest now the body bags are coming back: how much violence? How much military might is required to sustain that little town and its picket fences?'

Also timely is the film's take on celebrity; when Tom fights back against the thugs who invade his diner, it has unexpected and far from welcome consequences. Heroism, the movie implies, is too often merely a media construct.

'Absolutely. It's like in 'The Power of Nightmares', with the neo-conservatives having a very straightforward agenda of promoting a national mythology of heroism – very scary! Plus religion; whether those in power believe in God or not, they think people need it for comfort and focus. So religion is connected to the mythology of the nation. Of course, the fascistic resonance of that is impossible to ignore. People say we need heroes at this time, but no one ever seems to ask why. What for? Certainly in America there's a desire for heroes and a desire to destroy them once they appear. A desperation to find an ideal to cling to that is pure, but also a frenzy, an anger that wants to tear celebrities apart.'

Hatred. Distrust. Destruction. Homicide à go-go: for all Cronenberg's serious subtexts, there's a text, too, of course. While the film is about violence, it also depicts violence.

Right from the opening prologue, when the monstrous duo headed for the Stalls' hometown display their seemingly limitless liking for the needless shedding of blood, it's clear we're in for some rough stuff. But Cronenberg never labours the point; the violence is horrifically physical, but quick and entirely to the point. Despite the film's distant comic-strip ancestry, it doesn't proffer the customary cartoonish spectacle but lays on the real thing: people wanting or needing to hurt and kill.

'It's easy to go overboard with explosions and crashes but that's not the violence that disturbs people,' he explains. 'What's most disturbing is very intimate violence, to do with the destruction of the human body. For this film I looked at some DVDs available on the net that train you to kill people who attack you in the street, without having to be a martial arts master.

'Actually, in a street fight, being a martial arts master wouldn't help, because any social contract is immediately cancelled; there are no rules, as survival is the issue. And these DVDs urge you to cancel that social contract very quickly and get intimate with the person you're going to kill; get in close rather than move away.

'Bodily destruction is nasty. And with that comes certain things: no slow motion, no over-cutting, no showing things repeatedly from five different angles. This isn't 'Kill Bill' or 'Sin City'. The violence comes from within the movie; it comes out of the characters.'

'A History of Violence' opens September 30.

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