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'''A History of Violence''' is 2005 film, directed by David Cronenberg. It is based on the graphic novel of the same name by John Wagner and Vince Locke. It stars Viggo Mortensen as the owner of a diner who is thrust into the spotlight after killing two robbers in self-defense. Most of the film was shot in Millbrook, Ontario, Canada. ^[1] The film was put into limited release in the United States on September 23, 2005 and wide-release on September 30, 2005. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for William Hurt and Best Adapted Screenplay. It has the distinction of being the final major Hollywood motion picture released on VHS.^[2]

Contents

Plot

Cast

Adaptation

Interpretation

Awards and nominations

Won

Nominations

Anachronism

See also

References

External links

Plot

Tom Stall is a local restaurant owner in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, who lives in harmony with his wife Edie, teenage son Jack, and daughter Sarah. He becomes a local hero when he defends himself, his customers, and his staff from armed robbers, killing them in the process. After the story receives national attention, several members of the Philadelphia Irish Mafia arrive in town, led by the physically scarred Carl Fogarty. The manipulative Fogarty slyly charges that Tom is really someone named Joey Cusack, the man who disfigured his face 20 years before in Philadelphia. Tom denies the allegation, and claims he has never even been to Philadelphia. Fogarty is persistent though, and he menaces the whole Stall family by his constant presence.
Jack, who has always avoided fighting when bullied at school, now retaliates against his tormentors, perhaps in imitation of his father. He is then kidnapped by the mobsters who offer him back in exchange for his father. But Tom kills several of the gangsters in a lightning scuffle, getting shot and nearly killing himself. During the fight, goaded and with nothing left to hide, Tom tells Fogarty "I really should have killed you in Philly", finally admitting that he ''is'' Joey Cusack. However, Jack intervenes, saving Tom by shooting Fogarty in the back with a shotgun lying on the ground. His wife begins to suspect the truth, and questions him while visiting him in the hospital. He admits everything, and his family becomes upset and angry that he has lied to them for so many years. But when the sheriff starts to believe the mobsters' claim of Tom's criminal past, Edie defends Tom, saying that the sheriff should stop imagining things.
Some days later, Richie Cusack, Tom's brother and a Philadelphia crime boss, telephones Tom and demands that "Joey" visit him. Tom fears that his brother will not forgive him, but knows that his family will remain at risk if he does not respond. He drives to Philadelphia to meet his brother at a secluded estate. Richie describes his terribly mixed feelings at seeing his runaway brother again after so long, but then signals one of his men to garrote him. There follows a surprisingly quick sequence in which Tom defends himself by rapidly killing all of Richie's henchmen, and lastly Richie himself.
Tom then drives home to his family, who are all sitting down to dinner. He receives a silent welcome in a tense atmosphere. The film ends with the subtle question of their ultimate reaction.

Cast

Actor	Role
Viggo Mortensen	Tom Stall / Joey Cusack
Maria Bello	Edie Stall
Ed Harris	Carl Fogerty
William Hurt	Richie Cusack
Ashton Holmes	Jack Stall
Heidi Hayes	Sarah Stall
Stephen McHattie	Leland Jones
Greg Bryk	Billy Orser
Peter MacNeill	Sheriff Sam Carney

Adaptation

The film is only loosely based on the original graphic novel. Screenwriter Josh Olson intended from the very beginning to use the original story as a springboard to explore the themes that interested him, and Cronenberg admitted that he did not even know the screenplay was an adapted work until he had seen Olson through several drafts. The diner scene that sets the story in motion is nearly identical, and the basic cast of characters remains largely unchanged. But the particulars of the plot are very different, especially as the story progresses.
The protagonist's name is changed from Tom McKenna to Tom Stall; John Torrino becomes Carl Fogarty, Tom's son Buzz becomes Jack, his daughter Ellie becomes Sarah, and Sheriff Carney's first name goes from Frank to Sam. The town in which the story takes place is changed from River's Bend, Michigan to Millbrook, Indiana, and the origin of the mobsters is changed from Brooklyn to Philadelphia. According to the German press kit, David Cronenberg and screenwriter Josh Olson changed the Italian-sounding names because they did not want the audience to anticipate Tom's Mafia ties too early in the film. In the film's audio commentary, Cronenberg says that Joey and Richie were Italian in Olson's screenplay, which he changed because Viggo Mortensen and William Hurt would not make convincing Italians, and he wanted to keep the film away from "the ''Sopranos'' Syndrome."
Much of the story of the graphic novel is a lengthy flashback detailing Tom's falling out with the mob. While the film is completely sequential and makes only a brief and vague allusion to the trouble Tom caused as mob member, the graphic novel details at length a heist perpetrated by Tom against the mob. Olson and Cronenberg opted to focus on Tom's struggles against his past and his relationship with his family, largely to the exclusion of the details of his falling out with his brother and the Mafia.
The most profound alterations of the original novel's plot concern the character of Richie and his fate. In the comic book, he and Tom are childhood friends; while in the film they are brothers (they weren't brothers in Olson's original screenplay; Cronenberg changed them to brothers to give their relationship more resonance). In the novel, Richie is captured by mobsters and mutilated after the incident that sends Tom on the lam: Richie's limbs are cut off and his eye taken out, yet he is still kept alive to be suspended from the ceiling in a harness and tortured for years. During the dramatic climax of the graphic novel Tom comes face to face with Richie, and Tom suffocates him in an act of euthanasia. In the film, Richie is Tom's brother, and a mob boss who tries to have Tom killed only to be shot in retaliation.
While in the comic, Tom's family is supportive and completely understanding, the film has his loved ones struggle with the startling truth about Tom. The lengthy subplot concerning his son Jack turning to violence after his father's example did not exist in the comic, nor does the emotionally charged fight (and subsequent rough sex on the stairs) between Tom and Edie. In the comic, Torrino is shot by Edie, but in the film, Fogarty is killed by Jack. The comic concludes with Tom violently defeating the mobsters that haunted him, whereas the film ends with Tom's silent return to his family; a change that drastically shifts the tone of the film.

