First Man

Ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by space travel. The seeds were planted in science fiction movies like Star Wars (1977) but my interest intensified in the early 1980s with the United States Space Shuttle program. If kids in the 1960s and 1970s had the space race between the Americans and the Russians, my generation had the Shuttles – incredible spacecraft that would hurtle into outer space to launch telescopes or rendezvous with space stations. The tragic Space Shuttle Challenger mission in 1986 where it exploded 73 seconds into its flight was a sobering reminder of the danger of these endeavors.

My interest in the Space Shuttles dovetailed with the release of The Right Stuff (1983), a historical biopic about the Mercury Seven astronauts that playfully exposed their flaws and celebrated these brave men. Over the years, my interest in the subject continued with films like Apollo 13 (1995) and so when it was announced that a biopic chronicling Neil Armstrong’s historic landing on the Moon was being made I was all in.

First Man (2018) is Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to La La Land (2016) and reunited him with his leading man Ryan Gosling playing Armstrong. As a result, anticipation for the film was high and then it failed to perform at the box office despite mostly glowing reviews. Some have speculated that the frivolous controversy over the omission of the planting of the American flag on the Moon as being unpatriotic may have turned off mainstream audiences, it was more likely Gosling’s historically accurate, reserved take on Armstrong, coupled with a somewhat detached point-of-view that probably turned off filmgoers. Who cares? First Man is a thoughtful, moving film that takes a visceral approach to the challenges of traveling into outer space.

Much like The Right Stuff, First Man starts off by putting its protagonist in peril. Armstrong (Gosling) is testing the X-15 rocket-powered plane by pushing it and him to the absolute limits as he escapes the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a gripping, visceral experience punctuated by a brief break of serene beauty as he takes a moment to admire the view of our planet from such a great distance. This soon gives way to sweaty, white knuckled panic as he has trouble re-entering the atmosphere. Chazelle makes sure we experience it right along with Armstrong and it sets the tone for the rest of the film.

It’s 1961 and Armstrong and his wife Janet (Claire Foy) are dealing with the death of their young daughter Karen. The taciturn Armstrong internalizes his feelings in front of everyone, only grieving by himself in private. He processes her death and goes immediately back to work but the powers that be ground him. While dealing with paperwork he notices a pamphlet for Project Gemini, whose focus will be on space exploration. In 1962, he applies for and is accepted into the program. The rest of First Man chronicles his journey and some of the challenges he faced on the way to achieving his goal: landing on the Moon.

Unlike The Right Stuff, First Man plays the astronaut training scenes straight-faced with the physical exercises depicted as grueling affairs that best the most determined men, like Armstrong, and the most confident, like Ed White (Jason Clarke), who are all pushed to their physical and mental limits. He spends little screen-time on this aspect of the program as it has already been depicted numerous times before.

Chazelle makes interesting choices on how he depicts certain events, like how Ed tells Neil about their friend and fellow astronaut Elliot See (Patrick Fugit) dying in a jet crash. Instead of going for the obvious close-ups on anguished faces, he shoots both men silhouetted in the frame of Armstrong’s front door. They accept the news with no emotion having been trained to be cool under pressure but when Armstrong comes back into the kitchen with his wife and son, Gosling conveys the inner turmoil through his expressive eyes and how every facial muscle clenches as Armstrong fights to keep in the emotions he’s feeling about the death of one of his closest friends.

Most of the film is experienced through Armstrong’s perspective. When he goes up in the Gemini 8, Chazelle depicts it through his P.O.V., quite often showing us what he sees – a seemingly endless array of dials and switches and then cutting to close-ups of Armstrong’s face as he reacts to this extraordinary experience. Once the rocket launches, Chazelle bombards us with a cacophony of sights and sounds as the noisy rocket shakes and vibrates violently, escaping the Earth’s atmosphere in an incredibly intense sequence.

Chazelle ratchets up the tension even more when Armstrong’s spacecraft suddenly loses control and plummets via a violent continuous left roll towards the Earth. The G-forces cause his co-pilot to pass out and within seconds of passing out himself, Armstrong manages to gain control, which is conveyed in jarring close-ups and kinetic editing as Chazelle cuts from Armstrong’s panicked eyes to the various switches and mechanisms he utilizes to keep alive. Chazelle juxtaposes these intense moments of Neil at work with his downtime at home presented in elegiac fragments reminiscent of the family scenes in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011). They aren’t traditional scenes with a beginning, middle and ending, but rather snapshots of the Armstrong family dynamic.

Gosling is excellent, delivering a complex portrait of Neil Armstrong. He digs deep and shows the man’s private side, how he doesn’t show emotion to anyone, even, at times, his wife, preferring to express it alone. His generation saw emotion as a sign of weakness. Any private reservations he has he keeps to himself. This lack of communication comes to a head, however, on the eve of his mission to the Moon. Janet finally has had it and confronts him, forcing her husband to talk to their children about the danger of the mission. It might be the last time they see him and she wants Armstrong to let their children know that. He is not afraid of many things but having an open and honest conversation with his family terrifies him. Gosling is incredible in this scene as he conveys how uncomfortable Armstrong feels in this situation, answering his children’s questions like a press briefing as he doesn’t know any other way. Gosling conveys the emotions brimming under the surface in his eyes while his body language gives nothing else away. It is this unflappable nature that makes Armstrong a brilliant astronaut but not the greatest husband and father.

For all his stoicism, Chazelle shows a lighter side to Armstrong when he and his wife recount how he wrote lyrics in the vein of Gilbert and Sullivan to the faux disbelief of their friends as they all break up into laughter. This is an important scene as it humanizes Armstrong. This portrait of the man feels authentic but it isn’t very audience-friendly. He isn’t an easy person to relate to or like and Gosling’s natural charisma tempers this somewhat but he doesn’t try to go for the easy route nor does the film and make you like him. It forces the audience to meet him on his own terms, which probably hurt its commercial appeal.

Jason Clarke turns in another wonderfully solid performance as Ed White, Armstrong’s best friend and one of the few people able to penetrate the man’s stoic exterior. He’s an astronaut, too, so he knows what Armstrong is going through but even he can’t relate to the part of him that is still dealing with the death of a child. He is aware of his inscrutable nature and allows White in further than anyone else. After the death of See, Armstrong doesn’t want to let anyone else get too close as he knows how dangerous their job is and doesn’t want to mourn yet another person close to him. When one of their own dies on a mission they all think that could have been them. That’s the reality of their existence: there is always a high probability that they won’t come back and First Man shows how it affects Armstrong and his family.

