The House Next Door

Thank God! Someone else who can't abide by Cronenberg's glib "genre deconstruction." And, like you, it kills me that Violence gets all this attention/acclaim, while Croney's far superior Spider sits in obscurity. Sigh.

Matt:

You're one of the few critics---other than, perhaps, David Edelstein when he used to write for Slate---who nailed my problem with Cronenberg's A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. I think I give the final scene of the film---which, I guess, is meant to undermine the satisfaction of Tom Stall's dispatching the "villains" and conveniently fixing at least most of his problems---slightly more of a pass than you did in your original review, but I also had trouble taking it seriously, too. Maybe it's supposed to simply be taken as a deconstructive comment on the typical Hollywood thriller. But I mean, didn't Clint Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN try to do this kind of questioning of genre violence, and didn't he do it better? (Well, I think he did anyway.) Even MUNICH had more insightful things to say, I think, about violence and human nature.

I still respect David Cronenberg, though. Having not seen much of his work before seeing A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, I subsequently checked out some of his earlier films on DVD---including VIDEODROME, THE FLY, and DEAD RINGERS---and was dazzled by Cronenberg's distinctive visions about technology, humanity, etc. At his most uncompromising, he absolutely deserves to be taken seriously. Perhaps you'd agree, though, that A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE---notwithstanding those two startling sex scenes, which are arguably the only genuinely memorable great things in the movie---seems a little too compromised to be considered among Cronenberg's finest achievements.

The sex scenes are the movie, they are simply brilliant. The final scene is on par as well, This film is the anti-crash, the messages are subtle and sometimes left up to interpretation and it's amazing.

Kenji: Since you brought up UNFORGIVEN and MUNICH, here's the gist of a back-and-forth that occured in the comments section of a post a couple of weeks back, between myself and Sean Burns of Philadelphia Weekly. It's been edited to remove non-Cronenberg related content (i.e., me going on about my newborn niece, etc.):

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MZS: A dear old buddy of mine, a critic whose opinions and passion I respect, indulged me in a one-hour argument about A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE Wednesday night. It was one of those arguments that reconfirmed the rhythms of our friendship: whenever we get together, we talk about life and bond like brothers, then we argue movies and verbally beat the shit out of each other. At one point, he said that VIOLENCE was an action picture and a thriller with "a frisson of something else."

Personally, I like movies that grasp after greatness but then deliver more than a frisson. I feel like if you're going to give me something else, go ahead and give it to me -- don't fake it and tell me you gave to me.

That's what VIOLENCE did, so convincingly that a lot of normally sharp, skeptical people bought into it. It seemed to me like the sort of film (ultra-bloody, masterfully paced pulp thriller about a reformed assassin dragged back into the life in order to protect his loved ones) that these same critics would likely mock or at least distrust if Cronenberg's name weren't on it, and if it did not mechanically reiterate many of Cronenberg's well-known themes complete with gigantic neon footnotes.

UNFORGIVEN, an equally hardcore movie in a different genre, traffics in some of the same themes and pulls similar tricks, mixing in unexpected emotions, scenes and plot twists to make an old, frankly formulaic story feel new. What elevates it to near greatness isn't the shot of the post-rampage William Munny in the rain, backed by an American flag (too obvious!) but the very final longshot of Munny back at his farm, semi-silhouetted against the sky. As peaceful guitar music plays, a printed legend tells us that Munny moved to San Francisco where he was rumored to have prospered in dry goods. In this one amazing shot, Eastwood (and author David Webb Peoples) get closer to the notion of extreme violence nestling (comfortably!) inside mundane daily life than Cronenberg's film ever dares.

And unlike VIOLENCE, UNFORGIVEN doesn't draw a clear line between the good guys, however lethally skilled (Tom and his son) and the bad guys (who look and act like cartoon demons, and who can therefore be slaughtered with a clear conscience). There is nothing in VIOLENCE that complicates our empathy for the righteous heroes as profoundly as the green-ass kid shooting that unarmed cowpoke while he sits on the crapper, or Morgan Freeman, who reluctantly accompanied the hero mainly out of love and loyalty, getting the sherriff's henchmen in his sights and then being unable to pull the trigger and then being lynched by the sherriff for being associated with Munny, or the images of Munny drinking to numb himself and bring out his old murderous bile, or Munny taunting and then coolly executing the sherriff, who no longer poses a threat to him, then casually killing another incapacitated enemy on the way out.

