Klaus wrote:Making a film that deliberately exploits violence in order to criticise films that are exploiting violence is the worst and laziest kind of filmmaking.
No, and I don't think that sort of work is relevant to this conversation.
(But if this principle were applied generally then, say, American Psycho would be the "worst and laziest" kind of novel when it's actually brilliant - and, for that matter, incredibly moralising.)
I don't think Drive is in any sense criticising violence, it's revelling in it, and yes, exploiting it. This is what I said:
Burnwinter wrote:The disconnect between the conventional dramatic scenes on the one hand (the 'cut scenes') and the apparently senseless violence and mayhem on the other (typical player behaviour in the narrowly constrained GTA3-ish sandbox environment - beating whores, running down pedestrians, crashing cars, endless cop chases etc. because these are the only things you can do!) is in effect a study of what happens when a video game's undramatic sequencing merely 'inspired' by cinema is transposed back to the usually more coherent, narrative-driven medium of the film that inspired it.
What I've suggested it critiques, via its reference to video games, is the formalism of games. Playing GTA3 (which we agree is a reference point), I complete a mission (motivated) and then roam around the "sandbox" committing arbitrary acts of violence. How then does this irrational narrative sequence translate back to the cinema which superficially inspired it?
Games sample cinematic set pieces and then reassemble them out of order, with no respect for the plot-driven dependencies that lie between.
A "show, don't tell" approach to critique in this case makes perfect sense, and goes some way to explaining the way many scenes in Drive feel like non sequiturs. As you say when it comes to Bronson, "you wouldn't believe it was the same director just by comparing it to Drive" - don't you think Winding Refn deserves the benefit of the doubt?
It's a critique of forms, not of content - one which could work similarly with other types of content, eg pornography. Or perhaps, rather than a critique at all, it's merely an exercise in recreating video game sequences in a setting where conventional plot logic usually applies, and is expected.
Klaus wrote:It's written as a character-driven narrative where the driver is supposed to be the focal point, yet it's his actions that are exploited and expanded upon rather than the character. Neither the message nor the story benefits from this.
I feel like you're making my argument for me here. How can the narrative be character-driven when the narrative is illogical and Gosling's Driver, as you've said yourself, barely has a character and is all surface? Refn's 'message' is formal: both what is present in terms of style and action, and what lacks in terms of psychological realism and plot logic.
