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Hero in the shadows: Film noir, fairytale and postmodernism in 'Drive'

2015; Issue: 79 Linguagem: Inglês

1449-857X

Gabrielle O'Brien,

Cinema and Media Studies

Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) is a film that revels in surfaces and reflections, and seduces the spectator with its irresistibly polished veneer. Yet this emphasis on surface offers paradoxical viewing pleasures. The film's ultra-cool neon artificiality codes the film as self-reflexive, while also drawing attention to the conflicting narrative blueprints that underpin it. For like the sleek 1973 Chevrolet so thrillingly piloted by Driver (Ryan Gosling), Drive's narrative framework is always on the move. The film self-consciously draws on both fairytale and film noir tropes and archetypes, and these often-contradictory reference points produce a highly kinetic aesthetic that is not easy to pin down.