Munny keeps saying, "I ain't like that no more," but he is. The narrative confirms that the old Munny never truly left, he just got comfortable and settled down and hid inside the "new" supposedly peaceful Munny. The old Munny rises up like a demon periodically, then life returns to something like normalcy. And then the cycle repeats. Bursts of homicidal mayhem followed by utter normalcy; that's Munny's life story. VIOLENCE makes a fairly weak stab in that final scene at suggesting life will never be the same for this family (the Film School fig leaf briefly draping the film's raging two-hour hard-on for cartoon Special Ops violence). But the final image of UNFORGIVEN tells us that for all intents and purpose, it will -- that Munny came out of his violent fog and resumed a normal, peaceful life. That's a much more disturbing and challenging vision of a lethal man's life (and unfortunately more true to human nature) than anything Cronenberg shows us. Pulp stylization or no pulp stylization.

I'm not saying UNFORGIVEN is a perfect film -- it's slow, overlong, and structurally just as predictable as VIOLENCE, and Eastwood's facility with images didn't (and in my view, still doesn't) match his skill at picking interesting material and casting and directing actors to the best performances of their lives. (All things considered, Cronenberg's a deeper, crazier, more rewarding filmmaker.) But I am saying that if you want an alternative to VIOLENCE, one that actually delivers on most of its implied promises, UNFORGIVEN's a good contrast point. (And bear in mind, I think Cronenberg is a genius. I have liked or loved everything he's done up to now, except EXISTENZ, which felt too much like Cronenberg Cliff's Notes. I even loved SPIDER!)

My original NYPress review said VIOLENCE was the sort of film an artist of Cronenberg's stature had to make if he wished to continue making movies. I see nothing in the overwhelming, lock-step, talking-point-driven critical consensus that contradicts that statement. VIOLENCE is the sort of movie that university-bred critics are trained to adore, a disreputable and simplistic film with just enough unstable elements (mainly Maria Bello's rich, earthy, amazingly real character, and her emotionally tangled sex scenes with Mortensen) to convince them that they're seeing something new, or even something fresh. VIOLENCE gives critics permission to like the sort of movie they'd never be caught dead liking if, say, Matt Damon or Steven Seagal or Geena Davis starred in it. Which, point of fact, they did.

Sean Burns quoted me back to myself: "In this one amazing shot, Eastwood (and author David Webb Peoples) get closer to the notion of extreme violence nestling (comfortably!) inside mundane daily life than Cronenberg's film ever dares." Then he wrote:

SB: But Matty - that's exactly what the amazing, movie-shifting final scene does in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. Remember that it is the daughter who pushes the plate towards Tom.

My Dad got all fucked up by Vietnam, and his dad drank his way away from every bad WWII memory.

Bringing everything back to MUNICH (again), Geoffrey Rush's bone-chilling final "No!" is just a pipe-dream.

We all dine with killers, regularly.

That's why, despite the comic-book trappings, and kicky lowbrow flourishes (the kind of bits you usually have a lot less patience for than I do) I feel Cronenberg is onto something right and true in his investigation of how America mythologizes itself.

I replied:

MZS: According to VIOLENCE, America mythologizes itself like this: We pretend we're not killers, but we are.

But here's the rub, Sean: Nowhere in VIOLENCE does Cronenberg suggest that Tom is less than a decent, reformed man, even after he's been pushed, by evil forces, to reconnect with his lethal skills. He's not a William Munny, a bad/good man, the two halves forever tangled up, the bad side mostly submerged but periodically erupting. He's a good man who has to do bad things to protect his family. Period.

I repeat, Tom only kills monsters. Not fat henchman in outhouses, not wounded gunmen who pose no threat. Monsters! With creepy eyes and scars. Orcs in suits.

There are complications, yes, and Tom must face the emotional consequences of having lied to his wife and family, but these aren't rhetorical roadblocks separating Cronenberg from Steven Seagal-ism. They're speed bumps.

Nowhere does Cronenberg suggest that Tom is less than pure, less than reformed. He has lethal skills, and he uses them, but only against evil men. His aim is true. He never kills the wrong person, never kills less than deserving person.

This is not a subversion, a revision or a reconsideration of how America mythologizes itself. It's a vindication. Cronenberg's closeups of torn flesh, his wonderful dark deadpan humor and those great scenes between husband and wife don't counter that vindication, they just spice it up a little.

