I was going to say, up front, that I had some mixed feelings about Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive," but I'm not sure that "feelings" is the appropriate word. This 1980s pastiche (isn't that the "Risky Business" typeface lit up in neon pink?) is emotionally and narratively stripped down to resemble the sleek, polished surfaces of... well, muscle cars, but also movies by the likes of Walter Hill ("The Driver"), Michael Mann ("Thief"), William Friedkin ("To Live and Die in L.A."), Paul Schrader ("American Gigolo") and others. It even sports an aggressively ersatz-Tangerine Dream synth score of the kind so popular in the early 1980s, though this one also features some Euro-vocals with unfortunate English day-glo-highlighter lyrics ("a real human being and a real hero..."). Emotion, character, story -- they're not so much what "Drive" is interested in. The movie makes fetishistic use of signifiers for those things, but its most tangible concerns have (paradoxically?) to do with dreamy abstractions of color and shape and movement.
I like the red a lot. Not just the blood (which is the heart of the film, and I'll get to that in a minute), but there's so much blue (teal?) and orange and pink that when the red starts gushing in, it pumps some real excitement into what has, by that point, settled into a fairly static picture. (In some respects, I think "Drive" perversely hints at an art-house action movie -- and an erotic movie -- it never quite delivers, after a pretty [and] terrific archetypal getaway chase at the beginning, in which the Driver shows off his skills at using Los Angeles infrastructure to play hide-and-seek with cop cars and helicopters. Thank goodness, though, that it never turns into the racetrack movie it briefly threatens to become.)
So, the red: It excites the eyeballs (and signals imminent danger) in the red-and-white checkered windows at Nino's Pizza. But as I recall, it really gets going at Denny's. The nameless Driver (Ryan Gosling), a movie stuntman who also works as a mechanic and moonlights as a getaway car wheelman-for-hire, sits down with his generic romantic-interest neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who wears a red uniform vest as a Denny's waitress, in a booth with red light fixtures above it and a BIG plastic bottle of ketchup on the table. I don't remember what the conversation is about -- it doesn't matter, but it's probably something about her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac), who's just got out of jail and owes money to some brutal sleazebags who are threatening to physically harm him and Irene and their son Benicio (Kaden Leos), to whom Driver has also taken a shine. What I remember is the red. The film becomes pregnant with red.
Then there's Christina Hendricks' hair. Is that for real, that red hair? Because it's as red as Joan's on "Mad Men." Here Hendricks plays Blanche (not Rosa?), a spike-heeled robbery accomplice. In a movie in which even the lead roles are deliberately underwritten, she deserves much, much more of a part. Because she's Christina Hendricks, dammit, and it's a sin to underuse her.
Now, about that other red. (Spoilers ahead.) Was it inappropriate of me to burst out laughing when a guy stomped and stomped and stomped another guy's head until it smashed open like a swollen pomegranate? Or when one character placed a bullet on another's forehead and threatened to smack it with a hammer (which I wish he had done)? Or when somebody in a pizzeria skewered and slit a hateful moron with a large kitchen knife? I don't think so -- although, in the quarter-full theater in which I saw "Drive," I was sometimes the only one laughing. (I did not laugh when a man was shot from behind; when a woman's head was blown apart by a shotgun; or when a man's arm was sliced open with a straight razor -- those eruptions of red were not funny.) But the red was so abstract at this point in the film that, as explicit as the gore was, there was nothing "real" about it.
I'm still trying to suss out the reasons for my own unconscious, involuntary reactions, though. The movie is so emotionally/sexually repressed (all cool, slick surfaces, glazed reflections and valentine-candy-heart cliches) that this over-the-top, graphic-but-artificial RED -- it's not just red, it's blood -- feels like an absurd, joyous, orgasmic release. (I'm told the director has said the same thing.) When Driver can't stop booting the skull of the guy in the elevator (after a Lynchian calm-before-the-storm kiss with Irene that goes on forever), it's so ridiculously (self-)destructive that my laugh erupted from my lungs like a cough.
Driver seems like a control freak with a screw loose from the start. (Not that conventional notions of character psychology necessarily apply in a movie where the key crime is supposedly motivated by a cartoonish Jewish L.A. mobster's resentment of East Coast ItalianAmerican anti-Semitism.) His attraction to Irene and Benicio is portrayed as an idealized, movie-fantasy psychopathic compulsion, like Travis Bickle's to Iris (Jodie Foster) in "Taxi Driver," or Jeffrey Beaumont's to Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) in "Blue Velvet." (I imagine he's like a reluctant version of The Stepfather and probably slaughtered his previous family in Scottsdale with power tools. He feels bad about that now, and has come to L.A. for a new start, trying to channel his rage in new directions.) But after the head-crushing, it's irrefutably clear that he's got major anger issues. And that finally makes him interesting, instead of just a generic placeholder protagonist-device. (Nice shot in the elevator: Back of his silk scorpion jacket heaving with his breath.)
