1.
Hollywood is in the business of selling fantasy, and even though that has a negative connotation, whatever onscreen fantasies we find ourselves in, they represent someone’s ideals; as we are constantly searching for meaningful ways to be. The screen is a fantasy stage for our desires. The silver screen is a space where our desires are projected; or emitted, if we’re watching a movie on an LCD monitor. What’s projected or emitted by the screen is the object of our desire. As people, we are pushed by internal drives towards objects of our desires.
2.
The movie, Drive, is about a marginal figure who works as a mechanic and on Hollywood productions as a stunt car driver. He also has a secret life where he lives out his heroic fantasies. The title of the movie can also be read to mean psychological drive. Drive as “an aroused state of psychological tension that typically arises from a need.” Psychological Drive has in its cross-hairs an object of desire (food, love, sex, an ideal, comfort etc). We are driven towards our objects of desire. For Freud, the object of desire can be attained but for Lacan the object remains out of reach, as for Lacan the aim of a drive is not to attain the object but to circle around it.
The main character, played by Ryan Gosling, is credited as Driver as we never get to know his name, and from his interactions with his boss, Shannon, we get that he is a quiet, compliant push-over, a sort of a martyr. They call the Driver by the patronizing nickname “kid,” which he accepts. His boss, Shannon, even brags that he underpays him and the “kid” never complains.
Note: In this essay I will be using the names “The Driver” and “The kid” to refer to the same character, to highlight context and who calls him what.
It’s fair to say that the kid has dreams of being a movie star, and this is his fantasy, but because of his quiet awkward demeanour and his lack of charisma, he couldn’t make it as an actor, so he remains in the background as a stunt car driver for movie productions. He can never play the hero in a movie. On film sets he has to wear a mask that resembles the main star as he performs the stunts. As customary in the movie business, we never get to see the stunt actor’s face and he doesn’t get top billing credit. The kid, with his failed Hollywood aspirations to play a hero in a movie, gets to live out his fantasies as a hero in real life by also working as a getaway driver. He transforms Los Angeles into a fantasy space , a stage, to live out his wishes; it becomes his silver screen. As a getaway driver, he is a tough, no nonsense personality. His work as a getaway driver for robberies and exchanges is his movie, his big role where he plays a pivotal and visible role in the robbery and getaway “productions.”
He meets his new neighbour, Irene, a woman singlehandedly raising a boy (Benecio) as her husband is in prison. After bumping into her numerous times and he gets to know her, his fantasy world becomes complete. He could be what the movie business couldn’t provide for him on screen. He has a chance to attain his object of desire, to be a hero, the leading man, the saviour in this mother and son’s life, on the Los Angeles fantasy stage he has constructed. It is also noteworthy to notice that the only other person who wears a mask is Benecio (and also to note the sort of mask he’s wearing); he wears a scary mask. ‘The kid’ and Benecio also have a conversation about a TV character, whether or not he’s a good character and how one could tell. Wearing a mask, for a stunt person, is a form of acting. A real actor wears a mask by taking on the characteristics of a role he is playing.
Lacan defines desire as, “desire of the other.” We desire what the other desires and consequently we desire recognition from this other. The kid’s desires coincide with Irene’s desire. The kid desires what Irene desires. Irene desires a hero in her life, and the kid desires to be a hero, that’s what the other (Irene) desires, and so consequently the Driver desires recognition from her (Irene). Desire is desire of the other. And psychological drive propels him to the object of desire.
The subject of a psychological drive in this movie, that is, the object of desire, is heroism. He constructed this fantasy, this movie he stars in as Irene’s hero, because he couldn’t attain his desire in real life. The title of the movie should be read in two ways — as meaning psychological drive which pushes us to the object of our desire, and also as alluding to the occupation of the character as a stunt car driver. The movie can then be seen as metaphor for psychological processes of drive (sexual drive, achievement drive etc.) towards fulfillment.
3.
Director Refn, accents and splits the layers of the story; he stylistically separates the story of The wimpy kid’s life as a mechanic/stunt car driver, from the character’s fantasy life where he stars in his own movie as The Driver, a tough, no nonsense, getaway driver. As the Driver, in his own fantasy, the images are stylized and use 80’s action movie tropes. The images where the main character plays in his own movie as Irene’s hero are punctuated by a dissonant 80’s sounding retro soundtrack with the lyrics, “Against the grain of dystopic claims; Not the thoughts, your actions entertain; And you, have proved to be — A real human being; And a real hero. A real human being, and a real hero.” This song plays as he performs heroic deeds in his fantasy movie. Refn also made costume choices in that the main character only wears an 80’s style retro scorpion embroidered jacket only when he is the no nonsense Driver, and when he’s the wimpy kid he wears a shirt, and there’s also a neutral costume choice in the form of a black jacket which he wears in his the real world as mechanic/stunt car driver and also in his fantasy space as a getaway Driver.
The images where he plays in his fantasy 80’s movie as Irene’s hero have an almost surrealistic tone, Refn lifts those images up from the rest of the movie and they appear as not realistic but, maybe what can be called surreal. He slows down the motion, dims lights here and there; the images appear to be a movie within a movie. While the images at the garage or as a stunt driver are mostly following rules of the real world — there’s no slow-motion or creative changes in lighting whatsoever.
Irene’s husband, Standard, returns from prison, cutting the developing connection between The Driver and Irene short. Meanwhile Shannon arranges a meeting with Bernie (who has Mafia connections) to raise money to start a NASCAR racing team with “the kid” as their driver. Bernie agrees to fund part of the project, and ‘the kid’ agrees to be the driver of the team without question, as he’s push over and easily led.
