Christianity Today has posted Brett McCracken’s interview with John Hillcoat about directing The Road. Here’s an interesting excerpt:

Is it true that some of the only direction McCarthy gave to you was to make sure the film kept as many of the book’s references to God as possible?

John Hillcoat:
Yes, that’s right. Cormac is very intrigued by grace under pressure and a higher spiritual element than man. He’s also interested in the struggle of faith. In many ways The Road is like a biblical tale or a parable. It’s very simple: A man struggling to survive, haunted by all these memories, who then has a son born into this world. They come across all these obstacles that test them. So in that sense it feels almost like a biblical tale, and it certainly has an incredible moral to tell.

That leap of faith that the boy makes at the end is what it’s all about. The boy is the one who saves the man. The man is under pressure, which we completely understand, and under great duress we see his humanity slipping away. It’s actually the boy who saves him. He’s the one with humanity. But where does the boy get this from? He’s born into this God-forsaken place. Where does his “fire” come from? I think it’s great that McCarthy sort of leaves this open to interpretation. It works on so many levels. For a lot of people, this idea of “carrying the fire” is clearly a spiritual thing. But for other people it might just mean “the higher power of humanity.” But it’s definitely also about faith.

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