Since you mentioned American and mythology, let's go ahead and get bluntly political and Village Voicey: What is there in VIOLENCE that contradicts where America is right now, as a collective character? What is there in VIOLENCE that contradicts, or even questions, the cartoon cowboy mentality that has fueled so much of the last few years' worth of military policy? I watch VIOLENCE and think of the president repeatedly assuring people that we're facing an unprecedented threat, and in order to conquer it, we have to quit being pussies, get in there and get dirty, secure in the knowledge that we're decent people and they are monsters, so at the end of the day, we're not compromising anything. That's a lie repeated in action films with Stallone, Schwarzenegger and the rest of the 80s-90s steroid ash-heap. You could show Cronenberg's movie in the White House screening room, secure in the knowledge that everyone there would think it vindicated their point of view. It's a nightclub bouncer with a semiotics diploma.

Cronenberg has made at least five masterpieces, maybe more. This is not one of them.

MZS: Nice try, but you and SB are arguing over the wrong two examples. Offering "Unforgiven" as an alternative to "Violence" won't wash because whatever Eastwood's career revisionist motivations for making "Unforgiven," when he guns everybody down at the end the movie can't help becoming another Eastwood movie and we can't help cheering. It doesn't matter what a monster drunk Munny is, he's still Eastwood. Eastwood might be acting in good faith and maybe its the audience that won't let go of what they know about him. But in the end "Unforgiven" is as problematic as Cronenberg's movie, though with fewer glib allusions and less jerking of the audience's chain. "Munich" is superior to both. A person can be excited and disgusted by Spielberg's movie without having to apologize for feeling either emotion. It's not just about violent acts but how we perceive them based on cultural bias and our willingness to trust our leaders.

Oh goody,

I've been meaning to get back to this one.

I think Matt, that we're coming at the movie from different angles. I think UNFORGIVEN is a masterpiece, but one of a much different sort. (Like most late-period Eastwood, it's about accepting your own damnation.) The massacre at the end of Clint's movie is an annihilation, with Munny basically blowing any chance of redemption to Hell and fading into the landscape like a ghost.

The massacre at the end of HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, on the other hand, is a fuckin' hoot.

Cronenberg front-loads all the ickiness, moral hand-wringing and ominous forboding to the first two-thirds of the movie, and then heads to Philly and kicks out the jams for a (hilarious) orgy of bloodletting that the rest of the movie only made you think you didn't want to see.

No, Tom's not as tormented or complex as William Munny, and I doubt he was ever intended to be. Tom's actually pretty dull - it's Joey that's the movie star. (Upon second viewing it's amazing to see how much more charismatic and dynamic Viggo is in the latter incarnation.)

It's not just "we pretend we all aren't killers, but we are" - but more "we pretend to think violence is wrong but actually we love it. Lots." It's a kick to watch the son take down the school bully, and it sure looks to me like the missus finds Joey a much bigger turn-on than Tom (even if she hates herself for it afterwards.)

A friend of mine called the movie "DOGVILLE for multiplexes," because of the way it whips the audience into a bloodthirsty frenzy cheering on something that they know in their hearts is naughty. (Granted not nearly as naughty as Grace slaughtering children, but alas, not everybody can be as deranged as Lars Von Trier.)

And finally, the daughter pushing the plate, inviting Tom/Joey to dinner is how Cronenberg brings it back home - we all just did the same thing by endorsing his superhuman action-hero antics.

Bad guys have more fun, and better sex in stairwells.

And though it's been years since I've seen SPIDER, I remember it as a terrible disappointment.

As I recall it was incredibly well-made and formally controlled, so much so that it felt airless to me.

A friend of mine calls these kinds of films "Math Problem Movies" - the kind where everything adds up and fits together so neatly and rigorously that once you've spotted and admired the dress pattern, there's no room for any sense of life or discovery in the movie.

(Most recently I've found THE SQUID AND THE WHALE really suffered from this syndrome and plummeted in my esteem upon second viewing.)

Interesting clarification, Sean. It puts you at odds both with the general party line of pro-"Violence' reviews (which hold that it's a critique of violence, and America, and American violence, etc.) and with Cronenberg himself (who has been telling his American interviewers that yes, they're absolutely right, it's all of the things listed above, and he intended it as an allegory or critique of various things).

Seems like you're suggesting that my most cynical suspicions about this movie might be correct. Namely, Cronenberg loves violence, he detests the sort of movie "Violence" has been positioned as exemplifying; Cronenberg never intended the movie to be a critique of anything, but rather a big, bloody genre picture that seems to critique violence and violent impulses while giving the audience the catharsis they crave. Sort of like "Taxi Driver" but without any pretense of horror.