Meanwhile the Driver continues his role as a hero in Irene’s life. Irene’s husband owes money and to settle that debt, the person he owes, Cook, want him to do a heist. The Driver agrees to help. The heist turns out to be a set up and Irene’s husband is killed. It turns out that the heist connection, Cook, who was owed money by Irene’s husband works for Nino, who is close friends with Bernie; and Bernie had agreed to fund the NASCAR racing team project. The money that was stolen belongs to the Mafia and they will kill anyone who is connected to the heist. That means the Mafia will come against The Driver, Irene, Benecio, Shannon, and Nino for setting up the heist, and since Nino is partners with Bernie, this threatens to take him down as well. The Driver had no way of knowing that he was literally biting the hand that feeds him, and to make things right, he wants to give the money to the person who organized the heist, Nino. But there’s no way to do that as Nino and Bernie wants him and everybody connected, dead.
There is a moment between Bernie and “The kid,” before the heist turned everything to shit, where Bernie attempts to connect with him. He tells the kid that he used to produce action movies in the 80’s and he thought they were shit. Most critics and commentators take this revelation as a self-conscious moment in the movie, and that Bernie is commenting on the movie itself. But I think Bernie is genuinely attempting to connect with the kid, “We’re a team now.” (We are in this NASCAR racing team together. We are from the same world. We like the same things. It’ll be fun.) And also, most importantly, that detail sets up Bernie as an antagonist. How? Bernie as someone who used to produce movies, a purveyor of fantasy, certainly becomes a figure who has denied the kid a chance to star in a leading role in movies. This important detail furnishes Bernie as a gatekeeper figure; he’s someone who stands between the kid and his object of desire, both in the real world and in the fantasy world as the story continues. Bernie functioned as the gatekeeper of dreams in the kid’s life, both as a film producer and as a venture capitalist for a NASCAR racing team.
4.
At this point of the story the dangerous fantasy life of his own 80’s movie of as a getaway driver criss-crosses with his real life of a pushover mechanic/movie stunt driver. But he is determined to see his movie to the end and emerge victorious, a hero. Bernie takes matters into his hands and plans to get back the money from the driver and kill him, return the money to its mafia owners to make things right. And take out everybody else who knows about the money. He takes out Shannon first. The Driver plots his path, to kill Nino and Bernie. Since he intends to finish the fantasy movie that he is in, to kill Nino he devices a stunt — drive Nino off the road with his car, but since he is the main star of this fantasy movie, not a stunt man, he can show his face. But to carry out the stunt he follows the procedure of a movie production; he goes to the set and steals the mask that he wore as a stunt driver, and since he can’t hire a stunt driver, he wears that mask and performs the car stunt himself; driving Nino off the road.
And then plans a meeting with Bernie, to deliver the money so that he can go on to live free with Irene. Bernie has intentions of killing them all. In a restaurant where he meets the Driver, and as a player in the Driver’s fantasy life, Bernie is still a gatekeeper; he has stopped the kid’s dreams of being a main actor in movies as a film producer, he holds the key to kid’s NASCAR dreams as an investor, he is the gatekeeper standing between the Driver and Irene as part of the mob. In the restaurant, after asking if the kid brought the money, he makes his offer and tells the Driver, “We conclude our deal. We’ll shake hands. You start the rest of your life. Any dreams you have, or plans, or hopes for your future, I think you’re going to have to put that on hold. For the rest of your life you’re going to be looking over your shoulder. I am just telling you this because I want you to know the truth, but the girl is safe.”
In the parking lot, after ascertaining that the Driver did indeed bring the money, Bernie makes his move to kill the Driver. They struggle and fight each other in the parking lot, and after a moment of uncertainty about who survived the fight, The Driver emerges as the last man standing. He drives off to be with Irene.
5.
The movie ends with the driver in his car driving. We don’t know whether or not he reaches Irene. I personally think he doesn’t. The movie ends with him driving because that’s the subject of the movie — the drive towards our desires. Depending on your school of thought, maybe like Freud you think drive achieves its ends, the object of desire can be attained, or like Lacan you think the aim of a drive is not to attain the object but to circle around it, I think its irrelevant. How the movie ends, leaves us only with drive — its subject. Asking whether or not he gets Irene, this need to know, makes us aware of drive — a psychological drive, in this instance to know. Refn could have tied a bow around the story and showed us or hinted that it works out. But I doubt it does.
Lacan posits that we can’t attain the object of our desire, the subject of our drives. I don’t think that the Driver gets the girl, and goes on to be with Irene and her son. He is still in fantasy. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, Fantasy stands between the subject(i.e. a patient) and the Real. Fantasy is not meant to be analysed. Fantasy is meant to be traversed. Maybe in that final drive scene, the kid traverses fantasy and meets the real on the otherside. Maybe a part of him died after that fight with Bernie, and then he traverses fantasy to the real. But even then, the real could be that Irene has left.
This is what I thought when I watched Drive. Tellingly, Sallis, the writer of the book the movie is based on, wrote a sequel despite it not being part of his plan. In the sequel [from the little that I’ve read about it], is called Driven, and the Driver is not with Irene and her son, Benecio.
As Lacan’s follower, Zizek says, “A desire is never just a desire for a certain thing. It is always also a desire for desire itself. A desire to continue to desire. Perhaps the ultimate horror of desire is to be fully filled in -met-. To desire no longer. The ultimate melancholic experience is an experience of a loss of desire itself.”
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