In 2012, filmmaker David Cronenberg criticized superhero movies and the notion of Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” films being “supreme cinema art.” He argued that the superhero origins of Batman precluded it from being great art. “A superhero movie, by definition, you know, it’s [a] comic book. It’s for kids. It’s adolescent in its core. That has always been its appeal,” he explained.
Cronenberg’s comments underline the unfortunate trend of how people in the U.S. (and, evidently, Canada) conflate the superhero genre with the comic book medium. Comics can tell any kind of story, no capes needed, and I would’ve expected better from Cronenberg than to use “comic book” as a demeaning shorthand. Why? Because he directed a movie based on one! Yes, Cronenberg’s 2005 crime thriller “A History of Violence” is based on a 1997 black-and-white comic that was written by John Wagner, drawn by Vince Locke, and published by DC Comics imprints Paradox Press and Vertigo.
In a twisted way, one could even view “A History of Violence” (which is currently sitting in a deserved spot among HBO Max’s top movies, per FlixPatrol) as a superhero movie. Indiana diner owner and family man Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) foils a robbery, showing off unexpected lethal precision with a gun. The story becomes a national hit, and that’s when some Philadelphia gangsters come to town. Tom is not who his family thought he was, and the violence of his past starts to infect them like a disease.
More recently, Cronenberg weighed in on “The Batman,” which he watched only because it starred Robert Pattinson (who appeared in his films “Cosmopolis” and “Maps to the Stars”). Cronenberg reiterated that superheroes are essentially “an adolescent power fantasy.” “A History of Violence” tears apart such fantasies with disturbing violence, ruinous consequences, and master filmmaking.
When Viggo Mortensen starred in “A History of Violence,” he was coming off of his breakout role in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy as the saga’s most honorable hero, Aragorn. “A History of Violence” was a big shift from that, but Mortensen starring in it opened the next chapter of his career, working alongside David Cronenberg.
After “A History of Violence,” Mortensen and Cronenberg teamed up again almost instantly for another crime thriller: the London-set “Eastern Promises.” Mortensen starred as Russian gangster-with-a-heart Nikolai Luzhin. More so, Mortensen has said he sees his roles in “A History of Violence” and “Eastern Promises” as mirrors, since both Tom and Nikolai are hiding who they really are.
Since “Eastern Promises,” Mortensen and Cronenberg have made two more movies together. In the latter’s 2011 film “A Dangerous Method,” a historical drama about the early years of modern psychiatry, Mortensen starred as the legendary Sigmund Freud. Then, after a decade-long hiatus, Cronenberg and Mortensen teamed up once more in 2022 for “Crimes of the Future,” which also brought the former back to his body horror roots.
Audiences, though, will have to forever mourn that Cronenberg and Mortensen never made a proposed “Eastern Promises” sequel together. Watching them make movie magic together in “A History of Violence” on HBO Max (or anywhere else for that matter) may either sooth that hurt or only deepen the wound.
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