Best Western I've Seen In Years - In A Valley of Violence

So, In A Valley of Violence was on one of my pay-per-view channels and I DVRd it. We watched it last Sunday and I was so impressed, I immediately went out and bought the Blu-Ray. 

The director didn't set out to do anything special or different with the plot. It's a stock plot we've seen many times. Drifter comes into town, runs afoul of the local marshal, gets in trouble, then comes back to get his revenge. High Plains Drifter, right? Two things make this movie different. The first is the is the dialog. Instead of stock characters doing stock thing while a squint-eyed stranger spouts one liners, these characters were self aware. And when I say self aware I mean it in a Shakespeare-type self aware where they have asides or monologues, talking about the violence and how it affects them. The movie starts with a slow burn that eventually gets to an ending that is as violent as any western you've ever seen. The second thing that makes this movie different is the dog.

"I also really love the absurdist nature of many great spaghetti westerns, and while I think In a Valley of Violence has plenty of those fun elements, it also tells a story about how violence affects different people in different ways. It is a movie much more about characters than it is plot. It takes a group of archetypes and sorta flips them upside down and forces the characters to confront things not usually seen in westerns." - Director, Ti West (from a Filmmaker Magazine interview)

Also, the opening and closing credits were a total homage to 1970 Spaghetti Westerns with their garish colors and blocky lettering. I just loved it. I recommend you give this a try. I might like it more than you, but this isn't your average Western.

What it's like working with a dog: “Jack Lemmon, who I worked with when I was younger [in 1989's "Dad"], said it was like working with Marilyn Monroe,” Hawke continued. “They were always going to use the take that Marilyn was good in, never the take that you were, so you had to be good all the time. So that’s what it’s like working with a dog.” - Ethan Hawke (from an LA Times interview) 

How The Publisher Almost Didn't Publish My Book

I have a new interview that's pretty thorough. I get more into detail about writing a sci fi trilogy, the craft of it, and why I chose PTSD as my subject matter.

But did you know that the books almost weren't published?

Both the publisher and I were worried about the amount of PTSD in the books. Something like this had never been done before. I mean we took it to the next level, describing suicides, how people wanted to hurt themselves, what it was that caused them to have PTSD in the first place. All of it. In technicolor.

We asked ourselves, were we doing something bad? Were we doing a disservice? Would readers appreciate it or would they think we were exploiting the issue? Moreover, would the reading public it? 

We felt a responsibility to not monetize other people's pain and asked ourselves, should we really publish Grunt Life and the follow on books?

Our decision didn't come lightly. As it turns out, we made the right decision.





To read more, check out the interview at My Life My Books My Escape.