come anticipate the masterpiece that will be terrence malick's TREE OF LIFE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3f3Pi0svJU

stoked

http://www.empireonline.com/news/feed.asp?NID=27585

When we asked him if this was a science fiction film (yes, even that is in doubt), Pitt replied, "Well, in a way. It's this little tiny story of a kid growing up in the 50s with a mother who's grace incarnate and a father who's oppressive in nature. So he is negotiating his way through it, defining who he's gonna be when he grows up. And that is juxtaposed with a little, tiny micro-story of the cosmos, from the beginning of the cosmos to the death of the cosmos. So that's where the sci-fi – or the sci-fact – comes in."

Pitt also confirmed that Heath Ledger was originally set for a role in the film. "He was gonna do it at one point, and then he was puling out for one reason or another, and we were involved ("we" meaning Pitt's production company Plan B), so I just stepped in."

doug trumbull on this too

not playing cannes apparently

cannes-t be bothered

hmm

badlands more like BAD PUNS!!!1!

thin red line more like THIN EXCUSE FOR WORDPLAY

no cannes do

too few days (of heaven) between now and cannes to finish the edit

If Cannes has definitely been cancelled, when are they going to have the new world premiere?

never mind cannes, when will it open in the new world???

XPOST!!! gah.

i guess when a guy only has 4 movies, the pun supply is low.

anyway this movie sounds like it might supply plenty of material for my future rants about the unbearable drippiness of malick.

cannes it, shorty

face palme d'or

^^^ that is solid, will use irl

This movie.
Who made it?
Where did it come from?
What will it look like, when it comes?
What if there are two movies out there?
The space movie and the family movie within it?
Both at once.
In the holy light of morning.

just yesterday was talking to a girl i work w/ abt. y i love malick movies so much

i wanna be a dirt doctuh

i only saw badlands this year, so amazing.

This movie.
Who made it?
Where did it come from?
What will it look like, when it comes?
What if there are two movies out there?
The space movie and the family movie within it?
Both at once.
In the holy light of morning.

― a modest crowd, not jammed (Eazy), Thursday, 15 April 2010 18:07 (Yesterday) Bookmark

A+++

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjNVhoWqSWY&feature=player_embedded

(hillcoat via malick)

that's....interesting. should malick be insulted or honored?

also this: http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/2971/536_BD_box_348x490.jpg

That's a really pretty ad.

thin red buttcrack tbh

"Go Fourth"? is that a misspelling or a reference i'm not getting?

oh yeah - "tree of life" not ready for venice or toronto.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jul/30/venice-coppola-schnabel-gallo-malick

what the fuck it does say "Go Forth". please, i'm hungover.

Come forth Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job.

"Go Fourth"? is that a misspelling or a reference i'm not getting?

― jed_, Saturday, July 31, 2010 8:36 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

what the fuck it does say "Go Forth". please, i'm hungover.

― jed_, Saturday, July 31, 2010 8:38 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

haha i was gonna be like DUH its his fourth movie

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2010/08/19/waiting_for_malick_when_will_we_see_tree_of_life

"Meanwhile, Pohlad has also undermined some of his industry cred with the revelation that he plans to direct a movie"

idgi, why would this undermine his cred (i dont really know anything abt this guy btw)

fuck if i know, that article is kinda dumb

I wonder if Malick is stalling the inevitable: getting reviewed.

that whole aspect kills me. because Malick is normally so quick and forthcoming with his work.

and so publicly engaged with his critics

Back at the University of Texas at Austin, he lets film students take a crack at editing various scenes.

if this is true, it's kinda amazing. it's funny how someone's media persona (or lack thereof) can create such false impressions. can't seen stanley kubrick allowing this sorta thing!

based on all the breathless descriptions, im looking forward to some sort of general "WTF" response to this movie.

tbf, i have yet to see a blog post about this film that isn't dumb

kindof hard to write that many *smart* words about a movie that you havent seen i am looking at u zizek btw

wait zizek hasn't written about this has he?

lol no i just mean

or has he

hes prolly letting his students edit it right now

i'm editing it for my doctorate actually

tell zizek i think hes totally hot for me plz

Acquired by Fox Searchlight, 2011 release

May 27, 2011 is the release date.

going up against transformers 3, no doubt. the choice is yours, america.

seems way to far away but great news. i remember hearing that a lot of shooting was done around central texas in April/May which is an extremely gorgeous time of year here with the wildflowers.

http://www.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Tree-Of-Life-movie-poster-Terrence-Malick-434x600.jpg

looks like a poster for a planetarium show or a christian dvd

title sounds like one as well

u sound like one

looks like a poster for a planetarium show or a christian dvd

isn't that basically the premise?

aren't U basically the premise

sorry

you're sorry

we're trying to have a serious thread here about this imaginary film made by a green day fan. you need to be cool.

haah

Good time to repost this piece on Malick from '99?

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/classic/features/runaway-genius-199812

He sounds crazier than I even imagined, but there's some interesting stuff in there on the genesis of what I assume is now The Tree of Life:

Exhausted and bruised by Days of Heaven,Malick spent considerable time with his girlfriend, Michie Gleason, in Paris. While she directed a film called Broken English, he labored in their Rue Jacob apartment on his new script, tentatively entitled Q. Its prologue, which dramatized the origins of life, became increasingly elaborate and would ultimately take over the rest of the story.

Malick shuttled between Paris and Los Angeles, where he hired a small crew, including cameraman Ryan and special-effects consultant Richard Taylor, who worked intensely for a year or so to realize Malick’s vision. “He wanted to do something different, get images nobody had ever seen before,” recalls Ryan. In one version, the story began with a sleeping god, underwater, dreaming of the origins of the universe, starting with the big bang and moving forward, as fluorescent fish swam into the deity’s nostrils and out again.

“Terry was one of the coolest guys I ever worked with,” says Taylor. “He had a passion for trying to do things from the heart. The amount of work we produced was phenomenal.” Malick dispatched cameramen all over the world—to the Great Barrier Reef to shoot micro jellyfish, to Mount Etna to shoot volcanic action, to Antarctica to shoot ice shelves breaking off. “He was writing pages of poetry, with no dialogue, glorious visual descriptions,” Ryan continues. “Every few months, Paramount would say, ‘What are you doing?’ He’d give them 30 pages that would keep them happy for a while. But eventually they said, ‘Send us a script that starts with page one and at the end says, “The End.” We don’t care what it is, but do something.’ Terry’s somebody who always functioned very well from the underground position. Suddenly, everybody was looking at him.… He did not work well under those conditions. He didn’t want to be on the spot.”

Taylor adds: “Then one Monday, Terry never showed up. He didn’t call anybody, we couldn’t find him—we got worried that maybe something had happened to him. Finally, after about two weeks, we got a phone call. He was in Paris, and he said, ‘I’m not sure if I’m going to make this picture. Maybe you should just pack all that stuff up.’ He just stopped. It was disappointing. I had never put my heart into a project as much as I did that one.”

cool thanks

Also, he beefs with Andrzej Wajda.

doug trumbull is crackers these days too apparently, so this has that too.

there's no dinosaurs on that poster wtf

not sure if anyone has seen this or not: http://osagenews.org/2010/10/untitled-film-starring-ben-affleck-shot-in-downtown-pawhuska/

lots of pictures of him in mid-directing! and he's wearing those shirts everyone says he wears.

that vf article was great btw

http://incontention.com/2010/12/01/tree-of-life-trailer-attached-to-black-swan/

Didn't see this linked here, but this blog is full of interesting deets.

this article is hilarious http://www.slate.com/id/2269262/

From that blog:
Actor Will Wallace told me this:

Terry has a very unique style of directing. It was Martin Sheen who first told me (before I was leaving for Australia to shoot TTRL) to just trust in Terry and his direction even though you may wonder what he is trying to get out of you. Martin says that to this day, he is most proud of his work in Badlands, and he told me that he attributes that to the direction he got from Terry. You may ask for an example of such: A line might be as simple as "Where is everyone in Charlie Company?"...Terry may ask that you say it again as if you are staring at a strange canoe. Upon trying to visualize a strange canoe, the actor says the line again. Terry then says "no...that wasn't it....say it again, but this time say it as if you are staring at a strange totem pole". Upon commencing the lines, your eyes might tend to veer upwards in applying this direction, in which case Terry might shout "BUT DON"T LOOK UP!" This actually happened to Adrian Brody.

From that Slate article:
Malick edited by watching one reel at a time, with the sound off, while listening to a Green Day CD.

yeah, that is incredible.

someone should make a video of "time of your life" set to images from malick's films. i wouldn't watch it, but it should probably exist.

Looks good from the trailer before Black Swan. Main thing that stands out is that the trailer has a good amount of handheld-camera shots.

Malick doesn't exhibit much interest in shooting action sequences, even when directing a war film (he joked about hiring Die Hard 2 auteur Renny Harlin to handle the combat scenes).

i wish this happened

wow, so beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi8o329-CwY

yep.

whoa

ugh does this mean I have to go see Black Swan

This is like one of those pay-the-entire-admission-just-for-a-trailer dealies. But my, doesn't it look stunning? The first thing that came to mind was 2001: A Space Odyssey...a warmer, pagan 2001: A Space Odyssey?

ya very wide-angley

Hmm...if I hadn't known it was Malick I don't know if it would have won me over based on the subject matter as shown. (Though yeah, looks good.)

Emmanuel Lubezki > any director currently working

i'm just gonna go on pretending like grant hill the basketball player is the grant hill listed as a producer

had no fear of being disappointed but that looks beautiful

from the cinematographer of meet joe black and the cat in the hat

Damn straight. He's on some next level shit.

i think he filled the cat in the hat w/ a deep sense of transience

lol

y tu mama tambien + children of men = ALL-TIMER

y tu gato tambien

stoked to see this in a double feature w/true grit

that slate article is bananas

2001: A Space Odyssey...a warmer, pagan 2001: A Space Odyssey?

― Davek (davek_00), Saturday, 4 December 2010 23:36 (Yesterday)

not really

if i didn't trust malick i'd assume this was more ~soulful hwood bro~ shit

sean penn is vile

what is "~soulful hwood bro~ shit"

princess tuomtuom

the assassination of jesse james
babel

brad pitt is #1 SHB

the curious case, obv

nb i don't h8 all these films (tho i h8 that one).....but there is some similarity...recurring tropes may include a sort of pantheistic awe, portent, voiceover, humourlessness, aching string music

dont tuomas me for not knowing what your weird madeup shorthand means

This is actually finished and just about to go into theatres, right? Because Terrence Malick, like Kubrick before him, wasn't exactly made for anticipation threads. (7 months pass...1 year passes...3 months pass...6 months pass...5 years pass...)

i like malick a lot and obv this is going to be far better than any of them

i'm just kinda cynical about it appearing to resemble those vanity projects, they don't seem to make a lot of cash but i dunno how else they market 'tree of life'

shot of trees in trailer straight out of the coda of 'the new world', which might be the best few minutes malick has shot

i like malick a lot and obv this is going to be far better than any of them

jesse james was better than the new world, hth

hollywood bro terry malick.