Three character performances are given the chance to shine here -- bits of color and life around the self-consciously undemonstrative leads. Shannon (Bryan Cranston), the dreamer plagued with bad luck, is probably the movie's most sympathetic character -- even (or especially) when he dooms everyone with an understandable inability to apprehend the bigger picture. Nino (Ron Pearlman) is a whimpering wolfhound whose bruised ego leads him to overreach. And best of all is Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks), a former movie producer of faddish 1980s action and sex pictures ("Some critic called them European. I thought they were shit") turned grimy venture capitalist. These guys act like tough guys, but that's just the point: they're acting, and they don't know that they're out of their league.
Aside from the red at the Denny's, my favorite moment in "Drive" is an enigmatic mini-flashback in the climactic scene at the Chinese restaurant, the Great Wall. Driver and Bernie meet up to hand off The Money, and when they go to the parking lot and open the trunk of the car (most of this shown only as shadowplay on the pavement), there's a quick return to the restaurant moments before, when each man looks at the other and seems to nonverbally acknowledge that he knows what is about to transpire. These two know they are (frog-and-scorpion-like) locked into a terminal transaction.
P.S. If you look at the frame grab of the scene in the strippers' dressing room (which I took from an online trailer) you'll see that the breasts have been digitally removed. That is not the case in the R-rated picture itself, only in the green-banded trailer.
NOTE: I don't really do "reviews" here at Scanners. These are some informal observations about some things in the movie I find interesting...
54 Comments
I'm glad to see you state that, "Emotion, character, story -- they're not so much what 'Drive' is interested in." To try to approach the movie from a rational, narrative-driven perspective will lead one to, I believe, resent the movie. And I think that's okay. It's not to say that, for example, Gosling's character has no purpose other than to lead to another scene of brilliant color and contrast, but it is to say that 'Drive' is not attempting to push the narrative envelope so much as the truly cinematic one.
I think you're on to something when you speak about there not being anything "real" about the gore. I think that may be precisely Refn's point. Gosling said in an interview with the AV Club that, "We tried to treat the film like a fairy tale, like Los Angeles is this fairy-tale land based on fantasies." He further states that, with regard to his character,
"I think he’s somebody who’s seen too many movies. He’s confusing his life for a film, and he’s made himself the hero of his own action film. He’s just kind of lost in the mythology of Hollywood."
The entire movie is drowned in this 80s feel, from the lettering of the title to the soundtrack to the fact that we're dealing with a stunt driver, which I imagine was a much more "in-demand" job back then, when crashing cars couldn't just be accomplished using CGI. Thinking of the movie on that level, as a fairy tale, of a reality close to, but not quite, out own, gives it an interesting spin. Furthermore, I think it explains why there's a certain lack of "realness" to the violence.
Very nicely said. I like Gosling's take: It's not just the movie that's portraying Driver as a character in a movie, it's Driver himself. I got the impression some people were expecting something "gritty" or "realistic"... and it's just not that kind of movie at all. It's quite cool and sleek, tamped-down/repressed and emotionally distant (with Brooks and Perlman as tough-guy comic relief) rather than frenetic and hyper, as so many action pictures are these days. If it's an "action movie" at all, as I say, it's an art-house action movie, where the "action" is more in the framing and camerawork and lighting and cutting than in the stunts...
I still haven't watched the movie (why do I keep reading all the analyses?!), but I enjoyed your treatment, Jim. Refn uses color a lot (the blue vs. red at the end of Pusher I, the orange tones of Pusher III, bold and bright in Bronson, minimal but saturated in Valhalla Rising), but this is the first that I've read it mentioned for Drive; beyond the pink title, of course. At this point, I'm not so much interested in the fairy tale-like story, but the methods used to portray it. It should be a fun experience either way.
You didn't mention that the climax makes no sense. Once Driver has killed Bernie Rose's partner, why wouldn't he kill Bernie immediately?
If he didn't want to do that (for unknown reasons, since he's not squeamish about killing to protect Irene), why wouldn't he just tell Bernie where to find the money? Why take him there and turn his back?
I hate when smart characters turn stupid for the sake of melodrama.
I was similarly frustrated, as I often am with endings like this: the cunning, capable hero who so easily dispatched his other foes blows it in the showdown with the big bad through an amateurish lack of foresight and sudden distaste for pro-action. For the first time in the story, the hero accepts his fate rather than makes his own.
Perhaps there is evidence in the film that the Driver "wanted" it that way. Commenter Matt Bakal has some thoughts on that in his comment below.
I don't see it, though. Any clues as to the Driver's motivation in that final scene are inference at best. Pair that with the Driver's sudden change in methodology (from pro-active to reactive), and the final moments of the film feel a bit hollow.
Still thoroughly entertained by the flick on the whole, and I thought Albert Brooks was excellent.
I submit that we watched the story of a talented, meticulous and calculated man lose his mind. I shared Peter A's frustrations when I left the theater. But I've changed my mind. The Driver entered that restaurant in his bloody jacket and no contingency plan because he wasn't the same person. In that respect, the story maintains its continuity all the way. I love watching great movies.
Interesting hypothesis. I don't buy it for one reason: Irene.