The actual mission to the Moon is masterfully recreated with Chazelle capturing all the technical details while also allowing for a bit of artistic license that feels right and remains true to the spirit of Armstrong’s character as he finally gets closure on his daughter’s death. While there is a certain amount of tension conveyed in the actual landing on the Moon (they almost run out of fuel), Chazelle tempers this with the wonderment of being there in a way that has not been done before in a fictional film. Everything Armstrong has done in his life has prepared him for this moment and instead of underlining how momentous landing on the Moon was for the United States and for the world, the director opts for showing what it means to Armstrong.

In 2014, Damien Chazelle was approached by the producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey with the book, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen they’d optioned for Universal Pictures. Initially, he had little interest in Armstrong or the space program and was unsure about doing an adaptation as well as something based on real life. Everything he had done before had been made up and personal. The more he read about the man, though, the more he was intrigued about the very private person that had experienced multiple tragedies, which included the loss of his home in a fire and the death of his daughter at age three. Chazelle was also able to find a personal connection – he could identify with the hard work it took to achieve something and realize a dream. He pitched First Man to Ryan Gosling but they started talking about La La Land instead and made that first. The director felt that both Gosling and Armstrong shared similar qualities: introverted, cool-under-pressure and men of few words. Working with the actor on La La Land and getting to know him personally confirmed that Gosling was right for the role.

Chazelle began looking for a screenwriter that could do the research needed and then transform it into a narrative. He met Josh Singer in 2015 and liked his passion for the project. While Chazelle was shooting La La Land, Singer worked on the script. For research, they visited NASA and met a few of the surviving astronauts like Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins as well as spending time with Neil’s wife, Janet.

As he began assembling his crew for the film, he sought out Nathan Crowley, the production designer on Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014), as he admired his practical approach: in-camera effects, miniatures, full-scale replicas, and lived-in sets. The look of the film was inspired by the archival materials that were uncovered during research and this included photographs the astronauts took in space, the LIFE magazine photos of the family, old home movies, photos the astronaut families shared, and seeing actual capsules. He also eschewed obvious themed films like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Apollo 13 in favor of films like Battle of Algiers (1966) and The French Connection (1971) that opted for gritty realism. He ended up compiling a 300-page dossier of images that the crew nicknamed “The Notebook” (in reference to the Gosling film of the same name) that he could refer to during the 58-day shoot.

Chazelle worked hard to separate the man from the mythology and wanted to show his range of emotions. He was interested looking at Armstrong on the family level with his wife and children. He also wanted to depict lesser known aspects of Armstrong’s life, like how he almost died in the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle while training for the Moon landing. Chazelle also wanted to remind people “how dangerous that first era of space travel really was,” and “make it as scary and uncertain as it really was.”

During filming, Chazelle told his cinematographer Linus Sandgren, “imagine we’re a fly on the wall, carrying a camera, running and gunning with these astronauts.” He wanted to do as much “in camera” as possible and for the actors to see what the audience would see, so if they saw the Earth out a window it was on a 35-foot-tall, 65-foot-wide LED screen. To film the space flight sequences, visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert used the screen to project 90 minutes of digital imagery created for the film. A replica spacecraft was built and mounted on a gimbal and synchronized to move in sync with footage on the screen. This allowed the astronauts’ surroundings to be filmed in real time. The footage consisted of 20 cans of 70mm NASA footage that was discovered at the Marshall Space Center in Alabama that had not been viewed in decades as the equipment to project it no longer existed. The filmmakers digitally processed and cleaned up the footage and used it in the finished film. Other footage, like the Saturn V rocket falling away was done with models built at varying scales. No blue-screen or green-screen was used in any shot. Only 726 effects shots were added in post-production.

To stand in for the Moon, Chazelle and his team found the Vulcan Rock Quarry south of Atlanta. Crowley and his team sculpted five acres of it to replicate the Sea of Tranquility. Shooting on location, however, proved to be challenging. On the first day it snowed and the schedule was pushed back a week. The specially built lamp that was 15 feet long, 200,000 watts – the most powerful movie light ever built to simulate the sun – exploded and caught fire 30 minutes into shooting due to the freezing temperatures.

First Man received mostly positive critical notices. In his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott felt that the film was "strangely underwhelming. It reminds you of an extraordinary feat and acquaints you with an interesting, enigmatic man. But there is a further leap beyond technical accomplishment – into meaning, history, metaphysics or the wilder zones of the imagination – that the film is too careful, too earthbound, to attempt." Entertainment Weekly gave the film "A-" and Chris Nashawaty wrote, "Where the film really comes alive, though, is when it leaves the ground and soars into the heavens with all of its terror, beauty, unpredictability, and majesty. You’ve never seen a movie that captures space flight with this degree of authenticity." The New Yorker's Anthony Lane wrote, "Instead, the movie seeks to remold its protagonist in the image of our own era; it tells us more about us than it does about him." In his review for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw wrote, "It is a movie packed with wonderful vehemence and rapture: it has a yearning to do justice to this existential adventure and to the head-spinning experience of looking back on Earth from another planet. There is a great shot of Armstrong looking down, stupefied, at the sight of his first boot-print on the moon dust, realising what that represents."

It is the emphasis on the intimate in favor of the epic that helps First Man stand out from other films of its ilk. We know the actual event’s place in history and Chazelle opts for telling a more personal story about the man, never losing sight of that right down to the understated yet moving conclusion as Janet meets her husband after he returns from the Moon. Hopefully, it will find a new life on home video and rekindle interest in space exploration, something that people used to dream about and has become forgotten over the years as we’ve become mired in a multitude of earthbound problems.

SOURCES

Davids, Brian. “How Damien Chazelle’s First Man Took a Page Out of Christopher Nolan’s Playbook.” The Hollywood Reporter. October 12, 2018.

Galloway, Stephen. “Damien Chazelle Shoots the Moon: Oscar’s Youngest Best Director Grows Up with First Man.” The Hollywood Reporter. August 22, 2018.

Rottenberg, Josh. “How First Man Director Damien Chazelle and His Visual Effects Team Took Moviegoers to the Moon.” Los Angeles Times. October 16, 2018.

Blade Runner 2049

When Blade Runner was released in 1982, it was savaged by critics and failed to make back its budget. Over the years, however, its reputation grew, as did its influence. The look of the film’s dark, dystopian futureworld could be seen in films (The Matrix) and video games (Deus Ex) as well as the Cyberpunk movement thereafter (author William Gibson famously left a screening midway through for fear it would influence his novel Neuromancer). Despite its influence, no one was really clamoring for a sequel – certainly not the studio nor the filmmakers who ended the film on a deliciously ambiguous note that didn’t really need to be explained.

