Drive - Ryan Gosling and Nicholas Winding Refn

You can mock any unique performance with unoriginal memes like the above. You could do the same of Brando's Corleone, De Niro's Travis Bickle, Ledger's Joker. I think if you look at the nominees this year, and you compare each individually with the intensity and focus of Gosling's performance in Drive, only Gary Oldman compares (haven't seen A Better Life, but everyone admits that Bichir's was a bit of a token nomination, though not necessarily undeserved).

Sure it's not for everyone, but in truth, no performance was more talked about in 2011 than Gosling as Driver. With the possible exception of The Artist, I'd dare to say that no original film was talked about more than Drive. Love it or hate it, Refn and Gosling brought a fresh air to a year of mediocre movies.

-JMT
 
I thought his performance was pretty good but not an Oscar worthy lead performance either. It's more the role though. I just don't think there's enough to it. Not every performance needs to be that, though. He more than fulfilled the requirements of the story...It's been about a month since I've seen the film and I will say it hasn't really stuck with me. Not something I really have any interest in seeing again, although i enjoyed watching it.
 
watch or re-watch the fugitive kind - brando can drive a truck thru his silences because the moments/life is so full - and because - well it was close to his own real self - gosling - in that movie it's like c. slater doing nicholson. It was artifact - the director is calling up gasper noe -" how did you do that scene where you have the guy bash the guys brains in with the station pole?" And then coming off like he's making a tarkovsky film. Anyway - enuf of drive talk for me :)
 
Michael Traven said:
You can mock any unique performance with unoriginal memes like the above. You could do the same of Brando's Corleone, De Niro's Travis Bickle, Ledger's Joker. I think if you look at the nominees this year, and you compare each individually with the intensity and focus of Gosling's performance in Drive, only Gary Oldman compares (haven't seen A Better Life, but everyone admits that Bichir's was a bit of a token nomination, though not necessarily undeserved).

Sure it's not for everyone, but in truth, no performance was more talked about in 2011 than Gosling as Driver. With the possible exception of The Artist, I'd dare to say that no original film was talked about more than Drive. Love it or hate it, Refn and Gosling brought a fresh air to a year of mediocre movies.

-JMT
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Sure it was good, but it wasn't remotely Oscar-worthy. Gosling's borderline-catatonic performance was a failure of the writing\directing and a distraction, not an enhancement. Most people talking about the film talked about either the kick-ass soundtrack, the hyper-violent outbreaks, the lack of car chases in a movie called "Drive" about a driver, and how badass Albert Brooks was. He is the one who should've been nominated, not Gosling.

And Take Shelter was miles beyond Drive in every aspect you mentioned.

Finally, you can enjoy the film and still find humor in the "unoriginal meme"... especially since it's pretty spot on.
 
kevin baggott said:
watch or re-watch the fugitive kind - brando can drive a truck thru his silences because the moments/life is so full - and because - well it was close to his own real self - gosling - in that movie it's like c. slater doing nicholson. It was artifact - the director is calling up gasper noe -" how did you do that scene where you have the guy bash the guys brains in with the station pole?" And then coming off like he's making a tarkovsky film. Anyway - enuf of drive talk for me :)
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I'm not saying it's the best performance of all time -- but I think it stands out. Like I said, it's not for everyone, but for me, Gosling brought it in every scene, every shot. People made a big deal of Brooks' performance (which was really just counter-casting), but all the great actors in that film couldn't steal the scene from Gosling (Cranston really came the closest).

-JMT

P.S. I think Brando's one of the greatest actors of all time, and I don't think Gosling holds a candle to him. But I think of all the actors we have today, Gosling is one of the closest to having a shot.
 
refocusedmedia said:
Fair enough. Now go watch Take Shelter if you haven't seen it yet. ;)
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Going to rent that sometime this week. Have "Warrior" to watch tonight -- really didn't look incredibly interesting from the trailer, but everyone I know who's seen it has said it blew them away.
 