Interpretation

The film's title plays on multiple levels of meaning. Roger Ebert says that David Cronenberg suggests three possibilities: "(1) to a suspect with a long history of violence; (2) to the historical use of violence as a means of settling disputes, and (3) to the innate violence of Darwinian evolution, in which better-adapted organisms replace those less able to cope", with the last as the dominant focus of the film. "I am a complete Darwinian," says Cronenberg, whose new film is in many ways about the survival of the fittest -- at all costs.[1]
The film plays upon the themes of the harm and necessity of violence. Tom, the seemingly mild mannered diner owner, survives the initial attack because he kills the perpetrators - the very instincts that he attempted to subdue save his life in this and later instances. As Ebert says, "in "A History of Violence," it all comes down to this: If Tom Stall had truly been the cheerful small-town guy he pretended to be, he would have died in that diner. It was Joey who saved him." Attempts at intimidation do not deter him, and firepower does not intimidate him. The film implicitly suggests that Tom as Joey has an instinctive, virtuosic ability to act with violence. His son, too, has that instinctive ability to act with swift and ferocious violence, and turns from pacifism to punitive violence in self-defense.
Thematic similarities between the film and the works of Sam Peckinpah have been much commented on: in an interview, Cronenberg did not deny this but also emphasized that there were significant differences both in terms of plot and style.
The plot of ''A History of Violence'' also shares similarities with the classic 1947 film noir ''Out of the Past'', in that they both feature as protagonists an ex-criminal who has renounced his seedy past in an attempt to become a well-adjusted, inconspicuous everyday person, but who is thwarted by figures from his past life returning to settle unfinished business.

Awards and nominations

Won

★ Danish Film Critics Association (Bodil Award)

★ #Best American Picture

★ Hollywood Legacy Awards

★ #Writer of the Year (Josh Olson)

★ Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics:

★ #''Top Ten Films''

★ Kansas City Film Critics:

★ #Best Supporting Actress (Maria Bello)

★ Los Angeles Film Critics:

★ #Best Supporting Actor (William Hurt)

★ National Society of Film Critics:

★ #Best Director (David Cronenberg)

★ #Best Supporting Actor (Ed Harris)

★ New York Film Critics:

★ #Best Supporting Actor (William Hurt)

★ #Best Supporting Actress (Maria Bello)

★ Online Film Critics:

★ #Best Director (David Cronenberg)

★ #'Best Picture'

★ #Best Supporting Actress (Maria Bello)

★ San Diego Film Critics:

★ #Best Editing (Ronald Sanders)

★ Toronto Film Critics:

★ #Best Director (David Cronenberg)

★ #'Best Picture'

Nominations

★ 'Academy Awards':

★ #Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published (Josh Olson)

★ #Best Supporting Actor (William Hurt) - while his role was acclaimed, Hurt was only in the film for eight minutes.

★ 'BAFTA Awards':

★ #Adapted Screenplay (Josh Olson)

★ Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards:

★ #Best Motion Picture Screen Play (Josh Olson)

★ USC Scripter Awards:

★ #John Wagner and Vince Locke, authors, and Josh Olson, screenwriter

★ Cannes Film Festival

★ #Golden Palm (David Cronenberg)

★ 'Golden Globe Awards:'

★ #'Best Picture - Drama'

★ #Best Actress - Drama (Maria Bello)

★ Gotham Awards

★ #Best Film (David Cronenberg)

★ Los Angeles Film Critics:

★ #Best Picture

★ #Best Director (David Cronenberg)

★ Online Film Critics:

★ #Best Editing (Ronald Sanders)

★ #Best Screenplay - Adapted (Josh Olson)

★ #Best Supporting Actor (William Hurt)

★ Satellite Awards:

★ #'Best Picture - Drama'

★ #Best Actor - Drama (Viggo Mortensen)

★ #Best Supporting Actress - Drama (Maria Bello)

★ 'Writers Guild of America (WGA)':

★ #Best Screenplay - Adapted (Josh Olson)

Anachronism

When Viggo Mortensen's character Tom Stalls goes to work at the diner for the first time in the film the town's clock tower shows that it is 1:15, although it is clearly meant to be the start of the day because people greet him by saying 'good morning'. The director points this out during the commentary, and claims that the clock in Millbrook has been broken for several years.

See also

★ ''A History of Violence'' (original graphic novel)

★ List of films based on English-language comics

References

1. Newswire article
2. Citypaper.com article

External links

★ Official site

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