“This is a bad one, the worst yet. I need the old blade runner, I need your magic.” – Bryant

It is 2017 and here we are with Blade Runner 2049, a sequel co-written by returning screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Harrison Ford reprising his role as the titular character. However, Ridley Scott chose not to return to direct (too busy driving the Alien franchise into the ground), handing over directing duties to Canadian auteur Denis Villeneuve (Arrival). Does this new film have anything of interest to say or does it fall into the same trap that doomed Tron: Legacy (2010) – all style with little substance?

Thirty years have passed since the first film and the world has only gotten worse. The Tyrell Corporation is no more – bankrupt and bought out by wealthy industrialist Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), who has created a new generation of replicants that are much more subservient. Blade runners still exist but now with the sole purpose of finding and “retiring” older generation replicants – a sly commentary on the generation gap that exists between older models being made redundant by the newer ones.

We meet Detective K (Ryan Gosling) doing his job – hunting down a Nexus 8 replicant (Dave Bautista). At the crime scene, the detective finds the remains of a Nexus 7 replicant that was pregnant and had a child – an impossibility! He’s ordered to erase all knowledge of it – but of course he doesn’t. K investigates the identity of the mysterious replicant – this leads him to a startling reveal that links this new film with the original. Intrigued, he digs deeper and uncovers the dead replicant’s link to retired blade runner Rick Deckard (Ford), who he seeks out.

Unfortunately, Wallace learns of this and orders his right-hand woman Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) – a ruthless new generation replicant – to find the child so that he can study it and figure out what Tyrell was able to achieve that has eluded him. He’s the film’s morally sordid puppet master with grand designs for the future – a warped reality where he is revered as a deity.

K is himself a replicant, which presents intriguing, fascinating implications that the film touches upon throughout, like how he is resented by his fellow (human) cops as well as his neighbors; old prejudices don’t go away over time. Ryan Gosling is first-rate as a replicant used to doing what he’s told and learning, or rather feeling compelled to disobey by what he discovers about the Nexus 7 replicant. The actor maintains an emotionless façade of a machine that knows what’s expected of him and does it without question, but over the course of the film he undergoes a journey of self-discovery, delivering an inquisitive, thoughtful performance.

K’s girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas) is a hologram, which seems rather fitting for a replicant. Their relationship is a fascinating one that is explored throughout the film. For example, the greatest gift he can give her is an upgrade that allows her to actually feel the rain outside – a basic sensation that we take for granted.

Blade Runner 2049 explores the notion of illusion vs. reality. Joi is a hologram that longs to experience reality. Later on, K questions his memories – are they implants or are they real? What constitutes real memories and how do we know they are authentic?

Los Angeles hasn’t gotten any better. If anything it’s worse – denser in population and the weather is more extreme, alternating between oppressive rain and snow. This new film maintains the original’s lived-in look and incredible attention to detail. In sharp contrast is Las Vegas, which resembles a mausoleum of a bygone era – an irradiated ghost town, frozen in time. In fact, the film is populated by holograms with “ghosts” from the present – Joi – and ones from the past – Elvis and Sinatra’s holograms, ghosts of spirits long gone.

Like Blade Runner, BR2049 features richly textured cinematography, courtesy of Roger Deakins, which is a marvel to behold. His past collaborations with Villeneuve (Sicario) have been excellent and this new one goes above and beyond by creating a fully immersive experience with evocative sights and sounds of a decaying world. Take Wallace’s inner sanctum: an astounding example of set direction – courtesy of Dennis Gassner – a tranquil, water-themed room that has to be seen to be believed. They take the world that Ridley Scott and company created in Blade Runner, build and expand on it, making it their own while it still feels like this is the same universe.

I like that Villeneuve lets the story breathe, taking his time with deliberate pacing for certain scenes. He lets us soak in the mood and atmosphere while also having the characters talk to each other for extended periods of time, much like in the original film. He also spends time developing Gosling’s K so that over the running time it feels like we’ve been on a journey with him. This is such a rarity for a big budget genre film, but at this point in his career Villeneuve has earned it.

Blade Runner 2049 is a rare contemporary science fiction film that is actually about something, instead of using CGI to gloss over a weak script. The film delves deeper into the notion of replicants used as slave labor, from Wallace creating his own army of replicant slaves, to the underground army that wants to be free. This was touched on to some degree in Blade Runner but is explored in more detail here.

“It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?” – Gaff

Villeneuve hasn’t merely made a film that is slavishly faithful to the original. He certainly pays tribute to it with a few visual nods but for the most part takes the film off in a new direction that is very much its own thing, just as Blade Runner was back in 1982. This may antagonize purists or those looking for easy answers but the original film was never about providing a safe resolution to everything and while Blade Runner 2049 has an emotionally satisfying conclusion, it doesn’t do that either. Kudos to Ridley Scott for convincing the powers that be to bankroll a very expensive art film. Much like the original, it has been underappreciated by mainstream movie-going audiences. It will, however, be studied and written about for years to come.

The Nice Guys

In retrospect, releasing an R-rated buddy action movie at the beginning of the summer blockbuster season – amidst comic book superhero movies and children’s animated films – was probably not a good idea. The Nice Guys (2016), Shane Black’s throwback to a bygone era, has performed unremarkably. With this and the lackluster returns from his previous buddy action movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), it is both unfortunate and obvious that mainstream movie-going audiences no longer want to see the brand of violently comedic crime movies Black helped popularize in the 1980s and 1990s. They want movies that put an emphasis on sitcom-style comedy, eclipsed by sanitized action, and starring popular comedians like Kevin Hart (Ride Along) or Melissa McCarthy (The Heat).

I suppose one could see the writing on the wall with the massive success of the Rush Hour movies. Black even seemed to acknowledge this with Iron Man 3 (2013) where he had to disguise his trademark motifs under the guise of the Comic Book Superhero genre. Black’s unique stamp on beloved material angered Marvel fans, a poisonous dose of bad luck that followed him into The Nice Guys. This is a shame because for fans of R-rated buddy action movies, The Nice Guys is pure cinematic catnip and a reminder of how excellent this genre was and could still be.

Black takes us for a ride to Los Angeles, 1977, the opening credits playing over the funky grooves of “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” by The Temptations, which sets the right tune for the right tone. After adult film star Misty Mountains (Murielle Telio) is killed in a car crash, aging enforcer Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) crosses paths with low-rent private detective Holland March (Ryan Gosling), the former introducing himself to the latter by way of a verbal and physical warning: “Stop looking for Amelia (Margaret Qualley) by breaking his arm (“When you talk to your doctor, tell him you’ve got a spiral fracture of the right humerus…”).

