Drive

DRIVE             B+      

USA  (100 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Nicolas Winding Refn

Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, winner of Best Director for this film at Cannes, takes a break from his more violently exotic PUSHER Trilogy (1996 – 2005) and takes a stab at an American mixture of commercial and art motif with this homage to the existential car films of the 1970’s like VANISHING POINT and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (both 1971), or Walter Hill’s THE DRIVER (1978), where what each have in common with this film are the extraordinary specialized skills of the mechanic and guy behind the wheel, where the open road seen ahead is the only freedom he’ll ever know.  It’s also impossible not to think of Steve McQueen in BULLIT (1968), the personification of cool behind the wheel, transplanted to Ryan Gosling here (originally slated for Hugh Jackman), known only as the Driver, a wordless guy with steely nerves, a Zen calmness, but also a capability for savage violence.  The love affair with the automobile is established right away as the Driver gets a couple of crooks out of a tough jam, evading the police with an eerie kind of expertise, a brilliant sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the movie, opening a window into his world, luring the audience into a fascination with his profession.   The real film this resembles, however, is To Live and Die in LA (1985), as both show a seethingly corrupt film noir underworld in the city of Angels, both expertly establish a high throttle tension throughout, both straddle the line between law abiding and law breaking, and both have inspired musical soundtracks, where Cliff Martinez creates a Tangerine Dream-style synth score, featuring a wall to wall, techno-pop, sound effect of angelic romantic choruses that couldn’t be more hypnotically appealing.  The artistic design of the film has a sleek, classical elegance, where the constantly moving digital cameras from cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel offer the viewer a roller coaster ride, where the pauses allow you a chance to look around for a moment before they start rolling again. The mounting tension is unsurpassed in any other recent film, creating a palm sweating, edge-of-your-seat visceral experience that is nothing less than superb.  That said, the storyline by Hossein Amini adapting the James Sallis novella here, who also wrote the superb Thomas Hardy gut-wrenching movie adaptation of Michael Winterbottom’s JUDE (1996), feels very sleight in comparison.       

Gosling’s Driver establishes the interior tone behind the wheel, a MAD MAX (1979) style lone wolf on the prowl in the wasteland of an urban jungle, a guy that doesn’t set his heights too high, but his expertise as a professional stunt driver for the movies is so noteworthy that it’s impossible for others not to notice.  He moonlights as a driver for hire, an escape artist, no questions asked, no talking to the cops, just a guy who excels behind the wheel.  "I drive.  That's all I do."  The titillated novelty here is the barebones thread of a budding romance with one of his neighbors, Carey Mulligan as Irene, a single mom raising her young son alone while his dad is in prison.  Their first date is a return road trip to the cement canal dry riverbed waterways of a chase sequence in To Live and Die in LA, this time seen through a much softer, romantic prism, a gentle and poetic moment that feels like an oasis in the desert, as much of the rest of the film is filled with bloodlust and revenge.  Despite the hyper violent edge, the actual moments of screen time violence are far less than most all Hollywood thrillers, amounting to just a few minutes of the entire film, but the extreme stylization is so enigmatic that the effect is more memorable and long-lasting.  This is an inevitable heist gone wrong film, where the Driver just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the people he’s mixed up with don’t realize they’re stealing the mob’s money, which means there’s hell to pay.  The vicious turn of events are brilliantly executed, where Gosling is mesmerizing with his cool demeanor, rising above his double-crossing cohorts with minimal sweat, or so it seems, able to stare death in the face even as he’s being targeted.  The quick decisive action of the mob is alarming, showing extreme brutality, but Gosling keeps his wits about him, where one wonders just what kind of trouble he may have faced before, questions that remain unanswered.                  

When did Albert Brooks, creator of his own strange and quirky comedies of the 80’s and 90’s and the voice of Nemo’s neurotic Dad in Disney’s FINDING NEMO (2003), become a gangland boss?  Did we miss something?  Here’s a guy that cast Debbie Reynolds as his own mom in MOTHER (1996), for Christ’s sake, so when did this transition occur?  Was it the slimy character he played in Soderbergh’s OUT OF SIGHT (1998), the guy that risked his girl friend’s life rather than give up the hidden diamonds?  Was it his role as a Dick Cheney-style government bureaucrat gone mad in THE SIMPSON’S MOVIE (2007)?  Whatever happened from his days at Saturday Night Live, the guy now plays a terrific heavy, as he’s the face of the mob boss here, given some highly colorful, profanity laden dialogue that seems to resurrect his memory as a once proficient hit man rising up the ranks, where the guy loves to be warm and fuzzy, but can’t afford mistakes or any loose ends in his line of business, which makes his end of it very personal.  The film is very much style over substance, despite the terrific performances all around, as there’s little to no social commentary and an ambiguous moral dilemma that has little to do with anyone's life.  It’s the love element that tips the audience in favor of the Driver, as he’s cool and collected but falls for the girl, even as her life gets exasperatingly complicated when her husband is released from prison.  Still, the inevitable showdown is between two guys outside the reach of the law, both brutally efficient, where no one can really call either one a winner, as there’s too much psychological baggage to carry.  Refn uses a very compact, highly constricted style that energizes his work, creating an extremely taut and gripping drama, something one movie executive character ironically describes in the Sallis book as:  “Think Virginia Woolf with dead bodies and car chases.”

