It's comic to film week!

This week two graphic novels are being presented to two different film media History of Violence and V for Vendetta.  The first one we saw was released Tuesday to DVD.  History of Violence stars Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris, it even has a small part with William Hurt.  This is high powered acting under the considerable if underappreciated directorial talent of one of my favorites David Cronenberg.  Cronenberg is true to his style of exploring human nature in HoV.  He explores the nature of violence (and sex) in an otherwise peaceful, small town family man whose life is turned upside down by a brush with a big city crisis situation.  The graphic novel from which it’s based was written by John Wagner and drawn by Vince Locke, Vince is a local Michigan boy.  Having grown up ‘partly’ in Detroit area, Locke is a name the state of MI should be proud too call one of its own.  Check out the hub for the Detroit area comics community.  If you’re lucky enough to live in close proximity you can go in and learn.

Don’t rent History of Violence expecting a conventional action film or you’ll be disappointed.  Cronenberg studies the motives of characters, its violence is quick and brutal as is the movie's sex scene.  But it’s no action film, the sex and violence in the movie is a vehicle through which we see elements of the nature of the characters.

V for Vendetta has arrived to theaters today, originally a comic written by one of the masters in the field named Alan Moore.  If you’re a comics fan chances are Alan Moore's name on the credits of any comic is enough to make you want to read it.  He brings a literate and often historic style to his unconventional stories.  Just like Moore himself, the movie will go against the grain of society in today’s climate of political fear mongering over terrorism.  Too bad Moore doesn't give his graces to the film, his name won't appear in its credits and that's a shame, but that's Moore's business.  He seems like a crotchety old bastard and I wouldn't want to hear about him being any other way.

I haven't seen the movie but the plot for the original was first started by Moore back in the early 80s well before our current relationship to the word “terrorism“.  Here the terrorist is the hero, fighting an oppressive government.  Making a terrorist the hero is sure to offend and somewhere Moore is probably laughing.  Comparisons to George Orwell’s 1984 are inevitable but also a simplification.  Still it's an interesting touch that John Hurt should appear as this film's “Big Brother“ character.  Hurt played the hero in 1984.

In Moore’s tradition with V, he puts the history into his story.  The main character wears a Guy Fawkes mask inspired by the Gunpowder Plot when conspirators attempted to assassinate the King of England, James I.  In V for Vendetta England is in the grip of a fascist takeover and V dons the Guy Fawkes mask to conduct his own conspiracy.

It’s a good week for comics to film and I hope to enjoy both soon.