Does John Wick Mean Anything?

thank you why not kill the wife I know that's sort of a morbid question to start the video on but it's the question I've had since first watching the original John Wick and it's a question that is indirectly asked multiple times throughout the series it's just a [ __ ] car just a [ __ ] dog why can't we just correct me because my [ __ ] nephew all of this for what no one understands why Jon would be going on such a bloody Rampage because some [ __ ] decided to kill his puppy and steal his car and chances are good that they probably wouldn't be so confused if it was the wife who was killed instead but it wasn't Helen died of some vague terminal illness completely unrelated to everything else that's happened in these movies and in any other action flick I bet it would have been the wife it only makes narrative sense for the thing that gets the hero back into the criminal life to be the death of what he left it for but this isn't any other action flick this is John Wick the little action movie that could the Keanu Reeves lead stunt work showcase that everybody expected to be an average B-movie at best that is now almost 10 years on widely considered to be the peak of modern action Cinema famed stunt coordinators Chad staleski and David Leach decided to hop into the director's chairs for the first time and give us a lean thrilling and all-around mesmerizing piece of urban mythology with staleski himself going on to do it three more times and salesky has been fairly open about his ultimate intent in making these movies I think the end of the day is just can you sit somebody down for 96 Minutes can you put our little touch of urban mythology on it and can we entertain you and just go wow I didn't waste two hours of my life to me that's the most important thing did you see something slightly different that entertains you the goal is entertainment giving you something fun and interesting that you will overall enjoy something that doesn't care a whole lot about making you think or making any kind of statement or exploring any kind of deeper truths there's no Great Character psychology or complex motivation stoleski and Leach were stunt coordinators not directors not writers the vast majority of these movies are the big action sequences and set pieces gun fights and hand-to-hand combat that's what you go to watch John Wick for is the violence the insane and sometimes hilariously absurd choreography you don't go for a deep emotionally complex story and my bread and butter on this channel is the emotional complexity the character psychology the complex motivation so you might be asking yourself why am I even making a video about these movies if they don't have any of that and it's because of that initial question I posed if all of that is true of John Wick why not kill the wife it would certainly be much easier to think of from a writing or directing standpoint it would make as much if not more narrative sense and while we joke about it can you really tell me that you would have so much less sympathy for Jon if it was his wife instead of his dog that you would like the movie considerably less but they chose to kill the dog a dog that becomes an explicit symbol of Hope in the face of loss in that moment I received some semblance follow John is on this Revenge Quest not because of the death of love but because of the death of Hope after love and that seems to speak to some level of thematic intent it's a decision that would take some measure of narrative thought and that's the strange space that John Wick has always occupied as a franchise these movies are primarily action showcases but within these movies are surprising moments of seeming narrative and thematic intent ideas that pop up from time to time that may fall away soon after but always leave a lasting impression and so today I'm asking a very simple question does John Wick mean anything more to the point what does it mean for something to have meaning at all does art need to have some greater purpose or message Beyond itself to be meaningful or is the simple joy of creation enough reason to create and I think the best way to start answering that question is to look at the man himself the boogeyman the Bobby Naga John Wick John Wick is a badass I put it so simply because there's not really a way to make it more complex that is what he is he's skilled efficient a man of focus commitment and sheer will he more than knows his way around a gun or any other object that could conceivably or inconceivably be used as a weapon he's the man you send to kill the boogeyman deaths very Emissary the absolute best at what he does and nobody in these movies would even begin to argue with that he doesn't go around with quips and one-liners flying out of his mouth he's not ever trying to alleviate tension or look cool or have fun he's just trying to get the job done and if you try to stop him from getting that job done he will get you out of the way and yet that's not the character we're introduced to at the start of the first movie at the beginning of the first John Wick retreated to an in media res scene of Jon alone and bleeding out he takes out his phone to watch a video of him and his wife on the beach and while the video is still playing he lays down on the ground ready to give up and from there we cut to the past to a man living alone in a house a wash with deep blue a bathroom sink abandoned a woman in a hospital bed a coffin being lowered into the ground this is long before we see Jon start shooting and stabbing his way through the streets and nightclubs of New York City this is long before we see exactly what he is capable of or even have any hint of it all we've seen him do is bleed out give up and lose the love of his life all we see him do at the beginning of this movie is be powerless and