No Country for Old Men, Leon: The Professional, A Clockwork Orange, Inglourious Basterds, Catch Me If You Can, Mad Max: Fury Road, Lolita (1997) and more… These films have one thing in common. Milk. We see each of the characters in these films drinking milk. But why milk? Why not water, soda or any other liquid?
As you can see, this is a metaphor.
First of all, what is milk? Milk is a liquid secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals at different times to feed their newly born babies. Sounds sweet, right? Thats why, in cinema milk is used as a metaphor for innocence.
But it varies from film to film, different meanings can be added to innocence and it all depends on the director. Many directors use milk in their films to violate the feeling of innocence and comfort. In Leon and Lolita, milk represents the childishness and innocence of the characters. But in No Country for Old Men, it represents power and chaos. The killer breaks into his potential victims’s house and takes a bottle of milk from the fridge without the victim’s permission and drinks it. The director destroys comfort, innocence and trust zone by having the killer do this and puts the audience in a tense atmosphere.