REVIEW: Drive
by David Kirkeby
A woman named Sarah Deming recently sued FilmDistrict, the company behind Drive, because she claimed the company promoted Drive, “as very similar to Fast and Furious” when in reality the two films are very different. Perhaps it is true that one could get the wrong idea from the film’s title and assume it to be an action film; however, Nicolas Winding Refn’s film is much more about what drives the protagonist than it is about the act of driving. Ryan Gosling stars in the film as a man who the viewer only ever knows as the Driver. When we first meet Gosling’s character he seems to be floating through life without much purpose or direction, but he soon attaches himself emotionally to a young mother and child in order to give himself a reason for living. Carey Mulligan, who delivered a number of fine performances in recent years, including An Education, plays the young mother. Her relationship with the Driver never becomes sexual, in fact her husband is also a primary character in the film. Yet the two characters, the Driver and the mother, form an extreme sense of intimacy.
The film’s director, Nicolas Winding Refn, has claimed Drive to be influenced by both John Hughes films and Grimm Fairy Tales. The John Hughes reference in especially helpfully when viewing the first half of film. In this segment Mulligan and Gosling’s characters look longingly at one another with the support of pop songs similar to the way character would have in Sixteen Candles. The style of the film, including its pop songs and its pink title font, evoke the 1980s and create a feeling of temporal displacement. This style is incredible crucial to creating the Driver’s image, he seems as if walked out of another time entirely, if not the 1980s, than maybe the time of western gunslingers.
Recently, I have become increasingly interested in the difference between style and content. There are a number of fine films currently in theaters, such as Moneyball and The Ides of March, which are well written and well made; however, they don’t really offer anything new to cinematic form. Refn never rests on conventions; instead he infuses genres, and works to create a unique experience for the viewer.
The Driver embodies much of the American Mythology of the lone warrior while contrasting basic ideals of mobility and class structure. One of the most obvious examples of Refn’s experimentation is the way in which he directed the actors in the film. Naturalism is nowhere to be found in the performances. Extreme movements and gestures guide the viewer throughout the narrative. Gosling’s performance in the first half of the film stands contrast to the other performers. During this period his movements are limited and he acts as a sounding board for the other characters. In an interview at the Apple Store, Refn said that Gosling’s character “is what the other characters need him to be.” For this reason the Driver begins primarily silent. People need a driver and he fulfills that function. Later, the Driver transitions when Mulligan’s character needs a protector. At this point all hell breaks loose. Suddenly Gosling’s character is much more aggressive, yet Refn’s filmmaking retains much of its restraint. He constantly shies away from opportunities for action to take over.
Refn instead chose to keep the film’s pacing consistent throughout the film and made sure that any violence is committed in a succinct fashion. This is not to say that there isn’t intense violence in the film, in fact the violence that is present is exaggerated and cartoonish; however, it is quick and to the point. One of the interesting effects that Refn’s use of violence had on me was the way in which each act lingered in my mind after each incident. During some sequences I even felt overwhelmed by the intensity of the violence, but continually found myself drawn to the visuals on screen. Refn allowed his camera to stay on facial expressions much longer than the average filmmaker as well as depict horrific subject matter beautifully. His depictions of objects and characters appear fairly fetishistic.
Gosling seems particularly fetishized by Refn’s stylistic objectification. Already, Gosling and Refn are set to reteam on future projects. I think that Refn’s admiration for Gosling leaked into the film’s portrayal of the Driver as his portrayal of the character glosses over imperfection. I’m looking forward to Gosling and Refn reteaming on the upcoming remake of Logan’s Run because I’m excited to see how the two operate within a Hollywood blockbuster.
Drive is many things; however, I do not think of it has the type of movie had would ever appeal to the majority of the public. In fact I feel Refn even purposely avoids giving the viewer satisfaction. He sets up moments for the hero to overcome, but then proceeds to subvert the logical conclusion of those sequences. That being said, I enjoyed Drive for taking chances and showing me something I hadn’t seen before.
Even though Drive is set in contemporary Los Angeles it seems so far removed from reality. Refn’s film is less with considered reality than it is with creating a new mythology to associate with the space. If you are looking for something different than the majority of films in theaters then Drive may be the right film for you.
