Let's start with the big picture: As near as I can divine, Terrence Malick's movie "The Tree of Life" is about itself, and that statement probably sounds as confounding and imposing as viewers will find the experience (as a whole or in part) of watching it. What I mean (if I can take another flying leap at it) is that the movie expresses the drive behind its creation, somewhat like the way that "Days of Heaven" embodies the peeling and unfurling process of its own making... but, OK, not exactly. This is a movie about (and by) a guy who wants to create the universe around his own existence in an attempt to locate and/or stake out his place within it.
In other words, it's not a modest motion picture. The ambition on display here is Tarkovskian¹ or Kubrickian in scale: think "Solaris," "Stalker," "The Sacrifice," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Barry Lyndon" -- journeys to the far reaches of space and time that are also explorations of worlds within: memories, desires, fantasies, the exercise of will and intelligence. What it comes down to, then, is that "The Tree of Life" is the story of one family (and one filmmaker) projected infinitely outward in all dimensions. (3D is so trifling, comparatively.)
The multiple narrators whispering in our ears are sometimes (but not always) identifiable as members of the O'Brien family, with the strongest voice being that of Jack (Hunter McCracken), eldest of three sons of Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain). Jack is also played as an adult by Sean Penn. The family's story isn't told chronologically, but covers umpteen billion years, give or take, from the origin of the universe to the dissolution of our solar system, with most of the action taking place in Waco, Texas, in 1956 or thereabouts, when Jack is around 11. (I got some of those factoids from the press notes, some from other published material about the film. Consider them guideposts. They may or may not be literally true, and Malick isn't particularly interested in nailing down these kinds of specifics within the film itself -- including the names of all the O'Briens, some of which can be found only in the end credits. But it helps to have a few solid points of reference on hand when discussing the movie.)
I'm spending considerable time up-front here trying to suggest approaches for finding your bearings in "The Tree of Life" (although you really should see it first if you're going to continue reading). Before describing how the movie is structured (or, at least, strung together -- perhaps in some semblance of sonata form [Mr. O'Brien is an amateur pianist and fan of Toscanini's Brahms], or perhaps closer to stream-of-consciousness) -- it's worth noting that the movie could be synopsized in any number of ways that are fairly accurate, but not mutually exclusive. One way of looking at it would be to say that it involves Jack looking back over his life (and life itself), his earliest memories to adulthood, as he attempts to reckon with the forces that shaped him -- including his father, his mother, his brothers (especially the one who died)... and God, evolution, nature.
Or: "The Tree of Life" is the history of the universe in two hours and 18 minutes (though there may be a six-hour cut on the way), and it is solipsistic in the way of a child's (or an artist's) consciousness, conceiving of all existence as an extension of itself. That's not necessarily a criticism, but a description of the film's audacious endeavor. As a child, like every other child, Jack imagines himself and his family to be the center of the universe. He envisions his own actions as the cause of forces that are beyond his capacity to comprehend. And the questions he and others ask in hushed voiceover, which appear to be about the nature of God ("Where are you?" "Do you see me?" "How did I lose you?") are perhaps more directly probing the nature of the strict, judgmental, loving, angry, pedantic, temperamental Old Testament patriarch at the dinner table²: his father, the man who speaks about himself in the third person ("Do you love your father?" he says, testing and manipulating his son) and insists his boys address him as "father" (and "sir") -- but never as "dad." (The bible does not speak of "The Dad, the Son and the Holy Spirit.") Not that Jack, or anyone else, is consciously likening the earthly father to the heavenly one. That's just the way it is. Both are seemingly arbitrary and capricious creator-destroyers who work in mysterious and serpentine ways, who love and have good intentions but whose will also appears judgmental and cruel.
