The director Ryan Gosling described as a “kindred spirit”
A lot of the time, if you genuinely want to understand the talents of a director, you need to see their movie in the cinema. That’s not just because you get the big screen experience and can fully see what was intended; you also get to see others react to the movie. In doing this, you come to terms with how people perceive the work of a filmmaker.
Ryan Gosling has had the pleasure of working with a number of excellent directors, but there is one in particular he refers to as a “kindred spirit”. He didn’t develop this opinion based on the actual process of working with him, either, but in watching one of his films in a cinema surrounded by people.
“I felt some kind of kindred spirit with him, I guess,” Gosling begins talking about what it was like watching a Nicolas Winding Refn film with other people. “There was a moment during Valhalla Rising where the character cuts the stomach open of another character and pulls out his intestines, and everybody in the audience was yelling at the screen and hitting each other and turning around.”
He continues, “It was like suddenly the audience came to life, and it was fun to be in the movie theatre. I was glad I saw it in the movie theatre and not at home because other people’s reactions to what I was watching were making it better.”
Gosling ended up working with Refn on the 2011 movie Drive. The film is one of the actor’s most beloved, frequently praised for being beautifully crafted and laced with different elements throughout. As Gosling experienced when he saw Valhalla Rising, it’s a film that demands a cinema, both for the outstanding cinematography and for Refn’s ability to draw in a crowd.
“I really wanted Drive to be the kind of film you wanted to go to the movie theatre to see,” said Gosling, “I feel like those are the kind of movies that Nicolas makes. You’ve got to stop me, because I’ll just go on and on.”
There is certainly something to be said for the cinema experience. Whether you are watching a horror, comedy, or action film, reacting to it for the first time with a group of strangers all doing the same thing brings with it an element of connection; however, you need the right people at the helm of the film to really harness that experience, too.
This is something that Nicolas Winding Refn does incredibly well, not only in Valhalla Rising and Drive but in a number of his other movies such as The Neon Demon, Only God Forgives and Bronson. With a track record like that… A kindred spirit indeed.