You think all his killing broke his mind so he doesn't care about himself anymore? Doesn't matter. He still cares about Irene. He would not leave the job of protecting her half done.
I think it's lazy writing and directing.
On second thought, why would Bernie meet with Driver at the end? Driver just killed Bernie's partner. Wouldn't Bernie assume Driver is after him next? Saying "let's stop this" on the phone is slim security.
I for the life of me cannot understand how Refn won the best director at cannes for this; there is so much promise here but no real ... drive. Refn seems to have taken an above-average script and added a whole lot of chutzpah and color to it, but in doing so, in imparting all that directorial flair he has overwhelmed the story and the characters, both of which appear flat at the end - and they are not. Maybe if Refn had told the story straight - more verite, less mythmaking, more Pusher and less Zorro on a budget- then perhaps the letdown wouldn't have felt so bad, then perhaps the exploding gore and the sense of lost love would have had more bite, linger longer. I question Refn's judgment on this project. He can make gritty movies but this is quite the opposite.
PS: Some of the song sequences remind me of Bollywood in its cheesiness.
The whole "no emotion" and lack of substance criticism this film is getting is ridiculous to me.
The film is a exploration on the L.A. dream. The driver dreams of being a action hero, Shannon dreams of being a smart businessman, Bernie dreams of being a legitimate and respected entrepreneur doing something he's proud of, Nino dreams of being a Italian mobster, Irene dreams of having true love, and Standard dreams of a life where he isn't a convict. Their dreams seem doomed to fail and they all do fail in the end except for the driver. He succeeds in achieving his dream, and his quest to achieve this is something to root and cheer for. Sure, the journey he takes is not completely realistic but that doesn't devoid it of emotion. Emotion and realism are completely different things. Being realistic doesn't make something worth caring for emotionally; being invested in something emotionally doesn't mean its realistic.
Also, those questioning Refn's directing ability need to seriously watch the film again. Every shot is perfectly framed, every cut at the right moment. The cinematography is beautiful; I can't remember the last time L.A. looked so gorgeous. His ability to use songs to fill in for dialogue and set the tone/mood reminded me of De Palma and Scorcese.
As for the violence...overblown. Yes, it is bloody but is it THAT extreme? No. In fact, Refn makes a point to not really do much of a close-up of any blood or guts, unlike many other action films today. The thing that makes it feel so extreme is that this violence is unexpected as the first half of the film is pretty much completely devoid of it. This heightens the shock of it moreso. But if you look back at the violent scenes, they're not extreme.
Oh, and those complaining about the lack of car elements need to just change their expectations. The film never sets out to be just a car film. Only the marketing of the film made it seem like that.
The audacity of Refn to combine elements of a John Hughes 80s love story with 70s L.A. noirs (which were very heavily influenced by 60s Melville gangster pics) with modern-day ultra-violence is respectable; his ability to wove them all together into a fluid film is remarkable.
Tree of Life was a magical piece of cinema but Drive is something more than that. It's a dream.
I never got the impression that the Driver dreamed of being an action star. His aspirations were not exactly stated or known, but if I had to guess, he would have much preferred to have been in Irene's life.
He remained devoted to her even after her husband returns from prison, and in an act that surprises Shannon, Driver agreed to help Standard for literally nothing but the promise that Standard and his family would be left alone.
During most of the movie Driver expresses no emotions, so it was unclear to me if he was just stoic from having lived through many extreme instances, or if he had a mental problem. So the one time he did lose it, it was from the fact Shannon mistakenly told Nino and Bernie about the Driver's feelings for Irene.
Don't forget the elevator scene, the kiss they share seemed to be depicted in a way that it wasn't takening place in real time, the slow motion effect was not done to suggest the Driver has lightning speed, but to highlight that both Driver and Irene had some attraction to each other.
From what I think the Driver really wanted(Irene), I think that the Driver lost his dream as well.
I don't think Refn meant that Driver literally wanted to be a movie star like the one he stunt drives for. I think he's speaking more about the concept of Driver as a movie character -- that he lives life as if he were a character in a movie.
That goes for the mobsters, too. They seem to be trying to imitate mobsters from the movies. This was a major theme of "The Sopranos" and "GoodFellas," too -- and Francis Coppola said real-life mobsters told him they fashioned their personae after characters from "The Godfather" movies.
I love that he's always wearing that scorpion jacket, especially especially at the end as it gets progressively dirtier and bloodier. And that he's constantly obsessing over those driving/finger gloves. Almost as if when he's got them on he's one person and when they're off he's someone else (a real person and a real hero, perhaps?)
And the scene when he goes after Nino in that creepy mask may have been my favorite thing in the movie (Living out an action hero fantasy indeed.)
There were a few of the sort of "I can't believe this is happening right now!" guffaws in my theater too (the bullet and the hammer, the fork in the eye, the elevator); it sorta reminded me of my reaction to certain parts of Precious or Black Swan, moments that seem like they should be serious and taken as such, but its just TOO much (you hope by design/intention).
The comparison that hit me as the credits rolled was to The American from last year, kind of an art-house anti-action movie about a guy in over his head.
