By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Daniel Neman loved it: A History of Violence
Daniel Neman of the Richmond Times Dispatch saw a different A History of Violence than some of us did; he’s irritated to the max by the tasty minimalism. Neman reviews Cronenberg’s sleek stunner as “a cheap movie, cheaply filmed and cheaply made. And the editing leaves a lot to be desired, too… David Cronenberg ought to know better, but it is clear that he is working with too little money and too little script. [This] shows up plainest in the horrendous digital video photography, in which everyone is cast in a sickly light and looks nauseous. [Cinematographer Peter Suschitzky shot on film with a lovely, pale palette.] The problem with the story is clear when we consider all the filler used just to stretch the movie to an hour and a half… Cronenberg does not help matters by shooting the film so deadpan, so quietly, that it seems slow and uninteresting. The calm is punctuated by occasional bursts of violence and the disgusting special effects that follow them, but they don’t help… It is obvious where Cronenberg’s interest picks up, though it is only in a few places. A couple of sex scenes are raunchy, and it is unusual to see raunchy sex among married couples in the movies these days… He clearly revels in the scenes of blood and gore, though each one looks rather like the others… What doesn’t interest him or the writer is the ending. The [ending] feels like it was written by a committee that jettisoned logic and character motivation just for the sake of ending. The filmmakers want it to end, so it ends.” [For the record, Cronenberg has told interviewers, including yr. correspondent, that the final scene was one of his key demands to New Line, which readily acceded to his choice.]