'jesse james' was really quite good until the final minutes

this looks a good laugh.

i'm just kinda cynical about it appearing to resemble those vanity projects, they don't seem to make a lot of cash but i dunno how else they market 'tree of life'

Can't see how it will make money in the States, and I'm kind of amazed that Malick continues to get funding for his movies.

But come on, this is nothing like Jesse James or Babel. I mean have you read about some of the shit they shot for this? The "beginning of the universe" footage? It's a Malick movie, not an awards season circle jerk.

jesse james was better than the new world, hth

― Princess TamTam, Sunday, December 5, 2010 1:53 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

well... maybe if you cut out the final 15 minutes. But the final 15 minutes of TNW>>>>>Jesse James.

'appearing to resemble'

trailer just seems too meek....obv there is the chance this will sink at the box office and they want to be cautious, but maybe they'd be better selling it as an event movie, 'enter the void' for the npr set rather than some generic mystical nonsense

I imagine Malick's funding situation is somewhat similar to Woody Allen's--there are enough investors out there who are just happy to be associated with a project of his, even if they know there's no real chance at making money. His films are obviously more involved than the ones Allen churns out, but there may be (just guessing) a comparable situation where you end up breaking even after secondary markets. (Note to self: make that the last time you ever type the words "secondary markets.")

don't allen's films do alright, generally? combination of relatively low budgets and 'long tail', still a lot of residual love for him in france etc

maybe it IS generic mystical nonsense and they're just advertising it honestly

well... maybe if you cut out the final 15 minutes. But the final 15 minutes of TNW>>>>>Jesse James.

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, December 5, 2010 9:02 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

maybe, but i'd argue TNW doesn't have much going on for it outside of those final 15 mins

don't allen's films do alright, generally?

I honestly don't know. I always figured that once you got past about Hannah and Her Sisters, he did just well enough to keep going.

match point and vicky christina did ok, i think, but he's bankrolled by french investors and it doesn't really matter at this stage. malick has a somewhat tougher time getting stuff made because his productions are on a different scale, and he's made too few films to have a reliable set of rich emo banker dudes to pay for them, afaict.

although obviously if malick wants to make a film made then he can. but for allen it's basically just a case of being in the mood.

Curse of the Jade Scorpion:
With its production budget of $26 million, it is Allen's most expensive film. The film fared poorly in American theaters with ticket sales of less than seven million dollars. Its worldwide gross was $18.9 million.(4)

Vicki Cristina Barcelona:
As of July 2009, the film has grossed $96,408,652 worldwide; in relation to its $15 million budget, it is one of Allen's most profitable films.

Scoop:
Scoop opened in 538 American theatres on July 28, 2006. In its first three days, it grossed $3,046,924 for a per-theatre-average of $5,663. Box Office Mojo listed its opening as the biggest limited release premiere of 2006.[9] By the time the film's domestic run had ended on September 28, 2006, it grossed $10,525,717 in the U.S. and $39,212,510 worldwide. The film had a $4 million budget, not including prints and advertising expense.

allen's movies do well internationally - more than i even realized, vicki cristina made almost 100 mil worldwide - and are cheap to make

malick doesn't exactly have to scrape and claw to get a movie made, especially since stars are always dying to work with him and will do so on the cheap

Thanks--eye-opening. So I guess an Allen disaster is that the film loses a little money, and otherwise his films make a lot. Malick's films are clearly more economically risky than that.

yeah i think malick is more about star names wanting to share in the glory

i guess colin farrell was a star in 2005

The UK used to be a good market for Allen but they usually don't get a cimema release here now.

they do, usually

Yes they do...only Scoop or Cassandra's Dream (can't remember which) didn't get one. They're basically about a year behind as we only had Whatever Works this summer, while Tall Dark Stranger has already come out in the states.

The last new Allen I saw was Small Time Crooks, and it scared me away. Things start getting dodgy maybe post Husbands and Wives (although I haven't seen the apparently well-liked Bullets Over Broadway).

scoop didn't. i didn't know that cassandra's dream did but it seems it did. anything else, melinda & melinda and hollywood ending, all from the 2000s, didn't.

hollywood ending never came out here iirc

VCB was a hit, but some of them barely get a release -- 'whatever works', that one with ewan mcgregor, etc

i was gonna say that malick doesn't work cheap, but apparently his movies arent as expensive as i thought... the new world 'only' cost 30 mil, which seems pretty reasonable for a period movie. tree of life has the most recognizable movie star in the world in it too, which means its practically a lock to make a lot of money worldwide... aside from jesse james (and i have no idea what kind of international release that got, plus it's a western) everything he's been in has done amazingly well internationally, even the quirky arty crap

I could see Tree of Life being a decent-sized hit. All the cinephiles will flock, casual fans will be interested with the (likely) good reviews and star wattage. Couple in the awards run-in as the year goes on...

how much did tree of life cost?

brad pitt has gotta be the biggest star he's ever had in a lead role so yeah

guessing he's on a 'massive paycut'

shd have a thread for 'shitty passion projects' like 'jesse james' and 'a mighty heart'

according to that article upthread, tol has "cost somewhat more than its original $32-million budget"

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2010/08/19/waiting_for_malick_when_will_we_see_tree_of_life/#

surprised it would be budgeted that low to begin with

probably $50m or so which is recoupable

i guess doug trumbull is not weta, but he doesn't work cheap either

I wonder how many reactions like this there will be for the Tree of Life:

I think more people walked out of [The New World] than any other film I have ever seen (and SOONER too--one girl heard the first voiceover, loudly said "Hell no", grabbed her friend and walked out AND then came back in five minutes later to snatch a soda from her boyfriend who had stayed haha!)

i love that

the assassination of jesse james
babel

― tldr swinton (nakhchivan), Sunday, December 5, 2010 8:37 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it pains me to see these movies grouped together

^

I was not nuts over New World or anything, but it was in an entirely different realm from The Preciousness Of Jesse James.

h8 all dis Jesse James h8n tbh

x-post Before I even read the comments I thought the trailer looked like the unlikely sequel to the end of "2001." Esp. knowing that the movie features dinosaurs is some way.

luv dinosaurs, luv the assassination of jesse james

I think "Jesse James" is pretty perfect, and both Affleck and Pitt really, really good in it. The reason it got hosed in theaters was due to conflicts between director and studio/distributor, right?

Also it is a 2 hr 40 min moody contemplation piece set in the Old West

it's super boring

u r

It's also the twee-est movie not directed by Jason Reitman.

Roger Deakins alone makes it totally not boring imo

yes, it's very handsome

Also it is a 2 hr 40 min moody contemplation piece set in the Old West

Like it was pitched as anything else. I seem to recall murmurings of demands for reshoots or radical cutting, and the director refusing. So it barely played theaters in retaliation. I love "The New World" and consider it pretty similar in mood and tone, and even that got a bigger theatrical push.

while I always "liked" the new world, i didnt it love it until watching the extended cut on blu ray on a suitably big tv. fwiw.

i also liked Jesse James a lot! but im a sucker for that kind of thing.

i liked jesse james, but it should have been 2 hours shorter, and the old timey lenses bits were distracting.

thought that worked well as it tended to (iirc) only happen during narration

I think more people walked out of [The New World] than any other film I have ever seen (and SOONER too--one girl heard the first voiceover, loudly said "Hell no", grabbed her friend and walked out AND then came back in five minutes later to snatch a soda from her boyfriend who had stayed haha!)

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Sunday, December 5, 2010 3:10 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

I saw TTRL in the theater 7 times, and saw someone walk out every time. I was in high school at the time, and a friend of mine went with a group of 15 people and was the only one who didn't walk out (this quickly led to me realizing that my school was filled with disgusting savages).

Ha, reminds me of a summer I convinced several co-workers to go see "Unforgiven" on their night off, and it was totally not what they were expecting from a Clint Eastwood movie.

The Thin Red Line... was filled with disgusting savages.

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, December 5, 2010 3:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

with portentous whispers.

what is the PLOT of this movie exactly, is sean penn an astronaut, anyway, it looks good

"One day Joe Spicoli manned up...and shit got real."

Well, from that trailer it looked like Sean Penn is the adult version of the kid being bullied by dad Brad Pitt. Beyond that, who knows, but there are dinosaurs. And I can presume lingering shots of light glinting through tree branches.

I really like the shot of Sean Penn in an office, looking super bummed.

Turns out the movie is about Sean Penn watching a trailer for _Tree of Life_ while sitting in his office before corporate IT blocks YouTube.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2010/12/tree-of-life-terrence-malick-release.html

Does anyone know when the trailer is being released online? I have heard that we may have to wait till Christmas, which is too long for my liking. Although, I suppose that may be fitting as it is the day that Christ was born.

Posted by: Michael | 12/08/2010 at 04:02 AM

the writing in that LA times article is shocking.

you can be a winner AT THE TREE OF LIFE

So far, the response has been strong: Malick fans have sent out tweets along the lines of "The trailer is absolutely breathtaking! Malick can do no wrong."

alright fess up

i bet malick sent them

notorious tweeter terance malick

u mean @badlandsbro?

@badlandsbro lMFAO looking SUPER close @ a beetle crawling up a wet branch #cosmic #life 2 hours ago

ya i guess hashtags are the twitter equiv of voiceover

#hah

@badlandsbro 21st century breakdown sucks. american idiot will be their last good album. live in the now.

@badlandsbro #ff @theuniverse @onesoul @destructivepowerofnature

RT: @badlandsbro lol http://bit.ly/eD1GVo

"The film, which features sweeping photography and stars Brad Pitt and Sean Penn..."

it's pretty weird the way he covers the first three films in brackets at the end of the penultimate paragraph.

why, the article is not about them?