If the kids' bad behavior brings down the wrath of their father (even if they don't entirely understand what they did, or why they feel guilty, or how he can know the secret forbidden thoughts they harbor), then does God punish people the same way? The Oedipal conflict at the heart of "The Tree of Life" doesn't just involve Jack and his tyrannical father and saintly mother (both loving, both inscrutable -- sharing the same flesh and blood, but inescapably separate, Other), but the story of humankind. Like I said, it's a movie with unbounded aspirations.
"The Tree of Life" begins with an epigraph ("Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Job 38:4") and a glow in the darkness -- a Genesis image, perhaps, that could be cosmic or the unfocused light of a candle (or a flashlight), shaded by a human hand. (For the purposes of the movie, it doesn't much matter which.) Soon, after a mix of ruminative, philosophical voiceovers of the sort we've come to expect from latter-day Malick, a telegram arrives, informing Mrs. O'Brien of the death of her son. Again, we don't know any details, or even which son. Eventually it seems it must have been R.L. (Laramie Eppler), the one Jack seems to be closest to and the one who looks most uncannily like his father. At some point we (over-)hear that the boy was 19 years old when he died.
A man (recognizable as Sean Penn) wakes up in a house that looks like an updated, multi-leveled extension of the old Craftsman O'Brien house (thank you again, Jack Fisk). He is the adult Jack, an architect who spends much of his time wandering through towering glass-and-steel crystal structures,³ often talking to another disembodied voice (his wife? his father?) on a cell phone. He appears troubled, overcome with worry and guilt.
From the moment of the telegram's arrival "The Tree of Life" immerses itself in the process of mourning, not just for the dead son/brother, but for the lives these people (perhaps all people) wanted to live but couldn't, or didn't know how to. The narrative is presented impressionistically -- and, until the fragmented series of 1950s domestic scenes that dominate the middle part of the film, largely without dialog. It's as if the characters' words are drowned out by their grief, only partly intelligible, and in their trances they move through rooms and streets like the ghosts of silent movie actors, staggering, kneeling, grasping, caressing.
As in all of Malick's films, the photography (this time by Emmanuel Lubezki, who also shot "The New World") is striking, at times overwhelming, in its luminous beauty. But while the images -- of faces, bodies, clothes, rooms, rivers, trees, skies, landscapes -- are burnished and idealized, cleansed of extraneous elements, they're also grounded in specific observations. Malick's concerns are beyond verisimilitude (he's no realist) but he wants to create places that feel inhabitable.
I found "The Tree of Life" fascinatingly inhabitable for a little under two and a half hours, but apart from what I've said, I can't hazard an assessment of how or if I think it all comes together. The first time through, I was just sitting in the dark trying to get some sense of its overall shape. That may not be entirely possible... without starting over again at the beginning of time, but it's worth a shot. I look forward to seeing it again, especially to see if I can catch a few things, perhaps insignificant, that I'm not sure I saw or heard the first time. (Even from the second row of Seattle's Fabulous Egyptian Theater, I couldn't make out a lot of what was spoken, on-screen or off-, the words were so deeply embedded in the sound mix.)
Some of the things I'm wondering about are just practical matters: What was Jack apologizing for on the phone to his father ("I shouldn't have said it...")? I know Jack shared screen space with his younger self in the desert (and with his father by the sea), but does it happen earlier, in his house or his parents'? Jack, who's a little older than the rambunctious neighborhood boys we see him with as they go on the prowl through the alleys, throwing rocks and smashing windows, seems to feel as guilty about strapping the frog to the model rocket ("It was an experiment!") as he does about stealing a woman's negligee. Doesn't Mr. O'Brien say something earlier about "an experiment"? Where does the third son disappear to for long stretches of time? Who is the kid with the burns (?) on the back of his head? When his mother tells Jack never to "do it again," is she referring to a particular incident (shooting his brother's finger with the air rifle? the windows? the nightgown?), or is it deliberately ambiguous? What is the name of that picture book with the serpent -- the same one Linda peruses in "Days of Heaven"? What is going on when that large creature puts its foot on the smaller creature and then almost seems to stroke it? Would the six-hour version clarify some of these things? Would "Tree of Life" improve as a mini-series?