" I don't really do "reviews" here at Scanners. These are some informal observations about some things in the movie I find interesting... " -- YES!
Beautifully said. All of it.
This movie left me pretty cold. I was never emotionally in tuned with it because I never believed a single person or event. The opening car chase is excellently filmed, but he doesn't get the job done! He can't evade the cops so he screws his clients and saves himself. Already I don't believe this guy is quite the ace driver that he's made out to be, all I know is he's a cold bastard, which was already clear. Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman bring a lot of energy but they're all introduced speaking the kind of dialogue you'd expect, and none of it has any inspiration or life (Brooks playing a sociopathic mobster, introduced haggling with a bus boy over fortune cookies, feels incredibly contrived).
I may be misinterpreting but I took Gosling's "repressed" facial expressions as straight pathos; though I might be distracted by his looks and his quasi-heartthrob status. But compare Gosling, who is always projecting his emotions (and not just in this movie, I'm think Blue Valentine as well) to Alain Delon in Le Samourai, who was more interested in keeping us outside and therefore inviting us in. I felt like Gosling was telling us how to feel about his character.
I didn't consider this all could be an ironic depiction of a psycho fantasy until reading this post, but then I don't understand why Irene and her son should be played so angelic (even in scenes where the Driver is not present). Jodie Foster and Cybil Shepherd in Taxi Driver were objects of a psycho's fantasy who had their own separate lives, here Irene and her son (who is the most well-behaved movie child I've ever seen) seem like symbols of purity for the audience as much as for the Driver.
Overrall I felt like this was all a lot of artistic flourishes - the shots, the musical montages, the Driver's reversing for no reason during a car chase, the bullet to the head, the head stomp, the fork in the eye - with no believable motivation.
But some of it is stuck in my brain, like that endless kiss, and I might see it again, and try to open myself up to the feelings, if there are any.
I assumed his job was to get them into the Staples Center parking lot just as the game was getting out, so they all could blend into the crowd. That's why he was listening to the game the whole time and timed his arrival to perfectly coincide with the game ending.
I wasn't sure whether it was Driver's plan from the beginning or whether he improvised it or whether all three knew that was the agenda. What matters, as you say, is that he got them there as the game was over, so they could disappear into the crowd without being conspicuous.
I think it's pretty obvious that it was his plan from the start. He has the game on TV and he puts it on the radio and turns the volume up as the chase goes on. The driver doesn't particularly seem to be actually emotionally invested in the game but is just merely using it as a ploy to get away from the cops.
Not sure though if the other two people involved were are of his plan.
Jeez, one of the first shots of the movie is the basketball game on TV. If you can't grasp that his plan is to leave the robbers lost in the crowd of thousands so that the police can't find them, I don't know what to tell you. And The Driver flipping the car to reverse wasn't meaningless, it was so he could make a sharper turn back the other way.
I was confused about the opening scene because his clients didn't look like they were in on the plan, and because they were pretty haggard looking with these giant bags of money, but I guess I was wrong there.
About the car chase in the middle, he reverses and then turns out of the way, and then turns his car around again, and in that period of time the other car doesn't have enough time to turn to dodge whatever obstacle it hit. It didn't make sense to me, just felt like a flourish.
A friend suggested to me last night that in this first scene, Driver may voluntarily leave the gangsters in the hands of the police, so he can fulfill his wish to be a kind of superhero. It makes sense: like you say, they appear to be quite lost when he leaves them in the stadium, I'm pretty sure they didn't knew that they were going there (they wouldn't be dressed that way for one thing). When Gosling leaves the stadium, police are entering at the same time, it's strongly implied that they're gonna be arrested (they havent leave the car yet, they're still wearing theirs masks, with their bags, I don't see how they can disappear in the crowd). So Driver is doing these heist for the thrill of the chase, to live his fantasy and still do the good thing at the end. That would explain too why he can't stay long in the same place, it's not the best way to build a good reputation.
Much agreed. I even think that Gosling's comments apply to Refn's treatment of violence. If the film as a whole feels intensely stylized--to the point of fetishizing roles, archetypes, shots, sounds, moods--then its treatment of violence comes across as hyper-real. A death by shotgun, a razor to the arm, a bashing of a skull: all of these moments arrive as swift and sudden bursts. They're shot with a directness that I found not only disturbing, but truly appropriate. Gosling's character assumes a typical "macho" movie role for himself (he even loses himself in it--note the Stunt Mask he uses to conceal his face in one of his final assaults), but struggles to deal with violence that upends his own preternatural calm and sense of purpose. He has to accept that he's no longer a "character," but a guy who has to deal with a world where shocking acts of injury actually exists. And, as you note in the elevator scene, Gosling's ability to deal as well as he has been dealt is almost laughably bad. Refn caps it off with one of his most daring shots: that of two men stabbing each other, seen only in silhouette. It's as if--knowing that he's facing death--the Driver projects his act of violence as a light-and-sound show, a movie within his own head. We can choose to believe the ending as a literal representation of the Driver's fate, or as the heroic ending he always envisioned for himself. (Now that I look back on it, the film is a nod to Taxi Drive, in more ways than one.)