Quicktime Trailer

though i am a little bit tired of seeing movies w/ sean penn lookin all sad ... this looks pretty great.

also lol at badlandsbro

sure looks gorgeous

yeah, i mean, looks super Malick-y. but i am such a sucker for his style. just glad that he's having this late career resurgence.

cant wait

relevant to my interests

kinda interesting to see Malick shooting some typical domestic scenes...a family at a dinner table!

trailer has a sort of high end kodak commercial vibe

you have a sort of etc

U DO

trailer has a sort of high end kodak commercial vibe

It def seems all about the cinematography. Which is probably the best thing to sell, but we'll see.

also i love that apparently the movie depicts one of my strongest memories about growing up in texas (if it's what it appears to be)---mosquito trucks!

my dad tells of following the ddt trucks through the neighborhood w/his friends on their bikes, riding all in and out of the fumes

yeah im sure it's not DDT anymore, and they always came in the middle of the night, which was very beautiful and spooky.

mosquitoes driving trucks, that's just eerie

I hope everyone liked The Fountain!

don't even say that word.

i didn't see the fountain. is it malick-y?

oh shit i said that word

no it's just shitty

The Fountain may be a New Agey lark, but really, it could have been much worse, all things considered. Like Boyle's similarly ambitious failure "Sunshine," it's kind of stuck with me.

Has any article actually revealed just what Malick was up to between "Days of Heaven" and "The Thin Red Line?" And what accounts for the sudden flurry (relatively speaking) of activity? No idea what Malick thought of Kubrick, but I wonder if Kubrick's death stressed the downside of dicking around while there are stories to tell. I mean, "New World" had its origins in the '70s, right? Who knows how long "Tree of Life" had been, er, germinating.

vanity fair article linked above talks about the missing years: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/classic/features/runaway-genius-199812
tree of life has been floating around for decades i think.

On one occasion he exclaimed to Ryan, “I have a great idea. We’re gonna give cameras to people who are just coming out of insane asylums, and let them film. You think that’s nuts, but it’s not. I’m deadly serious about this.”

Malick, still not entirely won over, had plenty of caveats. For a long time he would not allow the producers to keep a sample of his handwriting. They say original copies of documents bearing his penmanship were to be returned to him with no copies made. Handwritten notes were to be destroyed. It reminded Roberdeau of Badlands, in which Sheen’s character would never sign his name the same way twice out of fear of forgery.

Malick, who detests beets and fish with bones—or even the appearance of bones

"the appearance of bones"?!

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.politicsdaily.com/media/2008/11/star-trek-gal03-bones-186gvs111908.jpg

"hi dere"

nooooooo

It reminded Roberdeau of Badlands, in which Sheen’s character would never sign his name the same way twice out of fear of forgery.

― max, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:13 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i love how this is described in sissy spaceks narration as 'faking his signature' - like he has a real signature which he never uses

http://grab.by/7V1Y

'sup'

laughed at the AV Club's headline: The trailer for Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life: Magic everywhere in this bitch

http://cinema-fanatic.com/2010/12/15/83-screencaps-from-terrence-malicks-the-tree-of-life-trailer/

nebulae shots in this thing look like they might be *powerful*

My favorite; maybe the most overt Kubrick homage?

http://cinemafanatic.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/tree_of_life56.png?w=634

this is relevant to yr interests isnt it xp

extremely. i am a fan of: doug trumbull, space, nebulae, time, sean penn, and terry mals.

eh time is kinda overrated

if y'all are into the beautiful kids-running-behind-mosquito-trucks footage, you should check out http://mubi.com/films/24012, which has the same shots (except real)

so is this movie supposed to be seen in IMAX or did I dream that?

holy shit, this trailer...

I think parts of it are filmed for IMAX, yeah. Supposedly.

Hmm, just saw this in the VF piece:

he labored in their Rue Jacob apartment on his new script, tentatively entitled Q. Its prologue, which dramatized the origins of life, became increasingly elaborate and would ultimately take over the rest of the story.

Malick shuttled between Paris and Los Angeles, where he hired a small crew, including cameraman Ryan and special-effects consultant Richard Taylor, who worked intensely for a year or so to realize Malick’s vision. “He wanted to do something different, get images nobody had ever seen before,” recalls Ryan. In one version, the story began with a sleeping god, underwater, dreaming of the origins of the universe, starting with the big bang and moving forward, as fluorescent fish swam into the deity’s nostrils and out again.

So I guess there are the origins of Tree of Life.

would be wacky if the sleeping god stuff made it to this upcoming movie, but who knows?

If this movie reportedly has dinosaurs in it, all bets are off, no?

in what sense

the bets that there are no dinosaurs

Back last year:

“We’re just starting work on a project for Terrence Malick, animating dinosaurs, the film is The Tree of Life. It’ll be shooting in IMAX—so the dinosaurs will actually be life size — and the shots of the creatures will be long and lingering.” – Visual Effects artist Mike Fink (X2, Mars Attacks, Project X)

Douglas Trumbull, famous 2001: ASO sfx dude...

During his talk on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull let slip a tantalizing tidbit about Terrence Malick’s mysterious The Tree of Life, long in the works. The film is a family drama starring Sean Penn and Brad Pitt.

Trumbull has been involved with the film. He said it’s as much of an “ultimate trip” as 2001 is: “It will probably be one of the films with the closest feeling to 2001, since 2001.”

http://www.thestar.com/article/904870--howell-imax-foes-battle-for-our-attention

I was ready to watch this simply because it's Malick, but having now seen the trailer and read the rest of the crazy sounding shit in this thread I am *super psyched*.

super psyched seconded, this looks great for obvious reasons but now it's got dinosaurs also?

Dinosaurs could potentially be goofy and off-key, but I have a feeling he'll do them (if they are in the movie) in a really canny, artful way. Something not too removed from the opening bit of 2001 maybe?

i just hope he gets good voices for the dinosaurs, thinking ray romano would be appropriate?

lol

if y'all are into the beautiful kids-running-behind-mosquito-trucks footage, you should check out http://mubi.com/films/24012, which has the same shots (except real)

― ok (Tape Store), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 4:39 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

oh TS...

http://cinema-fanatic.com/2010/12/15/83-screencaps-from-terrence-malicks-the-tree-of-life-trailer/

― tylerw, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 4:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

1stly why is there snow falling on this blog

2nd if one had told u all these were stills from the new heartwarming danny boyle project you wouldve believed it

waiting for the blu ray release of this new trailer tbh

http://cinemafanatic.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/tree_of_life72.png?w=634

idgi

Has any article actually revealed just what Malick was up to between "Days of Heaven" and "The Thin Red Line?" And what accounts for the sudden flurry (relatively speaking) of activity? No idea what Malick thought of Kubrick, but I wonder if Kubrick's death stressed the downside of dicking around while there are stories to tell. I mean, "New World" had its origins in the '70s, right? Who knows how long "Tree of Life" had been, er, germinating.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im not sure kubrick really did a lot of 'dicking around' and iirc he had a ton of projects he worked hard on developing that had to be shelved for some reason or another

vanity fair article linked above talks about the missing years: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/classic/features/runaway-genius-199812
tree of life has been floating around for decades i think.

― tylerw, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:07 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah that article made me realize he's even crazier than i ever thought - always figured he was just a normal guy who liked his privacy, but nope... i love the part where he feuds with andrzej wajda or where he drives his step-daughter to flee to another country cuz he's so overbearing and crazy... brad pitt in this movie is probably malick as much as malick's dad idk

the wide-angle hand-held cinematography in the trailer (and all the w-a close-ups) really trip me out

yeah the close-ups caught me off guard

x-post I'd call 20 years between films dicking around ( Malick, per that article, was totally dicking around - walking across Oklahoma, bird-watching?). It'd be one thing if it was a matter of financing, but guys like Malick and Kubrick really don't/didn't need to worry about that. Frankly, Kubrick may have been working hard at stuff, but working hard to make a movie was not one of them. Working hard to decide which movie to make, sure, but I'd suggest the arduousness of that task not so monumental as to account for such a prolonged span of silence. Hence: super glad Malick has got off his duff and decided to finally make the scripts that have been sitting in his bedside drawer for decades.

Malick was definitely dicking around, I'm just not convinced Kubrick was. SK's numerous shelved projects are pretty infamous, he was just super meticulous about the development process.

wow malick does not come off well in that vf piece does he

Eight or so major films in the first 20 years of his career, few lacking in scope and ambition, versus three in the ensuing 25 years? The fact that Kubrick didn't make any of his famously abandoned projects over the span of 20 years says more about his personality than his meticulous methods, because he could sure make a movie when he set his mind to it.

dunno if financing was never a problem for malick, not like he had any huge hits. badlands and days of heaven were not blockbusters, right? kubrick on the other hand had actual commercial success with at least most of his films.

That Vanity Fair article was about dudes BEGGING to produce and finance his movie. Plus, Malick is independently wealthy, I believe. Oil?

well, those dudes who were begging to finance his shit were also sorta revealed to be charlatans deeply in debt. kubrick and warner brothers had a great relationship iirc.

ha, yeah, i like the term "method producers" in there.

it was mentioned in the article that other producers had tried and failed to get malick to make a movie

yeah, i know, just saying that malick's and kubrick's situations seem to have been pretty different.

being an independently wealthy filmmaker has got to be the cushest, luckiest job in the dang world

yeah sounds pretty nice

yet he doesnt seem like the happiest person

tho im prob reading too much into a story whos main sources are his ex wife and spurned producers

oh i didn't read the artcile

well u should my friend

yeah i mean i think there'll always be people interested in having a hand in whatever ~*terry*~ does next

Eight or so major films in the first 20 years of his career, few lacking in scope and ambition, versus three in the ensuing 25 years? The fact that Kubrick didn't make any of his famously abandoned projects over the span of 20 years says more about his personality than his meticulous methods, because he could sure make a movie when he set his mind to it.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, December 16, 2010 1:35 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah, i mean, sure, but i think what it says about his personality is that he was an insane perfectionist, not a flaky slacker... he abandoned projects because he didn't think he could do them 'right' not because he got bored of them

apropos of nothing heres a cool article on kubrick's batshit insane plans for a napoleon biopic:

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2000/10/04/napoleon/index.html

something def flipped w/kubrick at some point where he decided he was too good for every movie - and then he made one abt rich people in masks fucking hookers and died - so whatever

lol

haha

When I saw this preview and sad I wanted to see this, the people I was with made fun of me. ;_;

;__;

still gonna see it, they're obviously idiots

RIP your ppl

Almost walked out because the trailers thought I was the type of person that would be interested in whatever the fuck Tree Of Life is

― mercy mercy me, that beanfield milagro (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, December 11, 2010 6:52 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hahaha, I loved the New World! This just looked like the existentialism Hallmark Special. Obviously I'll have to see the movie to make a real opinion or at least wait until Morbs sees it

― mercy mercy me, that beanfield milagro (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, December 12, 2010 5:04 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fwiw i was just bummed this trailer lacked dinosaurs

icey that is not what EWS was about

guess youve been going to diff eyes wide shut parties than me, shrug

Who cares what it was about. It was a waste of time.

nope.

anyway saw ToL trailer yesterday and am guardedly optimistic.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/01/terrence-malick-tree-of-life-brad-pitt-chivo-images.html

this is going to be the greatest movie ever

omg srsly

Sounds like he's gone the Full Malick.