I have so many questions...
- - - - -
¹ I've seen some critics insist that one should not compare Malick movies to other films and filmmakers -- or, at least, not attribute "influence" to them, because Malick ostensibly doesn't think in those terms. And, in fact, I don't mean to say that Tarkovsky or Kubrick directly or indirectly influenced "The Tree of Life." But I can't help but notice that the repeated image of the sea grass waving in the current is very much like a few shots in "Solaris" (a film about a scientist who travels to a distant planet only to come face-to-face with his own past), perhaps because it suggests the flow of life through time.
² Even some of Mrs. O'Brien's voiceovers are ambiguous in this respect, and might also be addressed to the father of her children: "How did you come to me? In what shape, what disguise?" (She might also be talking about the serpent there.)
³ These, I later learned, were shot in downtown Houston, Texas.
Above: A shot from the opening sequence of Andrei Tarkovsky's "Solaris" (1972).
48 Comments
It may not be Malick's most perfect or coherent film, but it's fast becoming my favorite. For the sheer ambition of the whole and for the remarkable achievement of the Waco section, an evocation of 1950s American childhood that meets or surpasses anything I've ever read in literature.
For me, the closest cousins in film history are Tarkovsky's MIRROR made out of intensely personal memory fragments and Terence Davies' DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES, which is probably the closest thing I've seen in film to a James Joyce stream-of-consciousness. And for the "birth of the cosmos" sequence the films of Stan Brakhage.
I screened THE NEW WORLD and THE THIN RED LINE again recently and felt that, in retrospect, Malick has been straining to find a new cinematic language for the last couple films and that with THE TREE OF LIFE he's finally found both the right things to express and the best way to envision them.
For all of the Kubrick and Tarkovsky comparisons, this is not a difficult film or an especially cerebral viewing experience. It's more visceral, like music.
The flow of shots and images and all of the beautiful moving camerawork and the speed of the transitions from moment to moment are at the service of the deliberately fragmented and elliptical narrative style. And all that motion and cutting -- unlike the frenetic motion and exhausting speed in so many other contemporary films -- creates a deeply immersive mood that stays with you hours, even days afterward.
I have watched "Tree of Life" twice now. The first time I thought it was one of the best films I had seen in years and on the second viewing, I realized I had grossly underestimated it. It is a radically different experience on a second viewing because it is so hard to SEE, just plain SEE, what is on screen on a first messy pass.
I'm still feeling my way through my review, which is difficult to write because the film has gotten so on top off and inside me that articulation is a challenge. But a few reactions to your comments and some random ones of my own:
1) Yes, the Solaris connection is clear as you can see from the ending of Tarkovsky's film. There is even a shot in Tree of Life where the house is filmed from a different angle than we see otherwise, as if high on a hill and all alone in the universe. The final shot in Solaris is from a high angle not a low angle and the Tree shot doesn't pull out so far (unless you count waiting for the cosmic sequences), but I couldn't help but make a connection. Search for "Solaris ending" on YouTube and you might think you're watching snippets of "Tree."
2) The film has epistemology on the brain. The loss of innocence that is so obviously a theme is not just a matter of being expelled from Eden (the home, being separated from an angelic mom) or the end of childhood, but the loss of an innocence of vision. The birth to childhood sequence is a series of lessons in how to see (the hand in the fishbowl - oh how I love that shot), how to read, how to speak (its first climax is the first word we hear Jack speak) and the theme is picked up with him learning about "No!" and "Mine!" and then dad's relentless attempts to define the world for Jack: don't cross this line, etc. I was reminded of "Kaspar Hauser" whose tragedy is the "deforming" process of acculturation. When Kaspar is introduced to the world we see images from his perspective, blurry and off-axis: he hasn't learned what's "important" to look at so literally SEES differently than most people, but he is taught how to see "properly." I think one of the key lines in Tree is Jack's plea to God: "I want to see what you see." Does that mean seeing from completely alien, indifferent perspective that also doesn't know what's important? Jack to God again: "You let anything happen."
