Adaptation?Unlike many of the graphic novels adaptations that will be discussed, in the case of A History of Violence it is almost fair to suggest that the film is barely an adaptation. The narrative and thematic differences between the comic and the film are so profound that they both stand as distinct and isolated works (Beaty 35). At the 2005 San Diego Comic Con International, Cronenberg even went as far as to say that "I never knew there was a graphic novel involved so it wasn't as though I approached this [as an adaptation]...I didn't know there was a graphic novel so I had no attachment to it. No investment in it. And, really, my investment was in Josh [Olson]'s script" (ibid. 27). Cronenberg claims to have not learned of the script's origins until well into production of the film. However, Cronenberg's attendance at the comic convention demonstrate the studio's desire to "capitalize on the newly won cultural capital accorded to independent comics" (30) even though simultaneously the director was distancing himself from the source material.
The Graphic Novel:
Paradox Press, an imprint of DC Comics, originally published A History of Violence, the comic book written by John Wagner and illustrated by Vince Locke in May 1997. At the time of its release, the comic book was barely reviewed and the sales were not high enough to warrant keeping it in print. However, the book was returned to circulation by another DC imprint, Vertigo Comics to coincide with the release of the film. It is fair to suggest that without the film version of the story, the comic book would be "little remembered, even by fans of crime comic books" (30).
The comic is a crime thriller "presented via gritty, noirish black-and-white art. Indeed, the graphic novel...is presented very much in the style of film noir" (Booker, 173). Locke's illustrations are in keeping with this traditional film noir style and alternate between fairly rough sketches and highly detailed illustrations. The comic book is divided in three chapters of around 100 pages each. Most of the story that crosses over into the film is from the first chapter and the other two chapters are barely present in the film. The first chapter ends with the death of the mobsters that have arrived in the small town to kill Tom and his family. The second chapter is almost entirely a flashback dedicated to Tom/Joey's youth in Brooklyn and explains the reason the mafia is after him. Just as in the film, the third chapter focuses on Tom/Joey's return to his past to save his family but other than this concept the conclusions for the comic and film are entirely different.
Changes:
Before discussing major plot changes, I will first discuss some of the basic story elements that have changed. The protagonist's name is changed from Tom McKenna to Tom Stall and Joey Muni becomes Joey Cusack; John Torrino becomes Carl Fogarty, Tom's son Buzz becomes Jack, his daughter Ellie becomes Sarah, and Sheriff Carney's first name changes from Frank to Sam. In the comic, the story takes place in small town Michigan with Tom/Joey's past being in Brooklyn. In the film version the small town is Millbrook, Indiana and Joey's past is in Philadelphia. "Shifting the character names from Italian to Irish, serve both to trouble the generic expectations associated with films about the mafia" (Beaty 31) and it also serves to "keep the film away from "the Sopronos Syndrome" (wikipedia.org).
Cronenberg has stated that the "most important difference between the two versions of the story is the relative emphasis on the family and on the mafia. The graphic novel, he asserts, is far more interested than the film in "mob stuff
," which places a greater emphasis on the relationships among the members of the Stall family"(Beaty 31). The film is definitely far more focused on the family relationships than in the graphic novel and these relationships are significantly reframed. In both versions, Tom is married to Edie, in the comic version Edie works at the diner and has a fairly limited role in the plot. When Tom admits his past life (and twenty years of lies) to Edie and asks if she can forgive him, she replies "Of course I do, Tom. It's all been a...a bit of a shock. That's all. You're still the man I married--The man I love" (Wagner 187). This calm and passive acceptance of years of betrayal is vastly different from the reaction of Edie in the film. T
he film Edie is a lawyer and places a central role throughout the film. When she discovers Tom's true identity she is violently nauseous and for the remainder of the film is highly conflicted about her husband. Despite her conflict, she does manage to save Tom from any questioning by the Sheriff by faking tears to keep him from the truth of Tom's past. Here "Edie plays at the "helpless woman" role from a position of strength, self-consciously mimicking the way that she now knows her husband has played at the role of peaceable family man from a position of violence" (Beaty 71).Edie's role is further complicated in two explicit sex scenes. In the first, Edie is dressed as a cheerleader for Tom. In this scene they both play a part in the fantasy and the scene focuses on the "mutuality" and "tenderness" of their enjoyment (107). The second scene is far more complex. The scene begins with Tom attempting to talk to Edie after she discovers his true identity as Joey. She refuses to speak to him and slaps him. He grabs her by the throat reverting into his Joey persona. Edie recognizes this change and confronts him by saying "Fuck you, Joey." They continue to fight until eventually she pulls him in to kiss him resulting in a rough sex scene on the stairs. This scene is in stark contrast to the earlier scene and verges on rape. When I first saw the film I believe this scene to clearly be a rape scene however after rewatching it this simplistic reading is challenged. During their fight Tom/Joey is about to walk away but it is Edie that pulls him in for a kiss and reaches for him. Critic Manohla Dargis argues that in this scene"Cronenberg asks us to look at those who pick up guns in our name, protectors who whisper the love us with hands around our throats. And then, with this scene, he goes one better and asks us to look at those who open their hearts and bare themselves to such a killing love" (Dargis 2A1). This scene is a choice for Edie and her complicity in this history of violence is explored. "The first sex scene demonstrates how people can agree to wear masks, while the second emphasizes that masks can obscure the truth only for so long" (Beaty 108). We never see any of this depth of character in Wagner and Locke's portrayal of Edie. Their Edie is unquestionably supportive and one-dimensional. 
