Drive

[Jeremy Blackman]

I don't know who you're quoting, but either way you might be calling me a subscriber to this 'theory' prematurely.

That's true... I think I'm a little jumpy today. Sorry.

but if you've made a masterful movie, it really shouldn't matter because you've drawn the audience into the experience.

See, now you've lost me again.

You're arguing against a straw man position... that plot revelations and visual revelations are everything. I don't believe that. As such, I don't believe such spoilers ruin all or even most of the experience.

It's just a very significant part of the experience. This significance varies dramatically from film to film. It's particularly significant with Drive, because much of the movie relies on plot revelations and striking visual revelations (my example was the mask-through-the-glass scene).

Contrast this with Melancholia. I watched that trailer, and it didn't negatively affect my experience of that movie one bit as far as I can tell, and it didn't take anything away. It's just a very different movie.

So again, the difference varies dramatically from film to film. I won't argue Melancholia, and you probably shouldn't argue Drive. The experience of watching a film whose lifeblood is revelation is going to be hugely affected by not having that revelation. Isn't this simple?

Your argument (quoted above) is essentially that a masterful movie, even if so much of it has been robbed from the viewer by spoilers, should be so incredibly masterful that the sheer power of its mastery will overcome that. How does that work? Also that "drawing the audience into the experience" is good enough. I'm sorry, but an episode of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant easily "draws the audience into the experience," so no, that's not good enough. I can find nothing of substance in this argument.

[socketlevel]

It does it by paying attention to story and character development over plot. It can actually then start playing with conventions of plot as well.

This film is about those two things more than anything else. 99 times out of 100 i would quote you (or anyone else) on this board and add "yes don't watch this trailer." I've done it before. I felt that way about "the game" for example, and it's a great movie, but it's all about heavy plot reveals. Drive isn't ruined because of the trailer, because it's not only immaterial to know this plot, but it actually makes for a better experience thinking it's just like every other movie that's done this mundane plot in the past. Almost everything in the film is cliche, just like the trailer sets up, but when you actually see it in the theater the character development adds and takes away from this preconception. That was the most rewarding thing for me when i left the cinema.

I'm not barking up the tree of some theory, i'm barking up the tree in the defense of this movie and the very few other films that are going for a similar sense of turning cliche's on their head.

you quoted my "masterful movie" line and ran off from it out of context, i explained it in the rest of my post.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I'll take you at your word, but I sincerely hope your pro-spoiler theory is limited to this movie.

I guess our disagreement is about why this movie works (because I like it too), and how that's affected by spoilers.

I honestly think your interpretation is very bizarre. Valid, perhaps, but definitely bizarre. Firstly, I'm not at all convinced that turning cliches on their head is a significant part of the film. It has some cliche plot points, and it does thoroughly transcend them, but I don't think it's specifically trying to do anything with those cliches, let alone specifically turning them on their heads. I'm not sure where in the film a cliche is turned on its head in the way you allude to.

Even if such an instance does exist, I'd still be skeptical that it's enhanced by having been spoiled. Why? If a cliche plot point seems less cliche because you know it's coming and are not alarmed by its clicheness, wouldn't that undermine the flip that you're talking about, if the thing you're flipping from is deflated and entirely less flippable?

Also, the trailer did not lead me (at all) to believe that this was going to be "just like every other movie that's done this mundane plot in the past." (What trailer did you watch?)

In any case, the elevator scene is a great example. It may be cliche in that elevators exist and sometimes appear in movies, but outside of that, I don't see the cliche here. This is probably the most important scene of the film, and the tension that obviously should have been there was completely robbed from me because I had seen the trailer. I had a completely different experience than what the filmmaker clearly intended. I could still enjoy it on one level, in a rewatch sort of way, but certainly not on the same level. This is another reason why your suggestion that "story development and character development" can be separated from plot just baffles me. All of the above happens in this scene, and it's hardly the only scene like that.

There's also the issue (which I've brought up repeatedly, apparently to no avail) of the various spectacular images, which are meant to be revelatory in a more visual/abstract way. The best example is the scene where the driver looks through the window with the mask on. Which was made the freaking centerpiece of the trailer. Thus... no revelation when I actually saw the film. It was more like "oh, there's that really great image I saw in the trailer."

[socketlevel]

it's limited to movies that play on these conventions, not just this film.

