“I worked on the script for Revolver for three years. “Big jackpot” I wrote in three months, ”Guy Ritchie once admitted in an interview.
Multi-layered structure of the narrative, similar at the same time to an intricate maze, and to a chessboard lined with black and white figures; references to Kabbalah and the rules of the game of chess; puddles of blood spreading across the screen, accompanied by notes of Beethoven and Vivaldi – all this not only fascinates, but also quite puzzles the viewer, forcing the viewer to re-watch the film in search of answers – or feverishly drive the exciting question into the search line: “What is the essence of the film“ Revolver ” Guy Ritchie? ”
And the answer to this question is actually almost endless. So this article may turn out to be not an easy reading – it is better to save it to bookmarks right away, so that later you can read it or re-read it again.
The plot of the film “Revolver” as a chess game
Green and Avi fight over the chessboard incessantly throughout most of the film. But they themselves are pieces on a different chessboard, of a larger size. This playing field is the city in which the events of the film unfold. Guy Ritchie repeatedly makes this clear to us with the help of color allusions, and sometimes with the help of a language game. So, at the very beginning of the film, Maka says to Jake Green: Very skillful Mr Green, you pawn your talents very well. The English verb pawn means “to pawn”, but the noun pawn means “pawn.” This is how Jake Green perceives Mac at first – considers him a pawn and tries to eliminate him as easily and simply as a pawn – simply by sending his people to shoot Green.
Avi pretends to be a weaker player throughout the film – and only in the finale Jake realizes that Avi owes his brilliant chess game
Maka is definitely the main piece on the opponent’s side, the chess king. Eliminating it means solving the main task that Green set for himself. But Jake Green himself at the beginning of the action is nothing more than a pawn, skillfully wielded by Avi and Zak. However, in the final, the Jake-pawn sneaks into the enemy’s territory – it gets into Maki’s mansion. As you know, having reached the opposite edge of the square, a pawn becomes a queen. This is what happens to Green when he, safe and sound, leaves the armed Maki, shocked by such a brazen invasion of his chess domain.
Readers knowledgeable in the chess game can review the film in order to compare the behavior of the characters with the rules of the game of certain figures – almost every character in the movie “Revolver” can be correlated with the corresponding chess piece. And we will move on, although chess allusions will surface more than once in the course of the story. The question that, perhaps, already worries you: who plays at this giant chessboard, who started this sophisticated game? This is the mysterious and elusive Mr. Gold. It is worth talking about it in more detail.
Who is Sam Gold and does he exist in reality?
I will not delay with the answer: no, in reality Gold does not exist. He is a hoax of cunning deceivers Avi and Zach. But at the same time, he is a demiurge who created this whole world of the chess game, which controls him and all the actions of the characters-figures. Here’s a paradox.
Gold has a lot in common with God – at least neither of them exists. Like the biblical god, Gold created and rules this world. Like God, Gold is just a product of the mind of people. Like God, Gold has his own clergyman – this is Mrs. Walker. She is accompanied by Christian attributes and she evokes in those around her – in particular, in Maki – awe, because she occupies the highest rank under Mr. Gold (you can correlate her with the Pope or with the Orthodox Patriarch). In addition, Gold and his laws (which we will talk about a little later) are firmly rooted in the minds of almost all characters – just as religious dogmas are assimilated by believers.
Sam Gold is the embodiment of the lust for profit, which is not alien to all the characters in the film (except Avi and Zach)
But at the same time, Gold is inherently more like the devil than a creator god. It symbolizes everything black, destructive: greed, thirst for profit and blood, craving for power. These are the very laws by which almost all the heroes of the film live. No wonder Green says: “Nothing hurts like humiliation and a small loss of money.” This is the view that dominates Gold’s world. Gold (“gold”) – the embodiment of the golden calf, a senseless passion for obtaining and accumulating wealth. It demonstrates the Western system of values, in which the material component has the greatest weight.
His biggest deception was to make you believe that he is you.
This is one of the key phrases in the film – and it refers specifically to Sam Gold. Gold is the ego; Gold is imposed judgments that seem so natural to us that they sound like our own voice. Gold’s philosophy is obeyed equally by Green and Maca, as well as Lord John. For Maki, Gold is the embodiment of his undivided power, for Green, this is the desire to get rich by any means and take revenge on his offender – to destroy Maka. But in the finale, Green is freed from Gold’s power, but Maka is killed by it. And Jake Green is helped in this by his comrades Zach and Avi.
