David Cronenberg is considered by many to be America's greatest auteur filmmaker. (Of course, he's Canadian, but European film critics don't nitpick.) Though his films often hit the mainstream (Scanners, Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers, existenz) he often remains an outsider. This is because he confronts certain specific issues – body-image issues – which usually gross people out. His latest film is being hailed as both an 'art film' masterpiece, and a mainstream audience-pleaser.

When two armed thugs hold up Tom Stall's small-town diner, endangering everyone inside, he quickly, and deftly, and brutally kills them. Using his kitchen utensils. Hailed by the townsfolk and local media as a hero, Tom finds trouble in an apparent case of mistaken identity when a man from out of town shows up at the diner, looking for him. The man claims that Tom is in fact Joey, a mafia traitor who went into hiding 20 years ago. As Tom tries to protect himself and his family from the violence of the out-of-towners, he must increasingly use violence as a tool to do so.

A History of Violence, adapted by screenwriter Josh Olson from the graphic novel of the same name, plays like a modern-day Hitchcockian thriller. While the film and the comic share the same premise, Olson took the story in a different direction, departing from the graphic novel, which was written by John Wagner (Judge Dredd) and illustrated by Vince Locke (Deadworld, Sandman: Brief Lives). Cronenberg didn't even know that the script was based on a graphic novel until he was already shooting, by which point it was 'too late to be really influenced by it.'

Audiences who don't walk out of the movie all seem to take to it strongly, discussing it even weeks after its festival screenings. Indeed, A History of Violence is filled with violent acts, gore, and sex. Yet, it probably has less gratuitous sex & violence than a Disney cartoon. It is an intelligent study of the use of violence, its causes, and its effects, which are exposed thoughtfully through the device of the gripping story.

The first thing I notice about David Cronenberg is the thing also mentioned by every cast member – he is surprisingly, almost disarmingly nice and cheerful (especially for someone who is considered a Godfather of the horror genres). We discussed this, people's capacity towards violence, violence in art, the ability of people to change, religion, and his film:

[Keep in mind that though Cronenberg takes the issues themselves seriously, he often speaks in a tongue-in-cheek manner.]

Why do people who make comedies tend to be angry and depressed and people who make very violent movies tend to be nice and funny?

It seems to be true isn't it? I mean, there's nothing scarier than a comedian. They're angry, depressed, terrible people, let's face it.

It must be. I mean I guess it's easy to say, but it seems to be inevitably true that there's a kind of balance that's struck. If you're sort of perky and funny in your life then you feel that you have to deal with the other stuff in your art and vice versa, you know.

WARNING - SPOILER SPACE - (you can click here to jump past potential History of Violence spoilers and continue reading the rest of the interview)

When Joey is leading this small town life, do you feel that he's hiding from who he is, or that he's changed who he really is?

No, I think he's really changed. I mean I think that's certainly the way we played it. Because he, I mean imagine, he's suddenly forced out of the identity he had. And you have to decide how much of this you want to reveal to your readers obviously, you could spoil the movie for them.

Don't worry.

But he could choose to be anything. He could choose to be a Joey in Florida, or a Joey in the west coast. He could choose to go to some other country and be a small time gangster. But he suddenly chooses to be part of this American mythology of itself. This kind of ideal guy in this ideal small town with a family. vry non-violent, very sweet, very gentle with his children. And he genuinely is, he's been that for twenty years. So he's been very successful at that. And that's not hiding, I mean at that point he has really wanted to become somebody else. If he got hit by a bus before the bad guys came to town he would have been buried as Tom Stahl, everybody would have thought that's who he was and that's who he would have been.

When the violence does break out, is he reverting--

--No, I think that the way we were playing it was that Joey was not actually a violent person. He didn't have that incredible anger and rage. Because you would feel that if he had that incredibly violent temper and anger and rage for example that it would come out in those twenty years that he tried to be Tom. You know, it would have come out sooner. But in this case, if you think that Joey learned violence because, and physically being kind of athletic he could be good at it, because he grew up in the streets of Philly. His brother was a mobster, the union was mobsters and to be successful and to have some kind of life he had to become part of that. And he could do violence so he did violence but he wasn't particularly innately a violent person. So it was just as he says, when his brother says, 'We're brothers, what did you think would happen?' He says, 'I thought that business would come first.' For him it was business. And that was the approach to violence in the movie that I took, which is rather than imposing sort of concept of what violence should or shouldn't be. I wasn't thinking about that, I'm thinking, okay in this movie where does the violence come from? It comes from these guys who learned it on the streets and its business. Its not sadistic pleasure, it's not an aesthetic thing, its not martial arts with a philosophy in fighting, or anything, its just business. You do it, you get it over with you get on to the next thing and you make as little fuss about it as possible. That's what it is to Joey, and therefore it's very possible for it to disappear. Now it comes back only because it's a tool that he needs, that he has. It is like the gunslinger who was the fastest gun in the west that put his guns away, you know, it's got of American iconic reverberations and we were very conscious of that. The guy who's reluctant to kill although he has a talent for killing, but its not something that gives him pleasure. And that's really the approach we took and I think its realistic in the sense that it would make it possible for him to become Tom and manage to live that life for so long without revealing something else.

