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Uplifting Music Makes Me Suspicious

The Road Second Trailer / Steven Lloyd Wilson

Trailers | November 3, 2009 | Comments (29)

Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is a novel so dark and depressing that it’s downright Russian. After the wonderful success of translating No Country for Old Men to screen, there were definitely high hopes that the planned adaptation of The Road would live up to that pedigree.

The first trailer released back in May seemed to have some fairly significant departures from the novel though. It seemingly moved Charlize Theron’s role of the wife into the present tense from the flashbacks of the novel and expanded the anarchic role of roving bands of marauders into a more focused and personalized antagonist instead of an impersonal and omnipresent threat. The second trailer scraps a lot of that. Theron really seems to be strictly in the past, the marauders seem to be less Mad Maxy. Of course, it focuses instead on showing us little snippets of an array of famous people in their cameos, which seems to miss the point of the novel in a different way. The novel is about the man, the boy and their journey through hell. The vast majority of the book takes place with no one besides those two characters on screen (so to speak) so it’s a bit concerning that the trailer focuses so much on other people.

And the music … *shudder* … uplifting music like the second half of this trailer belongs nowhere near this nihilistic atom bomb of a horror story. If this film has a happy ending, I might just have a spontaneous migraine so intense that it tears a hole in the fabric of the universe and lets it slither in the madness lurking in the void.



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Comments

Awwww, that was heartwarming. *sniff*

Posted by: admin at November 3, 2009 9:18 AM

Not sure about the uplifing music either. I just picked up this book last week after seeing the first trailer. Finished it in one sitting. Amazing piece of writing. With such a grim story it is hard to call the prose beautiful but that's exactly what it is. However, there is nothing uplifing in this book at all. It's a bleak, gritty, unforgiving story of survival. I hope to hell that they didn't fuck this up...

Posted by: East Coast Ugly at November 3, 2009 9:19 AM

My only glimmer of hope in this movie being decent is Viggo Mortensen. I think he plays bleak and unrelenting better than most actors...he certainly nailed the sentiment in A History of Violence. This wasn't my favorite McCarthy book -- not even close, actually -- but it's still McCarthy, and does not deserve to be fucked up.

Posted by: Wednesday at November 3, 2009 9:28 AM

Seeing Mark Cuban's name in the credits scares me a little.

Posted by: Spender at November 3, 2009 9:49 AM

I simply can't square that uplifting baseball movie music with cannibalism.

Posted by: sheshakes at November 3, 2009 9:50 AM

The third trailer will be cut together with "Yakety Sax".

Posted by: Cat at November 3, 2009 9:57 AM

Given where and how the novel ends, if the film follows the literalness of the book the way "No Country" did, this is going to be a hell of a test for just how much grimness and despair an audience will put up with.

That is, unless they tack on an uplifting ending.

FWIW, and to maybe spark a little discussion (and mild SPOILER), I don't see anything uplifting about the end of the book. I think all of humanity is doomed, utterly hopeless. There will be no survivors. Not one. Just the few human beings who manage to scrabble out an existence a little longer than others before they die. Did anyone else read it that way?

Posted by: , (TCFKAB) at November 3, 2009 10:01 AM

Liked the first half, it really set the scene. Agreed on the uplifting music in the second part though, well out of place and totally jarring.

Was nice to see a glimpse of Omar in there even if he was unkept, dressed as a hobo and carrying a knife rather then his trusty shotgun. I hope he's got a more significant part this time around then his bit in Gone Baby Gone.

Posted by: hh at November 3, 2009 10:04 AM

Dear god, when will they stop using that damn scream button, its in everything bad.

Also the way the trailer is played out, i have no idea why but i have a feeling that Viggo is having hallucinations about his wifey being there. Giving him advice to keep on moving in a ghostly kind of way. I just have a gut feeling about it.

Posted by: Sostra at November 3, 2009 10:13 AM

TCFKAB: yes, my thoughts exactly. I know the urge to survive is mighty strong, but there is no hope in that scenario. There is only so much canned food to salvage if the survivors decide to live un-cannibalistically. And that planet is incapable to sustain food growth. And it might never heal enough to reach that point. So the end is bleak. And their struggle hopeless.

The Road is super depressing.

Posted by: Scully at November 3, 2009 10:22 AM

I also read the ending that way, but I would still consider it uplifting that not everyone has completely descended into nihilistic brutality.

Posted by: Wednesday at November 3, 2009 10:36 AM

In all seriousness, this movie looks...really good in a soul-crushing sort of way. I've always been fascinated by wild, ruined places and I've wondered about what it would be like if the world were forcibly abandoned and reverted to wildness. I don't think about it too hard, as carrying that thought through to its logical conclusion would probably make me lose my shit completely. It's like in 9th grade, when I read 1984 for the first time. My mom tells me she would come into my room and discover me reading, agape, with a look of abject horror on my face. It took me years to get over the depression from the idea that human beings could do such things to others or even to themselves.

I'm not sure whether I'll ever read the book. While it sounds excellent and a real page-turner, I'm not sure I'm up to the task of reading such a dark tale at present, what with winter coming and deadlines pursuing me like attack dogs. Maybe in the spring.

Posted by: Cat at November 3, 2009 10:48 AM

That music is dead wrong.

I didn't feel like the end read that way, though I suppose it's possible. Certainly it wasn't an uplifting ending, but I felt some hope for the boy going on.

