Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

[knives]

At the time you presented the violence as a negative by itself, hence my blurb. I would say that your statements still haven't given a good explanation on why the violence is bad. Many films use one action, usually violent, to take a drastic tonal shift. It's a major tenant of the tragicomedy even going back at least as far as Romeo and Juliet. I'm not discounting that in this case that the turn was done poorly, but so far you haven't said anything to suggest it was done poorly rather than done well. All I'm doing is asking for elaboration.

[Cold Bishop]

I see lots of people remark about the tonal shift, but I think it's perfectly logical to what the film's doing. The whole film seems to be a conflict between two sides of Gosling's character; to simplify matter, let's call it Gosling the "Human Being" vs. Gosling the "Shark". He's really no better than the criminals he's fighting: he's just a cruel and violent as them, and even the "romantic" side of his character is diminished when he assaults and threatens a female character. It's only his relationship with Irene and Benicio, and the lengths he goes for it, that distinguishes him as a "real human being" at the end (and this is probably the moral excuses that Rosenbaum calls bullshit on).

It's no mistake the shift happens the moment when the husband returns home, and the normalcy and romance starts crashing down. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the moment where Gosling's "shark" side comes out (his meeting with the former client, where he threatens to kick his teeth in), is right after Standard tries dressing him down in the hallway.

And yes, Refn has an unsettling antisocial view of human relations: barbarians barely hiding under the veneer of human civility. There are times when I think he's turning into the heir apparent to John Milius: gleefully partaking in the worst, violent masculine side of human behavior... but backing it up with a craft and talent that nonetheless makes it irresistible. If Refn can be acquitted of this charge, it's in the absence of militarism and his lack of easy hero-worship.

And for the record: I like the film! zedz is right that it's destined to overrated... but it couldn't happen to a nicer film.

[JMULL222]

I certainly think it's worth noting that, in interviews, Refn and Gosling seem to regard the character's intentions totally differently. Refn always refers to it in terms of Grimm fairy tales, while Gosling speaks of Driver being someone whose "seen too many movies" and thus lives his life by those standards. Intriguing, if nothing else.

[Cold Bishop]

I definitely see that, and I think it's both the most intriguing aspect of the film and the most frustrating. If people thought Taxi Driver had an incoherent view of it's protagonist, and the it ultimately copped-out by making him too sympathetic, well, they're not going to like this film. But, despite the Western/Neon Noir/Superhero iconography that gets hung on the character, there is something off and unsettling about him. I almost immediately linked this film with Super, and reading Gosling's comments only further that notion of a really darker character lying underneath the vague, opaque surface.

if the whole conflict is a movie of his own making, as Gosling put it, I don't think it's a mistake that he wears that mask for the "big showdown" at the end; a friend pointed out that he thought it was a pointless disguise, but I don't think disguising himself was the point; the point is him turning himself into a "hero" of a Hollywood action film. I've heard some people even postulate that the mask is suppose to be Jason Statham, which would be quite a cutesy move by Refn/Gosling if it's true. Either way, along with the neon-noir moonlighting, his Shane-like devotion to the family, and the scorpion jacket, which Refn starts filming like a superhero emblem, it shows how he slowly builds this Hollywood-fueled persona for himself. But at the end, it is just a mask, he's not the star but a stunt double, he is in over his head.

It's also interesting that Driver invokes the "The Scorpion and the Frog" which is interesting since A) It really has more parallels with the conflict between the Driver and Bernie than between him and Nino and B) If Gosling is the "scorpion", it's almost an admission of some culpability, since the scorpion is the self-destructive figure in the fable.

Of course, the movie definitely doesn't just make him a delusional psychopath. It too is enamored with the iconography of Hollywood and the notion of a "real hero". And this is the crux where people are going to love and hate the film.

[John Cope]

I'm seeing the film this weekend but I am loving everything you just said about it. All this "lived role playing" stuff is one of my absolute favorite themes and is rarely explored well, though Refn definitely seems the man to do it (especially going by the awesome indicators of that in Bronson). I actually heard someone describe the Gosling character as a sociopath; between that and the fully intended icon posturing poster there should be some really remarkable, richly ironic tension. I can't wait.