I am really really anticipating this.

I'm starting to think this is being overhyped and will end up disappointing me no matter how good it is

I dunno malick's never made a not-over-the-top-malick film, I imagine anyone who likes that is prob gonna have fun

yah i figure we all know what to expect, 4 hours of being one w/ everything and whispery voice-overs. ***excited***

The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling. The idea, say those who worked on it, was not so much to tell a story but to create a feeling.

TREE OF LIFE IS A FEELING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so ridiculously excited about this thing. feel like it's the OPUS. i mean, dawn and death of the world, (sorta) autobiography. this is kind of it.

i hope its over 3 hours long

Alexandre Desplat is going to do his best to ruin this film just the way James Horner tried his very hardest to ruin The New World. I don't understand Malick's taste in film composers. You would think it would be something he'd be more concerned about with respect to his aesthetic vision.

i thought zimmer did a good job on thin red line - malick doesnt seem particularly meticulous about his 'aesthetic vision' anyway, he just shoots some nice nature scenes, slaps some whispery narration and classical music on the soundtrack, calls it a day

Yeah, Zimmer's work is fine, definitely the best of the post-Days of Heaven bunch.

Alexandre Desplat is going to do his best to ruin this film just the way James Horner tried his very hardest to ruin The New World. I don't understand Malick's taste in film composers. You would think it would be something he'd be more concerned about with respect to his aesthetic vision.

he is a green day fan

Saw the trailer again before Black Swan, and you could feel it really capture the audience (even if, if history is consistent, very few of them will eventually go to see the movie). Love the idea he consulted with NASA and shot for IMAX with dinosaurs in mind. If this was Michael Bay, we'd all be slapping our foreheads, but because we're in the hands of Malick, we go with it, knowing full well the outcome could potentially be cinema-changing, if not life-changing.

Kind of wish in advance all reviews of this movie will be embargoed for a decade.

Desplat is inconsistent, and certainly dials things in sometimes, but when he's properly engaged with the director eg. Birth or Benjamin Button, then he can produce stunning work. Fair enough if you don't like his style, but I suspect he'll bring his A game to this.

o he did birth? yeah i loved the music in that

shouldve got billy joe armstrong

its spelled billie

if consulted with nasa means he used some hubble images, which is what i read, then that is what like 99% of movies with scenes in space do. obviously space is amazing, etc., but it would be more interesting to me if he _hadn't_ consulted with nasa, especially with doug trumbull involved. of course "consulted with nasa" may just be marketing purposes ... *intrigued*

Malick actually secretly sent Sean Penn into orbit.

someone shld srsly start up a @baddaysbro twitter asap as we wait.

the untitled new one. looks like an snl parody of days of heaven where it's the same as the original except everyone has macbooks.

http://i.min.us/ilChnw.jpg

ben afflek? really?

Malick recently finished shooting his sixth feature in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Filming in Pawhuska took place in two locations, a Catholic church, and a building known as the Triangle building, which is a three-sided, three-story building. In one scene, Ben Affleck is shown outside the church, holding a baby and talking to a priest. The triangle building is staged as a restaurant. For pictures of scenes visit [19]. Other than those bits of information, details about the film are being kept closely guarded, with no title or plot information as yet announced, although it has been described as a romance. There has been talk about it having something to do with Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of the Price Tower in Bartlesville, OK. The film will star Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem and Rachel Weisz.[20]

affleck was on the creative screenwriting podcast a few months ago talking about the town, and all he would say about this film was that mallick had asked him to read 12 books, but he couldn't say what they were out of respect for his process.

price tower is one of my favorite towers

I hope one of the books was "Acting for Dummies"

oh snap.

All of them were Daredevil trade paperbacks.

I love the fact that the first glimpse we get of this and it's set clearly at magic hour. We luv ya, Malick!

grass blowing in the wind, check.

wait for it....

spoiler alert...

voiceover.

I say this with love as his movies are my very favorite movies ever.

Mixed thoughts on Malick, myself.

I suspect I could watch Days Of Heaven on a perpetual loop and die a happy death from starvation or something. But I nearly burst out laughing during The New World at maybe twelve different moments.

ben afflek? really?

i think the still echoing choruses of richard gere? really? & colin farrell? really? can inspire us to give him a little leeway on this one.

the performance of Gere in DoH is a testament to the power of editing.

gere's a pretty good actor; The New World was a piece of shit, so that didn't work out anyway. affleck tries hard, bless him, but the talent just isn't there.

gere is pleasing to watch in the way Keanu is. It's not "acting" per se.

keanu's a pretty good actor too!

John Turturro had an article in film comment where he compared Gere and Cruise to kabuki actors-- there is no real emotional depth but they're enjoyable to watch.

But then he did Transformers 2 10 years later so maybe he's full of shit.

I suspect I could watch Days Of Heaven on a perpetual loop and die a happy death from starvation or something. But I nearly burst out laughing during The New World at maybe twelve different moments.

― The Future Of The Internet is Computers (R Baez), Wednesday, February 23, 2011 8:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah i feel you. the scene where the natives and colonials meet in a field for the first time springs to mind - my gf at the time was very critical of that and i wanted to defend it but couldn't. sometimes i think malick's just a charlatan and find it weird how uncritically he's received around here, even though i love TTRL.

i love all his films, and i think The New World is in many ways the apotheosis of his style (hence why it porders on parody at times and seems funny) but i think all the films other than TTRL suffer from not having that film's range of dynamic performances. im happy Sean Pean is in the new one because hopefully he can bring that to the table.

new world might be his worst movie, but i still love it. there's more than enough purely great filmmaking in there to make up for its shortcomings.

i mean, i know very well Malick wants people to be the pawns of Being and History, and not the other way around, but i'd still like to see a bit of struggle about it.

ryan, that's a good point re: range of dynamic performances. there's a lot of memorable dudes in that movie! koteas, caviezel (my favorite v/o in the history of malicky v/os), nolte, penn, etc.

yeah caviezel hits his v/o out of the park. "i was afraid to touch the death i seen in her..."

i still have a lingering affection for caviezel based solely on that role.

TNW "a piece of shit"? Really? like on the level of a - I dunno - "Bad Boys 2"? Doubt it. I'm with ryan.

What do you find so captivating about TNW? ~ooh its so lyrical and beautiful fart~

I don't really see why Bad Boys 2 couldn't be a superior movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqMiigy92qU

lol yes!!!

SJGR is great but i always felt that 'we ryde together... we die together!!!' was underrated

I want to make SJGR happen as an acronym now.

don't really get what was so lol-worthy about the scene when the natives meet the colonials for the first time in the field at all.

i mean, i can get not being able to take some of the ponderous, poetic voiceover stuff, but that was a pretty straightforward and good scene imo.

http://i51.tinypic.com/t98wtl.jpg

What do you find so captivating about TNW? ~ooh its so lyrical and beautiful fart~

I don't really see why Bad Boys 2 couldn't be a superior movie.

― ℳℴℯ　❤＼(◕‿◕✿ (Princess TamTam), Thursday, February 24, 2011 7:27 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark

LOL. I'm not even gonna...

Though yes - lyrical and beautiful, despite its flaws.

don't really get what was so lol-worthy about the scene when the natives meet the colonials for the first time in the field at all.

i mean, i can get not being able to take some of the ponderous, poetic voiceover stuff, but that was a pretty straightforward and good scene imo.

― circa1916, Thursday, February 24, 2011 3:13 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

it was just like any other scene where awe-struck primitives meet white ppl for the first time

wish someone had said SJGR when the natives met the colonials

or maybe

let's take it to the limit one more time

yeah i do think its weird how uncritically he is viewed but basically his movies are pretty definitive for me and there's so many things i love about them that "being critical" feels p superfluous. I mean his style comes about as close as possible to summing up a lot of my favourite things about movies ->. so i feel like i should be the exception to the rule moreso than i am here?

yeah i do think its weird how uncritically he is viewed

Kinda understandable - make two straigt-up sui generis masterpieces (Badlands, Days Of Heaven) and then disappear for nearly two decades; that myth is gonna stand for a while.

Not that I'm indiscrimately knocking the other movies - I have my problems with TNW, but I do love TTRL

jeezus, Days of Heaven is a unanimous masterpiece since when? Two of the principal performances just plain suck.

Might've been great as a silent.

kindof think ttrl is his best

we should do a poll...

Terrence Malick poll

yeah dude.

http://st.kinopoisk.ru/im/kadr/1/3/1/kinopoisk.ru-Tree-of-Life_2C-The-1313633.jpg
http://i.blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/images/uploads/thompson-on-hollywood/TOL2_12.jpg

some stills and set pics

http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/13/film/256408/
http://incontention.com/2011/03/14/tree-of-life-images-galore/
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2011/03/14/tree_of_life_fifteen_more_stunning_images/

this is going to be terrible.

dont think its gonna be *surprising* in any way but thats fine

i mean i guess it just depends on how much you want another "terence malick picture"

we'll all be surprised when the soundtrack is made up entirely of green day songs

i mean i guess it just depends on how much you want another "terence malick picture"

― plax (ico), Monday, March 14, 2011 10:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

god tell me about it. is this guy in a race with woody allen or what? he should slow down a little.

lol im probably anticipating this movie as much as anybody but this guy is really not afraid of being himself

it may very well be terrible, but it's basically impossible to tell what it's even going to be like from all this promotional material, so much of it is a secret...

Out Wednesday May 4th in the UK!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Thetreeoflifeposter.jpg

so it's out in the UK first? great!

Dinosaur!

5th from bottom, middle

i like that poster

i have already decided that this will be the greatest film I've ever seen, it had better not disappoint

<a href=http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/the-tree-of-life-movie-poster-02.jpg>;Higher res poster.</a>

Err, stupid me: http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/the-tree-of-life-movie-poster-02.jpg

some of those pics in the poster are of downtown Houston, as well.

"who cares what its about look at all this 0_0 shit you'll get to see!" - prolly the best way to try and market this thing.

also the dinosaur has me exploding a little bit right now. I'm just about guaranteed to give this film a massive pass, even if it's soaked in bad poetry.

http://www.twowaysthroughlife.com/

"molecular clouds gather to form galaxies"

nrq have you heard anything about uk press screenings yet?

lol no, and it doesn't sound like they'll be happening any time soon

some people are spinning that the distributor balked at the ad spend they'd agreed on as part of the deal because they thought the film wasn't sufficiently commercial. sales: it's a tough racket.

so Icon's 4th of May date is not happening, am I ever going to see this film?

