TODAY'S NUGGET: A History of Violence (2005) - Producers are Waiting for Your Take; Revealing Character

[Quick Summary: After small town diner owner Tom fights off thieves, he becomes the target of vengeful thugs who mistake him for another mob enforcer.]

It was interesting that film's producers were waiting for the right writer:

There wasn't a market-driven imperative to be faithful to the material, and it wasn't the enormous audience that compelled the studio to purchase the book. I found out when they hired me off my pitch that they'd had the same concerns with the book that I did, and had just been waiting for someone to come in and show them how to take it into a completely different direction.

So if producers weren't wedded to the material, how did the writer approach it?

In the book, there's never a moment's doubt that the main character is the man the mob guys think he is I felt like that was a missed opportunity. I thought it was a great chance to play with a classic "wrong man' scenario in which the wrong man is actually the right man. And that led me to start thinking about identity, and what it is that constitutes your "self." Is Tom the guy they all say he is? Or is he the guy he's made himself into? The freedom to stray from the material doesn't necessarily come from the material, but from your own response to it. (emphasis mine)

Also, I liked what Ebert wrote about this film: 

This is not a movie about plot, but about character. It is about how people turn out the way they do, and about whether the world sometimes functions like a fool's paradise.

In the scene below:
- Billy and Leland are random drifters making trouble in Tom's diner.
- We see Tom making a decision in a split second.
- His reactions are partly based on his previous life.
- It will make the news and bring him unwanted attention from the mob.
- Note how character is being revealed and it changes our expectations. Is Tom the nice guy of the last 20 years or this vicious killer guy?

INT. STALL'S DINER

...Billy pulls out his gun and points it at Charlotte. Lisa screams.

LELAND (cont'd): Shut up, bitch!

She stops, terrified. Jeff puts his arm around her, looking at the two men in fear.

LELAND (cont'd): Show this asshole we mean business, Billy.

BILLY (Nodding to Charlotte): What, her?

LELAND: Yeah, her. Fuck her. Do it.

TOM: No! Don't!

Billy shrugs and pulls the trigger.

Click.

Billy looks at the gun, puzzled. Leland looks to Billy - what the fuck?

Without even thinking, Tom lashes out with the coffee pot, smashing it into Leland's face, the glass shattering.  Leland cries out and drop his gun, falls to the floor.

Tom leaps over the counter and picks up Leland's gun. 

Billy quickly ratchets another bullet into the chamber of his gun and turns to Tom.

Tom fires, hitting Billy in the chest, sending him spinning.

Lisa screams.

Leland grabs a knife from the floor and slams it into Tom's foot.

Tom screams in pain and whirls, sees Leland on the floor, the knife in his hand, and fires down, through the top of Leland's head. Leland's face explodes in a shower of gore.

Billy staggers towards Tom, clutching his bloody chest, his gun in his other hand.

BILLY: MOTHERFUCKER!!!

He raises the gun to fire again. Tom whips the gun up and fires, hitting Billy in the stomach and sending him crashing through the diner window in a shower of glass.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I liked that this thriller script did not shy from grappling with character - what Tom kept hidden and the consequences of his actions. 

A History of Violence (2005)(3/11/04 draft)
by Josh Olson
Based on the graphic novel by John Wagner & Vince Locke