vulnerable and then a puppy named Daisy is delivered to his doorstep a gift from his late wife who tells him in a letter that he still needs someone to love one of the primary philosophies that Chad stalesky and David Leach had while working on this movie was to root the action and the stunt work in Story character and most of all emotion we paid way more attention to the drama and to the storyline and to the performances because we felt as first-time filmmakers were going to be judged by that and and also an action movie without a good storyline is pointless the way that they've thought about action was always story story story they've been watch dogging that from day one and trying to bring out all of the emotion that is in this piece when I think about some of my favorite action movies I think of stuff like die hard Terminator 2 or Mission Impossible Fallout and sure I think of John mctiernan's expert use of space within a frame to build tension sure I think of the incredible Chase sequence between the Terminator and the T-1000 through the waterways sure I think of the halo jump in Henry Cavill caulking his arm guns but before I think of that I think of John McLean telling Al to tell his wife that he's sorry just in case he dies I think of John Connor finding his first real friend in a cyborg I think of Ethan Hunt sacrificing a very important mission in order to save a friend's Life John Wick knew that incredible action can only get you so far if the audience doesn't care about the why of that action if your characters don't feel human if the decisions they make don't have any kind of emotional or personal Stakes if the hero doesn't feel in one way or another vulnerable if we don't first see Jon in this vulnerable state if we don't see the human side of this character the action however skillfully choreographed or shot or edited is going to fall flat that drama isn't necessarily there for the purpose of some greater meaning or message as much as it's there to give the action a foundation and weight and all of that doesn't come just from the screenplay or the direction it also comes perhaps even mostly from the man himself John Wick is a character that could have been played by pretty much no one but Keanu Reeves the character and the actor have become so synonymous that if you ever had to recast the character for any reason you might as well not even bother and I'll let the directors tell you why kanu is uniquely empathetic as an actor piano brings more emotional side to most of the roles he does he's never played something that's hard as nails or the absolute Terminator of killers he's always got a more humanistic side to him and it's hard to pull that in any other direction which was great for Wick because we could create this guy who is a monster but likable the way Keanu is playing it you never lose that empathy for his mission no matter how scary or ruthless he is you can say what you want about Keanu Reeves's acting abilities personally I think every time he speaks in these movies it sounds like he's gone so long without speaking that he's not a hundred percent sure how to do it anymore you're not very good at retiring I'm working on it yet through keanu's performance there's always a sense that Jon is thinking feeling there's always something going on behind those eyes it might not be something we quite have access to but it's something we know is there and I think it's that paired with the awkward stilted way he delivers his lines opposite actors like Lawrence Fishburne and Ian McShane chewing up every last bit of the scenery that elevates the role far beyond what's on the page John Wick is quiet and calculating but that's not to say that he isn't human or without any kind of personality Keanu gives him this kind of awkward demeanor a sense that he doesn't really know how to interact with these people all that well and doesn't really care for small talk or pleasantries Away Sports he never seems like he quite feels comfortable around other people he never quite feels like he fits into any given picture like he's trying his best to imitate the way everyone else acts to middling success at best have you returned to the phone just visiting but that's only when he's not behind the barrel of a gun when Jon's fighting shooting killing he suddenly knows exactly how to carry himself exactly how to operate exactly how to move and exactly what to do he suddenly becomes a force of violence and precision it is here moving through this process that he seems completely comfortable the funny thing about John Wick as a franchise is that despite its penchant for Bloodshed the films themselves have never seemed all that enamored with it Jon doesn't seem all that enamored with it there's never a focus on blood or Gore or Carnage there's not a lot of big explosions the closest you get is when Chong gets his hands on a shotgun the focus is never on the result but on the method the process the Rhythm just take for example the film's ever present love of the reload or this hilarious scene in John Wick 3 where he literally takes the time to pull these guns apart in order to shoot just one bullet or how everyone and their mother freak the hell out when Jon killed this guy with a damn book there are steps to this process Aim Shoot reload repeat until dead unlike with conversation and human interaction there are easily followed rules and very predictable consequences if you shoot someone in the head they will die while these movies don't take much if any pleasure in the actual result of Jon's actions the blood spilled it certainly does take pleasure in the process the choreography the skillful ways in which the camera moves and the editor cuts to capture that process is clearly and cleanly as possible there is a simple joy in watching it unfold watching Jon execute each and every step of the process in quick purposeful succession and it's that love of the process the steps and the rules that come to Define John Wick as a story another question I had when watching the original John Wick was what if a normal person walks into the Continental my guess is that the Continental is probably also just a normal hotel for patrons who aren't a part of the criminal underworld but the movie never bothers to say that explicitly in any case it wasn't a big deal it didn't affect my experience of the movie at all it was just a quick thought I had since the Continental seems to be so specifically for people like John Wick or Miss Perkins but then at the very end of John Wick chapter 2 I got an answer there are no normal people in John Wick at least not in any way that matters any civilians are practically just set dressing they might as well be props walls that bullets can't pass through and if they're not that they are secretly members of One faction or another in this world the homeless of New York City are a whole faction themselves led by hands down the best character in the franchise the Bowery King with pigeons yes you see rats with wings but I see the internet cops are a non-issue for all these supposed criminals and we know that from fairly early on in the very first movie I'll even be there every violinist ballerina pre-sushi chef and taxi driver is an assassin or has some other connection to this world as far as I can tell the one and only person we know for sure wasn't a part of it was Helen and she's dead and I think the very insular nature of this world its distance from our so-called normal one while still being very much a part of it is what makes this world so oddly compelling while it's so familiar it's also so incredibly different while it exists in such close proximity to our own there's nothing from ours to get in the way there are no cops to complicate things you don't really have to worry about civilians getting caught in the crossfire it has its own currency so real world money is not really an issue there don't even seem to be any actual victims of these criminals they're too busy shooting each other to commit crimes against anyone else the world of John Wick is exceedingly simple and is very careful to not let anything get in the way of or over complicate the act of John Wick killing some folk that is the entire point of these plots is to give John Wick an excuse to kill some folk anything in between action scenes is just necessary footwork needed to either strengthen the emotional Stakes or Justify the next action scene that's why the world is full of vague Exposition what was John Wick's impossible task that got him out of this world originally we don't really know and probably never will because at the end of the day it doesn't get us to an action scene that information doesn't facilitate Jon killing some folk and the world itself is built on that narrative philosophy this is a world of easy to understand rules and codes that lead to simple and violent consequences whether followed or broken if there is any obvious theme in the franchise it is the idea of consequence if you do business on Continental grounds you are labeled excommunicado and your life is forfeit if you give someone a marker as sort of blood pack they have to do something for you usually kill someone or help you kill someone with the agreement that you will eventually do something for them usually kill someone else and if you refuse to do whatever they ask of you you will die that's the situation Jon finds himself in during the second movie because of his actions in the first film a man named Santino d'antonio shows up with the marker John gave him to help with his impossible task Santino wants Jon to kill his sister Giana dantonio so that he can have her place at the high table a very vague group of people who hold authority over basically everybody in this world John got his revenge got back his car even got a new cute little puppy he was ready to go back to his life outside of this world he pours concrete back over that hole he dug up convinced now that he won't ever need what's in there again but before the concrete has even dried since Hino is at his front door asking him to do this it's as Winston told him plainly in the first movie you dip so much as a pinky back into this Pond you may well find something reaches out and drags you back into its steps Santino was that thing and here he is now to drag him back down I didn't want to do this to him retired I would have respected it actions and consequences John rejects the marker refuses to even hear what Santino wants him to do because he doesn't want anything to do with this world now but because of that rejection Santino blows up Jon's house and is completely within his rights to do so and because of that Jon realizes that he has no choice but to accept the job hoping that maybe he'll be able to leave once it's done actions and consequences he gets his suit and his gun he heads for Rome to complete the ACT he finds Gianna who Desiring to go out on her own terms kills herself in reaction to Jon's presence Gianna's death causes just about everyone to come after him Jon escapes but he's not done yet because in trying to tie up Loose Ends Santino puts out a contract on Jon for 7 million dollars and in reaction to that Jon decides to go after Santino in order to kill him actions and consequences Jon pushes past every obstacle all the people out to kill him for that 7 million no matter how many people santinos throws at him John just keeps coming Santino seeks sanctuary in the Continental where no blood can be spilled John finds him there gun in hand tired and exhausted after all of this Santino taunts him knowing he can do nothing Winston tells him to just walk away foreign goes back to his burnt home