Two thugs (Beau Knapp and Keith David) are also looking for Amelia and they pay a visit to Healy, trying unsuccessfully to squeeze him for information. It is a nicely written confrontation between dangerous men, quintessentially Shane Black as Healy talks his way out of trouble…with the help of a shotgun. He realizes that his case is somehow related to March’s and proposes they team up. The price is right for March – $400 – for the entire run of the case. Their investigation takes our heroes through the seedy underbelly of smog-infested L.A.

Russell Crowe hasn’t looked this loose and relaxed in a role in years as he looks like he’s having a blast playing a hired goon who actually gives a shit. Putting on weight for the role, Crowe uses his hulking frame and imposing presence effectively. His performance is the real revelation of this film as he demonstrates an unexpected penchant gift for comedy, displaying spot-on comic timing and a real knack for delivering Black’s stylized dialogue.

Ryan Gosling plays the private investigator that, unlike Crowe’s Healy, doesn’t give a shit anymore, hasn’t since the tragic death of his wife. He does easy jobs for chump change, barely supporting him and his daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice). Over the course of their investigation, he does a complete 180 degrees and becomes personally invested, especially when their lives are repeatedly put in danger. March isn’t too bright; Black establishes this early on in a funny, throwaway bit of business that sees the private eye badly slitting his wrist trying to break into a bar. Gosling plays March as a lovable goofball who is part cowardly lion, throwing up whenever he stumbles across a dead body.

Not surprisingly – given what kind of film this is – the banter between Crowe and Gosling is a lot of fun to watch. Initially, their partnership is an antagonistic one but they soon bond not only saving each other’s lives but are given a moment where they reveal personal details about themselves. This is an important element, providing insight into their characters and what motivates them so that we, in turn, become invested in their journey.

With The Nice Guys, Black takes us back to the hedonistic ‘70s a time when people smoked everywhere, did drugs openly and pornos flaunted publicly on marquees downtown. This is particularly evident in a wild party that Healy and March crash at porn king Sid Shattack’s sprawling mansion…where many of the guests are also naked. Up to this point, the film had relegated its period trappings to the background but this scene allows Black to fully immerse us in a specific time and place. The soundtrack is interspersed with popular period tunes (featuring the likes of Earth, Wind & Fire, Bee Gees, and Kool & The Gang) with a score by David Buckley and John Ottman that evokes ‘70s crime shows like The Rockford Files (which is even referenced in the film).

Black expertly juxtaposes laugh out loud moments with jarring jolts of bloody violence that is the kind of darkly comic territory for which he is known. He doesn’t dwell on the more gruesome aspects like Quentin Tarantino does in many of his films, rather uses it to punctuate a given scene for a thrill or a laugh. Much like the bad guys in a buddy action comedy like Midnight Run (1988), the heavies in The Nice Guys have gravitas and are a legitimate threat to the heroes. Black’s not afraid to have a serious moment or two with real emotional weight, which raises the stakes for our heroes – and the moviegoer – in a big way.

With a Black movie you know what you’re going to get: it will be set during Christmastime and it will feature a mismatched duo consisting of an older burnout clearly too old for this shit and a younger, more energetic partner with serious issues. They will be saddled with a wise-beyond-their-years child, and come in conflict with an infallibly polite, well-dressed sadistic henchman that enforces the will of a powerful, older white man. Lethal Weapon (1987), The Last Boy Scout (1991), The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), and so on adhere to this formula (with some variations). All of these elements combined together make him a unique voice within the studio system.

After finishing the screenplay for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and unable to get anyone to read it, Shane Black put it aside and began working on a new script idea in 2001 with his writing partner Anthony Bagarozzi about detectives in Los Angeles. They would each write a scene and show the other what they had written. Over time, it became apparent that they were writing an homage to classic detective novels they admired.

Originally, The Nice Guys was intended to be a feature film set in contemporary L.A. When Black couldn’t drum up any interest he changed it to a television show that CBS and HBO both passed on. In regards to the former, Black said, “The Standards and Practices were just going to kill us. They were so egregiously offended by even the most minor edginess.” Finally, it reverted back to a feature film but with Black deciding to set it in the 1970s. This change came from his fondness for the era: “The Hollywood sign was crumbling, and nobody was bothering to fix it. L.A. was this sort of Sodom and Gomorrah-type smog-laden porn pit. For the setting of a detective story, how much better can you do?”

Black insisted on directing the script himself and, at the time, nobody was interested until the success of Iron Man 3. He reunited with producer Joel Silver in 2010 and he shopped the script around Hollywood. Black recalls one studio executive telling him, “I’m sorry. We’re just not doing period pieces.” The writer realized that the executive “probably flipped through it and saw it was a film noir and thought it was set in the ‘40s.” Silver ended up raising the $50 million budget and sold the distribution rights to Warner Bros.

The producer showed the script to Ryan Gosling who, as it turned out, was a big fan of The Monster Squad (1987), a movie that he loved from his childhood, and that Black had co-written. He loved The Nice Guys script and agreed to star in it. Black wanted to cast Russell Crowe opposite Gosling but the actor wasn’t initially wasn’t interested. Black flew to Australia to pitch Crowe in person. The actor offered him a drink and Black, who was sober after several years of hard-partying, replied, “Oh, you know, you have one drink, and the next thing you know you’re in handcuffs.” Crowe remembers, “I thought, ‘Hmmm, I like this guy. He’s sharp.” What closed the deal was when Black mentioned that Gosling was attached to the project. Crowe had wanted to work with him for some time and agreed to do the film.

Black and producer Joel Silver probably felt that teaming up Crowe and Gosling would result in box office gold, but failed to realize that the former is no longer an A-list leading man, appearing in supporting roles in mainstream fare like Man of Steel (2013), while the latter is no longer a teen heartthrob, having diversified in recent years, appearing in art house fare like Blue Valentine (2010) or commercial flops like Gangster Squad (2013). While this may have done the film’s commercial prospect no favors, they both do fantastic work in The Nice Guys.

Ultimately, what has doomed the film commercially was not its release date (although, that didn’t help) but rather its audience – an older demographic that doesn’t go out to the movies very often and is instead content to wait for them to show up on home video. Black doesn’t have the same kind of commercial sensibilities as other directors of his previous material, like Richard Donner, Tony Scott or even Renny Harlin, who knew how to translate his screenplays into box office profit. The Nice Guys will probably be rediscovered by its intended audience on home video thus transforming it into a cult film with a dedicated following and “discovered” by the youth market when they finally age out of it.