The Innocents

THE INNOCENTS                 A                    

Great Britain  USA  (100 mi)  1961  ‘Scope  d:  Jack Clayton

What shall I sing to my lord from my window?

What shall I sing for my lord will not stay?

What shall I sing for my lord will not listen?

Where shall I go when my lord is away?

Whom shall I love when the moon is arisen?

Gone is my lord and the grave is his prison.

What shall I say when my lord comes a calling?

What shall I say when he knocks on my door?

What shall I say when his feet enter softly?

Leaving the marks of his grave on my floor.

Enter my lord. Come from your prison.

Come from your grave, for the moon is a risen.

Welcome, my lord.

—Miles (Martin Stephens)

seen here on YouTube:  The_Innocents_1961_Miles_Poem.MP4 - YouTube  

They are both playing, or being made to play, some monstrous game. I can’t pretend to understand what its purpose it, I only know that it is happening—something secretive, and whispery, and indecent. 

We must try to learn what it is these horrors want.  Think, Mrs. Grose, the answer must lie in the past.

Unless he’s deceiving us, unless they’re both deceiving us—the innocents.

They can only reach each other by reaching into the souls of the children and possessing them. The children are possessed.  They live, and know, and share this hell.

—Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr)

One of the true classics of Gothic horror, an extraordinary adaptation of Henry James ghost story The Turn of the Screw, a novella written about 1898 and initially published in serial installments.  “It is a curious story," begins James, “a most poisonous tale,” says Oscar Wilde, while according to Virginia Woolf, “Henry James's ghosts have nothing in common with the violent old ghosts—the blood-stained sea captains, the white horses, the headless ladies of the dark lanes and windy commons.  They have their origins with us...We are afraid of something unnamed, of something, perhaps in ourselves.”  Without an ounce of blood or gore, and no trace of physical violence, this remains one of the most menacing films ever made, where the film version loses nothing in the translation to another medium, as all the ghastly wickedness is retained.  Set during the Victorian era, the story concerns the care of two children living on the immense grounds of a beautifully landscaped English country manor in Essex known as Bly, cared for by the housekeeper and servants, as due to the death of their parents, the uncle in charge of their affairs, Michael Redgrave, travels the world and has no time to take care of them, so straightaway he hires a new governess, Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), a prim and proper pastor’s daughter, where the question that concerns him is whether she has an imagination, putting her in charge with strict instructions not to have any communications with him.  This opens the door to an entirely new world, as transported from reality as a visit to Transylvania, but Miss Giddens relies on sound reasoning and her good judgment.  

Her sunny outlook, however, is met with clues that something is amiss, as immediately the young boy is expelled from school for unspecified charges, where it was alleged he had a contaminating influence on the others.  Happy to return back to the grounds of Bly, he has a very adult air about him, carrying himself with extraordinary confidence, where the two children remain always together, secretly laughing and whispering between themselves.  Miss Giddens inexplicably views two apparitions in broad daylight, which leads her to believe that the children are under the evil power of ghosts, where she feels bound and determined to save them.  Miles, the young boy about 13, is haunted by Peter Quint, the former servant to the uncle, currently deceased, while Flora, age 10, is haunted by Miss Jessel, the former governess, also deceased.  Quint openly flaunted his abusive sexual control over Jessel, now his sexually obedient accomplice, never hiding his crudeness in front of the children, scaring the longtime housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins), who never uttered a word.  It is never known if these spirits are inventions of the sexually repressed imagination of the inexperienced governess, who may secretly be trying to please the guardian uncle, to whom she may hold some sexual thoughts, or if they really do exist.  By observing the children’s behavior, however, which grows suddenly mysterious in their presence, she is convinced the children can see them and that the apparitions hold a strange power over them.      

Everything is seen through the eyes of the governess, which reaches a peak of hysteria when the children play dress up and Miles recites a haunting poem about the powerful presence of death hovering over him.  Both Giddens and Mrs. Grose greet the children with huge smiles on their faces, indulging them in their playful fun, but Giddens’ face turns to utter horror at what she hears, fearful for the lives of the children.  James described Peter Quint and Miss Jessel as “my hovering blighted presences, my pair of abnormal agents,” a “haunting pair” driven by a “villainy of motive,” a motive which, in neither the book nor the film, is ever explained.  Kerr gives perhaps her best performance, especially as she presents herself as such a grounded character, but her agility and range of expression throughout is unparalleled in her career.  Since this comes from such a popular literary work, the screen adaptation is equally impressive, actually based on the 1950 stage adaptation by William Archibald, but especially the contribution of Truman Capote, who seems to thrive in the voices of the children, emboldened by the solitary worlds of their own invention on the spectacular grounds of the decaying estate, offering them a wisdom beyond their years.  The production design is chillingly appropriate, with candle lit reflections in the tall mirrors, winding staircases, columns, statues, paintings, and a constantly burning fireplace.  The ‘Scope cinematography by Freddie Francis is claustrophobic and charged with atmosphere, the work he personally considers his best effort, filled with slow fades and a blurring of the boundaries between life and death, the real and the imagined, all of which contribute to Miss Giddens’ growing awareness of something sinister in the air that she knows for certain is “something secretive, and whispery, and indecent.”  Described by Pauline Kael as “The best ghost story I’ve ever seen,” this production leaves intact the power of the original work that makes sure the experience rests in the dusty cobwebs of our own imaginations.