So according to this reading, the violence in "Violence" is not supposed to be ugly or complicated, but straight-up badass, like the violence in a comic book or a 90s Schwarzenegger/Stallone film, and rather than being a critique of anything, it's a pretend critique. You seem to be suggesting that Cronenberg sees through the hypocritical posturing of arthouse-minded, alt weekly film critics who secretly get off on dumbass Hollywood revenge pictures and love "Violence" because it gives them what they really want, gory cartoon catharsis, while pretending it's giving them something more refined and "complex."

Do I grok you here, or am I misreading? Could you actually be that cynical about the American film crit establishment's ability to be manupulated by a smart director? Could you actually be suggesting that Cronenberg played critics like a ukelele, and made a gussied up exploitation picture that was just smart enough to be mistaken for deep?

If this is, in fact, what Cronenberg was secretly intended, then the joke is on all those critics who made an arthouse smash/conversation piece of the movie without realizing that Cronenberg was using them to get onto the A list and to reach an audience he could never reach through a film like "Spider" or "Crash."

I seem to recall that Edward Copeland advanced a vaguely similar theory about Scorsese's 1991 remake of "Cape Fear," which inspired similar conversations about whether the violence was truly complex and disturbing or merely brutal and exploitive. Copeland argued that it was the second, and that, in fact, Scorsese "Cape Fear" is not a revision or reinterpretation of anything, or even a Hollywood art flick, but rather an example of a filmmaker using his mastery of the medium as a bludgeoning device. "Cape Fear," he suggested, was Scorsese's furious creative revenge against the audience for requiring him to make such a film in order to sustain his career. That movie could have more honestly been titled, "Fuck You, Audience, For Secretly Craving This Movie."

I can see how SPIDER fits into this subgenre you speak of (most M. Night movies and a lot of post-USUAL SUSPECTS thrillers are the same) but I don't see how THE SQUID AND THE WHALE falls into this category...it doesn't really have any movie-shattering twists that I can recall.

Back to HISTORY...well, it's nice to know that everybody has a well-received film that drives them up the wall. For me it's THE CONSTANT GARDENER, which I thought was massively overrated (as was CITY OF GOD).

My first paragraph was intended as a direct response to the 'math problem movie' post.

PS: Sean, I second Jeff's request. How is THE SQUID AND THE WHALE a math problem movie? I personally found it very tightly written but very loosely, at times too loosely. directed. (Except for the music montages, which seemed very planned out.)

MZS: the violence in "Violence" is not supposed to be ugly or complicated, but straight-up badass

I don't see why these two things necessarily need to be mutually exclusive.

Can't really elaborate now, as I just got back from THREE BURIALS and I'm on a tight deadline. (I'm fighting the temptation to re-read your review before I write my own, Matt... but boy, I'm smitten with this one.)

But as for SQUID being a Math Problem Movie - seeing it over again (granted, the repeat was in bits and chunks from the projection booth) it just began clanging with me how much every damn line or motif always wrapped right back to something else.

One son parrots his father's pomposity verbatim, while the other echos his mother's promiscuity by spilling his seed all over the place. Then every prop-book or movie poster was some sort of cute comment on the scene...

Finally when Anna Paquin moved in because "she didn't want to blow her landlord" and then later it zinged back when Daniels yelped: "Put me in your mouth!" (He's her new landlord... get it?) the whole thing just started to feel so hermetic and tidy I just wanted someone to open a fucking window already.

Probably just a matter of personal preference, I just don't like it when things scripts are that neat and clean. (He says... as he sits down to gush about the rambling Western full of weird scenes that don't really go anywhere but cast a funky spell...)

I get it, I was misinterpreting 'math problem movie' to mean the kind of movie where, when you get one single crucial piece of information, all of the movie's mysteries fall into place. I don't think THE SQUID AND THE WHALE is as airless as you, though, in large part because of the looseness that MZS mentioned and because of the strong performances. SPIDER is kind of similar to me; when I watch it I'm a lot more interested in Ralph Fiennes' performance than I am in whatever pretexts Cronenberg uses to get him into the film's various scenes and situations.

That is pretty much what I said about Cape Fear. I think my exact quote was something to the effect that Scorsese wasn't playing the audience like a piano, he was treating them the way Pete Townshend used to treat his guitars.

