Last Things 5 comments

By A.G. Harmon

Throughout the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the boy, who is one of the two protagonists of the story, thinks he hears or sees a dog. His father, the other protagonist, tells him he is wrong. The world as the man has known it—as the boy has never known it—has come to an end; animals, let alone dogs, have not survived, and for the grimmest of all reasons.

Anyone familiar with McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic narrative knows that the two, man and son, are travelling through a gray-toned landscape of dead trees, burned out forests, barren fields, and black waters. The road that they stick to is the only way south, to a climate that might be warmer. At least that is what they hope for; there is no cause for such hope, but they go on.

Seldom has an adaption been as faithful to the written work as the film version here. Viggo Mortensen is nigh on perfect as the father. In some difficult to achieve roles—as Tolkein’s hero Aragon and as the lead in the moral tales, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, he has risen to the occasion.

As the boy, Kodi Smit-McPhee, though a bit older than the child in the novel, has achieved the depiction of genuine goodness.

Most important of all, though, is that the adaptation (directed by Australian, John Hillcoat with a screenplay by Joe Penhall) keeps close to the heart of the powerful novel, understanding what makes the work one of the great writer’s finest achievements.

For McCarthy never bothers us with causes; the great cataclysm has come, and those left in its wake do not curse the event or marvel at its happening. They are far past the point of speaking of it. That point of the journey must have faded when the act of reflection ended. Those that stared at the horror, motionless, died; those that moved in spite of it, lived.

The man’s wife—the boy’s mother—surrenders to death, as many others do, seeking it out as an alternative to a miserable existence. This too is part of McCarthy’s tale. Death, like dye, has a way of seeping into life even as we live. Long before it takes us from this world, it can take us from living in it. We can either become comatose at its approach, as the wife/mother does, or more fearsome yet, we can become its agents. The man and his son must be vigilant in their watch for marauding bands who hunt other people, to cannibalize them.

But the point about the dog, so subtle, so central, is that when we are faced with an existence that has every intention of dehumanizing us, we must hang on to certain things. A last inventory must be taken, to make sure we remain, as the boy constantly asks his father—the “good guys.”

How do we make sure that that we haven’t crossed over, that we are not on the road that will lead us into the darkening borders that steal so close? Contrary to common wisdom, when man fails himself, he does not become a beast. He becomes worse than a beast. Any noble thing, when gone to ruin, does not become a thing of a different nature, but of a ruined nature. Man’s tragedy is when he loses those things that make him human.

For it takes a solid bravery to be God-wrought—to respect life even when doing so is agony. A path, though terrifying, can nevertheless still be the right path. It is childish to think the right choices are always the ones that come with profit; right choices can come with great and everlasting cost.

Throughout the movie, the man worries for both of them, he says. He is the one who has to make sure not only that they live, but also that they remain human—the good guys. The boy corrects him in this—it is he who must worry, who must find a way to carry on without his father.

Of course, that is the latent worry of us all: one day, it will come down to just us. Will we succeed? And though the man fails on this road from time to time, the boy, despite never having seen a world without horror, is testament to his father’s large and lasting success. The man has been a living fire for his son—a model that will sustain him as he must travel on alone. He has given him the essential things. And the essential point to where the road must lead.

In this he has been, as must we all be, a chain of eternal light. We do not end with ourselves. We bear each other in our chests, with a love-born fire.