Ah shit. I am going to be in the UK when it is released in the US. Was hoping to catch it over there. Now I just gotta hope it's still playing in theatres when I get back.

wtf

http://www.terrencemalick.org/

was that a site that someone actually blogged to?

it was the best malick blog, probably. A ton of updates and info on tree of life.

2 weeks before the premiere is an awfully odd time to shut it down.

oh ok weird cause waybackmachine has nothing?

google cache still has a lot

Sounds like Malick hurt his feelings.

Yeah that dude always seemed a bit kooky and over-invested.

isn't like the message of tree of life gonna be all cut the fetters to yr past and embrace the universe man

dude probably took it to heart

http://www.lemonde.fr/festival-de-cannes/video/2011/05/12/extrait-exclusif-de-the-tree-of-life-de-terrence-malick_1521244_766360.html#xtor=RSS-3208

smoke weed watch tree of life evry day

One of the local independents has a poster for this up in the lobby--different than the one above, just a baby's foot. I always hope for the best with any kind of highly-anticipated film, but when I think about how indifferent I am to everything Malick's done, think about the title, and think about the poster...words like "I'm not spiritual, but I do love Fast Times at Ridgemont High" pop into my mind.

"Terrence Malick's long-awaited drama The Tree of Life has debuted to a mix of harsh boos and enthusiastic applause."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/may/16/cannes-2011-live-blog-terrence-malick

A friend of mine is there, and claimed it was "awful."

so based on the coverage this film is...exactly what it looks like.

don't trust film critics at the best of times, but they get so pumped up at cannes, and are even worse now that they can twitter about it, indeed have to come up with an immediate response, that im not liable to read their reviews now

Seeing this tomorrow in Paris. Cannot wait.

no uk rls date apparent

ffs

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/the-mustsee-pitt-movie-you-cant-watch-in-britain-2275292.html

is icon uk mel gibson's too, or is it separate?

anyway yeah, seems like they really effed this up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/may/16/cannes-2011-the-tree-of-life-review

only skimming this, but generally in tune w/peter bradshaw, so this bodes p well

Seeing this in 2 hours.

i love big movies like this that everyone hates (ie: Eyes Wide Shut) so I'm looking forward to it

Agree up to a point. I love big movies too, but the one thing you get out of something like Eyes Wide Shut that you won't get in a big Malick film is--sorry for sounding so much like Kael here--is some trashy fun.

i can certainly see how a new Malick would elicit boos...his films are often uncomfortably sincere, Andrew O'hehir used the phrase "purposely naive" in his review today, and as such they are hard to swallow. perhaps that's a deliberate challenge in some ways--make us see and think in ways we spend a lot of energy avoiding and are trained to dismiss. (i dont mean that the films necessarily succeed in this, though they often do for me.)

Took me a long time to really reconcile the seemingly silly/mystical voiceovers of the TTRL with the parts of the movie i found most immediately arresting. And i still think that tension persists, especially in his last two films, and it's actually a tension that i find really interesting.

I'm not a Malick fan at all, but this review not only ensures that I will never, ever see this movie, and would in fact do bodily harm to anyone who tried to make me, but actually makes me want to track down the writer and chop off his fingers. "{A} towering examination of the way light and sound both comfort and repel"? "The nature of grace has arrived"? Dude, FUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOU.

Alexandre Desplat's rapturous score

I can't connect the word "rapturous" to anyone with "splat" in their name.

the part of the trailer where the kid whispers "mo-o-other.... faaaaather" is enough to give me the dry rise but i'll probably see this for the lols.

wait to do that at home plz.

i can certainly see how a new Malick would elicit boos

the point is kind of that booing a movie premiere is a total dick move

xxp the mother/father whisper reminds me of the movie the art teacher shows in ghost world (mirror, father, mirror)

I wouldn't expect anything short of ponderous and pretentious from Malick, but that's what makes Malick Malick, no? Anyway, most of the critics mentioned in or linked through the Guardian blog seemed to have liked it.

the point is kind of that booing a movie premiere is a total dick move

― the whole of the goon (the whole of the moon is a famous song) (history mayne), Monday, May 16, 2011 5:07 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

dude, it's cannes

saw a tweet today that cannes booing is the equivalent of eating popcorn

I'll say this much: I think I can recall more of the Cannes flicks that have been booed than the flicks that ultimately won.

(^Exaggeration, but the point stands)

come off it nrq, booing premieres is the whole point of eurofestivals. they don't boo non-premieres.

i took part in booing winterbottom at berlinale. surely you wouldn't say that was a DM?

oh you gotta boo winterbottom, even if it's on television

This movie is all like fine and shit.

it looks bogus tbh

It's not. That's one of the good things about it.

Though it does have quite a bit of teal and orange in it.

This movie is all like fine and shit.

― scissorlocks and the three bears (Eric H.), Monday, May 16, 2011 6:08 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

slap this on the posters imo

reppin my town when you see me
you know everything teal and orange teal and orange teal and orange teal and orange

the whole booing vs. counter-applause @ Cannes = my eagerness to see this just skyrocketed

dunno if you guys are sick of wacky terry malick anecdotes but im not

Three houses were used for the principal location; the production moved from one to another depending on the direction of the sun. “Terry’s not really a stickler for continuity,” Mr. Fisk said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/movies/the-tree-of-life-premieres-at-cannes.html

Mr. Malick has already shot — and is starting to edit — his sixth feature. Set in the present day, the still-untitled film stars Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams, and has been described as a romance. As always with Mr. Malick, everyone involved is tight-lipped, but Mr. Lubezki and Mr. Fisk, who both worked on it, said it is his boldest film yet. “It makes ‘Tree’ almost seem old-fashioned,” Mr. Fisk said.

Staring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams ... as talking dinosaurs.

WE SHOULD BE SO LUCKY

badlandsbro
good morning everyone! just enjoying my morning oj (gotta start the day right lol) then off to la croisette to see my new movie. wish me luck everyone. love TM xox

^^163 characters

Heartening to see that most of the critics I have respect for seem to be responding with varying degrees of positivity to this. At worst a kind of "wow this is nuts and intermittently embarrassing but pretty cool" sentiment.

I still really want to see this.

it would be kinda cool if all this flurry of activity culminated in him filming his draft of Dirty Harry.

"I wouldn't expect anything short of ponderous and pretentious from Malick, but that's what makes Malick Malick, no?"

Do you know what those 2 adjectives mean, and have you confused Malick w/ PT Anderson?

PT Anderson isn't slow and boring.

...if you did a few lines in the car

Can't think of a less ponderous movie I've seen lately than Tree of Life tbh.

You're usually cool toward him, yes, except for Thin Red Line on a repeat viewing?

pretty excited about this. whenever someone starts getting down on malick, i can see where they're coming from, but when i'm watching his stuff, it just works for me.

Actually, I think the only Malick I don't at least like is The New World.

Thin Red Line is one of those "I'll call it a masterpiece so long as I never have to see it again" type movies. In contrast, I already want to see Tree of Life again today.

new world is prob my least favorite, but i stil think it's great. weirdly, the second half seems really superior to the first. maybe less farrell helps, but i feel like there's a real payoff at the end there.

I should probably get around to watching that extended cut.

I got much more involved in his last two films than the '70s pair.

Yeah, Ed's FB status indicates we're all picking and choosing here.

PT Anderson isn't slow and boring.

No – he's slow and excruciating.

If you're talking about There Will Be Blood, maybe--not a fan, but it has some interest for me. If you mean Boogie Nights, though, I think that's wildly off the mark.

yeah, remember the p.t. anderson movie where adam sandler had rage issues or something and something something for interminably long and all that happened was a piano fell off a truck? and somebody said something about eating somebody else's face? that was awful.

PT Anderson's films are long, but slow? I guess TWBB got a little Malicky in places...

I still really want to see this.

me too

Tree of Life has been generally slaughtered here - this means it could be an excellent movie.

ever-updating Cannes round-up

People using this as an excuse to stan for The Fountain. Naysayers probably see that as proof they're right.

friend of mine wrote his initial thoughts here: http://www.notcoming.com/screeninglog/2011/05/entries/2804/

Jeff Wells (sorry):

I heard from a trusted source yesterday that Sean Penn's part in The Tree of Life, which is barely there with maybe ten lines of dialogue, if that, was fairly substantial in earlier cuts, but like Adrien Brody's character in The Thin Red Line, it was gradually cut down to nothing. Penn is here but didn't attend the Tree of Life press conference because...ask him.

Not sure he needed to be in the movie any more than he is. Pretty sure, in fact, that his section is only as long as it needed to be.

Boogie Nights is fun and all but PT Anderson isn't fit to lick the mud off Malick's shoes imho

No, no, no, no...for me, there's more life in Boogie Nights' opening shot than in Malick's entire filmography. (I am, of course, counting on lots of life in the Tree of Life movie.)

Mmm, no.

I'm not a huge Malick stan or anything (I have never watched the entirety of Badlands lol) but Days of Heaven is amazing and big chunks of New World are similarly gorgeous and unique. also PT is one of those filmmakers who has actively angered me with his shitty filmmaking with Punch Drunk Love, Hard 8, and Magnolia, I kind of hate him.

I hated Magnolia and used to fight with a co-worker, who kept claiming that I simply didn't understand it.

Just saw Days of Heaven for the thousandth time at the Museum of the Moving Image. Definitely top 2 or 3 movies of all time for me.

Magnolia is PTA's best imo. And it's only just OK-ish.

Wow--we ain't on the same page here.

Days of Heaven would make a beautiful painting. It's like Gene Hackman's line about Rohmer in Night Moves--except I'd want the paint to be already dry, which would move things along a bit.

The only Malick film I like is Badlands – the only time I thought the voiceovers weren't larded on pretty pictures, and the pictures meant something.

The voiceovers and images totally mean something in "The Thin Red Line," one of the few films I'd honestly consider profound in the way it frames war as an affront against nature/God.

I want to watch TTRL again – I just put it in my Netflix queue – but no way did I think (at the time) that Malick's pensées were interesting.

I mean, the alligator in the opening shot descending and disappearing is one of my favorite images of all time. Ripe with all sorts of meaning.

I suppose "interesting" is a more personal matter, but I think this movie is perfect. I've seen it described elsewhere as a sort of mobius strip like movie, where you can more or less drop in and out of it at any time, which plays into its themes.

yeah, maybe as malick's voiceovers become more and more of a "malick thing" their effectiveness is diluted somewhat? but i've always found them pretty moving. not saying they're always dead-on or anything, but i don't think that's quite the point.

yeah it's a bit of a mistake (imo) to see Malick's images or cutting to be random shots of nature...they are often telling a story adjacent to (or in a larger context) to the human-centered narrative. the more i watch his movies the more purposeful they seem.

i mean, it's not as if he spends years editing a movie to find just the right angle of light on a tree (tho he is doing that too), he's "finding" a story in that footage.