SOURCES

Baron, Zach. “Why Shane Black’s The Nice Guys was 15 Years in the Making.” GQ. May 16, 2016.

Svetkey, Benjamin. “Lethal Weapon Wunderkind (and Former Party Boy) Shane Black is Back…and Still Looking for Action.” The Hollywood Reporter. May 13, 2016.

The Ides of March

The Ides of March (2011) is the kind of mid-sized budgeted film that Hollywood studios don’t make anymore. It used to be a mainstream staple during the 1980s and into the 1990s, but with the collapse of the American economy in the 2000s, the studios tightened their belts and invested in sure-fire cash-cows like remakes, reboots and sequels. It’s a shame because, in some respects, George Clooney’s film is a spiritual cousin to one like Tim Robbins’ Bob Roberts (1992), only playing it straight whereas the latter film was a satire. It’s no secret that Clooney is a politics junkie – his filmography is littered with topical efforts like the short-lived television show K Street (2003) and films like Syriana (2005) and The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009). The Ides of March, a drama about an idealistic staffer whose morals and integrity gets tested when he finds out that his boss, a Democratic presidential candidate isn’t what he appears to be, fits comfortably within Clooney’s body of work.

Filmed and released before Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012, I wonder if The Ides of March was an expression of Clooney’s disillusionment with the President’s first term in office. So many people had high hopes when Obama got elected in 2008. There was the same kind of hope in the air when Bill Clinton first became President. However, in no time the honeymoon was over as Obama repeated butted heads with the Republicans who chipped away at any and all policies that he tried to push through the system. The Ides of March, with its backroom dealings and power-plays, affirms what most of us already know – the American political system is a corrupt machine fueled by money and is one that chews up and spits out idealistic people who want to make a difference.

Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is a junior campaign manager that believes his boss, Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney), a Democratic presidential candidate, can make a positive difference in Washington, D.C. It’s one week away from the Ohio primary with Morris and Senator Pullman (Michael Mantell) in fierce competition with each other. Pullman is trailing Morris in delegates, but if the senator wins big then he can turn things around. Stephen works closely with Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Morris’ right-hand man who has seen his share of campaigns and is mentoring the young man. Paul is the world-weary campaign manager who’s seen it all before. He knows how to bullshit Morris and deflect persistent journalists like The New York Times’ Ida Horowicz (Marisa Tomei) who work the campaign trail looking for newsworthy scoops.

Stephen becomes attracted to and gets romantically involved with a beautiful intern named Molly (Evan Rachel Wood). Everything seems to be going swimmingly for him until he gets a phone call from Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), Pullman’s campaign manager who tells Stephen that he’s working for the wrong man and he should come work for him. Tom lays out a pretty convincing argument – good enough that it rattles Stephen. This is the first of several complications that make the young manager question his beliefs as they pertain to Morris’ campaign.

2011 was a very good year for Ryan Gosling as he starred in two very different and well-received films, Drive and The Ides of March. With the latter, he graduated to the big leagues acting opposite heavyweights like George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti and held his own. In fact, Gosling shows decent range as Stephen goes from idealistic staffer to someone whose belief system is shaken to its core. Make no mistake, he isn’t naïve, but rather idealistic and really believes that Morris can make a difference. Gosling plays a credible campaign manager, getting the lingo down cold and conveying the kind of confidence that allows Stephen to help manage Morris’ campaign. Initially, he’s on top of the world and things look great, but when the campaign hits a roadblock and he faces a personal moral dilemma, Gosling does a good job showing Stephen gradually unraveling. It’s a juicy role that allows the actor to shift gears from moments of levity to romance, with his initial meet-cute with Molly, to drama when things go bad for his character.

Gosling is ably supported by veteran actors like Hoffman and Giamatti, who turn in typically solid work as the two warring sides that fight for Stephen’s political soul. Each guy has their own agenda, their own angle that they play and Stephen has to figure out whose side he’s on. Hoffman and Giamatti are given powerhouse speeches to sink their teeth into and devour, which is what you want to see these skilled actors do. The cast is really an embarrassment of riches and unfortunately talented actors like Jeffrey Wright, as a senator that can put either candidate over the top, and Marisa Tomei, playing a tough-talking reporter, are given way-too little screen-time, but like the pros they are, make the most of what they’re given.

Evan Rachel Wood is quite good as the young, gorgeous intern with a deep, dark secret. Initially, Molly seems like a wise-beyond-her-years woman, but there is a fragility that lurks underneath the surface and comes out when Stephen discovers her secret. The fall-out is devastating for her and Wood does a nice job of showing how it affects her character. George Clooney has the slick patter all successful politicians peddle in down cold. With his good looks and perfect smile, the veteran actor is well-cast as a presidential hopeful.

Clooney has directed several films now and this one may be his most assured with striking images like Paul and Stephen having a conversation in silhouette, dwarfed by an enormous American flag hanging behind them. The symbolism is apt as the two men are small cogs in the massive political machine. Clooney thankfully resists the urge to include traditional thriller elements, like car chases and assassinations in favor or a more realistic approach.

The origins for The Ides of March lie in the unsuccessful run for Congress that George Clooney’s father, Nick, made in 2004. Clooney remembered his father talking about how “uncomfortable, embarrassing and at times humiliating,” he felt asking for campaign money. Clooney also saw his father struggle and “lose pretty terribly. No matter how pure you try to keep it, you’re always going to have to take meetings with people you don’t like. I got a real sense of how ugly it is – and that was just for a congressional seat.” Furthermore, Governor Morris’ proposal to outlaw the internal combustion engine in ten years so that the United States would not have to rely on foreign oil came from columns that Nick wrote for the Cincinnati Post. Clooney and Grant Heslov began working on a screenplay about a “bait and switch” conservative Republican who opposes the death penalty after getting the presidential nomination.

In the summer of 2004, young writer Beau Willimon wrote the first draft of his play Farragut North, which was based on his experiences working on the staff of presidential hopeful Howard Dean in Iowa. It was a fictionalized look behind the scenes of a presidential campaign. The play premiered in New York City in 2008 and then moved to Los Angeles where it eventually came to the attention of Clooney and Heslov, partners in their own production company. After reading it, the two men felt that they could merge their ideas with Willimon’s play.