Good to see a director refusing to stylize violence for its own sake, by instead depicting it as a rupture in both the characters' lives and in the minds of the audience.
Here's an article that delves into "Drive's" usage of colors and, to my surprise, makes me appreciate the film more.
"Emotion, character, story -- they're not so much what 'Drive' is interested in. The movie makes fetishistic use of signifiers for those things, but its most tangible concerns have to do with dreamy abstractions of color, shape, and movement."
In looking at the film as a mere exercise in style-- nothing more, nothing less, but well done in that respect-- I may be able to withdraw my initial complaints about the plot (not including the film's overly repetitive second half, though). I have to ask Jim : is this the only way Drive can be considered a "good" film, and not necessarily a "bad one"?
I was trying to describe the way I experienced and interpreted the movie. As I say, my feelings about it were mixed, but (see endnote) I didn't want to write a "review" -- I just wanted to explore what I saw in the movie without having to render a summary *like* or *dislike* verdict. That's one of the luxuries of a blog!
Nothing against Jim's original piece, but my initial comment was intended in response to Magnus's comment.
I have to agree with Magnus: this movie isn't meant to be emotionnaly stripped down, at least I didn't feel that way (I actually cried two times during the film, in the elevator scene in particular, which I'm unable to find funny in any way, it's wretching). Refn explores here the same theme as in his previous movies, the relation between the inside and the outside, how we feel and how we express it for the others, and how the mise-en-scene can express the main character, not exactly his perspective, but his general attitude or mood. A couple of dialogue lines point in that direction: when they're talking about the car ("the outside doesn't count, it's what inside") or when watching the cartoon with the kid ("how do you know he's a bad guy?" "because he looks like it"). The first chase scene is shot entirely inside the car, the tension of the Driver is shown only by small gestures, subtly contrasting with his general attitude of stoicism. Nothing is said, everything is express trough the body. And through the esthetic : the chase quietly shifts from slow driving to full throttle when necessary, like the character going from distant to extremely violent, and like the movie itself, following the same movement. The distant and cool look of the movie is the outside the Driver tries to present of himself, but I find it more melancolic than cool. It may be emotionnally distant in some regards, but is is so because it's hiding something, something that can't be allow to be said (and that's why the pop music is so beautiful, by externalising what the characters can't say about each other). Everything is related to this, how we externalise ourselves in order to be understand or concealed from the others: the use of masks, bad guys acting like bad guys, the relation to cinema, etc.
That's the Driver's dilemma towards the girl: if I open myself to her, then what's my responsibility towards her? Have I the right to tell her who I am? Maybe these questions are raised in a particular context that is quite alien to me, but I still can relate to them. The elevator scene is powerful because it's the only breaking point: it's the only time he directly shows what he feels, the love and the anger, and it's shot in a confined space, we're trapped inside Ryan Gosling, until the door closes on him again, leaving him alone and hidden from us. It may be extreme, kind of grotesque, but there's nothing funny. The look Gosling gives after stomping the head is complex: he isn't merely appaled by what he just did, by his inability to control himself, he's desperate because he wanted to keep that away from her (not only the violence, but also the kiss, the love). "Help me, but keep away from me", the tension between these two emotions is devastating. It's a familiar story (and character) for sure, but it's framed in a philosophical reflexion that is far from banal.
A very interesting reading. People have responded to the minimalist tone in different ways. For some (like me), it feels cool, distant and abstract -- aestheticized (and perhaps anesthetized to some degree). Since writing this piece I've read interviews with Refn and Gosling saying they wanted to make a movie about a character who lived his life as if he were a character in a movie. I like that. Refn said they eliminated as much dialog as they possibly could -- 60 percent from a mere 80-page shooting script! And it certainly feels that's the stripped-down aesthetic they were going for.
For others, as you describe it, the elemental nature of the characters and the conflict is a pure, mythic expression of emotion. The lead characters' long pauses and opaque expressions allow the audience to fill in the emotions. I can see that interpretation -- and don't question its validity -- even though that wasn't the way I experienced it.
Jim, did you have the same similar "cool, distant, abstract" feeling towards Melville pics? Drive evokes a lot of the same feelings I got when watching Le Samourai or Le Cercle Rouge. I however don't feel distant from any of the films but rather absorbed in the characters silence.
Be interested to see if your feelings towards Goslings characters is the same as Delon's characters in Melvilles films. If not, I'd be curious to see why you feel the two differ.
I see those parallels to "Le Samourai," definitely. Jef is basically dead -- or in cold storage -- from the opening shot. The difference, I think, is that Jef doesn't have or express emotions himself, whereas Driver seems to develop them for Irene and Benicio. I'm not saying I didn't feel anything for these characters (or archetypes) -- I give myself over to movies too completely to resist, and after I've seen something that really absorbed my attention (whether I *liked* it or not), I can feel like I'm still inside it (or it's inside me) for days. I'm pretty impressionable. But the aesthetic of "Drive" (like "Le Samourai") is to remain at least one step removed from its characters at all times -- at least until (in the case of "Drive") the elevator scene. As I later learned from reading an interview, the concept was to create a movie character who thought of himself as a character in a movie. That's a great description of what "Drive" actually does, I think. The emotions are inherent in the archetypes and situations, but they're highly aestheticized.
