In his latest video essay, the second in a week, in fact, Tony Zhou tackles Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. Interestingly, he comes at it from a geometrical standpoint, as he did in his last piece, on Kurosawa. Zhou shows that, if you look at the arrangement of figures in the film as if they were figures on a plane, their relationships clarify and intensify, and the immense care Refn put into the crafting of the film becomes evident. This is, indeed, an appropriate way to look at this film–often Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan seem as much like visual elements in a canvas as they resemble, in their portrayals of their characters, people we might pass on the street. Tony Zhou is on fire, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
WATCH: In Nicolas Winding Refn’s DRIVE, Screen Quadrants Tell A Story of Desire: A Video Essay
WATCH: In Nicolas Winding Refn’s DRIVE, Screen Quadrants Tell A Story of Desire: A Video Essay
Press Play Video Blog 
Check "Visual Analysis | Psycho (1960) | Shower Scene" on vimeo: composition, number of cuts, camera sets, camera shots, angles and movements
LikeLike
Thank you, TZ, for helping to enrich my view of filmmaking.
I read the Drive script about a year before it appeared as a film. In no way, did I envision the film Refn directed from the script. He took a basic crime script and and saw it in a special and incredible way. To call him the director of this film understates his role. He was auteur, exceptional and unique.
LikeLike