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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
David Cronenberg on whether his new movie is an allegory for George W. Bush's America. Plus: Controversial Lars von Trier's latest, and if you don't see "Forty Shades of Blue," shame on you!
Sep 22, 2005 | This may not come as a news flash to readers of Salon, but the rest of the world has concluded that we here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave are a package of nutbars. Speaking as someone whose father-in-law has a "Boycott France!" sticker on his SUV, I would suggest that anti-Americanism, along with the responses it provokes, is always an ambiguous business. Yes, the prejudice of many educated Europeans, Canadians and others is sometimes unthinking and reactionary. Yes, they're partly upset that their own youth culture, their politics, their language and their diet have been hopelessly contaminated by the viral force of American hopes, dreams and myths.
On the other hand, that's not much of a defense, is it? The America many of us hold dear, the America of Whitman, Kerouac, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, the America of apple pie à la mode and Mojave Desert outsider art, of endlessly rejuvenating immigrant neighborhoods, California roadside architecture and neon "EAT" signs -- does it really still exist? Sure, you can still find those things (I think), but they've been driven to the margins by Wal-Mart, by Halliburton, by the Hummer patrolling the endless expanses of sprawl that look exactly the same everywhere, by a hyperaggressive military empire that wants to conquer the world but can't shoot straight or protect its own cities from drowning.
Whatever cosmic force has brought us two strange and important films about America's addiction to violence in the same week also demands, I think, that we consider them without guilt or defensiveness. Canadian director David Cronenberg is well aware that many viewers will see his riveting new film "A History of Violence" as an action thriller that embraces the idea of seeking violent retribution against criminals and bullies. The fact that he and star Viggo Mortensen conceived the film, in part, as an allegory about the Bush administration's foreign policy will be lost on anyone not already disposed to see such things.
On the other hand, despite his reputation as a gore-monger, Cronenberg is too meticulous and thoughtful an artist to be boxed into some narrow political critique. Like most of his movies, "A History of Violence" is a story of transfiguration and loss, a story of love threatened and perhaps redeemed, a violent and erotic fable about a family who could be American or Canadian or anything else.
Thomas Vinterberg's "Dear Wendy" (written by Lars von Trier) is something else entirely. It is literally a love letter written by an American boy to his gun, although the town he lives in is pure fantasy and his charming Huck Finn fairy tale collapses, toward the end, into a black hole of absurd and obscene carnage. American critics will protest long and loud about this movie, which only makes me wonder whether, in its own deranged and sinister fashion, it hasn't gotten something right.
Beyond that, more riches: Ira Sachs' "Forty Shades of Blue" was the grand-prize winner at this year's Sundance Film Festival, and it's easy to see why. If it doesn't preach the gospel of anti-Americanism, this powerful drama of family, love and adultery set against the Memphis music scene will make you wonder what the hell is wrong with the American film industry, which can hardly ever make movies this good for grown-ups.
"A History of Violence": Darkness at the edge of town
As David Cronenberg tells the story, a Los Angeles producer phoned him years ago, just to chat. (They never wound up working together.) "It's spooky for Americans to watch your films," said the producer. Cronenberg wondered why. "Well, the streets look like America -- but they're not!" the L.A. guy went on. "The people look like Americans -- but they're not!"
You could say that Hollywood discovered this phenomenon for itself in later years, given the number of movies and TV shows in which Toronto doubles for New York, or Alberta for South Dakota. But Cronenberg has never before capitalized on the "extra dislocating effect" of his Canadian settings quite the way he does in his ominous new thriller, "A History of Violence." The film's small Midwestern town, Millbrook, Ind., looks pretty convincing. But as Cronenberg puts it, it's a mythological American town, where high school football dominates the cultural life, kids cruise the main drag on Saturday night, and the local sheriff is looking out for you.
Maybe there's something off about Millbrook, and about the family of diner proprietor Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), even before the evil pair of drifters ride into town. It's normal stuff: Tom's 6-year-old daughter (Heidi Hayes) is scared of monsters under the bed; his bright teenage son (Ashton Holmes) is harassed by bullies at school and sees Millbrook as a depressing dead end. But when the two bad guys try to stick up the diner, and Tom responds with surprising ferocity, something is unloosed in Millbrook. (Let me say right here that if you don't want to know anything more about the plot of this film, now's the time to check out.)
Tom's son beats his oppressor to a pulp. Strange men from Philadelphia (one of them Ed Harris) in dark suits and black limousines show up in town, seeming convinced that they know Tom. As it becomes clear that Tom isn't entirely who he says he is, his wife Edie (Maria Bello) experiences an unexpected sexual awakening: She is repulsed by the idea of her husband as a killer, but also aroused. Tom's journey back to his Philadelphia past, and an identity he thought he had left behind, plays as a sort of medieval dream-quest; the only thing he really wants is to get back to Edie in Millbrook. If this is a story of a family and a town transformed by a viral epidemic of violence, it's also a story of a passionate marriage, one that can perhaps be redeemed amid the bloodshed.
Although Josh Olson's script was originally based on a graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, it has now unmistakably become a Cronenberg movie, and one of his finest. Mortensen and Bello make a compelling central couple; there's nothing arch or ironic in their portrayal of ordinary Americans facing a terrifying life change. Cronenberg's trademark special effects are used to show that all violence, justifiable or not, has hideous physical consequences. Whether you choose to see this film as dark political allegory or just a rousing action flick, it rides a current of powerful emotion and a sharp moral knife-edge.
I met David Cronenberg in his New York hotel room at the end of a long day of interviews. He had a cold and was clearly tired, but he spoke about this film and his 40-year career with vigor and confidence.