I don't want to start being sarcastic about Malick. There are moments and scenes in Badlands and Days of Heaven I quite like--the locust attack in DOH is memorable. I do think he's the wrong filmmaker to be used as a club against Paul Thomas Anderson; they're really not anything alike, beyond maybe that their films, whether you like them or not, are ambitious.

mentioned above but some of there will be blood was practically a malick tribute. (wouldn't have compared the two before that movie, tho)

i thought the middle hour dw griffith crosscutting extravaganza of Magnolia was pretty awesome.

that's a crocodile in TTRL btw; gators be in Florida

otm

xpost to clemenza

Clemenza, I don't think we're on the same page wrt anything.

there's some pretty persuasive material out there connecting the thin red line to heidegger which makes nearly everything in the movie seem much more 'purposeful' - like in his movies you often see a shot of a landscape, a shot of an animal and a shot of a human. this can be seen as a reference to heidegger's distinction that stone is without world, animal is poor in world, and man is world-forming. and jim caviezel talking about his dying mom ("'Cause that's where it's hidden - the immortality I hadn't seen.") has something to do with Being-toward-death, not that i understand that stuff. anway when i was reading it the parallels seemed pretty explicit.

yeah and while i do think there is a pretty heavy duty intelligence behind these movies, Malick does seem to have at the very least a complex relationship to kitsch and cliche.

yeah i'll agree w/that - it made The New World p hard for me to take, but its also possibly what made Badlands work

ryan you studied heidegger didnt you? have anything to add???

maybe you're referring to Simon Critchley's article on TTRL? http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n48critchley

I think if you wanted to do a Heideggerian reading of Malick as a whole, then the concept of gelassenheit is probably a good place to start. sort of a self-surrendering openness to God. The last lines of the TTRL come from an ancient christian poem: "And you have made all things new; you have showed me all things shining."

i really do feel he's of a piece with an american mystic tradition. Emerson, Whitman, Edwards, Henry James Sr., etc...

a friend of mine wrote a paper about kierkegaard and malick once, quite a good one i thought, let me see if i can find it

iirc malick was studying kiekegaard, heidegger and someone else (ntz? emerson?) at oxford before dropping out to make moving pictures

also regarding voice-overs, Heidegger's famous quote: "Language is the house of Being."

i bet kierkegaard would work too. I happened to be reading Emerson once right after seeing The New World and it opened up a lot to me.

but i can see how this type of textual exegesis is not to everyone's taste. and it's certainly worth pointing out that writers like Emerson and Whitman have a complicated relationship to kitsch too. and i think if that stuff repels you it's not some intellectual or spiritual lack on your part, and i get pretty annoyed with Malick-stans for that kind of thinking.

x-post: wittgenstein!

haha of course

emerson makes more sense to me as a critical framework but i might just be saying that b/c he and malick are both so AMERICAN and are so fascinated by america

Clemenza, I don't think we're on the same page wrt anything.

We do seem to disagree a lot on these threads. We've both seen enough films that I'm quite sure there are many films we agree on.

for sure (about emerson). there was some interesting chatter on twitter last night that revealed something i didnt know: that malick had a brother that committed suicide shortly after he left Texas for Oxford. some have read ToL as being pretty personal in that regard.

and some of the reviews make me think he's basically upping the ante on his usual dichotomy-driven style. instead of, say, a battle in WW2 and the indifference of the jungle we get a small family drama and the entire fucking cosmos.

tamtam was this the article youre talking abt?

tree of life sounds like the kind of thing charlie kaufman was sending up in adaptation (where cage starts his script at the beginning of time), but i dunno, if anyone could pull it off, it'd be malick.

One of Malick's more unexpected (to me, anyway) advocates in the '70s was John Simon. Simon loved Badlands and Days of Heaven--Badlands especially. He didn't have much use for Coppola, Scorsese, or Altman at the time, and if I remember his reviews correctly, there was an undercurrent of "Why aren't critics paying more attention to this guy?"

x-post: haha that's true but even Adaptation kinda seems like that movie at times. Malick is probably less given to self-doubt about it tho!

the times article i linked to above mentions the suicide--also has this quote about cliche:

From the start Mr. Malick has tried to find uses for voiceover that go against and beyond the traditional explanatory purpose. “When people express what is most important to them, it often comes out in clichés,” he said in a 1975 interview with Sight & Sound, referring to Sissy Spacek’s narration in “Badlands.” “That doesn’t make them laughable; it’s something tender about them.”

im struggling to remember my heidegger but this stikes me as an interesting inversion of "idle talk" which is made up of cliches and and doesnt open up being or whatever

yeah i agree. i think he expands on that bit about cliches by saying something about what's most personal comes out as what's most impersonal.

lamp - yep. there were a couple others too iirc

tho i think you'd have to distinguish early (Being and Time) and late Heidegger on that point about idle talk--the whole notion of "authenticity" goes out the window after Being and Time and i think Malick is probably more in line with that later stuff.

if you need to reread Heidegger to enliven his images, we're all in trouble.

esp for those of use who had to read it before we reread it.

Ebert on the film (not a review, really):

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/05/a_prayer_beneath_the_tree_of_l.html

does anyone know when this is coming to ny?

week from Friday

thanks!

Field trip?

I've just watched this movie and just wow, I loved it. I'd have an impossible time explaining why though. Quite a few people left during the movie, especially during the long stretch showing the big bang and leading upto the dinosaurs. The kids in this are amazing and made me wish I was 8 yrs old again, the shots are all lovely, the mother is insanely beautiful, I just loved this movie and really am kind of speechless as to why I loved it. This is definitely Malick's strangest film, clearly not as straight forward as his others. Also there is no way anyone could mistake this for anything but a Malick film, the opening 5 or so minutes are as Malickian as it can get with nature shots, trees in the wind with sunlight filtering through and a voiceover.

One important issue this thread has raised: Mailickian or Malicky? I like them both, but I'm leaning Malicky.

Koehler: Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life begins, all too appropriately, with a yolk-colored blob...

it's tough to read a very negative review of a movie you haven't seen but really want to love without wanting to snipe at the review.

HOWEVER: lots of that review seem poorly thought out. he's projecting an awful lot onto the movie and then faulting it for not conforming to that projection. It is impossibly hard, I find, to really persuasively talk about why a movie is bad, though. You have to convincingly demonstrate that the movie is failing at its own objectives. Which, if he isn't moved, I suppose it is.

but as i said above: i do think the issue of kitsch is very complex and something i havent gotten my own head around. there is a bias, i think, towards art that makes the "ugly" into something beautiful, and a revulsion towards anything that works in a language that a wide swath of people will find beautiful on its face. why? I'm not sure why, and I probably have that bias myself.

i do want to resist calling that revulsion to kitsch "puritanical" or even connecting it to an even older tradition of the anti-iconographic...

if you swapped kitsch for sentimental, i'd go with that, but it seems like a considered usage?

Aaaaand this movie gets the Palme d'Or

Who was on the jury this year?

De Niro was the president. And off the top of my head, Olivier Assayas, Uma Thurman, Johnny To, Martina Gusman, Jude Law and a few other people.

i'm a malick partisan, i suppose, but god this sounds fucking horrible. i'll be pleasantly surprised if it isn't. it basically sounds like he's isolated and amplified exactly those elements of his last two movies that i find most difficult to digest.

http://www.voicefilm.com/2011/05/cannes_2011_the_tree_of_life.php

ouch.

http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/film/1412699/cannes-2011-the-tree-of-life

Rooting around in Malick's bakery of Proustian madelines, it's impossible not to be moved. Almost as impossible, in fact, as not feeling like the coda, in which poor Sean Penn caps off a meditatively frowny (Pennsive?) turn by strolling around a beach with his loved ones, is merely one gigantic ad for Calvin Klein's Afterlife Aftershave (TM).

also, ebert's review is so earnest i don't want to knock it, but sheesh. i'll have what he's smoking, please.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2011/05/a_prayer_beneath_the_tree_of_l.html

Kinda hard to know what to expect at all from the (mostly positive yet bewildered) reviews so far. I do know that if a critic complains about "naive" or "on the nose" voiceovers I can file them away in the camp who isn't really ever gonna "get" a malick movie. And I don't mean that as a failing on their part but a matter of sensibility. Plus bashing on "new agers" = whatever.

I do know that if a critic complains about "naive" or "on the nose" voiceovers I can file them away in the camp who isn't really ever gonna "get" a malick movie

i suppose, but there is a distinct difference between the voice-covers in badlands/days of heaven and those in this later films. the voice overs are in fact one thing about thin red line (which i love) that i'm not sure what to do with. i don't like the way all the voices seem to be emanating from the same consciousness/persona (maybe this is malick making a philosophical point? if so it doesn't resonate w/ me nor does it "play") and frankly they rarely clash or harmonize w/ the visuals in as stimulating ways as in the 1st two films. just my $0.02.

count me, i suppose, as someone who is sympathetic to "new-age" bashing, at least if "new-age" implies a kind of gaseous "spirituality."

frankly i don't think that sort of thing is present in the 1st two films at all.

the negative reviews for 2001 spring to mind, reading these.

i don't want to ascribe motive (conscious or otherwise) to the reviews on a one-by-one basis, but i do think there's some kind of polarizing effect of all the intense anticipation. people seem to have a lot of investment in this being a masterpiece, or they were disappointed and that disappointment, in the fact of such massive expectations, translates to vitriol. that said, hoberman's review is pretty funny (as they often are).

xpost

which negative reviews of 2001 are you referring to? is there an example online?

I watched The Thin Red Line this morning for the first time since spring '99 and I had to restrain every impulse from turning off the film every time Jim Jesus Cavaziel or Ben Chaplin asked WHERE DOES LOVE COME FROM? intercut with images of dew on blowing grass.

from = to

(2001 is hardly unimpeachable IMO. but i should see it again before i shoot my mouth off.)

xpost

haha. i doesn't bother me that viscerally, but yeah. it gets worse in "new world" though doesn't it?