In a film that asks "How can I know you?" the process of knowing (as opposed to, as you say, a child's sense of perception) is a traumatic, if necessary, one. Even worse as Jack learns how useless words can be. Plus seeing all the S**t My Dad Says for what it is.
3) The film is disorienting on a visual level because of the gliding camera and surprisingly rapid editing, but it's pretty on the nose narratively. Adult Jack says "I see that child that I was" and boom we get our first (clear) shot of young Jack. When Jack asks "How did I lose you?" it's not initially clear who he's referring to (maybe God) but then we hear his brother whisper "Find me." After the second meteor hits a now-cooled earth, we see roiling water and then hear the echoes of funereal bells heard in the first scene. A random death from the sky matching a random death to start the film. There are many similar echoes that become clear on a 2nd viewing. And, of course, the theme is laid out plain as day for you in the early narration about nature vs. grace.
4) Did I hear the faint sound of office phones ringing during a couple of the 50s scenes (esp one where mom's hanging the laundry) or was I hallucinating or maybe misunderstanding a distant bird call? I'm not sure.
5) Is that mom greeting son as he rises from the grave at the end of the world?
6) I think Jack's apology to his father is for something that happens in between the time frames shown. I was keeping an eye out for it the second time and it sounds like an apology for something both recent and that isn't depicted.
7) I had a screenwriting teacher who crossed out an adverb in my script, telling me "Everything in a movie happens suddenly." Everything in Tree happens "Now" and there's a nowness to each shot (no matter the time frame) that I'm not sure I've ever seen before. I realize that may sound like nonsense to some people. I'm still working out why I feel that.
8) The movie isn't subtle. But subtlety is not an inherent virtue. I love everything about it. Every second.
Thanks, Chris -- you've given me some terrific guideposts for my second viewing. I remember that shot of the house all alone in the universe, but couldn't recall the context in the film. Looking forward to a second immersion...
Nothing as extensive as C. Long's but a pair of random thoughts that did drift through my head
1) What a shock to see a modern cityscape in a Malick film (unless I am mistaken these are the first such moments in any of his films) and as representative of that the recurring musical ping as the elevator glides from floor to floor in Jack's building, light years away from the classical music on the record player
2) I don't know if I have ever seen childhood play captured as well as I have here. The first moments of all three O'Brien sons playing in the field together, with the camera pushed in so tight. It was as if they would be playing like that even if this wasn't a film. A later moment that glides through the various levels of activity on a playground felt like a perfectly orchestrated ballet of adolescent movement.
Am looking forward to a 2nd and further viewings.
The epigraph is truncated; it's stitched together from Job 38:4 and 38:7: "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth....when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" The exuberance seems to me as important as the admonishment, both the father demanding rigidity at the dinner table and the mother running through the house, feet gleefully slapping on hard wood, being aspects of the divine.
With only one viewing I don't have any kind of handle or surety on what Malick's up to, but patterns keep repeating themselves from cosmic to cramped domesticity. If that riverbank where the dinosaurs have their strange display of dominance isn't the same one where mother lounges of a summer day (and near where brother tempts brother to suffer the sting of a bb), it's close enough. The swirling, spiral microbes early in life's journey on earth seem to reappear as some kind of screw device in dad's journal. A mother's grief unleashes a waterfall, all roar and foam.
Is Malick arguing that as above, so below? Or only connect? Probably just what mother advises, love everything, arguably a succinct restatement of both of those principles.
I've more questions than you, but think I can help out with a couple.
"I know Jack shared screen space with his younger self in the desert (and with his father by the sea), but does it happen earlier, in his house or his parents'?"
Penn hovers in the scene when his father attempts to console his wife over the loss of their son.
"Who is the kid with the burns (?) on the back of his head?"