Images of Zach and Avi and their relationship with Jake Green
If Sam Gold is the devil who stuck in Jake Green’s head and drags him down, whispering base desires, then Avi and Zach are the guardian angels of the protagonist. If Gold is the West, then Avi and Zak are the East with its disregard for material values and abandonment of the ego. In the film, these characters are endowed with almost supernatural powers: they somehow miraculously save Green from dying under the wheels of a car (it is the call from them that makes Jake look at the road), they predict his fainting at the beginning of the film … All this can be another “chess” metaphor … A good player should be able to anticipate the actions of the enemy, know his strategy a few steps ahead. Avi and Zach, as professional players, can predict life itself – after all, they live on the chessboard.
Avi checks Jake by ordering him to shoot the debtor – but instead, Jake points the gun at Avi himself.
Avi and Zach are the first who were able to get out of their ego, beyond the philosophy of Sam Gold. Let us recall the period of their joint imprisonment in the prison next door to Jake Green. For them, it was not so much serving punishment as voluntary withdrawal from worldly life with the aim of a kind of meditation, focusing on the most important task for both – the victory over Sam Gold. Avi and Zach could have escaped at any moment, but remained in prison for a long time in order to hone their plan to defeat the ego. They also involved Jake Green in their venture. Having fed him the “universal formula”, which was readily accepted by Jake’s greedy ego, they left him to “ripen”, while at large they began to prepare their grandiose plan.
Avi and Zaka can be called enlightened in the Buddhist sense of the word. In Eastern teachings, the ego is evil, the ego is responsible for our pain and suffering. The ego is not a fact of objective reality, but only a product of our own consciousness. The ego is an inner prison. By promising to get Jake out of prison, his comrades had in mind this very prison – the shackles of consciousness, the greedy earthly ego. And so Jake’s release begins.
Jake Green’s path to enlightenment and moral victory
At first, Zach and Avi, like Buddhist mentors, take Jake’s word not to ask anything and to obey their orders completely. Then they systematically destroy his “Gold” ego: they force him to transfer all their savings to them and issue loans using his money. According to Jake himself, nothing hurts like humiliation and a small loss of money – it is with the loss of money that his path to “enlightenment” begins. Thus, taking away the desired wealth from Jake, Avi and Zach push him towards inner freedom. He, despite all the pain of parting with money, in the end is really freed from the greed for profit. Zack and Avi arrange a series of checks for him: they force him to collect debts on their own and even demand to shoot at the debtor. But Jake refuses – this is exactly what his mentors wanted. Now he is no longer attached to material values,
One of the key scenes in the film is the rooftop scene when Zach and Avi answer Green’s questions and explain their “greatest deception” to him. Zach tells Green where his enemy is actually hiding. This scene can be compared to a similar one in the legendary “Matrix”, when Morpheus proves to Neo that his world is an illusion. Here, Zach lets Green know that his ego is an illusion. The ego is what keeps us locked up in its head, it is responsible for our pain and fears. Realizing this, Green challenges his now real enemy – his ego – and is able to finish the game against Maki to the end.
Sortter also manages to go beyond his ego in order to save the girl – but then he, as a piece interfering with the successful outcome of the game, has to be eliminated
Now Jake is no longer held captive by his own money. He makes a generous donation to the charity on Maki’s behalf. This unexpected move confuses Maka – as if Jake sacrificed a handful of pawns to make the opponent think Green is losing. Green enters Maki’s mansion with a weapon, but instead of killing him, he asks the enemy for forgiveness. This puts Maka in such a stupor that he misses Green by being unable to pull the trigger. But before that, Green wins an even more important victory – in the elevator he meets one on one with his own ego. He knows that the elevator is the best place for this, because this is where his fears awaken from his sleep. In a conversation with his ego (it is Sam Gold), Jake declares: “You are not me, I no longer obey you”). This victory is much more important to him than the destruction of Maki, but the latter is now inevitable.
Having driven Maka to nervous exhaustion, cornered him, making him believe that he angered the non-existent Sam Gold, Jake and his companions appear in his casino with stolen goods. Now this product will not save Maka – he knows that Gold will not forgive his mistake. Maka realizes himself condemned to death. Appearing on his territory, Green – now an important piece, not a pawn – checkmate him. And Maka realizes that the battle is useless. He could have shot the girl – Green’s niece, in the head, but the whole horror of Maki’s position is that he sees the power that Green has now gained. He dropped his ego, and now no external circumstances are capable of causing him pain or fear. Green does not take his eyes off Maki and does not show the slightest sign of concern.
And now Maki’s death warrant has already been signed, because Sam Gold still lives in his mind. Maka makes a decision – after all, he has already been mate. And he dies a victim of his own fears – and not at all a victim of Jake Green, who overcame these fears.
