1,325 words
Drive
The film opens with a handsome young Nordic man (Ryan Gosling) driving through the dark streets of Los Angeles, alone in his 1973 Chevy Malibu. The Driver is never named. He is a silent loner in the tradition of the Man with No Name. A Hollywood stunt driver by day, he is a calculating getaway driver by night. His rules are simple: he will wait for five minutes. If you show up during that window, he will drive. He won’t wait any longer. He won’t assist you. He drives. That’s it.
Early in the film the Driver meets the young, white, seemingly single mother Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives in the same apartment building as the Driver with her mixed-race son Benicio (who’s half Hispanic). There is a mutual attraction, and a relationship begins to bud. This ends, however, when Irene reveals her husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is getting out of prison soon, and for the sake of her son, she has chosen to stay with her husband.
Despite being friend-zoned, all goes well for the Driver until a Jewish mobster, Izzy (Ron Perlman), who goes by the name of Nino to sound Italian, blackmails Standard to rob a pawn shop for him as payback for prison protection. The Driver, who would otherwise let a prison rat like Standard go through with the heist alone, decides to drive for Standard, for the sake of Irene and Benicio.
As is mandatory in such films, the heist goes awry. Standard is killed by the pawn shop owner, and the Driver is left in possession of $1 million in stolen money. Izzy calls on his fellow Jewish mobster, Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks), to clean up the mess. The Driver must die, because he has the money and because he can tie the robbery to Izzy.
By breaking his rigid rules out of altruism, the Driver is thrust into a world of needless chaos and killing. Such actions are reminiscent of modern-day liberals, who, out of altruism towards outsiders, have opened Pandora’s box, destroying their formerly successful societies.
Throughout the film the Driver dons, like a suit of armor, a retro silver bomber jacket with a large golden scorpion embroidered on the back. This symbol hearkens back to an old fable:
A scorpion asks a frog to carry it across a river. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, they would both drown. Considering this, the frog agrees, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When the frog asks the scorpion why, the scorpion replies that it was in its nature to do so.[1]
Like the frog, the Driver’s well-intentioned sensibilities are used against him by less virtuous creatures. His decision to ignore established well-reasoned rules for the sake of keeping together a family results in his almost perfect world crumbling apart.
But the Driver is determined not to let Bernie and Izzy win. First, he drowns Izzy, then calls Bernie up, asks him if he has heard the story of the scorpion and the frog, and tells him that Izzy didn’t make it to the other side. The Driver is no longer the frog, he is the scorpion, but he does make it to the other side.
Then the Driver meets with Bernie, who offers him a deal: return the money and Irene and Benecio will be safe. The Driver, however, will have to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. Minutes later, as the Driver pulls out the bag of money from his trunk, Bernie stabs him from behind. The Driver, however, is wise to the mobster’s propensity for betrayal and stabs him in the throat, killing him. Like many European men today and throughout history, it is only after he is wounded that he is ready to fight and win.
This confrontation recalls the stab-in-the-back of post-WWI Germany. Germany did not lose the Great War but rather was betrayed by disillusioned citizens led astray by Jewish anti-German propaganda. More important than historical circumstances, however, is the origin of this myth. The “stab-in-the-back” is a reference to the ancient Germanic myth of Siegfried, the quintessential hero of Germanic society, who is literally stabbed in the back by the half-dwarf Hagen (the dwarves, as depicted in Wagner’s Ring, being symbolic of Jews).[2]
The Driver is an archetypal Siegfriedian hero. He is a man without fear, a man who keeps his cool under pressure. He gallantly defends the weak. He is a “real hero,” as the song at the end of the film suggests. But the Driver lacks Siegfried’s innocence. He is, after all, a criminal. Both are literally stabbed in the back by dwarven foes. But, unlike Siegfried, the Driver saw it coming and survived – whereas the dwarves did not. Like Siegfried, the Driver is capable of great physical violence. But his innocence is wedded with cunning, which saves him in the end.
The Driver’s world in L.A. is incompatible with the honor code of a real hero. It plays by different rules. The Driver could have let Standard go alone, assuming he would either die or face imprisonment again, therefore allowing the Driver to once again pursue a relationship with Irene. But this doesn’t even cross his mind, because he is incapable of harboring deceit. The Driver, like honorable whites today, exists in a world that exploits his values at his expense–ultimately threatening his very existence. The Driver is seen as just another animal to be used and discarded by the kosher powers that be. In the name of honesty and family he allows his woman to leave him, ending his chance to pass on his blood. In the modern world his values are inverted.
