"The Road" Hits The Big Screen

Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country for Old Men, will see another novel light up the big screen in Novemeber. The Road will be adapted by Cormac himself with John Hillcoat directing. The movie stars Viggo Mortensen, Guy Pearce, Robert Duvall, and Charlize Theron. John Hillcoat has previously directed a documentary about Nick Cave and The Proposition, a movie written by Cave.

In The Proposition Hillcoat paints a desperate and macabre picture of a small colonial town on the fringes of the Australian Outback in the late 19th century. Blood does not trickle or seep; it spills from wounds. People’s faces are crooked, broken, blistered and parched. There is little room for prettiness. John Hillcoat has no illusions about the miserable lives people have suffered throughout history, making him a perfect fit for The Road.

Hillcoat’s vision of colonial Australia is not far off from the tenor of The Road, where a father and his boy drift through a post-apocalyptic American landscape that taps into the shared anxieties and fears of humanity. The shadow is lent flesh and bone in the emaciated figure of the father and his son as they evade desperate, id-like cannibals that prowl the ashen countryside, and scrounge for food amongst civilization’s leftovers.

We are never explained the circumstances of the apocalypse in The Road but are only given its aftermath. This is certainly by design. The story serves as both prophecy and allegory. On the surface, we are immersed in a world of unbelievable devastation that is realistically improbable, yet the novel is rendered with a simplicity of verse and emotion that makes it as real as any nightmare.

Allegorically, The Road serves as a mirror for a world bereft of reason, dominated by cannibalistic, wealthy corporations that sublimate humanity in favor of their own survival. It is a reflection of a postmodern reality that has co-opted any sense of truth or meaning for a liberation of perception that is unrestricted by ethical or philosophical boundaries. It is a measurement of our destitution.

Cormac McCarthy has delved into the darkest corners of the superego to lasso the demon that afflicts humanity and pull it into the light. With John Hillcoat’s contribution, George Monbiot’s description of McCarthy as one of the "50 people who could save the planet" may be realized. The Road provides us with an excellent opportunity to commune with the monster of revelation, transformation, and destruction that haunts us all.

Photo, "Rural Decay," donated compliments of Sindri Svan Olafsson.