A neighborhood pal whose house apparently burns down; there's a brief shot of a burning door and then one of him staring at a smoldering pile.
Thanks, Bruce. I thought there was more to the epigraph, but I wasn't taking notes on this, my first time through. I love the exuberance in that scene where the boys learn their father is away for a while and they all start running about with their mom...
Another film that came to mind while I was watching Tree of Life is Patricio Guzman's most recent one, Nostalgia de la luz (Nostalgia for the Light). Although the juxtapositions of cosmic imagery and human activity in the Atacama desert are motivated by the presence of giant telescopes and the traces of the Pinochet's crimes, the movement between them also intertwines the most vast of questions (what are we? why are we here?) and the most individual acts of memory (where are the bones of my kin?). Having just seen Guzman's film at a festival, Tree of Life made a similar kinds of sense to me. In both, the story is as much about light itself (and envisioning the unseeable) as it is about the span of a human life and how we try to make meaning out of it.
Thank you for this very insightful account of your virgin viewing of THE TREE OF LIFE.I find it quite apropos that your reflection mirrors the film's 'stream of consciousness' prose. I first screened the film at the Cannes Film Festival. The reception of the audience was rather mercurial, a few standing ovations, mixed with tepid applause and several virulent responses. Personally, I was incredibly moved and overwhelmed by it.
I concur with the observation that the core of the narrative is rather straightforward but the overarching texture of the film is indubitably complex.
I agree with your point that Malick is not a realist. He certainly incorporates impressionistic flourishes. Nevertheless, I feel that all of his films, THE NEW WORLD and THE TREE OF LIFE in particular, evoke a phenomenological air, an atmospheric depth. Everything seems tangible, tactile, lived in.
There is a plethora of themes you can explore in the film. For the sake of simplicity, I view it as one man's examination of his life and an attempt to reconcile conflicting emotions, memories and sentiments. I understand that the film is not as easily classifiable but this particular reading resonated deeply with me.
Again, thank you for sharing!
Jim, I think the shot you refer to where "that large creature puts its foot on the smaller creature and then almost seems to stroke it" is a huge shot in terms of establishing one of the threads of the film: the "way of grace." Note that the shot of those two dinosaurs is the final scene in the long sequence of the origins of the universe. Malik basically traces everything that happened from the big bang up until (presumably) the very first moment that one creature has true mercy on another. The healthy dinosaur stalks the the smaller one, places its foot on it, realizing that it has power to kill if it wants, and instead it decides to let it live. That is the final shot before cutting back to the 1950's thread.
To keep in line with the 2001 comparisons, I believe that Malick is crafting a sequence similar to the opening sequence of the monkeys, where we are able to witness for the very first time a monkey realizing that objects can be used as tools. Malick, I think, was showing the "way of nature" for millions and millions of years before ending the sequence with the very first instance of the "way of grace."
Also, this scene is echoed later in the film. After R.L. has trusted Jack and Jack shoots him with the b.b. gun, there is a scene where Jack is apologizing in their room. Jack apologizes and gives R.L. a piece of wood and offers to let R.L. hit him if he wants, and we believe that Jack is sincere in his offer. He seems to be so genuinely sorry that he is willing to take that punishment. After R.L. fake swings, bringing the board to Jack's face (echoing the dinosaur who tries and then realizes he has complete control over the weaker dinosaur), he relents, puts his hand on Jack's head (just like the dinosaur), and then takes it off, forgiving his brother.
I appreciate your reading -- I didn't recall where that scene occurred in the film. That's what seemed to be happening, but I wasn't sure how to read the long pause and the foot movement. From a reptile? That's what I found hard to accept. It seemed like sentimental anthropomorphism to me, perhaps because of the direction of the "actors." I think it needed to be quicker: Stomp. "You're weak. I've got you down. You're no threat. I'm outta here." Perhaps if it had involved a different (warm-blooded) species...