In translating the play into a film, Clooney and Heslov made several changes, most significantly that Governor Morris, the candidate, became an actual character as opposed to the play where he did not exist. They also changed the name because Clooney found Farragut North, “a little too specific.” It became The Ides of March because the primary in the film took place on March 15. The new title also referenced some of the Shakespearean themes in the film. Even though the play is set in Iowa, Clooney and Heslov moved it to Ohio. Clooney said, “Ohio has always been the key state. I put it in Cincinnati because I know it really well.” It also didn’t hurt that the state gave the production tax credits.

Principal photography was originally planned for 2008 and then Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. Clooney and Heslov felt that it wasn’t the right time for such a cynical film. After a year, the optimism over Obama’s election began to wane enough that they decided to make the film. With the pedigree of Clooney as director, he and Heslov had no problem getting the cast they wanted. Ryan Gosling was drawn to the film not only because he was intrigued by the character of Stephen and the story, but also the chance to work with Clooney. Philip Seymour Hoffman was attracted to the script and its insights into human behavior. Paul Giamatti also thought the script was “incredible well written. The rhythms are really specific, and the language.” Clooney jokingly said that he took on the role of Morris because no one else wanted to, “It’s not the most fun part.” He knew what “I wanted the candidate to do and be. I also seemed right for the age of the character.”

To prepare for the film, Clooney told production designer Sharon Seymour to watch several campaign documentaries and they talked about how the design should look realistic. She also talked to political consultants from Ohio and Washington about the look of political campaigns and how everyone wants their candidate to look the best. They also took a page out of Obama’s successful advertising campaign by creating posters for Governor Morris in the same style as the President’s when he was making a run for the White House.

Clooney got his cast and crew in the mindset of the film by encouraging them to watch several campaign documentaries, including The War Room (1993), which examined Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign; Journeys with George (2003), George W. Bush’s 2000 run for president; and By the People: The Election of Barack Obama (2009). Stuart Stevens, a Republican campaign strategist, political advisor and media consultant, was also brought in to help the production. Clooney said, “We would send him things and say, tell us where we’re going wrong. Tell us what you would do in this situation.”

Principal photography began during the late winter in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. Clooney shot on location where much of the story was actually set. Three weeks into filming, the production moved to Detroit where all the interiors for the Pullman and Morris headquarters were shot. In addition, several downtown and suburban locations were used.

The Ides of March received mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars and praised Clooney’s directing: “He draws back from action and plunges into intrigue. Here he conceals certain of Stephen’s inner workings … to great effect, as the young man reveals an amorality that surprises even the hardened pros he works under. The last shot of the film, a closeup of Ryan Gosling, held for a long time, is chilling.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A-" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “The Ides of March has true storytelling verve, but it also plays like a rite of exorcism. It pulses along like an update of The Candidate fused with a political Sweet Smell of Success – it’s got that kind of nourish fizz.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan found the film to be “an intelligent, involving picture that feels all too real – until it doesn’t.” Time magazine’s Richard Corliss wrote, “With Clooney’s connivance, and in a film stuffed with savvy work by veteran players, Gosling lures the movie’s emotional center away from Morris and into Stephen’s mind, where angels swim and demon’s lurk.”

USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and Claudia Puig wrote, “Gosling’s Meyers is a complex blend of idealist and opportunist. While he truly believes in the populist candidate he works for, he is not above seduction – sexual or professional.” However, in his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote, “More likely, though, you will find it more comforting than inspiring. It deals mainly in platitudes and abstractions, with just enough detail to hold your interest and keep you hoping for something more.” The Washington Post’s Ann Hornaday wrote, “Clooney does a good job opening up the ideas Willimon first explored onstage, but the result is still a pessimistic truth so universally acknowledged that it doesn’t bear repeating however stylishly.”

The Ides of March is a film about the hard choices and compromises as it shows the kind of deals politicians have to make if they want to advance to positions of power. The higher the position, the bigger the deal that has to be made because the stakes are higher. And when you’re running for president the stakes are the highest. American politics is not for the faint of heart. It is chock full of negative advertisements, backroom deals and compromises. Knowledge is power, especially insider information, which can be used to muscle people out of influential positions and manipulate powerful politicians.

To be fair, The Ides of March doesn’t tell us anything new about American politics, but it isn’t trying to do that. The film tells an engrossing story with intriguing characters and that is enough. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Clooney’s film ends on a deliciously ambiguous note as Stephen is armed with a potentially damaging piece of information and whether he uses it or not is left up to our imagination. It seems beside the point because what really matters is how he has changed over the course of the film. He’s gone from an idealist full of warmth and humor to someone colder and more ruthless, having witnessed just how ugly politics can get (and he hasn’t even gotten to the White House!). The question that film leaves with us at the end is, has Stephen become absorbed by the system or is he going to wreck it from the inside?

SOURCES

Cornet, Roth. “Interview: Grant Heslov on The Ides of March, George Clooney and Politics.” Screen Rant.

The Ides of March Production Notes. October 7, 2011.

Kiesewetter, John. “George Clooney Tapped Cincinnati Roots to Make Ides of March.” Cincinnati Inquirer. October 2, 2011.

Drive

Nicolas Winding Refn is the latest cinematic export from Denmark – the same country that brought us enfant terrible Lars von Trier. Like him, Refn is a cinematic button pusher known for creating violently stylish films where the protagonists undergo a transformation to become “what they were meant to be,” as the filmmaker has said in an interview. After making four films, Refn tried to break into Hollywood with Fear X (2003), but it was a commercial failure, forcing his production company into bankruptcy. He rebounded with the one-two punch of Bronson (2008) and Valhalla Rising (2009), the former a biopic about infamous British prisoner Michael Gordon Peterson, and the latter about the adventures of a Norse warrior during the Crusades. Both films were art house hits, but it would be Refn’s next film, Drive (2011) that would be his breakthrough in North America, garnering rave reviews, awards and very strong box office results.

Drive is a neon-drenched neo-noir that pays homage to stylish, yet minimalist narrative crime films like The Driver (1978) and Thief (1981) complete with a retro 1980s electronic score by Cliff Martinez that evokes the likes of Tangerine Dream and Giorgio Moroder. Refn’s film features his most star-studded cast to date with the likes of Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, and Ron Perlman. When I first saw Drive I was unsure how I felt about it. The film was obviously made with great skill and was very stylish, but was it simply style for style’s sake? Was it like many of Quentin Tarantino’s films and simply a pastiche of other, better films? The more times I watch Drive the more I’m convinced that this is not the case and that there is more going on under its incredibly engaging façade, that there is enough of Refn’s thematic preoccupations to give the film its own identity.