ESSAY:The Hopeful and the Humiliated: Chocolat and Pather Panchali
At the end of Claire Denis’ 1988 film, Chocolat, three men load traditional African goods on a plane. It becomes clear at this point that everything that preceded this moment in the film was only a microcosm that represented a larger colonial struggle. As the men load the goods onto the plane, an ominous and foreboding feeling is created by showing the way in the relationship between colonizers and colonized will continue, despite music that suggests a contrary, more jovial emotion. While it may seem strange to place a scene without the films’ protagonists, set years after the main events of the film’s narrative, as the final scene in the movie, Denis uses this scene to demonstrate life in the post colonial world. Denis seems to accept that there is no returning to a pre-colonial period, now that a global economy has been created in which the colonists and colonized have established a co-dependent relationship. Similarly Satyajit Ray’s first feature, Pather Panchali, ends with the recognition of the outside world as Apu and his family leave their ancestral home in search of better economic fortune. After losing two family members and struggling financially to repair their home, the characters decide that there is more opportunity outside of their village. While Ray and Denis appear influenced by neo-realist filmmakers, both question exactly what is society’s responsibility, whereas many neorealist filmmakers addressing the post colonial struggle appear to be more fascinated by the pros and cons of the individual’s reliance on society for economic support. Through their analysis of the post-colonial and modernized world in the films previously mentioned, Ray and Denis reached very different conclusions about the individual’s relationship to the mainstream. Ray seemed hopeful about the potential concept of community, whereas Denis appears skeptical about the continued degradation and manipulation of the weak by the powerful. The difference in outlook is very apparent when you look at two particular scenes; the first is in Chocolat when Luc takes a shower outside, and the second is in Pather Panchali, when Apu and Durga see a train passing their town. These two scenes stress the perspectives of two very different groups of people, the humiliated and the hopeful.
Luc’s shower sequence isn’t particularly long, and yet it has the utmost importance in representing the larger context of the colonial period and colonist’s humiliation of the colonized. Luc’s understanding of his relationship with African culture is fetishistic and exploitative. Denis demonstrates this through a series of seven different shots comprising the shower scene. The sequence begins with a medium shot of Luc showering alone, illuminated by sun’s rays; however, there is very little sky visible. The scene appears to be shot with a certain amount of deep focus, since the environment around Luc is very pronounced. Luc’s white skin is contrasted with the black rock that envelops the background. It seems crucial that one does not confuse Denis’ aesthetic with realism, since her use of color is calculated, not to simulate reality, but to reinforce the defining characteristics that represent her protagonists’ struggle. In this initial shot, Luc is framed from the waist up as water literally showers down onto him. One might expect this to put Luc into an exposed thus vulnerable position, but his body language creates a different, unexpected narrative. Luc stands tall with good posture, and holds a facial expression of arrogance that allows him to portray the dominance that he represents throughout the film up to this point. Even naked, Luc is portrayed retaining his position of power. In the next shot, the audience sees Protée walking by in the distance, with this image divided into two parts. The left side of the frame is focused on the wall of the nearby building and the right side of frame shows the walkway that separates Luc and Protée from each other. The communal setting of the shower makes it so that Protée immediately notices Luc in the shower. Just as Luc’s fair skin is contrasted against the dark background, Protée’s dark skin is made more pronounced by the film’s mise en scène, which includes Protée’s white shirt. Here, Denis illustrates the unspoken division between the two characters through an inversion of color. Protée moves down the path to reproach Luc and by doing so, Protée retakes a position in the frame in which he maintains power over his surroundings. The following interaction is a clear attempt by Protée at resistance, as well as a rejection of the racial power structure that had been underlined by Protée’s relationships with all of the white characters in his life, including France, the young girl. Protée states plainly, “This is the boy’s shower.” The next shot returns to the frame from which the viewer first saw Luc, and the final shot cuts to a medium shot of Protée.