END SPOILERS

What was your working relationship with Howard Shore? [Academy Award winning musician, who wrote the music for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, as well as A History of Violence.]

Well, he's done just about every movie [of mine]. We've known each other for thirty years.

How much interaction do you have with him during the process?

When we're working? A hundred percent interaction. Really, I mean, he's one of, I send my script, any script that I'm considering to do, whether it's my own script or somebody else's, I send it to a group of people. Carol [Spier], production designer; Peter Suschitzky director of photography, Howard and my editor Ron Sanders who I've worked with for like thirty-five years. And I just want feedback from them and just to get them started thinking about it even before we've shot a foot of film. And I do that with Howard too. And so the discussions begin very early on and get more intense and Howard sends me synthesized possibilities and themes and ideas and we discuss that.

Ever before you shoot?

Not before I shoot. No. Unless there's music or something that happens in the movie like in M. Butterfly (1993) where there's an opera, there's music within the film that's different. Then yes, we would be talking about which version of that opera we would go with. But the discussions would be ongoing and Howard would come visit the set, definitely every movie, and talk to the actors and just get a feel for things and we'll start sending him some footage to look at. And in this case, we were certainly discussing the American-ness of the movie and the western tone of it and he started to look at John Ford DVD's and stuff like that to sort of get a feel for the American landscape musically. You know, because music is very American in itself. A little like Aaron Copeland and a little like western. And so, its very, and then when Howard, usually I should be with Howard when the music's being recorded and we'll discuss the cues and should he re-record them and did you like that thing with the trombone or do you prefer the flute variation or the French horn variation. Get very detailed about it, where the cues go, I could go on, what the music is meant to do in the movie is a good discussion. That's a whole interview in itself.

Were you ever afraid to show the 'ugly side' of violence?

I don't know; I must be fearless. Well it seems... You know, for me the first fact of human existence is the human body. You know, I'm not, you know – I'm – I'm an atheist. I -- for me to turn away from any aspect of the human body is a philosophical betrayal. And there's a lot of art and a lot of religion whose whole purpose seems to be to turn away from the human body. And I feel in my art that my mandate is to not do that. So whether it's beautiful things, the sexuality part, or the violent part, or the gooey part, just body fluids you know. It's when Elliott in Dead Ringers (1988) says, “Why are there no beauty contests for the insides of bodies?” You know, it's a thought that disturbs me. How can we be disgusted by our own bodies? That doesn't, it really doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any human sense. It makes some animal sense but it doesn't make human sense anymore so I'm always discussing that in my movies. And in this movie in particular.On the other hand, I don't really ever feel that I've been exploitive in a crude, vulgar way. You know, of just doing it to do it and get attention. It's always got a purpose, which I can be very articulate about. In this movie in particular we've got an audience that's definitely going to applaud these acts of violence and they do because its set up that these acts are justifiable and they're almost even heroic at times. But I'm saying, ok so if you can applaud that, can you applaud this? Because this is the result of that gunshot in the head. It's not nice. And even if the violence is justifiable, the consequences of the violence are exactly the same. I mean the body does not know what the morality of that act was. And so, I'm asking the audience to see if they can contain the whole experience of this violent act instead of just the sort of heroic/dramatic one. I'm saying here's the really nasty affects on these nasty guys but still, the affects are very nasty. And that's the paradox and the conundrum.

existenz (1999) was adapted to graphic novel. I know that you didn't base History of Violence on the graphic novel, but you did eventually read it.

Yes.

With more filmmakers such as Darren Aronofsky, Joss Whedon, Bryan Singer and many more screenwriters doing Graphic Novels, are you interested at all in trying a graphic novel?

Um, I'm not particularly interested, but on the other hand I wouldn't turn away from it. I mean it really depends on the quality of the work. And I know that it's an art form that has gone up and down in terms of it's...

I mean for you to create a graphic novel.

Oh, for me to create a graphic novel. Oh, no, I've never yet had the... Well, I was interested in being involved in the graphic novel that was made Out of Existence (22:25), and I thought the guy did a beautiful job and it was in collaboration with me. But it's not my art form.

David Cronenberg is an award-winning filmmaker. A History of Violence, which was the toast of the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, is released in Manhattan and Los Angeles on September 23, and nationwide September 30.

· History of Violence GN review
· History of Violence movie review