As for A History of Violence, I liked it a lot. I've always been mixed on Cronenberg, especially of late. I couldn't get through Spider and his Crash was laughably awful to me, but I really liked his earlier works like Dead Ringers and The Fly.

In a way, A History of Violence reminded me of Match Point in a way -- Match Point didn't seem like a Woody Allen film and Violence doesn't seem like Cronenberg. I pretty much knew where the entire film was headed, but it really grabbed a hold of me, I think because it's so concise. There really is not an inch of fat on A History of Violence. I think there are some deeper aspects to it, but I almost think they are beside the point. You could ponder its nature vs. nurture aspect or how it's impossible for one to truly escape one's past but in the end, it's just a solid suspense story disguised as a slice-of-life.

Well, there seems to be general agreement here that "Violence" is a technically brilliant and feroriciously confident movie, an example of commercial narrative filmmaking at an extremely rarified level, but at the same time, a movie whose subversive or ironic elements are present in trace amounts, if that. In other words, Steven Seagal in a cartoon Frenchman's beret.

So from whence comes all the talk of its profoundity and relevance and searing truth-telling power?

Personally, I'd put the movie in the same weight class as AMERICAN BEAUTY or LA CONFIDENTIAL (i.e., functional, with hints of artistry) than stand it alongside the best of Kubrick, David Lynch, Takashi Miike or Cronenberg. What drives me to the edge is the thought that large numbers of very smart people have assigned the movie to the second class rather than the first.

But it's fun to argue about, and that's something.

Maybe not Seagal. Harrison Ford?

Funny you mention Ford, Matt - as I've recently read (on AICN, so it probably isn't true) that Harrison was attached to the project at one early, pre-Cronenberg point.

MZS: Well, there seems to be general agreement here that "Violence" is a technically brilliant and feroriciously confident movie, an example of commercial narrative filmmaking at an extremely rarified level

So to come at it from still another angle (as I just can't seem to stick to one these days): isn't that pretty much all that really matters at the end of the day?

We can pick belly-button lint for hours trying (as Sam Adams recently, perfectly described it "to justify our reactions"), but when all is said and done... if the motherfucker plays, then the motherfucker plays.

And speaking as a massive Who fan, I don't particularly mind getting treated like one of Townsend's guitars every once in awhile.

uncleej: Well, I don't know what theater you saw Unforgiven in but I have a distinct memory of my experience and I can guarantee you no one reacted with vocal satisfaction at the end. In fact, it was one of the most morose audiences I've ever filed out with. I consider Unforgiven to be a masterpiece (though Munich probably is even better) but having said that there's no reason another approach can't work. There's something to be said for a subtle angle (of course, that begs the question of what is subtle and what is too subtle--I point to Danny Boyle's The Beach and Ridley Scott's Hannibal as two examples of works deeply critical of what they seemed to be superficially embracing; however, if almost no one gets it and the intentions need to be explained on a DVD commentary track I'm not sure how effective those critiques ultimately are. Then there are people like Zalman King who probably does not mean his work to be a critique of any kind and yet I have seen no better or more thorough reflections of "postmodern" romantic sensibilities than his films. And Chromiumblue.com deconstructed the whole postmodern project while celebrating its excesses; in time it will be vindicated and revered.).

jeff: Don't worry. You're not completely alone. I thought Constant Gardener was garbage and City of God hollow and bloated.

As to Squid and the Whale--well, I have yet to see it but Baumbach's track record is spotty. Everything else is pretty bad, actually. Except, of course, for Kicking and Screaming, which was truly great; poignant, hilarious and emotionally astute it managed to be the Big Chill movie for me and my closest friends.

Re: KICKING AND SCREAMING.

Max: I'm too nostalgic. I'll admit it.

Skippy: We graduated four months ago. What can you possibly be nostalgic for?

Max: I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I've begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I'm reminiscing this right now. I can't go to the bar because I've already looked back on it in my memory, and I didn't have a good time.

Yeah I love Kicking and Screaming too. Maybe they'll actually release it on DVD when I get out of college in about a year--I'll be 27.

That is pretty much what I said about Cape Fear. I think my exact quote was something to the effect that Scorsese wasn't playing the audience like a piano, he was treating them the way Pete Townshend used to treat his guitars.

Great line, Copeland.