MASSIVE SPOILERS

examples of turning the cliche:

- Brian cranston's character would have been the George mcfly (as I've stated before) and not someone that jokes with brooks' character about perlman. he simply would have been a fuck up.
- brooks would have not felt so much emotion when having to kill his old friend
- the driver would not be so innocent, almost autistic. rather, he would be byronesque and one step ahead of the antagonists in the third act. he never outsmarts the bad guys, he "out-honors" them.
- standard would have never had such a powerful first scene, he would have been a deadbeat dad. his second scene is taken less as a threat because we just watched him poor his heart out to a room full of family friends.
- mulligan would have loved the driver but was forced to be in the relationship with said deadbeat dad (probably due to deadbeat's violent temper) not because she feels the boy should have his father or actually still having feelings for him
- there never would have been the scene with standard joking around and involving mulligan in telling the story of how they met. they both laugh and feel touched by the memory, it would have been some crazy ray liota type character joking around and mulligan's character would have been scared of his wrath.

I'll think about more, and post again if this is not enough.

[Jeremy Blackman]

You're talking about ways that the movie sidesteps or transcends cliches, or just simply avoids doing things that worse movies might do, when you were originally talking about turning cliches on their head. Your argument was about actively engaging with those cliches and flipping them, and I don't really see that happening. Your closest example is probably the deadbeat dad, but yeah, I really don't find much meaning in any of that, even if I did buy your cliche flipping thing. This could be the least meaningful thing about the movie.

If your argument is actually that the trailer trains you to expect cliches (which I don't believe anyway), and then the movie reverses those very specific expectations, and that makes it good... well, that makes even less sense to me at this point.

[RegularKarate]

Yeah, Socketlevel, you've gave it a try, but that theory is pretty bunk.  The trailer is a spoilerpalooza... it's sad.

also, alternate poster (sorry it's so big, couldn't find smaller):

[Jeremy Blackman]

Wow... love that poster.

[socketlevel]

haha ok, i feel like we're going down that rabbit hole together... yes what you just described is what I'm saying. whether it sidesteps or turns it on it's head is a semantic debate we don't need to get into. fairy tales don't usually spend the time to do either. If it makes less sense now, I'm sorry, I don't have anything to add other than to go back to my original point; the trailer doesn't ruin what is the paramount reason to see this film.

one love.

[Pas]

Best film of the year imho, I think. The only problem I find: Carey Mulligan. What a miscast!!! She totally can't sell the lower class teen mom. She looks rich just from her face.

[Stefen]

Stay Pas.

[Pas]

Hehe that's a great page start. I might, as I have to promote the movie I co-produced... SAY WHAT PAS! Hell yeah, a full length feature directed by another Xixax alumni. Not completely shot yet... The Artifacts of Idealism is the title... to be continued. You may resume Drive thread, as it is a fucking good film.

[Pubrick]

... The Artifacts of Idealism is the title...

sounds like a SoNowThen title.

[Pas]

haha 

[MacGuffin]

Before Buying 'Drive' On BluRay You Might Want To Wait For The "Queen" Edition Nicolas Winding Refn Is Planning
Source: Playlist

Although a date has yet to be announced for the home video release of "Drive," director Nicolas Winding Refn suggests that fans might want to skip the first release of the film on DVD and Blu-ray and wait for a deluxe edition that he'd like to put together in a year or so. Speaking to The Playlist recently, Refn indicated that an upcoming double-dip will offer greater insights and information about the film than the bare-bones iteration that's due in a few months.

"The version that is released now, like soon, is fairly standard," Refn revealed. "It does not include any audio commentaries with either Ryan [Gosling] or myself, and it does not include any secret, revealing elements, or mysteries solved, or a huge amount of spinoffs. [But] because I'm a Blu-ray fanatic – no, fanatic, like religiously – I hope that in the near future, I will be able to release a movie that's not just a movie, but also one that describes the process of the filmmaking, and answers some of the more mysterious elements of the success of that it has achieved."

Retrospective featurettes typically seem most interesting only years after a film is released, when audiences and critics, and even the filmmakers themselves, have had an opportunity to honestly assess its artistic and commercial merits. But Refn said he's confident he and star Ryan Gosling will be able to provide some deeper perspectives, much less production details, about the conception and execution of "Drive."

"I think it will be fun to sometime next year to just start thinking about putting it all together," he said of the potential timeline. "By then it has played itself through in all of the countries in the world, and all of the various Blu-ray editions have been released. So that would be the time to make, what I would say would be the 'Queen' version. That's what is in the plan for Ryan and I."

Of course what he means by "Queen version" we'll have to wait and see, but hopefully everything can come together for Refn to deliver the full blown DVD/BluRay release the film deserves. And if FilmDistrict aren't up to the task, maybe The Criterion Collection can step in? Dare to dream.

[squints]

FUCKING YES.

Animated Tribute to Drive w/ Music by Glass Candy