During the honoring of the Canadian director, David Cronenberg, at the Venice Film Festival, where he received the Golden Lion for his lifetime achievements, the award presenter was the Mexican Oscar-winning director, Guillermo del Toro, director of the film 'The Shape of Water.' Upon presenting the award, Guillermo del Toro said:

David Cronenberg's films do not belong to a specific genre, but they are a genre in and of themselves.

The truth is that there is a widely circulated saying:

Without Cronenberg's monsters, we wouldn't have gotten del Toro's monsters.

The Canadian director is renowned for films that are mistakenly classified as visceral horror, such as "The Fly" and "Videodrome." These films possess strength in their ability to be interpreted against the backdrop of human evolution. They suggest that human development leaves behind a primitive, animalistic part within, which civilization tries to suppress in a sick and criminal manner. The director then transitions between various stages, which can be classified according to their impact. Films like "Naked Lunch," "Cosmopolis," and "Existenz" demonstrate a clear Kafkaesque or sensual and Freudian influence. Movies like "Spider" and "Crash" also contain strong Freudian and sensual elements.

However, the most popular and successful phase for the director was his involvement with gangster films, a genre that seemed odd for him. On one hand, he immersed himself in a genre that had been thoroughly consumed, and on the other hand, why, at this point in his career, did he want to address a larger audience?

The answer was: How can you tell a simple, clear story that is layered and can be interpreted in multiple ways?

This phase included "Eastern Promises" and "A History of Violence," with the latter being the focus of our discussion today.

The Beginning

When the scenario was initially presented to the actor (Viggo Mortensen), he rejected it, seeing it as a typical story. The first version of the scenario was about Italian gangs, which he found to be too cliché for his taste. However, he became very interested when (David Cronenberg) agreed to take on the scenario with complete freedom to work outside the studio. Little did he know that the scenario was originally based on a comic, and Cronenberg dealt only with the material he had. The first change was switching the Italian gangs to Irish ones, which he thought was suitable for the chosen protagonists. The second modification was deciding to shoot the entire film in Canada. Surprisingly, he had never filmed any movie in America except for "Maps to the Stars," a film that was almost shot in an unauthorized way to criticize Hollywood mechanisms themselves. As for the third modification, it will be mentioned elsewhere.

Title: Post-Anti-Climax Era

The film follows the character of Tom Stall, a married man in his forties with a teenage son and a daughter. He owns and manages a restaurant, while his wife is a lawyer. Their life is peaceful, with no major problems, just the usual challenges, like their son facing the struggles of asserting himself in school, which at that age becomes a battleground for hormonal expression. Tom is against this kind of behavior, knowing its consequences. Besides this, life is calm, except for the nightmares that haunt him at night, nightmares of a violent, bloody, and barbaric life.

One day, his restaurant is attacked by roaming gangsters, seeking only to rob him. Tom defends himself and kills them, but he does it skillfully and brutally. The American media celebrates this event, publishing his picture all over the outlets. However, his celebration is short-lived as he finds himself once again trapped by Irish gangsters from Philadelphia, claiming he is someone named Joey Cusack, a violent gangster they have personal revenge against. What follows is similar to what happened in the restaurant. Tom defends himself, killing them, but this time, his son participates in the killing. All of this happens in front of his wife, who realizes at this moment that she has lived her entire life with a person she didn't know, and, more importantly, a ruthless and bloody killer.

After this, Tom-Joey is forced to take a journey into the past to meet his brother, who used to work for him, to put an end to everything. It is a legendary nighttime journey to a creepy mansion hidden in the jungle, where his brother resides.

As we can see, the film is set in a post-fulfillment, post-retirement time, much like the theme of "Carlito's Way" by Brian De Palma. The hero had his adventures and killed his enemies, and now he just wants to live as an ordinary person, with a loving wife and a warm family.

The third intervention in the screenplay by Cronenberg was to add two sex scenes between the protagonist and his wife, one before she knows his true identity and another after. His perspective was about how the body expresses knowledge, how it physically conveys something emotional. Unfortunately, the second scene was misunderstood by many and considered a rape, which is not true. The second scene involved a violent exchange between the two, and to understand this scene, we must understand violence when it turns into language, like phrases exchanged between them. This scene also had an erotic aspect beyond the apparent one. During sex between partners, they sometimes resort to imaginary acts and role-playing that don't represent them to increase excitement. The truth is that the source of this act is savage and beastly because during it, one partner betrays the other without actually betraying them. When we go back to the first scene between them, where the wife was dressed as a showgirl, we can understand the second scene as a form of role-playing as well. Now, she is engaging with a bloody killer to the extreme. It's extremely thrilling, but she knows it's only suitable for a good lay, impossible to be a life partner.

The Violence (Taboo)

During the violent scenes in the film, Cronenberg insisted on portraying them in a visceral manner. Violence occurs as an explosive outburst, a moment when nerves snap, and individuals do things they never imagined they would. Violence here is depicted through a Freudian lens. In Freud's work on "Totem and Taboo," he discusses how a tribe punishes a murderer by excluding rather than killing them. The offender is isolated in a specific area, and nobody is allowed to approach that space. Here, violence is dealt with as a contagious disease. The killer is not to be touched, nor any of his belongings or anything associated with him.

In René Girard's interpretation of this act in his book "Violence and the Sacred," he mentions that the society must do this because the person is seen as against the social norms. Adopting the profession of a killer is akin to adopting one of the skills of the gods. To reconcile with such an entity, the society must reduce it to a mere inhuman being so that it can continue to exist. Therefore, when committing ritualistic violence in these societies, like offering sacrifices or killing enemies, this act is performed in a celebratory manner, as if the responsibility for the killing is shared collectively by the community rather than attributed to a specific individual. It is considered an act commanded by the divine and not a personal whim. When playing the role of Cain, the god is taking on the role of preserving the social order. This is why it can engage in activities that would otherwise be considered illegal or immoral by the society, as part of an agreement between them.

When Tom is excluded from his family in the film, he finds himself in a dilemma and confusion, with no option but to return to the old world, a dark, primitive, and brutal world. He must decide whether to eliminate this world or be eliminated by it. Tom faces an internal struggle between seeking revenge and embracing his calmer and more balanced side, leading him to a decisive confrontation between darkness and light in his personal journey.

History of Violence, or History from Violence?

When Cronenberg spoke to the famous critic Roger Ebert about explaining the film's title, he said:

It has several levels,
The first level: it refers to a person with a violent criminal history.
The second level: it can be read as 'History of Violence,' signifying the history of using violence as a means to resolve conflicts between nations throughout history.
The third level: it alludes to something in Darwin's theory, about how the more adaptable organisms replace the less adaptable ones, as if there is something primal in the world that echoes violence.

Here we can add a fourth level mentioned in the film, spoken by the protagonist's brother when he said: "Did you think you could live the American Dream and forget your violent history?"

Here, we are referring to a nation built on the bodies of the indigenous people (Native Americans); once again, America consumes itself.

When the protagonist returns to his family in the end after killing his brother and everything related to his past, he hopes to be forgiven by his family. His daughter offers him food as a sign of hope and a fresh start.

But the question remains: Can a person live a normal life in this civilization when they are immersed in the swamp of true self-knowledge?

The violent history here is not an individual history but an evolutionary (Darwinian) history, a psychological history (Freudian), and a history of myth with its violent origins (René Girard).

Can a contemporary human, after knowing all this about themselves, live a natural life?