I really like that idea, Carlton, especially re: the idea of influence in this post. To connect benevolence and "grace" to something even more primordial that Kubrick's tool-enhanced violence (ultraviolence?) something more reptile, is, I think, a pretty graceful move, and a very nice insight on your part. Impressionistic? I'd imagine it's very much so. I'm no dinosaur expert, haven't been since I was 7, but I doubt this moment of mercy could be justified in any way that connects to reality. The idea, though, that pardon is more primal (there in the reptile brain so often blamed for everything foul) than the violence of the definitively human brain (in 2001) is a very nice one, embodied, maybe, by the mother, by Jack's apology to his father, which I assumed was for some pretty recent outburst, by the hugs in Eternity, and so on and so on.
Cool reading, thanks a lot
It's interesting that you see that scene as one of compassion and mercy. I saw it as the exact opposite. I thought that the healthy dinosaur stomped on the other one's head even though he had no interest in eating him, an act of pure cruelty. I read it as a display of the cruelty of Nature. "I have no interest in eating you, and you're not a threat, but I'm going to show my dominance over you and leave."
I thought the raptor scene was quite significant, and I do believe that it demonstrated an act of mercy. But the act was not a spontaneous one committed by the raptor; in fact the raptor was reacting to the pathetically feeble writhing of the smaller dino. It is a voluntary act of compassion, yes, but it's evoked by pure sympathy. Why is this important to the message of the film? I'm not sure -- an obvious place to look is in the relationship of Mr O'Brien to his sons; he certainly has ultimate power over them. Does he ever have a moment when his perception is "reframed", and instead of acting out of his own anger/need for control, instead sees one (or more) of his sons as the small and relatively weak beings they are? (I don't know the answer - I'll have to wait for my second viewing.)
In addition to the scene in which the brother implores the other brother to hit him with the stick, there is also the scene in which the father implores the sons to hit him. A lot of people in that movie are asking loved ones to hit them.
The killing scene from 2001 is exactly where my mind went in the theatre when I saw the reptile scene.
Do you have any plans to cover The Thin Red Line? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
Have you seen this video of David Fincher and Christopher Nolan discussing Malick's work?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVUXDn6hCY4
Nolan claims that Malick has been a huge influence on him, but I can't think of a filmmaker more diametrically opposed to Malick than Nolan.
Yes. I have some notes on "The Thin Red Line" based on re-watching it last week (before I saw "The Tree of Life" last weekend, when it finally opened here. It goes wide July 8). I watched the Nolan Fincher piece after I finished my "Tree of Life" post, and although I'm not sure what Nolan means when he says "Malick's influence on my work is very clear" -- because his comments are cut off there and it switches to Fincher. (This appears to be an excerpt from a future DVD supplement -- it starts in media res with the boys throwing rocks at windows.) I thought this observation from Nolan was right on the mark, though (and it's something I'd recently written about in "Days of Heaven":
"When you think of a visual style, when you think of the visual language of a film, there tends to be a natural separation of the visual style and the narrative elements. But with the greats, whether it's Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick or Hitchcock, what you're seeing is an inseparable, a vital relationship between the image and the story it's telling."
I agree, as I've said many times, that this is precisely what I often find missing from Nolan's work, but I'm impressed that he recognizes it when he sees it -- in Kubrick, Malick and Hitchcock.
I was looking at a write up about the interview between Guillermo Del Toro and Christopher Nolan after the screening of the new blu ray of "Memento." Nolan mentioned the inspiration Malick had on his work:
"I also see a lot of attempt to do what I saw Terrence Malick doing, in terms of the portrayal of mental states and memory. If you watch The Thin Red Line, that was a revelation to me. He’s cutting to memories and flashbacks with simple cuts; there are no wavy lines or dissolves. There are moments [in Memento] where Guy’s character is remembering his wife that were taken very much from that film.”