Drive focuses on an unnamed taciturn Hollywood stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) who works as a getaway driver during his off-hours. We are introduced to the Driver as he helps two thieves pull off a job all to the ominous atmospheric sounds of “Tick of the Clock” by Chromatics. He doesn’t say much, but in the first five minutes we find out the rules he adheres to while on a job and just how good he is at it – monitoring the police band radio and knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the car he drives like it was an extension of himself.

The film’s layered soundscape during the opening chase sequence seamlessly mix Martinez’s electronic score, the police band radio, a sports match playing on the car radio, and the roar of the engine. This prologue is the ideal introduction to the world of this enigmatic driver. It’s not an entirely realistic one per se, but one heightened, almost like we are seeing everything through his eyes or we are inside his head where he lives out fantasies as an undefeatable superhero of sorts, rescuing a beautiful damsel in distress and her little boy. The Driver even has his own “superhero outfit” – a silver-colored jacket with a large yellow scorpion emblazoned on the back.

On the surface, the Driver is an expressionless blank slate who seems to be looking for something and may have found it with Irene (Carey Mulligan), the pretty woman that lives down the hall, but obstacles keep getting in the way, like her ex-con husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) or local crime boss Bernie (Albert Brooks) and his intimidating right-hand man Nino (Ron Perlman). Only Irene brings a smile to the Driver’s usually expressionless face and actually brings him out of his shell as is evident in the afternoon they spend together with her son Benicio (Kaden Leos). Refn drenches this sequence in a warm, golden light as “A Real Hero” by College plays over the soundtrack. Irene humanizes the Driver and Carey Mulligan’s kind eyes and warm smile certainly make a convincing argument for how her character is able to cut through his impenetrable emotional armor. But since this is a noir, their happiness is doomed to be short-lived.

Ryan Gosling does an excellent job of portraying the stillness of the Driver. He is someone who doesn’t waste time with needless movements or words. If the Driver doesn’t say much throughout the film it’s because those around him talk too much, whether it is his nervously chatty mechanic mentor Shannon (Bryan Cranston) or the menacingly charming Bernie. Everything he does has a purpose. The actor is also able to portray his character’s unnerving capacity for bone-crunching violence that lurks under the Driver’s calm surface and that only comes out when provoked. Usually pretty boy actors like Gosling try to act tough and fail, but with the help of Refn, he transforms into a credible badass. It’s all in the eyes, which Gosling alternates between inviting, like when the Driver is with Irene, or all icy intensity like when he and those that are important to him are threatened. The Driver does show glimmers of emotion, like the look of remorse he demonstrates when he finds out Shannon’s fate.

Albert Brooks is quite the revelation as the ruthless Bernie. Known predominantly for playing passive-aggressive neurotics in films like Broadcast News (1987) and Mother (1996), he is cast wonderfully against type in Drive. Much like Bill Murray in Mad Dog and Glory (1993), Brooks is able to use his funnyman persona as his character’s façade only to show the nasty brutality that exists when things go sour. Brooks is able to go from genial to lethal on a dime and it is easy to see why the actor received so much acclaim for his performance.

Refn is certainly an accomplished director – there’s no question about that. The car chases are exciting and intense white-knuckle affairs, as is the jarring, blood-splattered violence that is brief and visceral and very stylishly depicted in that cool, Tarantino kind of way – only minus the humor. What saves Drive from being merely an empty exercise in cool style is the supporting cast, which humanizes the Driver character. While he is largely devoid of personality, those around him are rich with it, from the gregarious Nino to the grizzled Shannon. It is Irene, however, who gives the Driver’s life a sense of purpose. She motivates him to protect her and Benicio from anyone who might hurt them including an intense scene in an elevator where the Driver kills one of Nino’s flunkies. Right before this happens, the Driver turns around and kisses Irene. As this happens, the lighting changes noticeably as if time has stopped, as if it wasn’t really happening – perhaps only in his imagination. Then, real-time kicks in as he proceeds to stomp the henchman’s head in with sickening brutality. This scene sums up Drive in a nutshell – a stylish, romantic film interspersed with sudden, jarring acts of brutality.

Producer Adam Siegel was looking for a potential movie idea in Publisher’s Weekly when he came across a small review for James Sallis’ novel Drive. Intrigued by the premise of a stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver, Siegel read the novel immediately. He and his co-producer Mark E. Platt were taken with Drive’s protagonist, an unnamed getaway driver that was “an enigmatic reserved individual who lived by a very distinctive code,” Platt remembered.

They hired Hossein Amini (The Wings of the Dove) in 2005 to adapt the book and he was drawn to the “extraordinary characters” with a very simple plot running through it.” However, the novel didn’t have a linear story, delving frequently into flashbacks, which made it a challenge to adapt. It was important for the Driver’s point-of-view to be preserved because it was distinctive. Originally, the project had a home at Universal Pictures as a potential franchise for Hugh Jackman to star and Neil Marshall in the director’s chair with a $60 million budget. The studio wanted it done in the vein of the Fast and Furious movies. By 2010, both Jackman and Marshall had left the project and Platt approached Ryan Gosling, an actor he had always wanted to work with. The producer heard back from the actor within a couple of days and he was interested in doing it. Gosling was drawn to the project because he had always wanted to be in an action movie, but found most contemporary ones to be “more on action and little less character.” This was not the case with Drive.

Upon accepting the gig, Gosling used his newfound clout within the industry to choose the director he wanted. The actor watched a lot of films, but when he saw Nicolas Winding Refn’s work he knew that the was the right person for the job. Gosling assumed that Refn wouldn’t be interested because Drive was unlike anything he had done before. Regardless, he sent Refn the script. At the time, director was in Los Angeles developing a Paul Schrader script for a film called, The Dying of the Light with Harrison Ford. However, the project fell apart when the actor didn’t want his character to die. Refn wasn’t taken with the story of Drive, but rather “the concept and idea that there was a man who had split personalities, by being a stunt man by day and a getaway driver by night.” He compared the Driver to a werewolf, “because deep down he’s a man who’s psychotic, but he’s also a man who’s two people – he’s one person by day and one person by night.”

Gosling and Refn met for the first time over dinner for two hours. They didn’t talk about Drive specifically, but rather films in general. Refn had been suffering through a cold and had taken a lot of medicine and was feeling tired. He asked Gosling to drive him home. On the way, “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” by REO Speedwagon came on the radio and the director enthusiastically sang along with it. Inspired by the song, Refn spontaneously gained insight into Drive. He told Gosling that the film was about “a man who drives around listening to pop songs at night because that’s his emotional relief.” They wanted to make “Pretty in Pink with a head smashing,” as Gosling always felt that John Hughes’ films needed a little violence, imaging the film being about “a guy who’s seen so many movies that he turned himself into his own super hero and made his own super hero costume.” He and Refn began their collaboration on the project.

