2005-09-10 | 2005년 토론토 영화제: [A History of Violence] 기자 회견
Posted 2005. 9. 12. 19:24+ http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Film_Festivals/Toronto/2005/2005/09/10/1211342.html
Cronenberg sounds off about 'Violence'
By MARK DANIELL -- For JAM! Movies
Probably one of the more controversial films to play at this year's festival, David Cronenberg and the cast of his much talked about "A History of Violence" sounded off with the press this afternoon.
And anyone hoping to illicit a juicy quote from the director, or any of the actors, criticizing pervasive violence in America and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was left stymied.
"I don't make a movie as a statement," the 62-year-old director said. "At Cannes, I think people were hoping it would be a critique, but violence is bigger than one country. There isn't a country on this planet that wasn't founded on violence."
"The film is more of a discussion and meditation on violence," he added.
The film, which is an adaptation of John Wagner and Vince Locke's graphic novel, features "Lord of the Rings" star Viggo Mortensen as Tom Stall, an Indiana man whose ordinary life with his wife Edie (played by Maria Bello) and teenaged son (played by newcomer Ashton Holmes), is forever changed when he acts against two men who attempt to rob his diner.
The complexities that arise in Tom and Edie's relationship after the attack, and the appearance of the sinister Carl Forgarty (Ed Harris) as someone from Tom's past, is what made the project so intriguing to the actors.
"The way we present ourselves is a veneer, and beneath that, there are a lot more unpleasant things," Mortensen said. "Other directors might have missed a lot of the subtleties of this story and made a meal out of the violence."
Not wanting to pin down the causes of violence, preferring to talk about it using words like "inevitable" and "innate," Cronenberg picked up on Mortensen's comment.
"The film is about how someone reacts and the subtle things with human behaviour that makes things uncomfortable," he said. The celluloid result ends up producing scenes Cronenberg said are "very quick and brutal."
The film has three violent episodes, each ending quickly, but raising questions about violence in society.
"National and international history, the human condition, are all addressed," he said. "I'm exploring American mythology (referring to the film's Western-type story), more than making a statement."
Clearly believing the topic had been warmed over Ed Harris banged his fist on a table and threw his glass behind him in an actorly display designed to show, in part, how a random act of aggression can mean everything and nothing at the same time.
"What is that?" he said slamming his fist down. "What is it? What is violence? What is it? You know, that's what the movie is about!"
Moments later it was all smiles and a virtual love-fest for the director, as Mortensen lauded his "take on humans," while Ashton Holmes quipped how it was good "to be the new kid on the block."
Harris, showing his little outburst was all in good fun, added to the accolades saying that it was "a pleasure to work someone who has his own vision about things."
"He allows his actors freedom to explore," Bello piled on.
But anyone thinking this adaptation is going to treat audiences to "Sin City"-style rendition should guess again. Cronenberg, who didn't know Josh Olsen's screenplay was based on a graphic novel, said he found the source material "too violent."
"It's very different from 'Sin City,' he said. "Visually, it's different. I'm not saying, 'I need to put my stamp on this,' but I tried to give the movie what it wants."
"A History of Violence" has its world premiere at Roy Thomson Hall tonight before opening in limited release September 30.
'Violence,' 'Brokeback' bow at Toronto festival
Sat Sep 10, 2005 11:37 PM BST
By Jeffrey Hodgson
TORONTO (Reuters) - After impressing juries in Cannes and Venice, "A History of Violence" and "Brokeback Mountain" brought their revisionist tales of love and hate to the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday.
"Brokeback Mountain," a tale of a taboo love affair between two cowboys, debuted on the day it won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival, sending its director Ang Lee to Europe to collect that award.
Stars from both films hit the festival talk circuit to sing the praises of directors David Cronenberg and Lee, with actor Ed Harris literally pounding a table and breaking a glass to draw attention to "Violence."
Harris, one of the film's stars, was asked by a moderator to comment about one of the film's themes -- that violence lies close to the surface of everyday life.
Without speaking, he pounded the table three times and smashed a glass against the wall. He then sat down as the moderator quickly removed another nearby glass.