Posted by: Cindy at November 3, 2009 10:53 AM

The world McCarthy painted is so bleak, even some correct punctuation is lost in it. Now that is a depressing world for our resident commenters/copy editors.

Posted by: branded at November 3, 2009 10:53 AM

branded: Funny. But of course, that's just the way McCarthy writes. And it is, in my view, maddening -- the lack of quotes to signal people speaking drives me batshit crazy when I read his books. It forces me to read paragraphs over and over to figure out when the speaking stops and the narrative begins.

Posted by: eddie at November 3, 2009 10:58 AM

"The third trailer will be cut together with "Yakety Sax"."

That made me laugh so hard I snorted.

I love love love Viggo, but I do not think I can watch this movie. I can't imagine reading the book either. I just don't have it in me to deal with stories about relentless suffering and despair these days. A few years ago I found such stories somehow enlightening, but now I think life is tough enough without extra sorrow.

Posted by: Viking at November 3, 2009 11:06 AM

Saw an advanced screening two weeks ago. It's not as dark as the novel and the focus is almost entirely on Viggo's performance as The Man. The newer trailers are including footage that's not even in the film to get minds going about how the events that happen in the film came to be.

That said, it's extremely violent and gory in parts. So violent, people walked out of a free preview screening during each of the three big gore pieces.

Uplifting music? No place in this film, that's for certain. It's not quite devastating ala von Trier pictures, but it is upsetting, like a good Cronenberg.

Posted by: Robert at November 3, 2009 11:06 AM

eddie, I completely agree with you. It's a great wrinkle that it makes the reader go a bit mad in the process. I reread countless paragraphs, and I also read most of it on a plane, which wasn't the best choice for a somber read.

Posted by: branded at November 3, 2009 11:09 AM

I passed on this movie at the BFI Film Festival, mostly because the Big G warned me that the book was so grim.I still want to see it though....Vigo...Vigo...mmmmm.But I have to say that music is just.not.right.
If they turned this movie into some kind of metaphor for patriotic/survive cuz you're American thing(which is what the music brings to mind) I will puke in my popcorn and dump the contents onto the head of the nearest person.

Posted by: brite at November 3, 2009 1:08 PM

If I didn't know any better I would say the last half of that trailer was one of those spoof recuts. Like the Shining Recut.

Posted by: Nicholas H. at November 3, 2009 1:36 PM

Re the ending of the book, I agree with Wednesday that it can be read the other way too...that it shows that "humanity" can survive in even the most desperate conditions.

The Guy Pearce character (I forget what he's called in the book..."the other man" maybe) affirms that no, they don't eat people. He has newly-produced (real) ammunition for his gun, which isn't something easily done on the run. And the book a couple of times references communes, which seem different than the gangs.

What's great about the book is that so much is merely hinted at, but I think there is a case for a qualified happy ending interpretation.

In any event, McCarthy (I'm conjecturing here, though based on what's he's said about the book) focuses the book on the father-son relationship to show that in the end, we're all doomed and that our relationships are what matter. Our society *will* die out one day, and there will be people there at the end, and what will really matter for them? Will "the collapse of society" really be their concern?

Posted by: Jacktrade at November 3, 2009 1:47 PM

With Nick Cave in charge of the music I'm optimistic. That is, if it's the same Nick Cave that recorded the classic Murder Ballads.

McCarthy's writing style forces one to pay attention to the speaker, to question the lucidity of the characters, to question the entire narrative structure. Spoken vs. unspoken fears, for example. It's brilliant, if infuriating at times.

Posted by: Brenton at November 3, 2009 1:58 PM

How come the movies get better the worse Viggo looks?
That music made me extremely suspicious, too. I was itching for the abrupt discord.
I got a strong feeling this will make it into 2010s list of "Great Movies you don't ever want to see again".

Posted by: Padame at November 3, 2009 2:03 PM

Punch line to any Russian joke, "...but only six people died!!!"

Posted by: Adam C at November 3, 2009 3:41 PM

Me, I'm going to be optimistic about this, and assume that the uplifting movie is just to trick people who haven't read the novel. Present company excluded, I don't think people generally like to go to movies that are as relentlessly depressing as McCarthy's novel, so I'm betting the studio is trying to downplay the depressing in order to bring in a wider audience.

At least, I hope that's the case. Good Christ, I hope they don't try pulling a happy ending out of their asses.

Posted by: SJ at November 3, 2009 5:00 PM

I weigh in on the side of those who see no future for humanity in McCarthy's book and therefore requiring some manufactured Hollywood optimism to make it marketable to the masses. If they don't mess with the book then I don't believe it can compete with On The Beach for an end of the world scenario.

Posted by: Jiffyzen at November 3, 2009 7:09 PM

To clarify: 1959 version NOT the TV version. Read the book by Stanley Kramer and see movie with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner. Both made more of an impact and lasting impression on me than McCarthy's book. My sister, an avid disaster flick aficionado, won't see the movie again because it messed her up for months when we were kids.

Posted by: Jiffyzen at November 3, 2009 7:22 PM

This whole trailer should be set to Dylan's "Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." I felt like that book was that song writ large.

Posted by: mrn at November 3, 2009 10:52 PM

Who cares!!! My boyfriend also agrees with me. He is 10 years older than me, lol. We met online at age-gap club -- http://AgelessMeet.COM/. Maybe you wanna check out or tell your friends.

Posted by: Kyra at November 4, 2009 1:31 AM





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