A History of Violence
Short description
A History of Violence centres on Tom Stall, a mild-mannered diner owner in the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, who lives quietly with his wife Edie, a lawyer, and their two children. When two drifters attempt to rob his restaurant and threaten the people inside, Tom kills both of them and is hailed as a local hero. The unwanted media attention unsettles him, and his attempts to return to ordinary life are interrupted by the arrival of Carl Fogarty, a menacing stranger who insists Tom is someone else entirely and that an old score remains unsettled. The film is based on a graphic novel.
David Cronenberg directed, working from a screenplay by Josh Olson. It was his fifteenth film as director in chronological order; Spider preceded it in 2002 and Eastern Promises followed in 2007. Viggo Mortensen plays Tom, with Maria Bello as Edie, Ed Harris as Carl Fogarty and William Hurt as Richie Cusack; Ashton Holmes and Peter MacNeill also appear among a credited cast of thirty-three.
The production, made across Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, cost about 32 million dollars and returned roughly 61 million worldwide. On IMDb the film holds 7.4 from around 272,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.2 from some 3,884 votes. A critics' rating of 8.2 from 222 reviews places professional assessment noticeably above the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on the 1997 graphic novel A History of Violence by John Wagner and Vince Locke.
- William Hurt was on set for only 5 days.
- The episode in which Billy points a gun at a little girl is a quote from Sergio Leone's legendary Western "Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968). The scene copies the famous episode in which Frank points a revolver at the last surviving member of the McBain clan, also a child, only immediately afterward, instead of a train whistle, a piercing scream from the Stollows' daughter is heard.
- In the original screenplay, the gangsters were representatives of Italian-American mafia. However, after Ed Harris and William Hurt were cast as Carl Fogarty and Richie Cusack respectively, David Cronenberg decided to make the gangsters Irish, as he felt that Harris and Hurt would not be able to convincingly play Italians.
- As is often the case, the American version of the film differs from the international version in having less gore – this specifically concerns two shots: when we see the face of the dying thug Carl Fogarty, whose nose Joey smashed; and when Joey breaks the neck of one of Richie Cusack's thugs with his foot.
- Filming of the picture took place in the homeland of director David Cronenberg, in Canada. The town of Millbrook in Ontario province served as the fictional American city of Millbrook, Indiana; scenes of the film taking place in Philadelphia were shot in Toronto.
- In the original screenplay, as in the original comic book, Joey and Richie were just old friends. However, David Cronenberg decided to heighten the dramatic tension and make them brothers.
- Steven McHattie and Greg Bryk, who played the bandits Leland and Billy, being big fans of the Stanislavski system, independently developed backstories for their characters. According to their version, Leland and Billy are, respectively, uncle and nephew. Leland was released from prison about a year and a half ago, went to visit his family, met Billy, and decided he needed to show him the world.
- David Cronenberg decided to cast Viggo Mortensen in the role of Tom/Joey after seeing him as Aragorn in Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and in the supplementary materials to those films. The director was simply amazed by the discrepancy between the actor’s unassuming appearance in real life and the powerful image of a cold-blooded fighter he created on screen.
- The number of people killed in the film is 13.
- Viggo Mortensen himself purchased much of the props for the diner and the Stall family home during his trip to the American Midwest. This helped him to better understand the essence of his character.
- On Billy's t-shirt, we see an advertisement for the pool hall "Night Owl." This is a reference to Curtis Hanson's famous neo-noir crime thriller "L.A. Confidential" (1997), whose plot revolves around murders at the "Night Owl" café.
- To master Joey's Philadelphia accent, Viggo Mortensen spent hours talking with Maria Bello's uncle and brother, residents of Philadelphia.
- One of the most expensive and brutal scenes in the film – Tom Stall’s dream in which he kills Carl Fogarty – was not included in the final cut. The director considered it an inappropriate reference to his previous works. This scene, with commentary from Cronenberg, was included in the DVD release.
- All the scenes in Tom’s diner were filmed on the Toronto Film Studios backlot. Thus, both the diner itself and the street visible through the windows and glass door are sets.
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