underfire35

There are very few filmmakers that I trust. I count David Cronenberg amongst them, which is good because in his latest film, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, it is required. On the surface the film seems to be fairly ordinary. The storyline is pretty much by the numbers, there are no great twists or revelations. To many, it may be an easy film to dismiss as just another violent action film. I suppose it helps to have a knowledge of Cronenberg's past films: SCANNERS, THE FLY, DEAD RINGERS, CRASH (not the recent Oscar winner), NAKED LUNCH, SPIDER. All these previous projects act as a kind of mission statement and give some insight to what Cronenberg is attempting to say with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. In this one film, he brings into play many of his past themes: violence, sex, death, identity, hidden lives, troubled interpersonal relationships, the decay of morality, the attempt to retain morality even after it has proved to be a chimera.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is a peaceful family man. He owns a small diner in a small town in Indiana. One day two men enter the diner intent on robbing Tom, when the smoke clears, nothing will be the same for him or his family again. Not soon after a slick mobster with one dead eye walks into the same diner claiming to know Tom, to have a dark connection to him. Stall's wife Edie (Maria Bello) believes that the strange man is mistaken, that there is no possible way that Tom could have ever known this person. She supports him fully, but even she falters in her own mind. Tom's son, Jack (Ashton Holmes), is in many ways effected by the events. A cycle has started; at one point, after a showdown with the mobsters, Tom looks at his son and it seems clear that it was only a matter of time before Jack would be born into violence. The events that follow shed light on the mystery and so I will stop here. The plot outline is deliberately brief; to give too much information away would be to undercut the effect of the film. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is Cronenberg's critique on the specifically American love of violence and death. Being a Canadian, he can view it with a certain closeness, but still be able to stand back and look at the whole picture. I think his observations are spot on.

The focus, as the title suggests, is violence and in the film it is always sudden. It almost always is though. Whether unexpected like the Kennedy assassination or as inevitable as a beach front landing during WWII, there is always that one moment when force is applied to the human body resulting in injury or death. Once that happens, everything has changed. Like blood sprayed across one of Edward Hopper's more idyllic paintings, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE both engages the audience in the gruesome acts, then repels them. In one scene where a character is shot in the top of the head, everything leading up to that point is choreographed in an "action movie" style. Where Cronenberg differs from many directors is that following the initial moment, there is a scene of the same man struggling to suck air through a mouth and jaw ruined by the exit wound. We, as the audience, have watched the thrill of the violence, but Cronenberg also makes us view the very real aftermath, he forces us to watch that character die.

The performances are another thing that brings a certain edge to the story. Viggo Mortensen brings with him the heroic stature of the LORD OF THE RINGS films, something that Cronenberg then toys with. Maria Bello brings strength to Edie, but also vulnerability as she faces a situation, and inward desires, that she cannot understand. Bello is fastly becoming one of my favorite actresses, between this film, AUTO FOCUS, and Permanent MIDNIGHT she has become one of the more underrated female leads working today. Ed Harris is always great and here is no exception. He does quite a lot with the small part of the mobster in creating menace and backstory. The standout, however, would have to be William Hurt, who shows up in the third act and simply dominates the story. Again, with brief screen time, Hurt creates a wonderfully oily, posturing, and completely incompetent villain. It is one of the most organically strange characters in recent memory. It could be stated that both Harris and Hurt are over the top, becoming almost caricatures, but I believe that was the intent of Cronenberg. The contrast between Tom Stall and these looming figures is pointed. Much like the setting of peaceful rural Indiana serves well as a backdrop for moments of shocking brutality. The juxtaposition of the two extremes is what Cronenberg wants to emphasize.

