The Road: Film in the Gaps

           Not wishing to appear irrelevant but a review of a novel from 2006 and a film from 2008 is just that. An earnest compare 'n' contrast piece on one of the finest books I've ever read and it's cinematic counterpart.

                Cormac McCarthy’s "The Road" sits amongst a canon of Armageddon science fiction that uses it’s setting as an empty stage for its heroes. Crucially, the world the author sets The Road in is not one of growth. For as far as we can see, fire has destroyed the living and continues to isolate the remnants of society. McCarthy describes neither the circumstances of this destruction or any lessons learnt from it. Instead the novel’s two protagonists, known loosely as Man and Boy, are the lone guiding light through this wizened and charred landscape.  Their relationship blossoms in spite of their desperate circumstances, as they head towards the sea and perhaps a simpler life.


                The audience roots for this delicate bond to survive the perils of poverty and cannibalism and that the resilience of their struggle might bring back their old world. The road they walk is a Conradesque allegory exploring the winding depths of morality the characters are plunged into; a unique set of physical and theological challenges they must succumb to or overcome.  Perhaps the pace of this journey is set by a man who is taking the time to question the decision he’s made throughout his life. In this scenario The Road may have been McCarthy’s cruel and charred path through life but the Boy keeps him journeying towards a salvation that he has not met. Whilst McCarthy paints a world that’s rotten and burnt, the steady pace of the father son story balances the gloominess, inspiring (or manipulating) you to believe that these two characters can find a safe home.

                By comparison, John Hillcott’s The Proposition makes a likely pairing with subject material of The Road. Both are framed against barren environments littered with vicious gangs and inhospitable terrain. Both join a protagonist battling between what they must do to live and the bonds of blood they are shackled to. Hillcott took the task of transforming The Proposition intensely harrowing story into something a film with bewitching beauty and a dim glimmer of optimism throughout.


                Hilcott still had to make the central relationship as convincing and intricate on screen as it McCarthy had done through the thoughts and mediations of Man and Boy. Viggo Mortensen has perfected the act of playing “the man with no name” in Eastern Promises and A History of Violence. His sunken, defeated expression and a shaky, wandering gaze throughout the film allows the few moments where he can sit and talk in comfort with Boy to be so tender.


                The narrative direction does change dramatically in the film, drawing focus to the marriage of Man and his wife before the end of their world. These scenes offer us context to understand Man’s reluctance to give in to the elements but it does suggest his struggle is a fight against his past and not one to protect Boy. In addition, the design, direction and choreography of the larger set pieces (the basement, the bunker) are thrilling but the quieter moments of theology and interaction between Man, Boy and the other travellers are dealt with rapidly and without reappraisal. In the novel, these rare glimpses of a wider society allow McCarthy to widen and shrink the gap between the two protagonists yet this remains overlooked in the film.
 

      
           The cinematography does manage to capture McCarthy’s vision of a scolding red sky and dim grey daylight; the ominous mountainous valleys the characters edge through makes their progress seem meagre. Long time Hillcott collaborator, Nick Cave, joins Warren Ellis to score the soundtrack which lulls from simple piano inerludes to the groaning of a string quartet. This is where the film succeeds; encapsulating a sense of a cruel desertion and dread that’s mirrored by the strength of Man and Boy’s affection (exemplified by Mortensen  and McPhee’s performances).

      
           At its heart, the novel is a symbolic treatise of a man’s worth in the tough guy tradition of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. As such, the film could not have matched the melancholic rhythm of the novel without boring it's audience. Nonetheless the speed at which The Road has to move as a film, leaves it at odds with that graceful flow of its counterpart, stumbling a few steps behind.