Reading Nolan's description of how Malick films flashbacks reminds me of how Alain Resnais pioneered this type of abrupt flashback structure in "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and "Last Year at Marienbad," though Malick's use of flashbacks are slightly different.
I agree w/ Carlton. I saw all those pre-historic sequences as turning-points in time. Meteor hits, oceans churn, life evolves, etc. and then finally (Carlton calls it Grace) the first act of Mercy.
Fantastic review of ToL. It gives a great idea of the difficulties (and some of the pleasures) inherent in a first view of the film. But I have a quick question for you Jim: Were you 'moved' by any of it? I have seen it only once but I felt the whole film was drenched in sadness - not hopeless despair, but a profound melancholy. Even the "creation sequence" was unspeakably sad - with that lament in the music, as if in keeping with the sadness of the preceding section, or to imply that all the pain in our universe was also born with it. One more thing: great observations by everybody and in particular by C. Long - will keep them in mind when I see it again.
Carlos: I was moved at various times, particularly in many perceptive moments with the kids and their parents. But the beach ending felt flat and cliched to me, and the use of the Berlioz Requiem there felt to me like I was practically being bullied into feeling something that the movie wasn't quite providing. I'll be interested to see how I feel about it on second viewing.
I agree with Carlton, too. I had the same initial reaction you did, Jim, I think—it was a bit disorienting for me to realize that Malick was portraying dinosaurs acting with sympathy. But to show grace evolving from nature, it makes sense to assign it to a seemingly graceless creature.
And I suppose the "actors" appreciated not being typecast, for once, as well—they must be getting bored playing Mr. Spielberg's stereotypical, purely instinctual killing machines. ;-) After all, many scientists believe they are warm-blooded—they're just showing off their range!
I have to concur with your assessment of the dinosaur's act of mercy; I found it to be one of the only false notes in the entire film. This is an event film in the true sense of the word. Malick deserves high accolades for pushing the boundaries of the medium. There is a definite narrative progression in the film, however, Malick eschews dramatizing the narrative beats in favor of communicating them through impressionistic images. Avant garde in the truest (and most flattering) sense of the word.
"I've seen some critics insist that one should not compare Malick movies to other films and filmmakers -- or, at least, not attribute "influence" to them, because Malick ostensibly doesn't think in those terms."
That is simply not true. Anyone who has seen Murnau's City Girl can very easily see the profound influence that film had on Days of Heaven, and he takes a shot towards the end from Sunrise (the group of people dancing at the bonfire on the river). And that's really just the tip of the iceberg.
Thank you all for considering my thoughts. Jim, I think the pause of the foot on the head is Malick trying to show the deliberateness of the decision. We see the dinosaur instinctively go to kill and are able to watch as it changes its mind - presumably the first time in our history anything changes its mind in this fashion.
I personally did not find the note false at all. Not to derail the discussion, but humans are not the only species in the animal kingdom capable of altruism. I reckon that Malick wanted to use dinosaurs to show the scope and scale of our development. It was important to show that this moment happened not 100,000 years ago, but hundreds of millions. And that mercy or grace is a more transcendent phenomenon: it can take place on both the most intimate and cosmic of levels.
jmc - i use the terms "way of nature" and "way of grace" because they are used in the opening monologue/voice over of the film. We hear Mrs. O'Brien describe the two - describing the way of nature as the (for lack of a better term) natural state of things, and the way of grace as this elevated way of thinking that we should aspire to.
I do not think that the foot movement and the pause from the dinosaur necessarily indicate some sentimental anthropomorphism or an act of grace. It can certainly be read that way but I looked at the claw tap on the weaker dinosaur's head the same way I looked at the weaker dinosaur's foot moving the rock next to him or her. Both movements felt instinctual and, within the time of the sequence, in a kind of call and response relationship with one another. I read those parallel movements(and sounds!) as being closer to grace, to ballet, and design. My reading was, as I've said, less sentimental and so the pause, for me, felt truer and more appropriate. I do not want to force Malickian themes from a moment where they might not be there as directly. There is not the impressionistic camera movements or editing in this sequence that we get in the rest of the film either. Something entirely different is happening here. Anyways, there is a lot here and many way to look at what is happening! Great post, Jim!