"The lead characters' long pauses and opaque expressions allow the audience to fill in the emotions."
I don't think Gosling is opaque, he is way more overt than Delon in Le Samourai or Cercle Rouge. A part of his acting becomes clearer after the elevator scene, but his reticence to engage a relation with the girl is quite clear from the first scene, even if we don't know why yet. What can seem opaque is the lack of any kind of psychological explanation and the fact we don't know anything about his past, but his emotions are always acted out, we just don't know why he feels them. For example, the first time he's in the appartment of Carey Mulligan, he tries not to smile, but he can't resist, so his smiles seem to appear from nowhere: he's quite blank for one moment and then there's that smile, vanishing and reappearing, in such a way that we see at once the honesty behind this smile and the reticence of showing it (he's contracting his mouth, it doesn't feel natural). Sometimes the frame is speaking for him: when he finds Mulligan sitting in the hall during the celebration of her husband's return, the Driver stands in the left corner of the frame and behind him there's the (red) exit sign, reminding us that's where he wants to be, out of there, out of her view, out of this situation. He thinks of himself as a character in a movie because that's the best way for him to live and be what he is, to assume his violent nature (which he can alleviate in his stunts and in his heists, and probably rationalize by thinking of himself as a character – ironically, that's exactly what we can't do with him, we don't have enough context in order to truly understand this violence, we can't rationalize it without knowledge of his past). So cinema (and music) is means for him to express what he is, and that's why the movie, in a way, is meant to be the very soul of the character (like you said, the red is exploding at the screen at some point, it feels exhilarating, because that's the way Driver feels this violence). Drive (the movie) is not merely a subjective point of view of the main character, the movie is the character, there's no disconnection. This movie is much more indebted to the two Davids (Cronenberg and Lynch) than Melville, for his depiction of a character through pure cinematical means. And to Welles, in a way (the scorpion tale is famously associated to him, in Arkadin if I remember correctly), who was working on similar themes: artificiality, expression of oneself through theatricality, same sense of personnal failure coming from the impossibility of hiding who we are, or to control our nature (the scorpion tale). So, I don't think I'm filling something, for this I would need to provide a psychological explanation, but this movie is all about emotion, about affect, in a pure form because they're disconnected from their cause. It's about the presence of emotion, the expression of it, not the why.
Anyway, I'm kind of improvising as I write here, but I find a lot to think about in this movie. One of the best of the year, with Tree of Life (another emotionnal experience that many found cold and distant, but moved me in a profound way).
I appreciate your reading. The thing I was trying to get across is that these characters are not conventional psychological creations but more archetypal constructs. The compositions, the colors, the frame (as you say) express what the characters and dialog repress. That's kind of the whole concept of the movie, in a nutshell. As Refn has said, he and Gosling took the story, the script, the characters and stripped them down to essentials: "I just picked and dissected everything and put the elements back into my fetish. I'm a fetish filmmaker."
The following has nothing to do with "Drive," just saw Bryan Cranston there and wondered if you ever plan on writing anything about TV's "Breaking Bad"? I've seen a few snippets of your thoughts on Twitter and they seem as interestingly individual as anybody else's, and everybody seems to have their own favored and despised characters (I've been more or less rooting for Jesse from midway into season 2 and onward, you say you hated him for three seasons and only now warm to him and think Walter has been short shifted, whereas I love what they've done with Walt, turning him into a sort of preachy, self-centered, suburban-purgatory dwelling king Hamlet I "avenge me!" ghost, is their best work yet with that character) and, anyway, everyone has ideas about what it might say about survival and family and business and North American society (albeit broadly and using grand sweeping metaphors) or whatever...
Seems there's a lot of angles to consider with the different characters and your resume of classic TV commentary -- the past "Twin Peaks" and recent "Mad Men" write-ups sorting through their magic and mysteries -- makes me think you're the man for the job and your blog would be tha bomb. But I know you have other priorities and are probably already insanely busy. Just sayin, if you ever find time and interest, reading your thoughts would be extremely cool.
Thanks, Karlos. I'd really like to write about "Breaking Bad" -- and "Louie," which I think is even more accomplished and complex -- if I could find the time! I felt the first part of "BB" this season wasn't doing enough with any of the characters. I think it's gotten much more interesting in the last two or three weeks, though. Very curious about where it's going to go...
Jim, do you think that Driver sabotaged Irene's car? I've seen it twice now, and I'm pretty sure he did that as a way to get closer to her.
Now that you mention it, there's a strange moment when he comes out of the store... sees something out of the frame that we don't see... and then turns to go over and help. I interpreted it as some hesitation over whether he should get involved -- but you may be right. This is the kind of ambiguity in filmmaking I enjoy! (Did you find it at all odd that, once he takes them home, she doesn't thank him when he leaves? I did.)
