John Hillcoat, who cut his teeth creating music videos for Nick Cave, is directing the 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic doom-novel The Road. Hillcoat's previous directing role came in 2005's well-received Aussie western, The Propsition. Producer Nick Wechsler was no doubt struck by how well Hillcoat handled the thematic similarities between that story and McCarthy's western novel Blood Meridien. As critic Roger Ebert points out, The Proposition comes close 'to realizing the dread and despair...of that story.' Fitting, then, that Hillcoat has turned his directorial hand towards The Road.
Cormac McCarthy has seen success in Hollywood recently, with the Coen Brothers' to-the-page take on No Country For Old Men receiving critical acclaim. That the movie was ported, chronologically, scene-for-scene from the novel indicates just how McCarthy's linear and direct style of narrative lends itself to the movie screen.
The Road, then. The novel, which won the 2006 Pullitzer Prize, is a post-apocalyptic tale which follows the actions of a father and his son over the course of several months as they pick their way across a North America ravaged by an unexplained catastrophe that we assume has wiped out the majority of life on earth. The sorry duo aim to reach the sea, where they seek solace from the cold. There is no food left on this barren landscape; gangs roam, killing and consuming any survivors. An atmosphere of unease and tension haunts the novel; the main emotion is that of hopelessness. The novel is about nothing if not the relationship between father and son - the father strives to protect their bond as if it is the ember of the last fire on earth.
Viggo Mortensen plays 'the man'; Kodi Smit-McPhee his son. Mortensen, who received an Academy Award nomination for his committed performance as Nikolai Luzhin in Eastern Promises, will hopefully bring the same quiet intensity to the role. Smit-McPhee is best-known for his role as Raimond in the 2007 movie Romulus, My Father, and he received the 2007 AFI Best Young Actor Award for the film. Supporting players include Charlize Theron as 'the wife'; Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, and Michael K. Williams, known to most as Omar Little from acclaimed television series The Wire.
Perhaps feeling that the movie-going public did not need such a bleak and intense picture in the economically-interesting 2008, the movie was pushed back to an early 2009 release. Presumably, if the terrifying subject matter and general sense of doom that pervades the novel is transferred successfully to film - and all the signs say that it will - audiences can seek some solace in the fact that things could get much, much worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment