Update: We’ve been informed that the music in the clip is actually Johnny Jewel‘s “Tick of the Clock.” Originally it was song by his previous group Chromatics, but it was remade specifically for “Drive.”
We’re only a week away from the start of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and while the vast majority of us won’t be attending, it generally does mean that we get our first glimpses of the films bowing there, in the form of trailers and clips. It’s not quite the same as seeing the films themselves on the Croisette, but it at least kind of makes up for it. We’ve already seen glimpses of “The Kid With The Bike,” “Sleeping Beauty“ and, of course, “The Tree of Life,” and now a new look has arrived for one of one of our most anticipated films of the festival: Nicolas Winding Refn‘s minimalist thriller “Drive.”
Refn really pushed his way into our list of favorite helmers a few years back with the one-two punch of “Bronson” and “Valhalla Rising,” and for his follow-up, he’s taken over a long-in-development script, based on the James Sallis novel, and once mooted for the less appetizing pair of Neil Marshall and Hugh Jackman, about a Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He cast Ryan Gosling in the lead (and they clearly get on well, as they’re planning to reteam for the blockbuster “Logan’s Run“), and backed him up with an outstanding supporting cast, including Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Oscar Isaacs, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks and Ron Perlman.
The two-minute clip, from the very beginning of the film, follows Gosling in the aftermath of a heist, attempting to evade the attentions of the law, and it’s hugely promising, displaying some glorious, Michael Mann-style nocturnal cinematography (from “The Usual Suspects” and “Three Kings” mastermind Newton Thomas Siegel), and some cracking sound design, as a radio basketball game melds with the output of a police scanner, and very subtly, Cliff Martinez‘s throbbing electronic score.
There’s no embed available for the moment, so head over to the Cannes site to check it out. It’s all shaping up nicely, and we’re just jealous that we won’t get to see it right now, although hopefully our man in the South of France will be checking it out during the festival. The rest of us will be able to catch up with “Drive” when FilmDistrict, who are looking like real players in the marketplace after their surprise success with “Insidious” and “Soul Surfer,” release it in theaters on September 16th.