A similar distinction occurs with the relationship between Tom and his son. In the comic, the son "Buzz" plays a fairly minor role. Unlike the film, Buzz is not an outsider, he is very popular and dating a beautiful girl. Like the portrayal of Edie, he is also unquestionably supportive of his father. Both narratives do center on his abduction as a plot device to advance the fight between Tom and Torrino/Fogarty but unlike the film, this is his only involvement in the fight. In the film, Jack is an outsider and it tormented by the school bully. Jack's initial refusals to fight gradually give away as he is "slowly ushered into a world of hyper-masculine violence through the actions of his father and, ultimately, through his own participation in the killing of Carl Fogerty" (Beaty 32). In the book it is Edie that kills Torrino but in the film, Jack takes on this patriarchal authority. Like Edie, Jack struggles to come to terms with his father's identity. He confronts Tom after he returns from the hospital and asks whether Tom will "have him whacked" if he reports him to the Sheriff. Unlike the book, there is no unwavering support and belief in his father's righteousness. Ultimately, the film explores " a much darker image of father-son relations in which violence is part of a legacy ushered down from generation to generation" (33).
The relationship between Tom and the mafia has also been significantly changed. In the book Tom's history is given in great detail: the entire second chapter is dedicated to Tom's past. In the film this history (and a very different one at that) is only hinted at. In the comic's flashbacks, Tom is revealed as an orphan living with his sick grandmother in Brooklyn. His best friend Richie wants to avenge the death of his brother and also make some money by robbing the Manzi mafia headquarters. Tom decides to help him when he discovers that his grandmother needs money for surgery. Disguised as boy scouts, they attack the headquarters with weapons and tear gas and manage to escape with over a hundred thousand dollars. Richie is unable to keep the secret and the Manzis come after him. After being tortured he admits that Tom helped him and the mafia comes searching for him. Tom manages to escape by blinding Torino with barbed wire but he loses a finger (which Torino keeps in a vile around his next). Tom believes that Richie is dead so he escapes to Michigan and begins a new life in a small town. Once he is found out he returns to Brooklyn to confess to the police and to kill Lou Manzi, who he discovers has been torturing Richie for the last twenty years. In the final pages of the book, Tom manages to kill Lou Manzi and several mobsters. He also kills Richie as an act of mercy since all that remains of him is a mutilated torso. This version allows for a clear moral universe. The "Joey Muni of the graphic novel is a good boy who fell in with the wrong crowd, but who has since led an exemplary life as Tom McKenna, to which he will return, with the full support of his family, once he has dispatched the remaining mobsters" (34). Richie's mutilated stump of a body fills a full frame page which also reinforces the brutality of Lou Manzi and again clears up any moral ambiguity. Tom is justified in what he did and what he will have to do to protect his family.
The film version is far more complex and intriguing. We are not given many details about Joey's life but we do learn that he killed for money and enjoyment and that within the mafia he was known as "crazy, fucking Joey." He did not enter this mafia life out of necessity or to help an ailing grandmother but out of his own free will. He also created the identity of Tom out of his own choice and not simply to escape. He states, "I thought I killed Joey Cusack. I went out to the desert and killed him. I spent three years becoming Tom Stall." Which again creates an element to the plot far more complex than the graphic novel. We also find out that it is Richie that is after him for attacking Fogerty and for killing his men. This "lack of detail, coupled with Joey's amazing proficiency in combat, allows the viewer to imagine the protagonist as an even more vicious killer than is on view throughout the course of the film" (34) and this is in sharp contrast to the book which attempts to justify and validate all of Tom's past actions. In this version, we also discover that Richie is Joey's brother and this further propels the films' exploration of a legacy of violence. When Tom returns to Philadelphia he isn't just killing a unknown mob boss but a member of his own family which furthers the violence of the scene.
Conclusion:
Although the screenplay and the general idea of the story do obviously come from the comic, I believe that the film has taken the idea into much more interesting territory. We are no longer dealing with a simple crime story but a story that investigates the nature of identity and history. Cronenberg has elevated this story to one that makes the viewer complicit in the violence. "For many critics, the beauty of A History of Violence is the way that it expertly stokes in its audience a desire to see violence explode on screen, but then necessitates a kind of moral accounting for that desire, extracting a toll in the form of a critical self-awareness of the fact that such a desire carries significant consequences" (Beaty 7). Cronenberg and Olson have created a much more complex and realistic world: a world where the morality is no where near as black and white as Locke and Wagner's vision.
References:
- Beaty, Bart. David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.
- Booker, M. Keith. "May Contain Graphic Material:"Comic books, Graphic Novels, and Film. Westport: Praeger, 2007.
- Browning, Mark. David Cronenberg: Author or Filmaker. Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007.
- Dargis, Manohla. "Dark Truths of a Killing Love." New York Times, 15 January, 2006, 2A1.
- Wagner, John. A History of Violence. illus. Vince Locke. New York: Vertigo, 1997.