Yes, I did find it odd that she doesn't thank him when she leaves, but there are so many odd things in the movie that I think the heart of it is much closer to Taxi Driver and Blue Velvet, while on the surface there are the obvious influences of all those 80s action movies and those strong silent type movies. That hallway of Irene's could have came right out of Blue Velvet.
A better title for this post:
All of the Lights
Did anyone catch that split-second moment when Driver is on the movie set and is being fitted with the rubber mask? If you look carefully, you can briefly see another actor (presumably the "star" of the film-within-the-film) sitting in Driver's spot in front of the mirror. I think this reinforces the theory that Driver imagines himself the star of his own movie.
The negative reviews of Drive seem so picky and derisive that there is an air of backlash about them. They don't dismiss the film, they overanalyze it to the point of overkill. I didn't laugh at any scene in Drive, nor did anyone in the theater. I thought it was astonishing what Refn did as a variation on a theme, taking a very bare bones story and reving it up into a new race car. Yes, I loved Hill's The Driver, Mann's Collateral, Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. And I think Drive ranks.
As for a heavy handed color palette, no, the red did not leap out at me. It was not distracting except in one scene when Irene tells driver that her husband's coming home in a week and the red stoplight shines on them. But it certainly didn't ruin the film.
And one question--why do all the negative reviews condemn Refn for festishm...and what do you actually mean by that? I liked that the driver was fond of his scorpion jacket--the guy is a kid with a brutal edge (who wants to be a hero and a real human being:) Let's leave it at that.
I'm not sure which "negative reviews" you're referring to. (This certainly isn't one of them -- as I say, it's not a review at all, just some observations.) Also, I wouldn't describe the color palette as "heavy-handed"; it's very strong and expressionistic, though. (Refn says he prefers high-contrast color because he is colorblind. I don't know if he's joking, but there you are.)
As for the fetishism -- that's Refn's own term to describe his movies' sensibilities: "I am a fetish filmmaker." I think what he's saying has to do with the way he strips things down to essentials, downplaying some things (dialog, overt emotions) and emphasizing others (color, light, surface textures) -- or, as you put it, "taking a very bare bones story and revving it up into a new race car."
I wasn't familiar with Refn's previous work and I knew almost nothing about "Drive" when I went to see it (other than remembering it had been well-received at Cannes), but since I published my first response I've had a good time reading about it. You might want to check out some of the interviews Refn and Gosling have done, talking about their methods and what they were going for. At LabuzaMovies, there's this account from Refn himself about the violence:
"Anything graphic at that level will provoke laughter because it is absurd and bizarre and far out. So that will be a natural reaction. We did a screening at New York Times club and it was seniors and there was no laughter. So I think it depends on who you are. But any reaction to it is an interesting reaction. I guess I’m attracted to violence because it’s my fetish. There’s something very cinematic about it and primal, so I try to make it emotionally engaging."
http://j.mp/plpx7k
Refn sees the minimalist characterizations this way:
"I eliminated all his back story because I wanted him to be a mythological character. Not having a past made him a mystery, an enigma, and he represented the needs of the other characters—they all needed to have a reason to have a driver in their lives. But it also made him more romantic, more pure because you would interpret his behavior as more of an enigma. When he becomes more violent and dangerous, it’s more surprising and scary because you never saw it coming. There is a kind of sense this is a transformation movie. Nobody offered me any of the superhero movies in Hollywood, so I went and made one myself. So I wanted to make a movie about someone who transformed himself into a superhero at the end, and whatever comes of that."
That's a great shot of Brooks, it's as if the camera is trying to hide behind the Driver's shoulder - the cinematography is so subtly expressive throughout.
I saw the film two days ago, and thought it was very good, but didn't quite live up to the hype.
And it's haunted me ever since. Who knows where it will land on my "list," but it got under my skin more than any movie since what I call "the Sick America Quartet" in 2007 - NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, ZODIAC, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES, and THERE WILL BE BLOOD.
Can't wait to see it again.
BTW, an online acquaintance came up with the awesome following description of DRIVE -
"This isn't so much a genre heist thriller, it's more a very, very violent version of Pinochio.(sic) Except here the little wooden boy doesn't realize what's wrong with him until he meets some normal, nice people."
I'm not a big anime nut or anything, but I thought a lot of the pregnant pauses and the general minimalism reminded me quite a bit of some anime.
The general look of the film did at times as well, particularly the sleek, lanky, suggestive costumes they garbed Gosling in.
The movie hasn't resonated very deeply with me some 5 days after seeing it, but boy I loved that opening chase. Was there a single exterior shot of Gosling's car in that whole scene? It was a fun sequence to watch after reading your action movie pieces this week.
Andrew - he drove the car in reverse during the chase because you can make a sharper turn at a higher speed going in reverse(on a front wheel drive). That's why the car chasing them wiped out. I do agree with you about Gosling's way of almost smirking without smirking. I see a lot of a young Alec Baldwin in what he does.
I studied physics, and I don't see why driving in reverse enables a sharper turn. The maximum turning angle at high speed depends on the friction between tires and road. This friction is not changed by steering with the rear tires instead of the front.