It is important to recognize the similarity of Protée’s medium shot and the shot of Luc that preceded it in order to understand how Denis formally undermines Protée’s self-assertion. For the first time, Protée appears on equal footing with Luc from the point of view of the camera, the spectator’s eye; however, Denis quickly strips away Protée’s footing through her use of composition and Protée’s interaction with Luc. After once again returning to the medium shot of Luc, Denis cuts again to frame the two characters within the same composition; however, the characters’ interaction is not displayed in a conventional series of over the shoulder shots. The camera is placed behind Luc, but he is framed so that his back is the dominant object in the frame. Denis makes Protée look small by comparison. While Protée seemed powerful earlier, the reality of their relationship becomes apparent. The fact that Luc capitulates to Protée’s desire for him to move out of his space does not mean that that the power structure has been affected or altered. In the final shot of the sequence, Luc moves out of the shower and grabs a towel from Protée. He looks emotionally unaffected by the confrontation aside from seeming somewhat annoyed. The sequence succeeds at bringing to light the failure of the colonized to effectively alter their position within their hierarchical relationship with the colonist when attempting to address inequalities within the context of society in which economic fortunes have become codependent. The airport sequence at the end of Chocolat leaves the viewer with a sense of disillusionment, as the viewer realizes that Luc and Protée’s relationship will inevitably continue within the context of post-colonial global reliance and exploitation. In Nikki Stiller’s review of Chocolat, she noted that, “Luc refuses to abide by the conventions the Europeans have raised, however. He showers and sleeps outdoors like a black, lounges in Aimee’s boudoir, shares the servants’ chop an, it is hinted, seduces both sexes.” What Stiller neglects to note is that Protée is also violating societal norms. Protée has turned his back on African traditions and has become subservient to all of the Europeans. While many other Africans, such as the two men at the beginning of the film, appear free, Protée is rigid and his movements are constrained by his relationship with the French. The shower sequence stresses how Luc and Protée have seemingly switched roles. Luc wants to experience the freedom of being African, whereas Protée wants to experience the financial and social dominance that the Europeans have monopolized. Protée gets upset when Luc is in the boy’s shower, because Luc’s presence in his space is a reminder of the power he has given up, and how little authority he has left. Luc’s full exposure acts as a reminder of the sexual undercurrent that is present throughout Denis’ entire film. Despite the lack of any sexual contact, Protée’s relationship with Aimée is filled with erotic tension. When Protée sees Luc naked, he is forced to confront the sexual freedom that he has traded for financial support. Protée’s sexual repression dominates his relationships with other people. The confrontation between Protée and Luc evolves from Protée’s repression of desire.
The shower sequence gains added significance when viewed within the context of Claire Denis’ personal experiences and collaborators. It is well known that Claire Denis wrote Chocolat as a semi-autobiographical story. The young character of France was a stand-in for the filmmaker’s own childhood memories. Like France, Denis was raised in colonial Africa and personally viewed the relationship between colonists and the indigenous people. One must assume that the film’s negative portrayal of the colonist is derived from Denis’ memories; however, there were other factors that went into Denis’ cinematic representation. In an interview published in Barca, Claire Denis stated that, “It’s a strange thing with Chocolat, because it took four years to get made. I was a little used up when I shot it. But there is something extraordinary there. The encounter with Isaac de Bankole, who was a partner in the work. It was like a blood transfusion.” This comment is particularly interesting because Denis accepts the impact that her collaborators had on the project, and she also acknowledges her personal relationship to the film. While Chocolat may have its origins in real memory, Bankole and other cast/crew members certainly contributed to the overall depiction of the final film. When viewing the shower sequence it seems especially interesting to consider Bankole’s perspective, because Claire Denis’ surrogate character, France, is not present in the scene at all. If sequences in the film involving France do have a basis in reality, then it appears that Denis utilizes fiction to fill in the gaps of her memory. Bankole’s personal history is the inverse of Denis’ own history. While Denis was born in France and later moved to Africa, Bankole was born in Africa and later moved to France. The combination of these two perspectives on the shower sequence helped to capture the inherent conflict present in Protée. In the shower sequence, both Denis and Bankole seem to be attempting to reconcile their own feelings of the colonial period with their memories. Luc and the other French characters in the film exploit African society; however, they also appear to relish the differences they perceive amongst European and African cultures. Luc wants to retain the power synonymous with his European descent, yet simultaneously reject it as uninspiring and bland as compared to the exotic. Protée confronts Luc, but fails to assert his dominance and quickly returns to his submissive role. Together, Denis and Bankole were able to communicate Protée’s understanding of colonial hypocrisy, while also demonstrating his economic dependence. Protée and African society are the humiliated in Chocolat. Luc wants to retain the good aspects of being European without the bad. Luc idealizes and fetishizes Protée, but has no desire to give up any of his power or take on Protée’s position in society. They resign control in order to survive, but in compromising control, their self-esteem and personal pride is beaten down. Denis’ film communicates that in a globally connected world there will always be winners and losers, controllers and humiliated.
