Films › Directing
Drive My Car
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021
Ryusuke Hamaguchi directs Drive My Car by extending scenes well past the point where most directors would cut away, and that duration is the craft lesson. Conversations in the red Saab run in long, largely static takes, camera fixed inside the car's frame, so that the vehicle itself becomes a controlled staging space where actors cannot hide behind movement or blocking tricks. He rehearsed his cast by having them read the script flatly around a table for weeks before shooting, stripping emotional performance out early so that what appears on camera arrives without habitual gestures. That process explains the film's affect: actors speak with a deliberate lack of inflection, which makes small shifts in tone register as major events. Hamaguchi also directs the play-within-the-film, a multilingual staging of Uncle Vanya, as a mirror device, cutting between rehearsal and personal crisis without signaling the parallel outright. For a director, this is a case study in trusting stillness and repetition to build tension, and in using rehearsal methodology itself as a directing tool rather than a preparatory formality that disappears once cameras roll.
What to watch for
Watch how static, long-held shots inside the car force the actors to carry tension through voice and stillness rather than movement.
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