One thing that fast driving in reverse will do is quickly blow your engine, since you can't shift to a higher reverse gear. It's the last thing I'd do when trying to outrun killers.
LIke the climax, this stunt is dramatic but makes no sense.
I also wanted to comment on how much I like the opening chase scene. No score or musical accompaniment was key. You could feel the surge of the car and more importantly the power and noise of the helicopter - that's where the adrenalin comes from.
I don't quite know what to make of this movie as a whole. I felt there were some minutes in it that were borderline terrible(the whirlwind relationship with the Mom and son). (If that's the "best thing that ever happened" to Driver, how pathetic has his life been to this point)? I also felt like Carey Mulligan was miscast. Why does she have that little smile all the time? Under the circumstances they're in, it didn't make sense. Would that little cute English girl really be with someone like her husband? Just didn't feel right.
But I can't get this movie out of my head ( a la Layer Cake or Sexy Beast). I don't think it's as good as those, but maybe it is.
You must read the Self-Styled Siren's piece on "Drive" -- and Mulligan:
"It's deeply unfortunate, however, that Gosling is fighting for the tapioca presence of Carey Mulligan, diligently overacting her underacting. She plays one note, that note being wounded innocence: eyes wide and slightly damp, lips pouted and slightly bruised. Gosling does his best to convince us that this constitutes irresistible allure, but that's a tall order, asking an actor to play convincing romance with a woman who's avoiding charm like the Spanish flu. [...]
"... One lengthy shot has Irene at a mirror, in profile, putting a baby clip in her hair, then staring at her reflection. Is she afraid for herself, for her son? Is she melancholy at the thought of a man she can't have? Is she thinking, "Goddamn it, why can't I just hook up with a nice dentist for once?" The Siren can't tell you. Mulligan just looks mad at her hair."
http://selfstyledsiren.blogspot.com/2011/09/drive-2011.html
Also - the shots from inside the car are terrific. Makes you want to leave the theatre and f***ing drive!! Just realized where I've seen them before - Memento.
This is actual criticism, not your umpteenth "I Hate The Dark Knight" articles...haha.
Jim, you said said "The movie is so emotionally/sexually repressed (all cool, slick surfaces, glazed reflections and valentine-candy-heart cliches) that this over-the-top, graphic-but-artificial RED -- it's not just red, it's blood -- feels like an absurd, joyous, orgasmic release." Kind of oddly, this reminds me of Rear Window. Why? Because Driver is clearly impotent (I don't mean strictly sexual: people who are incapable of having sympathy for others live shallow, impotent lives) as is Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window. According to Wiki (sorry) drive theory is "is based on the principle that organisms are born with certain physiological needs and that a negative state of tension is created when these needs are not satisfied. When a need is satisfied, drive is reduced and the organism returns to a state of homeostasis and relaxation." The fetish (fetish, a penis lost in childhood, hmmm) film which behaves like a dream, called Drive, which features the figure Driver, becomes violent to satisfy and return everything to its right place (it ends peacefully, him driving relaxed and calm, unlike the chaotic beginning)-
Dennnis Quaid must like this movie. Comments?
Peter A. - I'm no physics major, but I've done the research behind the wheel. Maybe not at 80, but at 40mph. The friction between the tires and the road is dependent upon the weight, and when you drive in reverse the engine and thus the weight is in the back of the vehicle. You can now whip that lighter front end around and corner much more sharply. Try it some time, it'll amaze you how easy it is to take corners in reverse(provided you have the proper skill set).
So - i really bought that scene in that sense...but, I did wonder why the guy chasing him didn't shoot him or at least at him while he was facing him going in reverse. Maybe his skill set was lacking.
Maybe the turn *feels* sharper when you're going 40 in reverse.
Imagine a car driving in a circle. It goes faster and faster until at some point the tires slip and skid off the circle. Which tires will slip first? I'm not sure, because the engine weight creates more centrifugal force as well as more tire friction. But does it matter whether those tires are in front or back? I don't see why. They will slip at a certain speed regardless.
I agree Eric - when driving in reverse, smaller steering-wheel movements make for tighter turns.
I also concluded that he was using a psychological trick on the Chaser.
The Chaser (perfect car) had to be thinking he'd won when he was crashing into Driver's front end. He was so focused on Driver's car that he was not looking down the road, which he would be if he was chasing Driver's rear. He had no inkling that Driver would turn.
You the viewer don't get any forewarning of the turn, either.
Driver meanwhile, had noticed the turn-off, presumably, when he first went by moments before. He took note of the tight turn and obstacles in the turn. He knew he could make the turn in reverse, and that the pursuer wouldn't be expecting it.
I took this as an affirmation of his mastery of Driving that Cranston's guy refers to when describing him to Brooks. He's just got it. He knows he's got "it" and he can be 99.9% sure the other driver doesn't.
The chases in the film were great! They seemed to end anticlimactically. I loved the way this one ended with the obscured shot of the quiet crash through Driver's rear window, and then the long skewed shot of the wheel. We never see the chase car driver.
Great observations, Jim! I liked this film a lot.
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