Viggo Mortensen is determined to protect wife Maria Bello and their family in David Cronenberg’s A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (David Cronenberg, 2005)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Saturday, January 21, free with museum admission, 5:00
Series runs January 21 – February 12
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
www.historyofviolence.com
Director David Cronenberg just might have made the best film of his career with the brilliant A History of Violence. Set to the marvelously tense music of Howard Shore — which threatens to explode at any moment — the film stars Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, a quiet, calm family man who runs a local diner in a small town in Indiana. Stall reluctantly becomes the town hero (and media darling) after a dangerous, bloody incident in his diner, which leads to the arrival of Carl Fogaty (the excellent Ed Harris), an East Coast mob kingpin who insists that Tom is actually Joey Cusack, a former Mafia goon who is in witness protection. As Fogaty and his men harass Tom and his family (wife Maria Bello and kids Ashton Holmes and Heidi Hayes), Stall desperately fights to protect his simple, happy life. William Hurt excels in a small role near the end of the film. A History of Violence is as suspenseful as they come, a simmering masterpiece that blows up the American dream. The film is loosely based on the graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, but as Cronenberg explained at the 2005 San Diego Comic-Con, he didn’t even know the book existed until the production was well under way, and Josh Olson’s outstanding screenplay ultimately veers far away from its source. Screening on January 21 at 5:00 at the Museum of the Moving Image, A History of Violence kicks off a three-week retrospective of eighteen of Cronenberg’s films, which together form a rather unique view of the world. The films range from Videodrome, Dead Ringers, The Fly, and The Dead Zone to Eastern Promises, eXistenZ, Rabid, and The Brood in addition to such lesser-known fare as Fast Company, They Came from Within, and a double feature of Stereo and Crimes of the Future. Cronenberg will be at the museum on January 21 at 2:00 to talk about his career; while the event is sold out, you can still get a $15 ticket for the live simulcast in the Bartos Screening Room.