I know a lot of people out there don’t like Nicholas Winding Refn’s movies (I am NOT one of those people because I think his movies are awesome), but his influence on mainstream cinema (
Nightcrawler, Need For Speed,
John Wick, etc) is undeniable yet everyone seems to act like that’s not the case.
Sure the plots to the afformentioned films are different than
Only God Forgives &
Drive, but when it comes to tone, atmosphere, art direction, lighting, the representation of Los Angeles, use of color, etc., it’s more than obvious.
I also know that Refn didn’t just find his style all on his own. He’s clearly a mixture of Mann, Tarantino, Scorsese, the 1980’s and a few others, but filmmakers today are still drawing directly from his style more than anything else. While certain things arent exactly identical (some things are), just take a step back, look at these examples (the positioning of Gosling & Gyllenhall standing in front of their cars, the colors used on the poster art, etc) and just admit that I’m right…