"Violence," directed by Canadian Cronenberg, features Viggo Mortensen as a man whose life is forever changed after he brutally thwarts an attempted robbery, attracting the unwelcome attention of a mobster played by Harris.
The film was considered a leading contender for the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May before losing to gritty Belgian urban drama "L'Enfant".
One of Canada's top filmmakers, Cronenberg has cemented his reputation as a horror director turned auteur with films including "The Fly", "Naked Lunch" and "Dead Ringers".
His latest movie features only brief glimpses of his trademark gore but does provide gruesome depictions of shootings and beatings.
The director told reporters the movie is meant to question whether violence is innate and inevitable, or a choice we can reject. but not divine answers to.
"Those contradictions are there in the movie. It's not as though I have a message, having solved any problem and I'm now telling you about it," he said.
The stars of Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" heaped praise on their director who was headed to Venice after learning he had won that festival's top prize, the Golden Lion.
The latest movie by the director of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as love-struck cowboys whose forbidden affair begins in 1963 and ends 20 years later.
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Actors heap praise on Cronenberg
Angela Mulholland, CTV.ca News
September 11, 2005 2:34 PM ET
Viggo Mortensen doesn't mince words when you ask him what it was like to work with Canadian director David Cronenberg on A History of Violence: "It was the best thing I've been involved in," he answers.
"It's hard to be objective about it," Mortensen told CTV's Canada AM. "But it's one of the movies I most like. It's the most complete. It really works. I know that it's probably the best movie-making experience and final result in terms of a creative, well thought out movie that's well written and well acted."
Co-star Ed Harris agrees.
"This film was so elegantly done, so simple, so clean in a way, that it's really a testament to David's skill and talent and genius as a filmmaker," Harris told a Toronto International Film Festival press conference.
"It's a pleasure to work with someone who knows what they're doing and who has his own vision about things."
Harris plays a gangster who goes to find a small-town coffee shop owner named Tom (played by Mortensen), whom Harris's character claims is really a former gang killer named Joey. Though Tom insists the gangster has the wrong guy, those around him slowly begin to wonder whether there's more to Tom than they thought.
Though the film has plenty of "Cronenberg-ian" aspects to it ? the painstaking pacing, the rising tension and of course, the gore ? the filmmaker admits that this is likely the most "mainstream" film he's done since The Dead Zone more than 20 years ago.
The director of such unnervingly strange films as Naked Lunch, The Fly, and Spider says he never deliberately set out to be anti-mainstream any more than he deliberately set out to "sell out" with this film.
"You know, I keep saying: I've been trying to sell out for years but nobody's been buying," he half-jokingly told CTV. "Finally, I found someone to buy."
Though they are relatively short, the film's violent scenes have already been the topic of much discussion in the press. When asked what statement he was trying to make with the violence, Cronenberg insists he wasn't trying to make any conclusions.
"I don't make a movie as a statement because that means I have the answers," he told the news conference. "It's a meditation on violence, a discussion."
"I know in Cannes, they wanted to see it as a critique of America and Iraq. But it's bigger than one country."
He goes on to say that he believes that every nation has violence in its past, and he wanted to explore why humans, with all their reason, still haven't been able to turn away from killing each other.
"We can imagine a world that does not have violence. But we seem not able to achieve that at all, " he notes.
With a storyline of a good man with a nice family trying to fight off the bad guys who march into his town, many have compared this movie to a Western. Cronenberg admits the comparison is valid in some ways.
"There were iconic tones of the Western," noting the typical Western's themes of good triumphing over evil. "It alludes to Westerns but in-- I hope-- a more profound way."
Maria Bello, who plays Mortensen's wife, says the film was a pleasure to work on, in part because Cronenberg was confident enough to allow his actors leeway to offer their suggestions on how scenes should be played.
"From the point of view of him as a director, David is the ultimate good father," she says. "He allows his kids freedom to explore great territory, but always reins us in… He allowed me to go to places I hadn't gone before."
Mortensen agrees.
"It's a lot more fun and you get better work when you feel you are doing this together and it is truly collaborative.
"And I've never felt that as well as I did in A History of Violence."
* 기자 회견 오디오는 여기로: http://blog.paran.com/harris/5668973
* 기자 회견 동영상 일부는 여기로: http://blog.paran.com/harris/5724660