With the strong script and the likes of Gosling and Refn on board, the rest of the cast came together quickly. Carey Mulligan had seen Bronson and was so impressed by it that she told her agent that she wanted to work with Refn. Three weeks later, she got the script for Drive. Originally, Refn was looking for a Latina actress and had met with several, but none were right for the role. When he met Mulligan, he knew she was right for the role. The director sought out Bryan Cranston for the role of Shannon and the script convinced the actor to do the film. Gosling and Refn thought that Albert Brooks would be good for Bernie, but figured he wouldn’t be interested because the character was “so violent, so dark,” said Gosling. Refn met with Brooks and was impressed by his “volcano-ish way where you have this sense that he’s about to snap at any moment.”

While working on the script with Refn, Amini moved in with the director and his family. Then, Mulligan did as well because she didn’t have a place to stay while making the film. Refn’s place took on a communal atmosphere: “Ryan would come by all the time. It was very collaborative. All we needed was a lot of cocaine and it would have been like 1973.”

For the look of the film, cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (The Usual Suspects) kept “the wide angle feeling with a lot of depth and a lot of background to it.” Refn picked him to shoot Drive because he liked the man’s energy and his background as a documentary filmmaker. As an added bonus, Sigel had worked as a cameraman on Lucifer Rising (1972) a film by Kenneth Anger, one of Refn’s heroes. So, the first visual reference Sigel showed Refn was Anger’s Scorpio Rising (1963), which fetishized guys working on motorcycles. When Refn questioned this pick, Sigel told him that Drive should convey the same kind of “sensual, sexual nature of it, the fetish, the objectification.”

To compose the score, Refn hired Cliff Martinez, impressed with his work on Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989). The director wanted the soundtrack to consist predominantly of electronic music with some of it being abstract as if conveyed from the Driver’s perspective. Refn gave Martinez a sampler of music that he liked and told him that he wanted a soundtrack akin to the synth-pop music from the ‘80s. Martinez started off with an ambient-heavy score, but Refn was concerned that it would “take energy from the film,” and it evolved into something more rhythmic.

Drive received mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave it three-and-a-half out of four stars and wrote, “The entire film, in fact, seems much more real than the usual action-crime-chase concoctions we’ve grown tired of. Here is a movie with respect for writing, acting and craft. It has respect for knowledgeable moviegoers.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B+” rating and Lisa Schwarzbaum felt that the film, “revels in sensory detail; it’s a visually and aurally edgy Euro-influenced American genre movie about the coolness of noir-influenced American genre movies about the coolness of driving – especially in L.A.” In her review for the Washington Post, Ann Hornaday praised Gosling for delivering, “a slow, white-hot burn of a performance,” in “a nervy, understated ode to one of Hollywood’s most cherished archetypes, the sad-eyed man of few words.” USA Today gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars and Claudia Puig wrote, “This art-house crime saga has a distinctly European sensibility. The film slows down to a deliberate pace, then revs on a dime to frantic speeds.” However, in his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott wrote, “This is not to say the movie is bad – as I have suggested, the skill and polish are hard to dispute – but rather that it is, for all its bravado, timid and conventional.”

Drive wears its influences on it sleeve, most notably in the sequences that bookend the film. Refn’s film begins much like Walter Hill’s The Driver with the protagonist being introduced as he efficiently pulls off a job that wordlessly demonstrates his considerable skills. Drive ends much like Michael Mann’s Thief with the protagonist wounded yet victorious, albeit stripped of the only things that meant anything to him. Like many Mann protagonists, the Driver is defined by what he does. He has his own code of rules by which he lives by. He only gets in trouble when he breaks these rules. The Driver has to keep things simple and it is only when life gets complicated by the presence of Irene and Bernie that he runs into trouble. The only solution is to remove these complications.

It is easy to see why Drive was so well-received – it is a slick, stylish crime film that looks and sounds cool, but there is more going on underneath the attractive surface. There’s Gosling’s soulful performance and an inspired, vicious turn by Brooks. Orbiting these two actors is a talented supporting cast that bring their archetypal characters to life by how they look, talk, and, most importantly, act. Drive works as several things. Gosling saw it as a kind of Brothers Grimm fairy tale with the Driver as a knight, Irene as the princess in the tower that needed to be rescued from Bernie, the evil wizard, while Nino is the dragon that must be slayed. At its heart, Drive is a boyhood fantasy, an R-rated superhero movie, but without the conventional trappings of the genre. It is an art-house power fantasy that allows us to live vicariously through the Driver, a good-looking character capable of performing impressive feats of strength and skill, all for the love of a beautiful woman. However, Refn fuses this with the neo-noir to add a tragic element where the protagonist must sacrifice his own happiness so that those he cares about may live.

SOURCES

Blake, William. Nicolas Winding Refn and Drive.” Soma. Vol. 25.6.

Drive Presskit. 2011.

Gilchrist, Todd. “Johnny Jewel on Developing the Unique Soundtrack for Drive.” Box Office Magazine.” September 15, 2011.

Gilchrist, Todd. “Nicolas Winding Refn Says Drive was About the Purity of Love with his Wife.” The Playlist. February 1, 2012.

Koehler, Robert. “Nicolas Winding Refn and the Search for A Real Hero.” Cinemascope. #48.

Shoard, Catherine. “Nicolas Winding Refn: ‘Filmmaking is a fetish’.” The Guardian. September 8, 2011.

Stephenson, Hunter. “Neil Marshall to Direct Hugh Jackman in Drive.” /Film. March 20, 2008.

Taylor, Drew. “Cliff Martinez Talks Scoring Lincoln Lawyer and Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive.” The Playlist. April 30, 2011.

Witmer, Jon D. “Road Warriors.” American Cinematographer. October 2011.

Yuan, Jada. “Ryan Gosling Talks Drive, Ides of March, and The Place Beyond the Pines in his Oddball, Ryan Gosling Way.” New York magazine. September 15, 2011.

Zak, Leah. “Ryan Gosling Likens Drive to John Hughes, Super Hero Films and Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales.” The Playlist. September 14, 2011.

Zeitchik, Steven. “Ryan Gosling and Nicolas Winding Refn share the ride.” Los Angeles Times. September 15, 2011.