Irene, whom the Driver saves at one point by kicking in the head of a hitman sent to kill her, responds with terror. Her knight in shining armor has turned out to be a violent savage according to her warped, modernized mind. She doesn’t respond by giving her dragon slayer a kiss, but stares in absolute fear of him. Does this event not illustrate the current predicament of the heroically-minded white man today, whose women are taught to berate him as a sexist, reactionary Neanderthal, despite his efforts to do what his instincts tell him, namely to protect them from evildoers who would defile and destroy them?
It is no wonder the Driver has been living a life of isolation. How many young single men reading this review can relate to him as they’re forced to find camaraderie among a bunch of fellow nameless and faceless bloggers. I, for one, have lost valued relationships for my embrace of traditional gender roles and rejection of today’s standards of “polite society.” Many men choose — wrongly, in my opinion — to “Go Their Own Way.”
The film ends as it started – with the Driver, having survived a near-fatal knife attack, driving alone into the night. This time, however, he is driving away from the corrupt world of crime and chaos, leaving behind the stolen money, Bernie Rose’s corpse, and, therefore, any breadcrumbs connecting the whole affair to him.
Unlike the Driver, we can never really walk away from the hostile anti-culture we currently inhabit. We will always be looking over our shoulders unless we face and slay our dragons and dwarves. Going our own way is not enough. A real hero does not merely walk away from a fight and say “fuck it” (or, in the case of MGTOW, “don’t fuck it”). He walks away when his quest is finished.
Notes
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
2. http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/files/ring/ring3_siegfried.htm
12 Comments
It should be mentioned that the jacket is a reference to “Scorpio Rising” by Kenneth Anger! By Nicolas Winding Refn also see “Valhalla Rising” …
“Unlike the Driver, we can never really walk away from the hostile anti-culture we currently inhabit. ”
Since we can’t escape, the challenge is to participate in the hostile anti-culture and to not adopt the parasitic approach that has become endemic in this society. Unfortunately, those most adept at parasitism have become worshiped as the most successful in society by the vast majority of the population, leading to an endless string of poisonous pedagogy.
The robotic comportment of the Driver is also found in many recently released films, where the actors are almost completely devoid of emotion. This same robotic-ness is prevalent in many younger adults in this society. It’s undoubtedly a reaction to the successful ongoing creation of chaos in the culture by the Intelligence agencies, beginning back in the 60’s. Going numb has been the best defense for all ages in society.
The character Izzy, using the name Nino as cover to mask his jewishness is indicative of a standard cloaking approach that has been utilized to covertly slip into situations where jews would clearly not be welcome and brings to mind the name Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, being used to legitimize an ambulance chasing shyster lawyer. In this case a jewish sounding name is an asset since it indicates a lawyer that is a supreme legal manipulator/con artist.
Other movie with jewish villains is People I Know (2002), its not a good movie but it shows NYC power politics and the relationship between Liberal jews and Neocon jews.
The Driver reminded me obliquely of the lead character in The Guest. In both we have masculine, Aryan blondes who are robotic to the point of being psychopaths. In both, also, their efforts to protect the things they love are destined to fail and in both they end up destroying the things they had vowed to protect.
Also, in both films the heroes, after receiving knife wounds, exit into the night to a future unknown.
Did anybody else notice how Judaic the scene where Bernie kills the character played by Bryan Cranston was? The way he killed him and them comforted him (tikkun olan) sent a chill down my spine. The magnanimity of the Judaic!
Yes, I saw the murder of the garage owner as almost ritual. I too noticed the overhead garage doors that had what looked very close to the jewish star of David in the background. The carpenter’s framing hammer being used as a weapon instead of building homes, is also notable, in that, the White man built L.A. with just such a hammer.
I did not like this movie, because Driver approves of, and assists an inter-racial relationship, this being Irene and Standard. When Driver did this he destroyed all pathos he may have established to me. A much better movie that uses the get-away car motif and the themes of loyalty, honesty, and seeing the job through no matter what is “The Driver,” staring Ryan O’Neal, which came out in 1978. This is a movie with an all-white cast (except for one minor black criminal at the beginning) which does a much better job at pursuing exploring the knight theme in a rootless society much better than Ryan Gosling’s crap. If you want to see a much better version of “Driver” get Ryan O’Neal’s “The Driver.”
Sir…Nicely done. I’m pleased that you used this film to highlight MGTOW’s error of ‘checking out’ instead of soldiering on. While I can understand the plight of the divorced individual, building a movement on this premise unfortunately provides a ‘virtue signalling opportunity’ to every neck-bearded fat guy that would prefer to play video games and complain rather than hit the gym and learn game.
MGTOW is a morbid safe-space for those who labour (subconsciously even) under the emasculating delusion that the ‘last should be first and the first last’, rather than embrace the hard truth of female hypergamy and learn to abide by the iron laws of nature.
