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Self-fashioning, Freedom, and the Problem of His-story: the return of noir
Journal
European Journal of American Studies
ISSN-Digital
1991-9336
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2008-01-28
Author(s)
Abstract
With a mix of two patently American film genres - film noir and the western - David Cronenberg's critically acclaimed A History of Violence (2005) sets up a group of oppositions through the story of a man who leaves a life of crime and violence behind to assume a new identity, start a family, and settle down in the quiet town of Millbrook, Indiana. The oppositions between gangster thug, super-killer and good citizen, family-man are paralleled in another opposition particularly typical to the noir genre: between benevolent small-town life and the belligerent city. The narrative establishes these oppositions in order to consider how they eventually clash or coalesce in time, and how the past might affect the future; for it is the difference between an abandoned past and an inevitable future that structures the action within this film. As the film's title suggests, the element of history in History of Violence takes up a position of centrality for the portrayal of American mythologies on a variety of levels.
http://ejas.revues.org/1842
http://ejas.revues.org/1842
Language
English
HSG Classification
not classified
Refereed
No
Publisher
European Association for American Studies
Volume
3
Number
1
Start page
1
End page
12
Pages
12
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
43512