Word: fatherness
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...book engages with moral arguments about protection and survival: What if everything we believed in vanished, leaving love to stand naked on its own--would that be enough? McCarthy's writing has always been a manly affair, so it made sense that he reduced his world to father and son, with the Man emerging heroic. Here, when the Man speaks of carrying "the fire," i.e., the conviction of humanity, it rings more hollow, even though Mortensen grapples well with the potential corniness of that line (he gives a somber, deeply affecting performance). The wasteland that surrounds them...
Still, it's possible that Cassandra and I could get into some sort of freak accident in which the TiVo remote flew out of my hand and sliced both our jugulars, so we discussed whom we'd choose as Laszlo's legal guardian. We immediately thought of my father and his wife, since they are responsible, patient, happy, amazing with children and very rich. But they're old. Laszlo would think music consisted of nothing but Steve Lawrence and Brenda Lee and was accessible only through four-digit cable channels. Plus, they live in the Hamptons, so Laszlo would grow...
...monochromatic palette: blood and fire, both of which are shot in horribly sharp relief. But Hillcoat and Aguirresarobe refuse to let their limited color range get in the way of shooting a strikingly desolate film, filled with a series of images that seem destined to become iconic. Father and son stumble down a warped concrete road, shattered telephone poles leaning ominously over them; Mortensen pushes a shopping cart through a marsh, silhouetted by guttering flames. On this “Road,” destruction and barrenness take on a peculiar sublimity...
...Road” is the story of a nameless father (Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) traveling across the devastated remains of an American continent that has experienced a disaster—of unknown origin—that wiped out the vast majority of the population. Endlessly searching for food and hunted by bands of cannibals, the two make their way toward the coast, where the father believes they may find safety and other “good” people...
...seem to be going anywhere. But Hillcoat has created a road narrative without the ever-present forward motion that usually defines it. Instead, “The Road” is composed of fleeting moments, vignettes that slowly coalesce into a fuller picture of the characters and their experiences. Father and son run from bandits, enjoy an unopened, still-carbonated Coca-Cola, and eat canned fruit with an elderly fellow traveler, all the while theoretically moving toward the coast. The structure of the film doesn’t so much negate that motion as render it irrelevant...