[Mr. Ned]

The scene in the grocery store gives it all away:

Spoiler

Driver sees Irene and Benicio and immediately hides in the other aisle; after a lingering shot of him eavesdropping between the consumer goods, we have a cut to him walking outside, past Irene's car out of view, before he stops, turns around and walks towards her, revealing the engine trouble to the audience. Given his secrecy in the grocery moments earlier, the first thing that popped in my head was: he sabotaged Irene's car to get closer to them, to help build up the delusional narrative of heroism he's spurred in his head. I think the ambiguity of the scene, that balances altruism with darker undertones, was a perfect set-up for everything that follows -- a story that is all too perfect, because it's been scripted beforehand, and one that Driver will strive to continue no matter how violent and psychotic the lengths he has to take.

I also found the film's beach climax, with a lighthouse off in the distance as Driver dons his "heroic" mask, was a stroke of absolute genius. This film, disturbing as it is underneath its glossy surface, really does have a lot going for it.

[mfunk9786]

If Refn's next film, the Gosling-starring remake of Logan's Run is a box-office success, he wants to make a big budget Wonder Woman movie.

He wants Christina Hendricks for the part.

In other words: Go see Logan's Run.

[flyonthewall2983]

I've heard some people even postulate that the mask is suppose to be Jason Statham, which would be quite a cutesy move by Refn/Gosling if it's true.

It looks more to me like a nod to Bronson, actually.

[jbeall]

If Refn's next film, the Gosling-starring remake of Logan's Run is a box-office success, he wants to make a big budget Wonder Woman movie.

He wants Christina Hendricks for the part.

In other words: Go see Logan's Run.

I won't be leaving for any theater until my blood pressure goes back to normal after hearing that information! (Seriously, heading to see Drive this evening anyway, but the idea of Christina Hendricks as Wonder Woman... good lord!)

[Jeff]

Yeah, the inconsequential story is both paper-thin and shopworn, but Nicolas Winding Refn had me in his clutches from the very beginning of the virtuoso title sequence, and never let go. It's an exercise in style, but it delights at every turn. Refn is certainly channeling Michael Mann, and Gosling's got the existentialist cool of Alain Delon and Steve McQueen. I wasn't bothered by a bit of the old ultraviolence, because it punctuated the dreamy, laconic rhythm of our hero's journey and slowly stripped away the sad-eyed, soulful, sensitive veneer of the driver. I'm sure that as zedz predicts, it's ripe for overpraise, but I can tell it's something I'll revisit frequently. Gosling gives another amazingly layered and controlled performance, Mulligan is adorable again (if somewhat wasted and miscast here), and Albert Brooks plays brilliantly against type. The score and cinematography are certain to figure among the year's best. Drive is pure cinematic candy.

[Cronenfly]

I'm a little curious as to general audience reactions...The crowd I saw this with opening night (including the two people I was with) hated it, and not just the handful of teens giggling at the too-long silent stretches (especially the Gosling-Mulligan romantic interludes). I can't say I disagreed with them, either: I'm firmly in zedz's camp on the film, though I am intrigued by some of the suggestions in this thread (esp. Mr. Ned and Cold Bishop), and could well have had a different take on it in a less hostile environment. Will probably end up giving it another look somewhere down the line, but on first blush I could not get past the awkward attempts at minimalism and lumpy arty-action hybridity (the shocks of violence and too-liberal use of slow motion felt pretty desperate to me). I know it is for the best that the film is ambiguous about Gosling's heroism/lack thereof (indeed, in retrospect that's a bigger plus than I picked up on while watching it), but the stiltedness of the whole endeavor/construction of the character left me (and my perhaps unreasonably high expectations) completely cold.

[Mr. Ned]

...he wants to make a big budget Wonder Woman movie.

This would be spectacular.

[mfunk9786]

I'm a little curious as to general audience reactions...The crowd I saw this with opening night (including the two people I was with) hated it, and not just the handful of teens giggling at the too-long silent stretches (especially the Gosling-Mulligan romantic interludes). I can't say I disagreed with them, either: I'm firmly in zedz's camp on the film, though I am intrigued by some of the suggestions in this thread (esp. Mr. Ned and Cold Bishop), and could well have had a different take on it in a less hostile environment. Will probably end up giving it another look somewhere down the line, but on first blush I could not get past the awkward attempts at minimalism and lumpy arty-action hybridity (the shocks of violence and too-liberal use of slow motion felt pretty desperate to me). I know it is for the best that the film is ambiguous about Gosling's heroism/lack thereof (indeed, in retrospect that's a bigger plus than I picked up on while watching it), but the stiltedness of the whole endeavor/construction of the character left me (and my perhaps unreasonably high expectations) completely cold.

I heard someone behind me as we were walking out say "I thought that was supposed to be an exciting movie. Nothing happened." Which honestly, despite your opinion on the film's quality, leaves me feeling very sad. That someone really felt like nothing happened in a film that contains at least a half dozen completely riveting scenes in which a lot happened.

