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HOW HE GOT THE JOB Hillcoat’s 2006 neo-Western, _The Proposition_, a mythic story of outlaws told against the brutal Australian outback, captured the same bleak mood of_ The Road_, a novel
about a father (Viggo Mortensen in the film) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who survive a global apocalypse. “I probably wouldn’t have gotten the job if it had happened any later,” Hillcoat
says, noting that he was hired before the novel was published—and before _No Country for Old Men_ turned McCarthy into Hollywood’s “It” author. WHY _THE ROAD_ SUITS HIM “The environment is
of equal importance to the main characters in all of Cormac’s writing,” Hillcoat says, noting that he is also drawn to “extreme worlds.” (_The Proposition _was_ _inspired in part by
McCarthy’s _Blood Meridian._) “Settings like these test the truth of humanity, where you see how good and how bad people can really be.” WHAT IS IT WITH AUSSIES AND POSTAPOCALYPTIC SCI-FI?
Hillcoat bristles at _postapocalyptic_: “It lends itself to so many clichés.” Which is why he steered clear of _Mad Max_–isms and stuck to the novel’s minimalist urgency, including its
refusal to explain What Happened: “We wanted something more resonant than, you know, the Statue of Liberty cut in half.” THE ROAD Directed by John Hillcoat. Weinstein Company. November 14.