He is an introvert.
Look at the scene with the husband in the hall when he asked him if helped out while he was in prison.
His lack of answering normally is actually really disturbing and yet another insight into who he is.
He can’t really come out and say how he really feels about the guy’s wife though. That was a very awkward scene. Her husband was looking for an excuse to beat him up, I think.
Perhaps Gosling’s character is introverted, if being introverted means you are a dry boy, as they say in Ireland — i.e. sparing with your words. Perhaps too he’s been through so much that he’s learned to just keep his mouth shut about his own affairs. It’s hard to judge.
You saw it that way? I saw the husband as a good guy who got mixed up with the wrong people, which made it even harder to watch. I don’t think the husband would have hurt a fly.
Look at how we still discuss this movie! It’s better post-viewing when talking and analyzing it than during the actual viewing! (to me, anyway)
Really? I don’t remember now — was the husband forced into his crime? Did he have a past before that?
And regardless, if some guy were making the moves on your wife when you were away wouldn’t you want to potentially beat the shit out of him?
He was forced into it twice the second time resulting in his death. He was trying to pay a debt with the first robbery and the second was to make up for his failure.
Shit went down. Needless to say.
That has nothing to do with getting mixed up with the wrong people. That’s protecting your territory and property.
I got the second time. I guess I missed the first time. What did he do that he had to do a robbery to pay his debt the first time?
Him not being an inherently bad person is what I’m trying to get across. He loves his wife and son and wants to do what’s best for them. However environmental situations and personal issues prevent him from being successful.
“Perhaps too he’s been through so much that he’s learned to just keep his mouth shut about his own affairs.”
I think this is the case, more so than whether he’s an “introvert” or “extrovert”.
Sigh. Ok. The criminal who has to resort to a life of crime to support his family.
Anyway he ain’t no goody goody. Period.
And what I was saying before has nothing to do with his past — again, if some guy were stepping into your shoes while you were away, some guy you didn’t know about till your son tells you about him, of course you’d be threatening to him if you are normal. I.e., have a normal relationship with your wife — you don’t lend her around.
Santino — I agree with you. I think he’s decided to keep his mouth shut about his past. It’s unknown and he’s going to keep it that way.
Well I’ve never had that problem so I can’t relate to it personally. I don’t think he knows, I really don’t. I truly believe he’s that dense.
^ ha ha — I disagree. I saw that scene as two alleycats potentially fighting over the same female in heat. Gosling’s character knows all about male aggression. He’s 100% “in” that club.
(if that’s the problem you’re referring to)
@Odi
Have you seen The Limey? That’s pretty tough guy but there isn’t that kind of gore even though the main character hunts everyone down just like in Drive. It also has some very arty shots in it.
I’ve seen The Limey. I can’t remember many details about it at this point. I’m not sure I’d describe it as an “art action film,” though. It’s more of an independent action movie.
Tell me again though why do you think that Drive is so manly?
Can I take the lazy way out and ask you to reread my posts? ;)
It’s not that I think the film is “so manly” so much as the film seems to be about expressing or capturing quality. Gosling’s character has all the stereotypical qualities I would associate it with “manliness”—e.g., being good with his hands—in this case both fixing and driving cars, which is a typical guy thing; he’s not good with his emotions, almost childlike; he has a protective instinct; and capacity for violence—but mostly used to protect women and children.
There isn’t much of a story, nor are the characters really realistic. But I don’t think the point is to tell this really entertaining story or create these vivid characters.
Carey Mulligan wasn’t oozing sexuality in the film though, which is actually a good thing. I really, really like that part of the film.
I’m not good at picking things like that up when I’m convinced the original partner is incredibly dense. I don’t think he would have caught on unless he physically caught them having sex.
The interrogation by Mulligan’s husband in that scene is about being cuckolded. He wants to know if it went that far.
Another old, old story.
But I don’t think the point is to tell this really entertaining story or create these vivid characters.
Then what is the point?
Carey Mulligan wasn’t oozing sexuality in the film though, which is actually a good thing.
Gosling needs an innocent, a good person, a gentle person to counteract the hardness of his life and his past. That is why he is attracted to her. She is sweet. And she is a mother. He wants someone like that. And so does the husband.
I’m not good at picking things like that up when I’m convinced the original partner is incredibly dense. I don’t think he would have caught on unless he physically caught them having sex.
I so disagree! He views Gosling with suspicion all the way through. He scorns him when he comes to talk to him in the bathroom. Gosling wants to win his trust and I guess he does, but only because the father is in a desperate situation.
Come on, Ben. That guy is not dense. Tough guys are territorial and know what they’re up against with their own kind. It’s an instinct thing.
If he has a suspicion he won’t act on it.
I knew tough guys too, who were all bark and no bite.
Now I have to re-watch it.
:D That’s because he’s already in trouble. He can’t afford to act on it.
Then what is the point?
For me the larger point is expression of this manliness. I’m using “manliness” instead of masculinity intentionally here. (And I think we discussed this point earlier.)
Ok, I think I get what you’re seeing, Jazz. I don’t see the film that way, but I can see how it’d be interpreted your way.
Man, I feel like I should have contributed more. I admire this movie a lot and it’s a great step to the evolution of the action film from those Steven Seagal or Jason Statham explosion-fests to this movie and The American (ain’t they similar?).
Now about those things Jazzaloha would like to discuss…
INFLUENCES: I can’t say anything more about that 70’s existential action movie feel to it, but I do think that Drive might also have a <insert Los Angeles-set movie that depicts the city with surrealism here (like Mulholland Drive)> touch to it. The usage of color and the brutal, violence are evidence of this: they are so exaggerated, it seems as if we are transported into another world.
INTERPRETATIONS: Drive is a movie about emotions and motivations, the things that drive people, and this is what I like most about the film. Due to Refn’s direction, we seem to be compelled to see these people do what they can to escape their desperate situations, no matter how violent the results. Driver isn’t really a violent man, just a guy who’s forced to be just as violent as his adversaries.
P.S. Remember that last shot on the elevator scene, with the scorpion on the jacket shown but Driver’s head out of the frame? I feel like talking about the significance of that one.
VIOLENCE: Like I said, surreal, but the violence also feels appropriate. (First, I have to confess that I winced at the shotgun scene, but I wasn’t surprised at all, since this was Refn territory.) Isn’t part of this film about manliness? The film, then, is supposed to tell what happens when a guy’s manliness comes out and/or clashes with another person’s, and since we’re talking about men with motivation and not just some routinely hard-R action movie character, the violence feels right, no matter how shocking. Look at the shotgun scene (which I think is the most violent scene in the movie, by the way): It’s committed by a goon/tough guy who we don’t even know about until he appears, and it’s very violent because it provides that his manliness made him kill, in which I recall that Muslim woman getting shot in the head in close-up in Three Kings (besides its desensitization and re-sensitization stuff).
odilonvert
I would not however, kill someone with the heel of my foot unless I had to.
I don’t think most people have that kind of tendency, honestly. lol
People always tell me “Oh we thought you were so quiet!” It’s more like I don’t wear my personality on my sleeve for people I don’t know well enough to trust them. Who wants to waste all that energy on people you don’t even know?
Well anyway, so what are we saying, that we’re boxing Gosling’s character into an introvert or something?