In the 1955 film, Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray took a drastically different approach to the world outside of the protagonists’ community than Claire Denis’ depiction in Chocolat. Unlike Denis, Ray did not focus on the humiliated; instead his film’s focus is on the hopeful and on the potential for societal assistance in an ever-changing world. According to famed film historian Jonathan Rosenbaum, French filmmaker Francois Truffaut walked out of a screening of Pather Panchali and stated, “I don’t want to see a film about Indian peasants.” If Truffaut had stuck around longer, it is hard to imagine that Truffaut wouldn’t have understood the feeling of hope that Ray instilled in his characters and in his audience. The larger community in Ray’s film promised opportunity for his characters. While Apu’s mother is always skeptical about whether or not her husband is going to get paid, it is only when when he is away from his ancestral home that he is able to make a large enough income to provide for his family. Ray’s feelings about modernization and the relationship between the rural community and the industrialized world are depicted in one of the film’s most memorable scenes, the train sequence. The scene is divided into twenty-four shots. Instead of stressing the importance of the environment like Denis, Ray’s focus appears to be primarily focused on his characters. The characters are depicted in shallow focus, separating them from their surroundings. The black and white imagery helps to remove the exterior influence so that the viewer can further focus on the character. In this sequence Ray demonstrates a theatrical representation of romanticism and lyricism on film that owes more to melodrama than neo-realism and more to D.W. Griffith than Vittorio De Sica; however, dominant critical analysis has primarily focused on the contrast between Pather Panchali and commercial Bombay cinema instead of Pather Panchali’s relation to genre. In the article From Neorealism to Melodrama, Neepa Majumdar points out that certain scenes in Pather Panchali can be read as Ray “toying with Indian viewers’ expectations based on conditioned responses in commercial cinema. The melodramatic ingredients are there.” Pather Panchali’s utilization of melodramatic effects is demonstrated by Ray’s use of music and composition in this sequence as well as the structure of the plot. The scene begins with a shot of the Kans grass, which tilts up to machinery and wire. That image is followed by a series of shots, which focus on Apu and his sister, Durga, as they move through the grass and explore. Instead of moving far away from his characters, Ray instead chose to construct a series of medium shots and move his camera in to follow the action of the characters. Satyajit Ray employed the use of optical transitions such as the use of cross dissolve in this sequence, thereby formally illustrating the romantic nature of the characters’ curiosity in technology. When the music dies out in the sequence, it is replaced by the sound of the train approaching. This moment signifies a change in the character’s expectations as well as a change in camera movement. Upon hearing the train, both Apu and Durga stand up into the frame of the next shot. In this instance the camera did not follow the characters as much as it predicted the position of Apu and Durga’s following movement. The train then becomes somewhat visible behind the siblings. When the children run forward, the background finally takes center stage and the train becomes dominant. Ray then chose to cut to a wide shot in which the camera moved in the same direction as the train, and he followed that shot with another one which moved from the train to Apu. The next shot is perhaps the most unexpected and successful in the sequence. The camera pans right, the opposite direction from the previous shot. It becomes clear that Ray has disregarded the hundred-eighty degree rule in a similar fashion to revolutionary filmmaker lkujiro Ozu, in the sense that they both primarily use the technique to achieve a feeling of disconnect. The train then comes into frame, cutting across the screen in the opposite direction. Apu can be seen through the passing train car. Apu’s slim figure against the massive train metonymically contrasts the intense poverty of the rural world with the wealth of the industrialized one. Ray ends the sequence with a shot of the lingering smoke after the train passes, demonstrating the significance of the future interaction between the characters and the world outside of their rural town.