The negative reviews of this film almost make me want to see this even more. Malick reminds me of a little of a songwriter who puts out a weird record after decades of silence, and people are afraid to call it a masterpiece. Like the famous British review of Scott Walker's last album, that gave it a dual rating of one star and five stars. Malick is so consistently beautiful, earnest and provocative in the most gentle of manner that I innately distrust the haters. Like Ebert (I think), I'm a non-believer, but Malick at his best makes me at least humor the notion of a higher power. I can't hate on that.

x-post The voiceover in The Thin Red Line, btw, I did always take as the dialogue of a collective consciousness, something beyond/above the physical realm, as curious and confused as all the animals and, um, foliage. I mean, even that dead Japanese soldier gets a voiceover.

then why do they all have texan accents (except the dead jap)?

;-)

for one thing the voiceovers for badlands and days of heaven are pretty damn funny. malick seems to have forgotten that he ever had, or had a use for, a sense of humour.

which negative reviews of 2001 are you referring to? is there an example online?

― by another name (amateurist), Sunday, May 22, 2011 9:56 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://www.palantir.net/2001/meanings/essay05.html

for one thing the voiceovers for badlands and days of heaven are pretty damn funny. malick seems to have forgotten that he ever had, or had a use for, a sense of humour.

― jed_, Sunday, May 22, 2011 4:59 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

so fucking true. this goes x1000 if you've seen "deadhead miles," a totally bizarre trucker that malick wrote. i guess i can't fault him for not wanting his movies to be funny, but yeah it definitely dilutes the heady mix of sensations his first two films produce.

I might not like this movie, but I appreciate any film this ambitious and risky. They are the rarest kind of film.

It's probably true that like a lot of directors Malick cannot understand how humor is serious, or rather, can be used for serious purposes.

there are a few funny moments in thin red line, i suppose.

seriously though everybody should see deadhead miles (it's available on various torrent sites) and whatever you think of his last few films you really have to ask, what the hell happened to THIS terrence malick? he's kind of lost touch w/ the vernacular (speech and otherwise) since the 1970s.

well beyond humor, he seems to have lost his sense of irony too.

xp

i guess what we're really talking about is the difference between dave dudley (who wrote the songs for deadhead miles) and gorecki.

i need to see the film, of course, but it strikes me that manny farber's concept of "white elephant art" might be relevant here.

Masterpiece art, reminiscent of the enameled tobacco humidors and wooden lawn ponies bought at white elephant auctions decades ago, has come to dominate the overpopulated arts of TV and movies. Three sins of white elephant art are (1) frame the action with an all-over pattern, (2) install every event, character, situation in a frieze of continuities, and (3) treat every inch of the screen and film as a potential area for prizeworthy creativity.

An exemplar of white elephant art, particularly the critic-devouring virtue of filling every pore of the work with glinting, darting Style and creative Vivacity, is François Truffaut. Shoot The Piano Player and Jules Et Jim, two ratchety perpetual-motion machines devised by a French Rube Goldberg, the bladelike journalism of The 400 Blows.

The common quality or defect which unites apparently divergent artists like Antonioni, Truffaut, Richardson, is fear, a fear of the potential life, rudeness, and outrageousness of a film. Coupled with their storage vaults of self-awareness and knowledge of film history, this fear produces an incessant wakefulness.

The absurdity of La Notte and L’Avventura is that its director is an authentically interesting oddball who doesn’t recognize the fact. His talent is for small eccentric microscope studies, like Paul Klee’s, of people and things pinned in their grotesquerie to an oppressive social backdrop. Unlike Klee, who stayed small and thus almost evaded affectation, Antonioni’s aspiration is to pin the viewer to the wall and slug him with wet towels of artiness and significance.

how does Malick's love for Encino Man fit in here?

Holly:"The whole time, the only thing I did wrong was throwing out my fish when he got sick. Later I got a new one, but this incident kept on bothering me and I turned to Kit. "

Holly: "some of the stuff kit did was strange. For instance, he faked his signature whenever he used it, to keep other people from forging important papers with his name."

uhhhh where is the Style and Vivacity in Jules et Jim?

xp

Linda: "I've been thinking what to do with my future. I could be a mud doctor. Checkin' out the earth."

deadhead miles is also on nexflix instant watch but srsly it shouldnt be built up v much imo

I might not like this movie, but I appreciate any film this ambitious and risky. They are the rarest kind of film.

My feelings exactly. I go see his films, hope to like them, take what I can get. There are amazing images in the three-minute trailer I looked at; it's the other 135 minutes I'm wary of.

Rereading that whole Farber quote for the first time in ages, I'm amazed he cited Shoot the Piano Player as an example of what he meant. I've internalized white-elephant art (I make reference to it all the time) to mean William Wyler, Fred Zinnemann, George Stevens, etc., and I bet that's how most people interpret the concept. To me, Shoot the Piano Player is much closer to termite art. I can see Malick as half a white elephant--he's got a lot in common with George Stevens as far as addiction to the pictorial, but Malick seems too weird to fully count.

I must rewatch The New World. I don't remember so many moments of gobstruck banality.

Farber's theory works as taxonomy but not criticism. Lots of Truffaut films look like Wyler's!

deadhead miles is also on nexflix instant watch but srsly it shouldnt be built up v much imo

― johnny crunch, Sunday, May 22, 2011 5:15 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

really? i dunno, i like it a lot.

I see art in Shoot the Piano Player, not Artiness; I see significance, yes, but significance at the personal level, what the film means to me. Not Stanley Kramer significance.

huh?

Do you mean: I make my own judgments, not what Truffaut wants me to think -- as Stanley Kramer would do.

The later two films are def more consistent in tone.

As for voiceovers -- I think the issue of cliche was addresses above. But also the issue in the later films reminds of me "Song of Myself" -- it's localized and not localized. And thus "who is speaking" can kinda only be answered as maybe language itself. Sorta like Emerson's constant invocations of the impersonal (and the personal, the most personal, becoming the most impersonal).

As for vacuous spirituality--I dont think the yearnings these things express are vacuous, tho their expression may be.

I've seen hardly any Truffaut films past Small Change, and probably shouldn't speculate, but it looks as if he ended up making white-elephant art, so maybe Farber detected something early on that other critics missed. But I do think he's way off on Piano Player. I'm less of a Jules and Jim fan...back to Malickyanism.

xpost: Yes. Kramer clubs you over the head with significance.

Farber's theory works as taxonomy but not criticism. Lots of Truffaut films look like Wyler's!

― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, May 22, 2011 5:18 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

agreed. you can argue with the particular assessments (i like truffaut's early stuff a lot, and think the antonioni criticisms stick better), and obviously movies don't necessarily fall into one category or another, but i think it's a useful concept, especially as a kind of critical corrective.

but farber was always a weird critic.

I mean, any film (or art) you love is going to have significance for you, right? That seems a given. There's significance, and there's Significance. There's Germfree Adolescents, and there's The Joshua Tree.

deadhead miles is also on nexflix instant watch but srsly it shouldnt be built up v much imo

― johnny crunch, Sunday, May 22, 2011 5:15 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

really? i dunno, i like it a lot.

― by another name (amateurist), Sunday, May 22, 2011 6:20 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

idk maybe i just couldnt get past alan arkin doing what sounds like a bill cosby impersonation the entire movie. it has a few nice moments

I'd rather watch Wyler's Bette Davis movies than any four Godard films tbh.

idk maybe i just couldnt get past alan arkin doing what sounds like a bill cosby impersonation the entire movie. it has a few nice moments

― johnny crunch, Sunday, May 22, 2011 5:29 PM (1 second ago) Bookmark

i think it's actually a terrence malick impression!! (btw i have seen TM speak in person, so i should have Instant Credibility on this thread)

Frankly I'd just like to have a drink with Malick and talk about birds and the universe and shit. There movies are the closest I'm gonna get!

I like Wyler too--didn't meant to suggest otherwise. (Though I'd go with the four Godard films...even though four's close to the exact number I like.)

Malick's definitely lost his sense of humor, or at least given in to his sense of the absurd, which is undercut by his earnestness. Like, there's irony, too, but at least in "The Thin Red Line" it can come off facile. I'll given him credit, though, for his war is hell contrasts in a service that sort of posits war as literally hell.

depends which godards and which wylers. i'd rather watch the heiress than made in usa, but i'd rather watch hail mary than the collector.

what was this thread about?

we wondered where love came from

lol. maybe my weakness for malick is that I, too, am the type to earnestly ask ridiculously big questions like that. i do wonder those things!

the no sense of humor charge is probably one of the most apt criticisms...which is strange because isn't it well known he loves Zoolander? ha.

I do think there is, for the most part, strong justification for most of the other stuff people find off-putting about the films. and sometimes I even think a little bit of that initial discomfort is intentional. for what it's worth, after many many views, I find the voiceovers in TTRL to be pretty powerful (and a lot smarter than they seem at first).

thanks for posting that Farber quote, amateurist. It is sorta strange that Malick produces "white elephant" art through termite means. if you believe his collaborators he basically writes big detailed scripts and then tosses them out the window as they go.

Malick is someone who'd actually devote a whole film to white elephants and termites. I can almost envision the beautiful images, sonorous narration, and obscure meanings right now.

ryan: i'm not sure you can distinguish between termite and elephant methods, though.

yeah you're right. i dunno im sure im over thinking it, but his style does seem to complicate the distinction. his images are somehow either totally overdetermined or basically random pretty shots of nature. i guess i think for me the big breakthrough wasnt taking the voiceovers as thematic guides to the film--they dont really impose any top-down meaning on the images. again, just thinking out loud here.

I don't think the nature shots are ever random.

that's the advantage of shooting a trillion feet of film.

they dont really impose any top-down meaning on the images.

i'm extremely curious to see if this is the case w/ the tree of life. it sounds based on some reviews that the voice overs do serve, in part, as a kind of "key" to the themes and polarities of the film.

yeah for sure.

i think in TTRL it is really important that the "main" voiceover (Pvt. Train) is from a character with very, very little screen time. he's the most "disembodied" but it's still important that the voice come from a character actually "in" the movie, however peripherally. maybe a directorial stand-in. but even that convention is abandoned in The New World.

some reviews have complained that Tree of Life voiceovers are often so low in the mix they are barely audible, which strikes me as an interesting choice.

and reports that the end of Tree of Life is silly sorta scare me because i think the one thing you can't really quibble with are the final movements of both The Thin Red Line and The New World. I find both incredibly powerful.

has anyone read the original James Jones novel, by the way? Malick elided an explicit homosexual relationship between the Adrien Brody character and another private.

disregarding the whole "straining for profundity" thing w/r/t this, the key problem is surely that brad pitt is in it.

and that he's playing the father of sean penn. and this just doesn't make any sense to me.

Less than Robert De Niro as Al Pacino's father?

yep.