And this criticism is coming from someone whose life has personally been shattered in the past by weaponised feminism in the legal system. I’m the proverbial prime candidate for MGTOW leadership but thankfully Nietzsche saved me from wallowing in self-pity. I am a bachelor, but unlike the MGTOW lion that has taken to choking down grass and proclaiming he likes it, I am a patient crocodile, enjoying the cool water until the right zebra wanders close to my riverbank (o dear, that’s not a miscegenation metaphor!)
One quick further note…it’s been pointed out that it’s medically highly unlikely that the driver could survive his knife. He would have bled out to a particularly painful death, especially since he was avoiding hospitals because he could get arrested. This could be interpreted as the White man’s fate if he embraces MGTOW – avoiding what he needs to survive, because he knows the system is hostile to him. He’d rather go it alone, mortally wounded, and bleed out. No future there.
I appreciate the compliments, man. I know where you’re coming from. Just went through a breakup several months ago. What could have been settled easily turned into the ex wanting attention and accusing me of things that caused some broken relationships elsewhere. Astonishing all the white knight fools who eat up the cries of a dumb woman.
Speaking of the so-called “mixed racial relationship” – I note the so-called mestizo kid’s alleged dad is far too white looking and the kid really looked more injun than his “dad”. Movie casting people did not do a good job of selecting kid actors for this role.
Great exegesis, guys.
This kind of analysis highlights the utility of Jung’s approach to art’s transformative powers. In the same way that an individual has a shadow, an entire culture or subculture (with shared experiences and, according to Jung, a shared ancestry) can likewise have a collective shadow. The path to psychological health, according to Jung, is the individuation process, and the first step of that process involves encountering one’s shadow and attempting to integrate its components into the ego. This cycle of individuation then repeats itself continuously as a person matures through adulthood. The arts, Jung believed, can act as a deep expression of the unconscious mind. Elements of the shadow are encountered in creativity and can act as a sublimated expression of this encounter.
Great art resonates with a people when it taps into those elements of the collective unconscious most in need of resolution, broaching unresolved tensions of the conscious and unconscious minds, ultimately providing a step towards psychic integration. Oftentimes, the artist is not even aware of the full extent his or her work is accomplishing in this regard (e.g., “Breaking Bad”, Kubrick’s films) but methinx Nicolas Winding Refn (given both “Drive” and “Valhalla Rising”, both of which I’ve seen) is working much more consciously, and may be on the team.
BTW, here are two stills of the Jewish Star that Snaebjorn spotted.
Speaking of possible Hollywood people that are, you know, ‘on our team’ I had a really interesting time watching the Joel Edgerton piece called The Gift. If that wasn’t the most anti-Semitic – deliberately, not unintentionally like Basterds – then I’ll give the house away.
Did you see it?
I haven’t seen “The Gift” but will certainly check it out.
The aforementioned ‘on the team’ thesis is questionable, given this 2011 article from the LAT I just stumbled across: “Despite any youthful arrogance, Refn’s demeanor differs significantly from that of said other Dane, Lars von Trier, who was declared persona non grata by the festival Thursday for his comments about Nazism. Asked what he thought of those comments, Refn replied: “What Lars said was just very, very mean. Coming from a Jewish family myself, it saddened me that someone would say something like that without thinking what it means to so many people.”
Come to find out, the legal entity behind Drive was actually sued by a woman who argued the film’s trailer was misleading, and hides the fact that (the lawsuit alleges) Drive is an anti-Semitic film. See here, here, and the actual court filing.
A good overview can be found See here.
Further complicating things is that the film is based on a screenplay by Hossein Amini, an Iranian-British screenwriter and film director. According to Wikipedia: Amini’s screenplay for the film “is a loose adaptation of the novel of the same name by James Sallis. During interviews, Refn noted that he and Amini cut out a lot of the content from Sallis’ book, resulting in the almost bare bones structure for the film, and the few lines of dialogue for the film’s star, Ryan Gosling.”
This guy uses screenshots towards his interpretation of the film; he doesn’t point out the Jewish Star symbolism, but instead focuses on sunlight through the garage windows (framed within the ‘Jewish Star’ on the garage door) landing on Shannon and then the Driver: “Notice that Driver always has a light shining on his head, and there is the upper interior light on in the car, consistent with the constant halo on Driver. Shannon, crippled by associates of the Jew Nino, will soon be murdered by the Jew using Kosher ritual, which the director, after first stating that film is a director’s medium (ie He is in charge), then stated:” I suppose it comes from that [Kosher ritual], but what’s wrong with that?”…”
Pending further deep analysis of Drive (which would include attempting to delineate which thematic components originated with Sallis vs. Amini vs. Refn) the Jewish Star image might be coincidence, or perhaps on some metal-level, is someone in the creative chain (most likely Refn, who would control the visual elements) critiquing (ala Kubrick) Jewish messianism?