he looks almost ashamed of himself of the rage that led him to do what he did and he must know he must know that while he says he finished it he's finished nothing he spilled blood on Continental grounds and that action comes with consequences just as every action has the world of John Wick may have been built for the sole purpose of giving John a reason to kill some folk but it ends up becoming something more something tragic even Jon came back to this world because it was the only way he knew how to deal with what happened to him and now no matter how hard he tries he can't get back out if he chose not to kill Santino he still has a contract on his head and he would still have to deal with assassins coming after him either way he's screwed there is no way out here Suddenly by necessity of the story and the character the thing that lets John Wick shoot some folk for our entertainment becomes a prison for John Wick himself a never-ending cycle of violence and revenge and Chaos that he can never escape from through any Avenue but death these stories suddenly become about how when you build a world on transaction punishment and death eventually everyone loses and I know there's going to be people who hear me say that and tell me you're just overthinking it it's not actually that deep it's just an action movie hell I get those kinds of comments from people talking about movies and games much more explicitly meaningful than John Wick and the thing is those people may be right I may be overthinking it it may not be that deep it may very well be just an action movie but surely you've learned by now that for every action there is a consequence [Music] [Music] I've been in service for over 40 years under the table serving the table everything is under the table out of the first three movies John Wick 3 is the one that seems to be the most explicitly about something specifically concerned with the nature of authority as John is on the run from the high table and any assassin looking for a 14 million dollar payday any faction he goes to for Aid any individual he goes to for help must confront their own relationship with authority what do they stand by who are they loyal to what are they being told is Meaningful versus what do they actually find meaningful themselves take for example the character of Sophia the manager of the Continental in Casablanca John comes to her in his search for The Elder a sort of mystical figure that is said to be the only one above the table and he presents to her a marker that she gave him a long time ago Jon took her daughter and hit her away in an attempt to keep her safe from this world the only thing is that Jon's marker doesn't hold any power now since he's excommunicado Sophia doesn't have to honor that marker in fact if she did she would probably be punished for it maybe even killed and yet this is your blood your pond when you needed help I was there John pleads with her to look Beyond The Authority the marker had and to see that the bond they made with it is worth more means more than whatever arbitrary Authority it may have stood for and Sophia albeit begrudgingly agrees to help Jon it's a scene that serves as a nice microcosm of what John Wick 3 is doing where John Wick 2 was about the constraints of working under the powers that be and the rules they've instated in the name of supposed order John Wick 3 becomes about questioning the very nature of that Authority when it fails you asking what matters more John being excommunicado or the fact that when Sophia needed help John was there the marker itself may not hold any power but what it symbolizes what it means that still does even though the ones who had the marker made might not believe that it holds any powers the people who use it it's still very much does perhaps meaning isn't solely decided by some shadowy organization nation of Underworld mob bosses or assassins or authors or critics or Scholars perhaps meaning is decided by those who experience that meaning perhaps meaning is the inevitable result of the process John Wick 3 is a movie of people facing or trying to escape Consequence the results of their actions the adjudicator moves through this world to each and every person that has helped John Wick and punishes them she takes away Winston's power over the Continental because he gave Jon an hour to escape after killing Santino she stabs through the director's hands because she gave Jon passage to Casablanca she gives the Bowery King seven cuts for the seven bullets he gave Jon to kill Santino all while Jon is desperately searching for a way to appease the high table and in an attempt to kill Jon the adjudicator goes to an assassin named Zero whose students are all highly trained literal ninjas as of this point in the series he's probably the biggest threat we've seen Jon face and yet he has a very interest relationship with John I gotta tell you looking forward to meeting you for time I'm a huge fan John Wick it's such a strange shift I really wasn't sure what to do with it when I watched it for the first time it felt like a joke and I think it was meant to come off as comedic but it felt like zero was making a joke not the movie but I think it's actually indicative of Zero's character as someone who doesn't seem to realize or at least doesn't recognize the results of what he does this is very much just a game to him this doesn't give off the impression of two highly trained Killers fighting to the death as much as an up-and-coming actor getting to work with one of his Heroes and when the final fight between John zero and zero students comes that attitude is very clear both zero and his students get more than enough opportunities to kill Jon and yet they never do they always give him an opportunity to get back up until eventually he's killed all of zero students and is