I really don't like Refn. I saw the first Pusher, and had no desire to see 2 or 3. I thought most of the bad things in Drive can be laid at Refn's feet. Gosling gave it the old college try, but sadly just didn't have the wattage to pull off this role. The silent, low key guy who is a quiet pent up bomb ready to explode. Instead, every time he "exploded", it felt scripted and acted. There was no mystery in what he's going to do. In a character like that, you want the audience to sit on pins and needles trying to figure out just how he's going to react. Instead, it was all terribly flat and "hollywood". Gosling just doesn't have the firepower. He wasn't horrible, but it was not a role he could pull off. The love interest felt forced and by the numbers, and to me there was zero chemistry between the two - and further, I thought she was the weakest acting link in this film. And what poor use of Christine Hendricks - I mean, you could do a lot more with her, she's a terrific actress (per Mad Men), but was given so little. I blame Refn. And the idiotic silences - it's like a cliche about bad European movies. Newsflash for Refn: hey, just because there's a pregnant pause, (and more pause and more pause and more pause) doesn't automatically mean there is deep meaning. Silences have to be earned, to be effective, and you earn them by putting a whole heck of a lot of background drama and accumulated weight which then can hang heavy in the air. If you instead merely throw in a silence without it being earned, it comes across as it does in this movie - as artificial and contrived. Sorry, Refn, we ain't fooled.

Personally, I hated the 80's aesthetic of the music and titles, and found it jarring and heavy-handed.

And sure, it's a story we've seen a million times, but for all that, I thought it had potential. I actually thought the script was not bad. But it would have needed a much, much, much better director. A director who has some artistic discipline. The film needed to be much tighter in every sense. For this to work - and again, I think it could have worked really well - you would have needed the pacing to be much better throughout, i.e., not merely in acts, but within individual scenes. You needed motivations to flow effortlessly and mesh well. Otherwise the violence looks contrived, instead of punctuating the action effectively. In general, I don't object to violence, even extreme violence, but it needs to flow well and can't be all "hey everybody, now look at this here, are you guys ready? OK, here it comes! See how tough and gory! Wow, pretty strong, huh? C'mon, that was cool, no? Hey, looky here!". When the violence is properly layered and timed, it can be extremely effective and scary. Here it was merely an eyeroller - helped on by a fork. And that friends, is all the the province of a director. For these and other reasons, I thought it was a failure, by Refn. He's responsible.

So to me, it was not a worthless film. I do not regret seeing it, or spending time on it. What it was, in my opinion, was a missed opportunity. So much more could have been done with the material. And what a travesty Refn made of it. It could have been really good.​
 
OldCorpse said:
Sorry, Refn, we ain't fooled.
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Hey, speak for yourself :)

For me this was really good. The good so far outweighed the not so good, and it was only the not so good that kept it from being special. It worked for me as an experience. My main concern came toward the end, when I realised how few people there were in this world. At that point it felt a bit student.
 
i just hope ya never see a film I made that you don't like

Hey, it's easy to be 'objective' about someone else's work - especially of a stranger. It's a mark of a true artist to be capable of being objective about your own work... not even because of ego, but because you usually don't recognize your own biases, and so your judgement is going to be "off" since your own work conforms perfectly to your reality, which is skewed and not shared by others. An outsider can say "hey, that's wrong", but you, being in your own bubble, have much less of an outside frame of reference. The ability to see your own work with a stranger's eye, is a rare gift - but then, great artists are rare.

And worry not, since I'm embarking on directing my own no-budget feature, there'll be plenty of chances for me to be humbled most thoroughly.
 
Of course, we work in a subjective field with some guidelines and generalisations for taste and what works etc.

Although I disagree with you about Drive, OldCorpse. I respect ya opinion, and I'd be interesting in knowing which films you prefer in this genre!
 
OldCorpse said:
And worry not, since I'm embarking on directing my own no-budget feature, there'll be plenty of chances for me to be humbled most thoroughly.
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You're not alone. The closest thing I came to directing a feature was pretty humbling. I'd say it's probably a 1 1/2 star movie. Maybe. A couple minutes here and there are well done. Some good acting. That's it. The rest is crap. Iffy writing, weak directing, poor cinematography, poor editing. I don't show it to anyone. I'll spare you.

I liked Drive by the way. Found it refreshing for the same reasons others here say.
 
Revisiting this thread after so long... I'm surprised at how split the audience is on it, and even I'm split internally. I think it's a really good movie, just solid execution, etc.

But likely the script isn't something anyone would've greenlit in its shooting state. So that's why I'm a little back and forth.

Regardless, it also illustrates that script and story really may NOT be king, and execution rules feature films. Just my thought, anyway.
 
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