[Mr. Ned]

The deliberate ambiguity of Driver is what makes this movie so special. He embodies the quintessential cinematic anti-hero, the man with no name: the murky past; the soulful, penetrating stare; the quiet countenance that displays both vulnerability and a fierce protectiveness; a demeanor that can switch between sensitivity and violence at any moment. The fact Refn tunes into that and makes his actions tread a line between the heroic and the horrendous makes this pure cinematic candy like Jeff said, but also gets at something often overlooked about these "heroes" we follow and celebrate in the cinema: there's nothing normal about these guys. In fact, there's something quite delusional to the whole thing. There's no way anyone in their right mind would go to the lengths Driver did to protect a woman and her son, people he had known for, what, maybe two weeks? I already mentioned the suspicious way he first formally meets Irene and Benicio, but how far he takes his devotion is stranger still. Driver can be defined as psychotic in the sense that he's completely enraptured within a multilayer narrative he has mapped out in his psyche -- of what it means to be a man, a hero, and the ideals of family and honor that come with that -- and how well he can balance that with the reality he lives in. Driver sees himself as superhero, complete with scorpion insignia, and embodies that role in a way that accentuates its highest (his paternal overseeing of Benicio) and lowest (violent outbursts that he perceives as justified) trajectories. It's honorable and yet tritely stupefying. The second time Driver gives his driving speech at the park, the bookie/pimp character who's stringing Standard along laughs in his face and ridicules him ...and rightly so. The speech is gruff and determined, but also cheesy in its blatant self-entitlement. And that's the character's paradox: Driver doesn't want to be a "standard" man, as Benicio's father's name suggests, but something more. and that persistence makes you question what his true motives are, and what the hell is going on his head. The point is he's entrenched in a narrative, perpetuated by himself or not, that he cannot extirpate himself from it, and that's what makes his motives unclear, inexplicable, and beyond normality. It's an attachment that cannot be defined or classified as sociopathy, autism, or any of the other absurd diagnoses I've heard about the character; it's something else entirely, and it's not meant to be easily defined...

This criticism isn't exactly new (Don Quixote and tilting windmills, anyone?) but Refn tunes into it so beautifully here it really makes this a tour de force, despite its triter tendencies. The more I think about it, Gosling's portrayal is so spot-on in its doleful glances out of windows and off into the sunset that he gets at the heart of the persona's perpetual vigilance: always looking out, from deep within somewhere, not part of this world at all. It's as romantic as it is unsettling. The answer is in the song lyrics, really (great soundtrack, btw): "I can't eat; I can't sleep; I do nothing but think of you..." "A real hero; a real human being" "There's something about you boy, it's hard to explain..." "Do you know the difference between obsession and desire?" Great men, in some strange way, embody that indefinite, hard to explain quality; whether it's heroism or villainy, sanity or dementia, I suppose, is a matter of perspective. Like Benicio says about the cartoon, "you just know;" and yet you don't know. And that's what makes some of the scenes, the elevator and the beach in particular, so haunting and emotionally mesmerizing.

Probably not ironically, Mann's Manhunter -- his best film -- examines the darker regions of heroism in a way that's yet to be surpassed; Drive approaches that brilliance, but it's not quite there. Still one of the best of this year, though.

re: audience reactions

Spoiler

It was me and five, middle-aged blue-collar and lonely looking types speckled about the theater; I was the youngest in the theater by 15 years at least. And not a creature was stirring.

[Michael Kerpan]

The torpor is punctuated by moments of extreme gore targetted at the fanboys

How violent measure on the K(itano) scale -- Sonatine violent, Hana bi violent, Brother violent, Outrage violent? ;~}

[Jack Phillips]

The torpor is punctuated by moments of extreme gore targetted at the fanboys

How violent measure on the K(itano) scale -- Sonatine violent, Hana bi violent, Brother violent, Outrage violent? ;~}

That won't really get you there. More like: knife-in-flesh violent; face-kicking violent; etc.

[Cold Bishop]

Yeah, Kitano at least is humorous about his bloodshed (which is why the most violent of those films is also the funniest). Let's put it this way: Refn admitted to calling up Gasper Noe for advice.

If I had to use the K-scale, I don't know, I'd say the gore of Brother, but with the more sobering and concentrated effect of Fireworks.

[Michael Kerpan]

> If I had to use the K-scale, I don't know, I'd say the violence of Brother, but with the more
> sobering effect of Fireworks.

