What drives human behavior, our nature or our desires? This question affects many films, with the answer often dependent on the film's genre. But what if a film is multiple genres? Drive is a noir and a western, and also has elements of crime, romance, action, and thriller. But what drives these genres, and what drives the Driver: his nature or his desire?
Credits:
Footage from:
Drive (2011), Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn
Out of the Past (1947), Dir. Jacques Tourneur
Fargo: Season One (2014), Cre. Noah Hawley
Stagecoach (1939), Dir. John Ford
Rio Bravo (1959), Dir. Howard Hawks
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Dir. Robert Altman
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Dir. George Roy Hill
Shane (1953), Dir. George Stevens
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966), Dir. Sergio Leone
High Noon (1952), Dir. Fred Zinnemann
The Third Man (1949), Dir. Carol Reed
The Crying Game (1992), Dir. Neil Jordan
Music from:
Nightcall - Kavinsky
Oh My Love - Riz Ortolani
A Real Hero - College & Electric Youth
Full Transcript:
Hi, my name is Gabe and in this video I’ll be looking into Drive. Drive isn’t as concrete as the other films I’ve made videos on, but there’s some really interesting stuff here, and I think it’ll be fun to look into it.
Oh, and here’s your warning that there will be spoilers ahead.
The first thing to consider about Drive is: what kind of movie is it? On the surface, it appears to be a car movie, but is it really? I mean, there’s only one or two cool-car scenes, and that’s what the genre is known for. Personally, I would say that while Drive is influenced by the car film genre it is not a car film, just like the film is influenced by action, romance, crime, thriller, and drama but isn’t any of those either.
To me, Drive is actually a meshing of two genres: the neo-western and neo noir.
Noirs are all about weakness bringing out the dark side of man, and while classic noirs did this through a femme fatale, neo-noirs often have the darkness come from an insanity or lack of stability inside.
PEARL: Oh, you’re gonna hit me? That’s a laugh.
Drive has this in spades: the Driver’s life was going fine; he was a getaway driver, stunt driver, mechanic, and a future race-car driver, until he met Irene, at which point his life derailed as his insanity came out.
Drive as a western may seem like more of a stretch, but ask yourself, what would a western in a modern big-city look like? Replace horses with muscle cars, one of which is a Mustang, bandits with criminals, prostitutes with pornstars, old banks with pawn shops, and so on. In addition to this, there’s also the classic western story: a chivalrous, heroic male does what is right to protect innocence, often at the cost of his relationship with them. And here’s one last detail: Drive features a man with no name, a trope made famous by classic, spaghetti westerns.
It’s interesting, Drive is a meshing of the noir and western genres, this despite the fact that they are opposites: chivalrous heroes versus the dark side of humanity, conquering the external versus being conquered by the internal,
SHANNON: Calm down!
DRIVER: You told them about Irene!
protecting the weak versus being destroyed by your own weakness. Heck even the cinematography in each genre is opposite, westerns are generally not stylized, they are shot simply and lit by the bright sun, while noirs are super stylized, they exist in shadows with harsh lighting and unique shots. But despite these opposites, Drive contains both. And how the film does this goes to the heart of what it is about.
To figure this out, let’s look at a major motif in the film.
DRIVER: You know the story about the scorpion and the frog?
For those who don’t know:
JODY: A scorpion wants to cross a river, but he can’t swim. Goes to a frog, who can, and asks for a ride. Frog says “If I give you a ride on my back, you’ll go and sting me!” The scorpion replies “It would not be in my interest to sting you since I’d be on your back, we both would drown.” The frog thinks about this logic for a while and then accepts the deal, takes the scorpion on his back, braves the waters. Halfway over, feels a burning spear in his side, and realizes the scorpion has stung him after all. And as they both sink beneath the waves, the frog cries out “Why did you sting me Mr. scorpion? For now we both will drown!” The scorpion replies “I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.”
In Drive, the Driver is both the scorpion and the frog. In Drive the noir, the Driver is the scorpion. This isn’t really up for interpretation; he’s literally wearing a jacket with a scorpion on his back. And like the scorpion, the Driver is controlled by his nature, going insane and driving Irene away.
In Drive the western however, the Driver is the frog, controlled not by his nature but by his desires: to help Irene, to keep her safe and make her happy. Notice that the Driver isn’t wearing the scorpion jacket in these scenes; instead he opts for the more western jean jacket, t-shirt, or mechanic clothes when he’s at work.
And so: is the Driver a scorpion or is he a frog? Is he the hero of a western or the tragic hero of a noir? Is he controlled by his nature or his desires? This is the root of what Drive is about: what drives us? Our nature? Or our desires? Who we are? Or what we want?
And it’s not just the Driver, every character in this film faces their nature versus their desires. Irene wants a loving, stable relationship, and yet she gets knocked up at 17, marries a criminal, and falls for a crazy person. Standard wants to go straight but resorts to crime to do it. Shannon wants success and respect, but he cheats everyone every chance he gets.
SHANNON: And I have been exploiting him ever since.
Nino also wants respect, yet he constantly acts like an immature kid.
NINO: That is one mutherfucking fine-ass pussy mobile muthafucka!
And Bernie wants to do something legit, yet he goes around intimidating and killing like the gangster he is.
This question: are we our nature, or are we our desires, is difficult to answer and so the film doesn’t provide a clear one. There are clues, however, like this moment:
DRIVER: Is he a bad guy?
BENICIO: Yeah.
DRIVER: How can you tell?
BENICIO: Cause, he’s a shark.
DRIVER: There’s no good sharks?
BENICIO: No. I mean, just look at him.
or the lyrics to this song:
LYRICS: The sun now embraces nature. And from nature we should learn…
or the fact that the longer the film goes on the more the Driver wears his scorpion jacket, this despite the fact that it is really dirty by the end. All of this seems to embrace the noir side of the film, that we are our nature, not our desires.
But then there’s the ending: the classic western hero saving the day and driving off into the sunset. I mean, the bad guys are dead and the music literally calls the Driver a hero, you can’t argue with that.
LYRICS: Real human being, and a real hero.
Except you can. Because there’s another interpretation of the ending, specifically that in this moment the Driver completely detaches from reality. The idea that he’s a hero? That’s in his head, and so is Irene knocking on his door. After all, would she really do that after experiencing this? This second interpretation fits right in with noir, the hero’s dark nature conquering his desires and overcoming him. But then, maybe the Driver didn’t detach in this moment, maybe he died, everything after being his last dying thoughts. In this case, he sacrificed himself to save Irene. That sounds like a western to me.
So what is it? Is the driver a hero or a victim of his nature? Is the film a western or a noir? To answer these questions is to answer what drives us: our nature or our desires. Drive doesn’t necessarily have the answer, but it is an interesting question to ponder, and that’s more than you get from most films, especially films like this one.
[A Real Hero]