left with just zero himself and zero fights with the smile of a little kid throwing a pass to their favorite football player he's having someone fun getting to work with someone he so admires and looks up to while he does acknowledge that he has to kill Jon that doesn't seem to be his main priority he's just having fun embracing the joy of the process for as long as he can released that is until Jon gets the upper hand takes Zero's sword and plunges it deep into his torso leaving him alive but fatally wounded for a moment they sit together and zero tells him in labored words it was a pretty good fight huh John gets up picks up his belt that he used in the fight and walks away I'll catch up to you John no you won't I feel like just as with the scene I talked about before this is intended to be comedic it reads like that to me but I also can't help but find it to be a little sad as zero just slumps to the floor and dies with no Fanfare not even dying in an interesting or over-the-top way just a sword through the chest I feel a measure of sympathy for him he so enjoyed the pleasure of the process so loved the action itself that he neglected the reality of the final result Jon and zero are both masters of death as zero says but only one of them was willing to acknowledge what that death really means the permanence of it the person who won was the person willing to face the consequences of their actions foreign as someone who analyzes stories like this as a job every conclusion I come to is paired with another voice in the back of my head asking are you just overthinking it are you putting meaning into something that doesn't really have it basically everything that goes into these videos goes through that questioning in my head many many times I consider possible counter arguments every possible way that what I'm saying could be misinterpreted or every possible way that I'm placing meaning somewhere it doesn't really belong maybe I'm meant to laugh at zero just slumping over like that maybe it's supposed to be just a joke and as a prospective writer myself I worry from the other side of the coin too will what I'm writing be misinterpreted am I sending a message I'm not intending to send does this have any actual meaning or is it just Hollow and pointless and in that what I see in this fight the end of zero is a simple truth meaning is derived from the Act of Creation it is not a sep entity a being that judges a work worthy or not of its presence the joy of the process itself exists not in the current absence of meaning short of the result but in the feeling of meaning as it is formed and to neglect that final result that final meaning is to neglect the joy of the process as well it is to neglect the reason we create art tell stories at all not to make a statement or send a message but to experience that which cannot be simply described an action cannot exist without its consequence now was all that intentional was everything I've talked about in this video from Keanu Reeves's awkward performance to the nature of zero as a character intentional I don't know frankly I didn't look that hard for an answer I didn't look for some quote where Derrick Cole's daughter Chad stalesky said that the world of John Wick was meant to be a statement about the cycle of violence because to me that's the wrong question the question isn't was all this intentional the question is would it matter if it was would that intent be the thing to make it meaningful would the lack of intent mean that what I see here is wrong and I don't think either of those two things is true I don't think it's up to Derek Kolstad or Chad staleski or Keanu Reeves or anyone else what this means to me or to you and why you care about it because that meaning is up to you even if you don't know quite how to articulate it that meaning can still be experienced still be felt and that can be enough do you think John Wick is about the cycle of violence sure do you think it's all a big metaphor for Greek mythology why not do you think it's just an entertaining story where a guy shoots some folk and that helps you forget about your problems for a little while that's fine too maybe nobody else sees why John would do all this for a puppy maybe all they see is just a dog but to him it was everything the death of Hope after love at the end of the first John Wick we return to that in media res opening as Jon is on the ground dying ready to give up after he's killed all the ones responsible for the death of that hope as the video of his wife continues to play on his phone let's go home he gets up refusing to die and he breaks into the building near him an animal clinic he uses their tools to at least stop the bleeding and give him a chance to live and he finds a dog scheduled to be euthanized he opens the dog's cage and takes him home finding meaning in something that everyone else had given up on a reason to go on that to me becomes the entire point of John Wick finding reasons to go on even when struggles feel endless finding meaning in places no one else sees it because to you it is a reason to go on believing that meaning lives not in the objective reality of what we can prove but in the subjective experience of what we feel hanging on to life for the hope that there is something someone else to love maybe that was intentional maybe not but it's the meaning I feel and that's all I need to know so let me slightly amend my original question I've given my answer but I can't give you yours what does John Wick mean to you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: StoryStreet

Views: 111,283

Keywords: John Wick, Keanu Reeves, Chad Stahleski, Video Essay, StoryStreet, Film Essay, Theme, Deeper Meaning, Action Movie

Id: dejDbG4TBNE

Length: 32min 45sec (1965 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 07 2023