They seem pretty comparable to me--weird at first, but in the context of the film, I likely won't give it a second thought.

you guys did get a load of this atrocity, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOgF4xrx_h0&feature=player_embedded

Phoebe Cates playing Jennifer Jason Leigh's mother, now that I'd have a problem with.

disregarding the whole "straining for profundity" thing w/r/t this, the key problem is surely that brad pitt is in it.

― jed_, Sunday, May 22, 2011 11:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

If Malick can wring a good performance (through editing) out of Gere...

I watched Internal Affairs last night--I think Gere's pretty excellent in that (in, admittedly, the kind of bad-guy role actors thrive on).

That's all he can play; still one of his three or four best roles.

Malick elided the Adrien Brody character in TTRL, Alfred.

Yep, I have no idea what Manny Farber is talking 'bout.

has anyone read the original James Jones novel, by the way?

i remember i had an english teacher who was pretty infuriated at the way malick treated the original story.

farber's preferred way to watch a movie, apparently, was to enter the theater at random times, leave after a few minutes, and then repeat for different showings until he'd seen 'enough.'

think i will be catching this at the cinearts in palo alto in late june

criterion is offering 50% off malick movies with promo code NATURE through tonight

lol

it's not a joke!

will be rewatching those in honor this week

This article has some interesting stuff in it, apparently he was at Cannes:
http://theenvelope.latimes.com/news/la-ca-terrence-malick-20110522,0,3242187.story

Anthony Lane:

When the father goes away on a long trip, the boys relax into near-Oedipal bliss, tended by a mother whose principles, as she intones them, are almost comically drained of sternness: “Love everyone. Love every leaf, every ray of light.” Not that there is any comedy here, and Nabokov’s knowing remark that only one letter divides the comic from the cosmic would touch no chord in Malick. Instead, he conjures a singular blend of the prim and the pantheistic, and “The Tree of Life” remains not just a joke-free zone but nervous of bodies that misbehave. No sex intrudes, although there is an extraordinary sequence in which the first promise of sex flushes Jack’s brow, like a fever, as he raids a neighbor’s bedroom and rifles through her lingerie. Yet, even here, when he holds her nightgown up to the light, like a celestial robe, then steals it and floats it downriver, you want to bow to the beauty of the images and, at the same time, to take the director aside and say, “Terry, I hate to break it to you, but that’s not all that pubescent boys like to do.”

!

anthony lane: always cynical

that snipped makes me more excited to see the film.

well, he does cautiously recommend it.

I'm not much of an Anthony Lane fan, but when I first became aware of Tree of Life's large ambitions, the words "Kael bait" popped into my mind. Kael bait generally = Lane bait, and that's about all he managed to inherit from her...Basically, he's just being Manny being Manny, which is not to say I won't feel the same way when I see the film.

i'm a sucker for gentle, slow, uncynical films: i'm thinking this sounds a bit like a Texan version of 'Yi Yi'

Generally, but not as an article of faith, I don't like to "immerse" myself in movies: I'm arguing with them every frame, which I can't do with visual splendor for its own sake.

i'm thinking this sounds a bit like a Texan version of 'Yi Yi'

I know what you mean but Malick trades in the impressionistic in a way that Yang never did. Yang's shots were always very clear-eyed, very concrete. Unflinching.

i definitely agree with a more dialectical approach to film, but sometimes i think that the structure itself can be the substance of thea film's argument. i remember watching Béla Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies a few years ago and being absolutely, totally, infuriated with its glacial pace and lack of, well, anything at all. but something about the shape of that film acted to madden me so much; it wasn't just a pretty meditation, it was actively, aggressively, pointedly dullsville. and based on what i've read of Tree of Life, and what I know of Malick, i'm significantly persuaded that there is substance behind the lush dreaminess, and i'm hopeful that the 'prayerlike' structure i've heard mentioned can be like an active, directed point of view that does talk back to a viewer.

but who knows. will see it on saturday in nyc

what Tracer said

wasn't yang's last film supposed to be an animated thing with jackie chan?

wtf is tree of life who is terrene malick

Your mom.

o

terrine mackeral is like a fantastic drag name

First Anthony Lane complains about the lack of sex in "The Incredibles." Now he complains about the lack of sex in "Tree of Life." Dude needs sex.

I dunno: when I'm getting sex, I want my friends to get it too.

Lane is looking for sex in all the wrong places. "What's clearly missing from 'Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon' is even the slightest glimmer of the reproductive realities of robots. After all, these giant humanoid machines didn't build themselves. Maybe 'Transformers 4' will give a glimmer of how these galaxy-travelling gods occupy their time in the loneliness of outer space."

I haven't seen it but I'm 99% sure that he wants a bit of human messiness and comedy and deprecation, just the awkwardness of being human but yes, Malick is not a big one for those things

Save it for David Gordon Green, Lane.

we can't all be herzog

I don't like to "immerse" myself in movies: I'm arguing with them every frame

That's succinct; but immersion is so important, even though it can't be all you do. I'm not going to ponder this, but I think it's a really key distinction about how people deal w/ art.

When I'm really connecting with a film, I lean heavily in the direction of immersion. If I'm arguing with the film, it's probably already lost me. But that's not categorical. There are some films I like that confound me and interest me and make sure I don't immerse myself in them. Jeanne Dielman is an obvious example...although I'm sure there are people who immerse themselves in even that.

i prefer 'immersion' at the time of watching and sorting out my thoughts afterward. i have a hard time with films that actively repel immersion, which is probably why i've always found it hard to love most of godard.

Humour creates that critical distance, which can make immersion trickier. w/ Badlands, Sheen is mediated through Spacek & she addresses you politely, & it makes the film more conversational, polite, easy & sometimes funny. w/ the Thin Red Line you have this big swirling island of intense emotional outburst & need breathing straight into your ear all the time trying to get your attention. In that & the New World ppl are lost in the environment, they are completely immersed, and it seems like a failure to deal w/ them on their terms to want to try to argue w/ them from the off. it's not how the film works.

i don't even know what "immersion" is. seriously. what is it?

http://tattoo.falbepublishing.com/pot_leaf_tattoo.jpg

It can only happen at films like Titanic and Jaws, films where there's lots of water...It's kind of a vague concept, but I guess it means that you're so wrapped up in the film, you lose that distance of "I'm here watching a movie"--you go wherever it takes you, and you stop questioning every last point of veracity. It becomes more like listening to music than watching a film.

i'm a sucker for gentle, slow, uncynical films: i'm thinking this sounds a bit like a Texan version of 'Yi Yi'

― remy bean, Monday, May 23, 2011 6:42 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

...Yang's shots were always very clear-eyed, very concrete. Unflinching.

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Monday, May 23, 2011 6:58 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

tracer OTM. earthy matter-of-factness really helps the gentle, slow and uncynical medicine go down. likewise "messiness and comedy and deprecation, just the awkwardness of being human." these absences do keep me at some distance from malick, but i once loved badlands and days of heaven enough to manage some tentative excitement about this.

"immersion" or immersive experience is something immediate, vast, impersonal just to contrast w/ more critically distanced, psychological 'dialogue' style shit. at least I think that's how alfred is using it.

I used Merriam-Webster's definition: "absorbing involvement."

but I guess it means that you're so wrapped up in the film, you lose that distance of "I'm here watching a movie"-

really? does one ever really forget they're watching a movie? i can't imagine that taking place, unless the person was (a) cognitively deficient or (b) on mind-blowing amounts of psychotropic drugs.

ok, i guess i kind of get what you're saying, but i think our levels or types of engagement w/ a movie are very complex and in constant flux, so i generally dislike immersion/distance polarities.

really? does one ever really forget they're watching a movie? i can't imagine that taking place, unless the person was (a) cognitively deficient or (b) on mind-blowing amounts of psychotropic drugs.

truth

I haven't taken a psychotropic drug in any quantity for at least six or seven years, so I must be cognitively deficient!

it's funny i think this immersion/analysis distinction is sorta on point with Malick. I would be open to an idea of immersion that was like "oh wow look at that tree" rather than "oh that tree signifies blah blah blah"--meaning i actually find that tension to be kinda the point of the movies in the phenomenological sense.

I suspect the cognitively deficient Kael experienced something similar watching Nashville:

"...you don't get drunk on images, you're not overpowered--you get elated. I've never before seen a movie I loved in quite this way: I sat there smiling at the screen, in complete happiness. It's a pure emotional high, and you don't come down when the picture is over; you take it with you."

On the other hand, she may have been flying on mushrooms.

understand why one would object to the dichotomy, as we're rarely wholly "immersed," entirely losing the sense that we're merely watching a film. otoh, complete emotional/experiential distancing from a film is fairly common, at least for me, so the use of immersion vs. distance makes good sense. some films fail in failing to draw the viewer into the moment, especially those that depend on suspense and/or other forms of emotional investment, while others work quite well absent such seductions.

i've been "immersed" in tarkovsky films: never inhabiting the film's reality, but lulled into a trace-like state the images seem to wash over me and i momentarily lose sense of where they come from and what they might mean. i've been immersed in horror films, especially at the moment where something terrible is about to happen - my muscles knot and i feel sick to my stomach. one of the most profound immersion/not-immersion experiences i recall came at the end of adolf von trier's breaking the waves, where i was at once detached from and aware of from the film's manipulative mechanisms, and at the same time overwhelmed with grief and anger due to my emotional immersion in the "reality" of onscreen events. hats off to that, cuz it's quite a trick.

that's very true about von trier i think. and for malick it's often the very hard question of what does nature signify--or can it signify.

Kael's review of Nashville -- her approach and its substance -- is not one of my favorites. I only approach immersion when I'm rewatching a favorite.

"...you don't get drunk on images, you're not overpowered--you get elated. I've never before seen a movie I loved in quite this way: I sat there smiling at the screen, in complete happiness. It's a pure emotional high, and you don't come down when the picture is over; you take it with you."

this is a wonderful description of a kind of cinematic immersion, kael OTM. often feel this way when first watching the films i will wind up loving best, from i don't want to sleep alone to bande a part.

I'm headed out, but for what it's worth: I don't literally forget I'm watching a film--I don't metaphysically enter the space of the movie like Buster Keaton in Sherlock Jr. A little bit of artistic license...I do experience something close to what Kael and contenderizer describe above.

Approaching Immersion: there's the title of your book.

Kael's review of Nashville -- her approach and its substance -- is not one of my favorites. I only approach immersion when I'm rewatching a favorite.

is a wonderful description of a kind of cinematic immersion, kael OTM. often feel this way when first watching the films i will wind up loving best

kind of an interesting that you both associated that feeling with repeat viewings, isn't kael famous for never watching anything more than once?

the ebert article kinda made me want to see this, I didn't before

Kael is usually better when she hates stuff. Many of her De Palma reviews aren't particularly convincing.