Twelve years later, revisit David Cronenberg's History of Violence.
If the memory didn't deceive me, before the film was released that year, the film company introduced that the film was the director's discussion on "how the violent factor in the human body works". David Cronenberg has always been good at shooting the subject of "alienation" of human nature. The early "Murder on Video Tape" tells about the alienation of human beings influenced by mass media such as television and video tapes. "Mr. Butterfly" explores the subtle changes of human nature inside and outside the drama , [Collision] directly tells about the relationship between humans and machines, etc. Its cold and direct image style is impressive.
Re-watching [The History of Violence], I found that this is essentially inseparable from the old gangster movie "looking forward to a new life but can't get rid of the dirty past". The filming is almost rotten. At this level, the script creation can be described as nothing new.
The repeated speculation of the theme of memory in Hollywood drama films is really also a market demand. Who doesn't have an unforgettable past? Many times, memories can really kill, or kill a person's life. Some people want to go back in time; some people want to start over. Those who return to the past cannot accept new students, and those who start over cannot look back. One day, when the past knocked on the door of the new student, the new student collapsed and could not rebuild. If you want to go back to the past to clear the source and get a new life, but you find that the cutting is still in chaos, and no matter what, you will not be able to kill the dawn.
Maybe Cronenberg just wants to make a simple action movie. This time, many scenes are full of blood, and the cruel and violent scenes show his unique bad taste. It seems that the extreme cruelty brought about by violence is to be truly displayed in front of the audience, directly attacking their hearts and making the audience tremble, so that the body can drive the brain to reflect on the evil consequences of violence.
The casting of the movie deserves credit. Maria Bello's masculine looks fit the film's hard-boiled style, while the looks of Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris fit the plot perfectly, as if they were two sides of the same coin , good and evil, outside and inside, the disguised appearance and the true essence are vividly displayed in front of the camera, making the audience stunned. If it is linked to Freud's "id" and "self" of the psychoanalytic school, the film also has a good psychological interpretation direction. The violent instinct of fathers and sons may also have a "collective unconsciousness". Six years after the shooting of "History of Violence", Cronenberg's film "Dangerous Methods" is exactly the story of Carl Jung, a psychoanalytic school psychologist who studies the "collective unconscious". Perhaps this is also the director's creative thinking and origin.
In addition to the casting, the footage of the film has also been fully considered. The grim long take at the beginning has the flavor of a Quentin movie, and the redemption of the whole film is gushing out in the last two scenes. The eternal contradiction between love and killing has satisfied the creativity of countless Hollywood screenwriters and their wallets.
In general, [History of Violence] in Cronenberg's film creation process can only be regarded as a normal work. Suspended and ended), its cold-hearted action-movie style fails to impress, and its gory and savage scenes can't surpass the work of eccentric directors such as David Lynch. [History of Violence] seems to be a turning point in David Cronenberg's creative career. Since then, [Dangerous Methods], [Metropolis], [Star Map] and other reputations have not been well received. Since 2014, there has been no new director's work. . Looking forward to more exciting works from this niche Canadian director in the future.
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