When analyzing the train sequence in Pather Panchali it is helpful to understand the context in which the scene was created as well as the film’s relation to funding. When writing about his experiences making Pather Panchali in an article titled, A Long Time on the Little Road, director, Satyajit Ray singled out the characters in the train sequence and wrote that, “The two have had a quarrel, and here in this enchanted setting they are reconciled and their long journey is rewarded by their first sight of a railway. I chose to begin with this scene because on paper it seemed both effective and simple. I considered this important, because the whole idea behind launching the production with only 8,000 rupees in the bank was to produce quickly and cheaply a reasonable length of rough cut which we hoped would establish our bonafides, the lack of which had so far stood in the way of our getting a financier.” This statement is principally important because Ray makes it clear that he intended the train to be a reward for his characters as well as stated the importance of the scene in relation to the film as a whole. While content often surpasses or diverges from an author’s original intent, it is clear that the train sequence communicates to the audience a hopeful feeling of the possibility of the emergence of a more unified society in which the modern world may be globally connected. The death of Aunt Indir that directly follows the train sequence only serves to underline a condemnation of the structure of rural communities that are limited and unable to offer economic opportunity to their inhabitants. Aunt Indir’s death may at first appear to relate to her tense relationship with Sarbajaya; however, all of Sarbajaya’s worried feelings are validated when monsoon season arrives and Durga dies from sickness. The characters realignment of values embraced urban space and no doubt attracted the government of West Bengal’s Department of Roads because of this; the government eventually stepped in to provide funding to the in-production film. Any ambiguity about the film’s feelings about the industrialized and colonized world disappears when one becomes aware of the government funding of the film. While Satyajit Ray may not have intended for his film to be a government propaganda piece, the government certainly must have seen the film as an opportunity to help further their agenda and reinforce the necessity of roads within India. If Ray had attempted to make a film that criticized the Indian government, it seems highly unlikely that he would have secured funding in the manner that he did. In A Long Time on the Little Road, Ray explains that he was able to reshoot the train sequence once the film received funding from the West Bengal’s Department of Roads. In 1981 prime minister Indira Gandhi wrote a letter in which he stated, “When Shri Satyajit Ray was making Pather Panchali he was confronted with numerous problems, my father and I helped in overcoming them as we appreciated the new ground he was breaking…His deep understanding of Bengal and of its people and the integrity and universality of his character has moved viewers all over the world.” The train sequence is a good representation of Ray’s sensibilities as he initially viewed the scene as “effective and simple.” The influence of neorealists on Ray is evident in the aesthetics he attempted in Pather Panchali. Ray had previously worked on Jean Renoir’s 1951 film, The River, and he clearly prefers characters’ actions and film construction that rely on simple and subtle characteristics in a style similar to Renoir; however, Ray’s reshoot makes evident that the desired emotional effect of a scene is harder to achieve than one may expect and that the final sequence was only completed after Ray had a chance to reexamine the purpose of the scene within the context of other scenes already shot. For Ray to reshoot a scene on his incredibly low budget that was essentially focused on a simple single action, the scene must have been crucial to the larger narrative. When analyzing a film’s style it is often difficult to differentiate what was related to budgetary constraints and what was part of the director’s attempt to support the narrative. Many elements in Pather Panchali seem hard to distinguish which category they belong to, such as the black and white photography and the basic mise en scène. Ray stated about the film’s production, “Cost, indeed, was a dominant determining factor at all times, influencing the very style of the film. Another important factor-and I wouldn’t want to generalize on this-was the human one.” While many of Satyajit Ray’s production decisions may have been related to budgetary restrictions, he clearly had a primary focus on the human factor, Ray was certainly a humanist. No scene in Pather Panchali, exemplifies Ray’s humanism more so than the train sequence, a literal and figurative vehicle that allowed him to instill hope in his characters. The human factor was the driving force behind Ray’s choices as a filmmaker and enabled him to turn the train sequence into an emotional centerpiece. The scene was not so much focused on character actions as much as it was the emotional reaction of the characters.
As both culture and individuals are transported at the end of Chocolat and Pather Panchali, it is clear that Claire Denis and Satyajit Ray have very different ideas about the future of the world. For Ray, a global economy provides a sense of hope and a promise of future opportunity, whereas Denis sees the relationships between societies as inevitably exploitative and destructive. By looking at the train sequence in Pather Panchali and the shower sequence in Chocolat, as well as by understanding the context in which each film was created, the viewer is able to gain a better understanding of exactly what Denis and Ray were attempting to communicate with their films. While Denis sees relationships as a process that leads to humiliation, Ray sees human connection as a basis for hope.