Nicolas Winding Refn doesn’t always make things easy for himself. If you brush aside all the posturing and bold claims — I like Only God Forgives and still think “a movie about a man who wants to fight God” stinks of grandeur-fueled delusions about a culturally insensitive movie — you’ll find a very fine formalist, one who delineate thrills, narrative direction, and emotional logic through the careful operation of a camera and evident manipulation of actors.
Besides anticipation of what comes next, I don’t have much of any reaction to the news, via Deadline, that he’s added Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road) to the cast of his developing The Neon Demon, which has already added Elle Fanning as its lead. Well, that, in addition to “here’s an excuse to share an excellent video essay pertaining to the director’s best film, Drive.” Far more than a visual presentation that boils down to “look at how cool that is,” this piece (from Tony Zhou, whose work we’ve previously highlighted) notes the quadrant-based staging Winding Refn employed to tell a simple-on-paper crime tale. Criticize familiar plotting or too-opaque-for-its-own-good character work all you want, but to argue against all of its formal strategies after viewing this will prove difficult. When it comes to a film that’s both unfairly maligned and praised on simplistic grounds, that’s a real achievement.
Have a look below (via Press Play):
What did you think of the Drive analysis? Are you looking forward to The Neon Demon?