The Cronenberg Interview

Jennifer Merin Interviews Director David Cronenberg

Under what circumstances is violence necessary? Or justifiable?

These uncomfortable questions underlie moviemaker David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, a small-town businessman who defends his restaurant against violent robbers, becomes famous, and must then defend himself and his family against his own mob-related past.

Cronenberg has won a huge international reputation from his off-beat and unpredictable movies like The Fly and The Dead Zone. But perhaps none of his more than two dozen films is as remarkable as this one. It is a motion picture that may well become a necessary part of the film school curriculum. Although it is based on a graphic novel of the same title, Cronenberg says the script and novel parted company before he was attached to the project.

A gentle, soft-spoken man with gray hair, a forthright manner and quick sense of humor, Cronenberg spoke candidly when we met at the Regency Hotel to discuss the film and filmmaking.

"I didn't know about the novel," he said. "[Screenwriter] Josh Olson had already taken the script in another direction. The script echoes the American Westerns genre, with its conservative, very Christian ideas of redemption. But this movie is more subversive. The question and possibility of redemption are left up in the air. The movie isn't a statement. It doesn't lay answers on the audience. As filmmaker, I ask questions but don't have answers. Moviemaking is a philosophical exploration. I invite the audience to come on the journey and discover what they think and feel."

What questions are explored in the film?

"We're the only animals with potential to be nonviolent. We have consciousness, awareness and intellect. We're the only animals capable of imagining something that doesn't exist. We imagine a world in which we use discussion, negotiation, rationality, generosity, empathy to solve problems humans have with each other. We can imagine that, but haven't achieved it."

Cronenberg's artfully realistic and restrained presentation of violence is deeply disturbing. There are no gimmicky camera angles nor special effects to diminish the impact of seeing Tom blow away a hit man's nose, and then try to explain his killing skill to his unsuspecting wife (Maria Bello). Cronenberg's own sensitive yet direct personality reflect his directorial choices. There is a fascinating simplicity and intensity in the scenes in which Tom's son (Ashton Holmes) pummels a cruelly threatening school bully and Tom's brother (William Hurt) reveals his coldly maniacal propensity to kill.

"My movies are body conscious," Cronenberg says. "The first fact of human existence is the human body. If you get away from physical reality, you're fudging, in fantasyland-not coming to grips with what violence does. There's a big difference between a verbal and physical attack-and that's a key point in the movie. When Tom's son fights back, if you cheer, you've got to be okay with this kid's teeth coming out and blood on the floor. Because that's the physical cost. You decide if it's justified."

For all its gripping physical realism, the film has a haunting mythic quality.

"We question a country's self mythology," Cronenberg says. "Perfect town and perfect family are-like Westerns-part of America's mythology, involving notions of past innocence and naivete. But is it possible for innocence to exist while something heinous transpires elsewhere? What does it take for a country to be rich and prosperous? What does that country do to the world?"

Is the film then a criticism of American foreign policies?

"In Cannes (where the film premiered), I resisted journalists' attempts to say so. The film's set in the US-but to be universal, you must be specific. Actors can't play concepts, they play characters with names, homes, histories. I'm Canadian. I leave it to Americans to judge for themselves. The movie pertains to the US, but also to the human condition in general."

Composer Howard Shore's extraordinary, strangely dissonant score is almost a character in its own right-playing into, then away from the action. And sometimes it's jarringly silent.

"Many scores hammer you with sentimentely," Cronenberg says. "This score reflects a yearning for the past."

"Heroism isn't a guy dining with his family, watching TV, with nothing going on. You see what Tom's like with his family-then you see beneath the normal, calm surface. I overheard someone telling Joel Schumacher the Batman movies were over the top-and he said, 'Well, nobody pays to see under the top.'" -Jennifer Merin