Thanks (sounds too violent for me, then). ;~}

[flyonthewall2983]

RE: Audience reactions.

Spoiler

The most curious to me was the laughter during some of the more violent scenes, with emphasis on the elevator scene. It wasn't in every scene of violence, but that's what I remember most of that sequence in particular. There was also a very audible gasp at the reveal of how gory the beatdown was.

I must admit I did have a chuckle or two when Albert Brooks killed the bookie/pimp character. I also thought it was funny during the scene where Driver is attacking the guy in his club, the girls don't look phased by what's going on at all. It told me they wouldn't mind seeing him dead, or they've seen this all too often.

[knives]

Yeah, Kitano at least is humorous about his bloodshed (which is why the most violent of those films is also the funniest). Let's put it this way: Refn admitted to calling up Gasper Noe for advice.

If I had to use the K-scale, I don't know, I'd say the gore of Brother, but with the more sobering and concentrated effect of Fireworks.

Off topic I know, but I find it genuinely shocking in Kintano considering how he plays with tone. That scene in Violent Cop where he nonchalantly shoots the woman always causes me to jump.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, the inconsequential story is both paper-thin and shopworn, but Nicolas Winding Refn had me in his clutches from the very beginning of the virtuoso title sequence, and never let go. It's an exercise in style, but it delights at every turn. Refn is certainly channeling Michael Mann, and Gosling's got the existentialist cool of Alain Delon and Steve McQueen. I wasn't bothered by a bit of the old ultraviolence, because it punctuated the dreamy, laconic rhythm of our hero's journey and slowly stripped away the sad-eyed, soulful, sensitive veneer of the driver. I'm sure that as zedz predicts, it's ripe for overpraise, but I can tell it's something I'll revisit frequently. Gosling gives another amazingly layered and controlled performance, Mulligan is adorable again (if somewhat wasted and miscast here), and Albert Brooks plays brilliantly against type. The score and cinematography are certain to figure among the year's best. Drive is pure cinematic candy.

I think this is close to my take, though I think I may have liked the movie more than you- for one thing, I thought Mulligan was roughly the caliber of actor needed to make her role work, and intelligent choice for someone who would attract the Driver as we see him. But overall, I think worrying in detail about the Driver's outlook and moral viewpoint is interrogating the movie in a way that mistakes its intentions. While it may have some similarities to Taxi Driver, I don't think it's anything like as interested in the character or how he thinks- the Gosling character seems more comparable to Clint Eastwood in a Leone movie than to Travis Bickle.

The movie seems to me to be primarily an exercise in style, in creating a mood and sustaining it, and I think on that level it functions marvelously well. There are nods to the idea that Gosling's character is fundamentally not a good person- his identification with the scorpion in the fable tells us that much- but I think the real purpose of the movie is to give us the long, dreamy sequences of Gosling's face as he drives, and to see the potential for violence that lies within.

[jbeall]

I generally liked it, and found a lot of similarities to Valhalla Rising (what a surprise, I know!), with the focus on the enigmatic protagonist. Ryan Gosling's performance is underrated, I think, because without the subtlety of his facial expressions, there's little to no substance to the stylish veneer. Out of curiosity, is the driver supposed to be schizoid? I get that the changes in his facial expression were consistently a second too late, as if he processes that this is the way he's supposed to behave in this domestic situation (whereas it comes more naturally when he's driving).

Anyway, while my friends and I certainly got hits of Michael Mann, I thought Drive also channeled Leos Carax's Mauvais Sang and possibly a Debbie Gibson video to boot. So very pomo... ah my head hurts.

[Galen Young]

First Refn film for me. The thin story or violence didn't bother me in the least, but man -- this has got to be the best Michael Mann knockoff I've ever seen! (or should that be 'homage'?) The acting, photography, tone, use of pop songs and terrific score by Cliff Martinez all had me longing for the Mann of yore: Thief...Manhunter...Heat...The Insider. For all the classy stylistic sheen, I'm not sure if he transcended all of Mann's tropes to bring the material somewhere new. Kind of a weird, Tarantino aftertaste. Still though, it was a very enjoyable experience and I will definitely seek out Refn's other films. His Cannes win and Albert Brooks are what got me in the door.

[flyonthewall2983]

If Criterion is really working on Thief, I'd love it if they got Refn and Mann for a sit-down interview like the one on Blow Out.

[Graham]

If Criterion is really working on Thief

What?!! This would be a dream come true. Where did this rumour / information originate from?