There is much first rate work behind the camera as well. The cinematography by Peter Suschitzky is understated though sharp, capturing all the nuances of Cronenberg's vision. Composer Howard Shore's music plays on the Americana of the setting, but slowly introduces darker undercurrents suggesting that all is not what it seems. The screenplay, adapted By Josh Olson from a graphic novel, while fairly mainstream in its construction, offers the perfect framework for Cronenberg's dark sensibilities. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE seems to be a film that people with either "get" or dismiss. It is lumped together under the "action/thriller" category, but remains neither. It is instead a study of the elements that make up such a genre. Very rarely do action films deal with the consequences of violence, how it effects those whose lives that it touches. David Cronenberg has always been a challenging presence in film and A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE is no exception. His message is more subtle this time around, but that in no way lessens its impact. 10/10

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is notorious in the "biz" for being shot in two days. This may be apocryphal, although I don't know because I wasn't there. The fact that it's a Roger Corman "quickie" that is actually good makes it all the more legendary. Corman is renown for making fast cheap exploitation pictures, but in recent years he has become a veritable icon in the world of independent film. He made movies his way, outside of the constraints the Hollywood system (although he would often copy successful formulas from industry projects). He has also launched the careers of countless well known actors and directors (Joe Dante, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme and Francis Ford Coppola have all given him small parts in their films). If you average it out Corman has been involved, in some capacity, with about seven film projects per year, for the last fifty-one years. Being prolific does not necessarily equal greatness however and very few of his films have gained critical or financial success. In his respective field he moves what is known as quantity, but every once in a while things come together and something great emerges. This is the case with 1960's THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.

The story opens on a "skid row" flower shop that is barely making the rent. The store is run by Gravis Mushnik (Mel Welles) who is at wit's end with his incompetent employee, Seymour Krelboyne (Jonathan Haze), who can't seem to even cut flowers right. Audrey (Jackie Joseph) is the only other person who works at the shop and Seymour spends most of his time silently pining for her. One day Burson Fouch (Dick Miller) walks in, orders flowers, and begins to eat them in the middle of the store (he adds salt, of course). Now this is a guy who has probably been tossed out of every other flower shop for thirty miles around, but Mushnik tolerates him (mainly because he's buying) and it is Fouch that offers up some sage advice. What they need is a gimmick, something to draw in the high-paying customers. Seymour sheepishly states that he has been growing an exotic plant at home. Mushnik demands a success or Seymour will lose his job. The plant, which he names Audrey Jr., becomes the talk of the town and the cash comes rolling in. There's only one problem: the botanical beast must be fed human blood in order to survive......

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS was meant to be a pseudo-sequel to the Roger Corman picture A BUCKET OF BLOOD (which also starred Dick Miller), but that idea was abandoned (or I fail to see the connection). What Corman, along with his screenwriter Charles B. Griffith, has created, is a strange and fast paced black comedy. They get a lot of help from the actors who have great comedic timing, especially during scenes in the flower shop where everyone is talking over the other person. The writing for these scenes is sharp, but the cast really pulls it off (considering that most of the sequences were done in one take). The characters are another asset: there is the flower eater, a perpetually grief stricken old woman, and two coppers who exchange tragic dialogue in "Dragnet"-esque monotone (Cop#1: "My son just died."/Cop#2: "Those are the breaks. Let's role."/Cop#1: "Ok."). There is also Seymour's factitious disordered mother (played by Myrtle Vail) whose eyes light up when her son brings her a nerve tonic that is "ninety-eight percent alcohol." When Seymour brings Audrey over to the house, his mother prepares not "health food" but food prepared with health care products (epsom salts, caster oil, etc.). There is also Dr. Farb (John Shaner), a dentist who "extracts" revenge on deadbeat customers. And, of course, Jack Nicholson in an early (and oft mentioned) role as a masochistic dental patient. The fact that Corman and Griffith throw just about everything into the mix (the plant having hypnotic powers for example), and that they still manage to pull the whole thing off walks a thin line between skill and luck.

Although the fact that there was a Broadway musical based on Corman's project is well known, I'll quickly retread it here. When the stage production became a hit, the story was recreated for the screen by Frank Oz in 1986. These large scale productions lose some of the oddball humor of the original though, and some of the best things are missing (the mother, the cops, the cheesy production values). The reinterpretations do fail to fully capture the manic seat-of-your-pants energy of Corman's film, but they are fun in they're own right. THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS is a film about a talking plant who eats people, but somehow the cast and crew elevate the material above camp, above cult, above inspired, to masterpiece....Alright, maybe not that far but it's still pretty good. 8/10