I think you have a point about HoV---and I loved your appreciation of The Fly, which I think was spot on re: our complex reaction to the ending. But to my mind, HoV was an interesting demonstration of filmmaking, and how directing really isn't just shooting the script. You're quite right that in the script, there's little to "subvert" anything. And yet, somehow, the tone comes across as highly critical and subversive---the stunned expression on the son's face when he shoots Ed Harris, the total absence of heroic music cues for violent scenes, the gods'-eye-view camera and general Cronenbergian coldness---it's actually a fascinating study in how a director can communicate through tone, and how that tone can create subversive levels in a script that seems to lack them.

DKNY: Now we're getting somewhere. Your comments suggest that the anti- and pro-VIOLENCE people are describing the same movie, but coming at it from different directions. You seem to be appreciating it on a pure semiotics level, as an example of how a director can undercut his material simply through choice of shots, cuts, music, lighting, etc. I.e., as an object lesson in the power of directorial voice.

Whether that voice actually REVEALS anything worth talking about is a different matter, though. I totally dig what you're appreciating -- I agree that Cronenberg's cold and sometimes mocking tone is at odds with some pretty simplistic, even safe subject matter (as I keep saying, it's an early 90s Steven Seagal movie for semiotics buffs), and that's interesting on a purely technical level. But for me it didn't go beyond that, didn't connect with life or art on any meaningful level, as did THE FLY, DEAD RINGERS, SCANNERS, or pretty much anything else DC has directed. In the end, is Cronenberg's achievement not a technically brilliant and sometimes lovely movie version of a guy fixing his face into an impassive mask, making his eyes go dead and fuzzy, and mumbling, "I am very happy. I am very very happy. I could hug the whole world"?

"Nowhere does Cronenberg suggest that Tom is less than pure, less than reformed."

right. that's what makes it so unsettling. when stall shockingly utters "i should've killed you back in philly," you get the sense that he's an emotional amnesiac incapable of really coming to terms with his past. he's almost literally a different person. kinda like: i'm not the state, but the state acts in my name and maybe things are being done that i may or may not be ready to deal with the consequences of because i wasn't (directly) involved.. etc.

"What is there in VIOLENCE that contradicts, or even questions, the cartoon cowboy mentality that has fueled so much of the last few years' worth of military policy?"

how about that we are implicated in the cycle of violence. and it's not likely to end (a point that the shallow munich beats us over the head with), BUT that doesn't imply mistake. ed harris (bin laden) is actually a really bad dude who needs to get it (before he gives it again).

Vince and DKNY: Damn you both. When I get a couple of hours free next week, I'll watch the movie yet again and try to consider it from the angles you suggested. Perhaps one more post might be in order.

Cronenberg has been a hero of mine for as long as I've been a sentient moviegoer, so I figure I owe him the courtesy of one more viewing. Then either close the book on VIOLENCE for now, or reopen the fucker.

Shoot---I actually convince you to rewatch HoV, and then forget to check the comments thread to see if there's a response... Now if only my efforts to get Ed Gonzalez to give Full Frontal another chance (over at Cinemarati) were as successful...

I think you're right, there's definitely a semiotics vs script divide at work in responses to HoV (though the different responses to things like the staircase sex scene suggest part of it is pure love it or hate it). And you're also right that a purely semiotic deconstruction is ultimately less satisfying than a head-on collision with theme, the way we get in The Fly.

But I did find the movie ultimately compelling. The disjunct between the story and the tone was truly interesting to me, and maybe suggested a kind of interaction with myth that we don't often get in more openly subversive films---it's almost as though the story were being told by the son, who's more traumatized than he knows even as he lionizes his violent father (your image of the impassive mask is actually pretty excellent---HoV as the last minute of Haynes' Safe). And I don't think that's a purely technical achievement. To go back to semiotics talk---or at least grad-seminar babble---in HoV, it's as though the patriarch's myth has erased the possibility of telling other stories, or that the threat of violence has made other stories marginal (not unlike how the terrible violence of---oh hell, I'll just say it---9-11 suddenly made more nuanced takes on foreign policy seem naive). So the artist can no longer tell another story---all he can do is watch as the inevitable consequences of vengence take their soul-melting effect. It may be as defeatist a film as Sayles' Silver City (which one reviewer called "exhibit A in the left's loss of confidence"), but... well, it's also painfully accurate.

On another note, here's another thing no one seems to mention about HoV---I like how much of the violence is specifically against faces. Not a huge subversive point, but for a movie that's all about how violence deforms identity, it's a nice touch.

I do agree wsith ben at the top, though---Spider is a better movie, and it's a shame to see it forgotten.