Jim,
Great post. I had a few comments on a couple of the questions you pose at the end of your article.
1. The boy with the burns - as one reader mentioned here in the comments, he's seen after one of the neighborhood houses catches on fire, fairly early-on in the film. He's obviously one of the less fortunate neighborhood kids. What struck me about his role in the film is that Malick uses the burns on his neck/hair to (seemingly) opposing emotional effects. In the more ominous scenes with the neighborhood kids (think "Lord of the Flies" in the suburbs), where the boys strap a frog to a rocket and throw rocks through windows, there's a shot of this boy's neck - with some lowish orchestral sustained notes - that plays up the fear/wonder we might experience in seeing a (grotesque,) disfigured human. Then, later on in the film, we see a pretty similar shot of the boy's back of his neck, I think it comes after Jack's guilt at having shot his brother's finger and/or stolen the female neighbor's nightgown, where the burned boy touches Jack, comforting him, with softer, introspective music. There's another comforting shot of the same boy in the afterlife scene on the sandbar. Anyway, I liked how Malick used some elements from Jack's childhood, elements that could be initially jarring and grotesque, to later serve as comforting markers from his memory.
2. The dinosaur putting its foot on the other dinosaur - I suppose I initially had a reaction that the CGI in the shot did not have the same "real" quality that the rest of the movie so vividly contained, especially when we see the dinosaur walking in the stream. After a little more thought however, I think my own interpretation goes (slightly) in the direction of some of the readers here, but not quite. Before that though, think of the scene of the beached aquatic dinosaur, followed by an underwater shot of circling sharks, ready to devour. I'm not so sure Malick was portraying grace in nature with the spared dinosaur by the river (Was he really spared? He looked on his way out to me.), but perhaps the randomness of nature. Just like Brad Pitt's character doesn't wholly following the law of nature through the film (one thing Ebert's review picked out--think of Pitt's conversation with Jack, expressing his regret over having been so hard on the boy), nature doesn't always follow its own "rules". Despite the fact that the mother's initial narration sets up the division between nature and grace, the film repeatedly portrays how these two qualities overlap, even how our own interpretations influence whether or not we see a particular scene as "graceful" or "nature-ful". While the dinosaur who put its foot on the other's head may have been embodying grace to the less fortunate reptile, don't forget to consider that it might have been more "graceful" for the stronger dinosaur to put the weaker dinosaur out of its misery (evolution-wise, the dinosaur on the ground was probably diseased, etc.).
Anyway, I'm really excited to see this film again. And I'm excited to read what you have to say on "The Thin Red Line". Also, an unrelated question, have you listened to The Mountain Goats' new album, "All Eternals Deck"? Any thoughts on it?
Thanks,
Noah
Great review Jim, and echoes a lot of the same impressions I had. This film is an experience, and like most of Malick's films, feels like memories. I was wondering if you noticed that during most of the scenes with Sean Penn in the city, there was the sound of a hospital heart monitor constantly beeping in the background. I at first attributed this to the conversation with his father dying in the hospital, but with the ending seeming very much to be a heavenly reunion, I wondered if the whole film was a life flashing before someone's eyes. I must see it again.
A few more points
1) The most obvious interpretation of the dinosaur scene is that it represents The Dawn of Grace, and it might be the correct one. However, as others have mentioned here, it's also one that could be seen as a challenge to the viewer. How do you see this? Must you interpret meaning to it?
I think the same is true of the slit-scan ring of light that bookends the film and appears a few other times. I think it was A.O. Scott that interpreted it as a creator force. The film offers one tease that supports this reading. The third (I think) time we cut to this shape it is a direct match to the audio of the mother saying "Lord." Obviously not a coincidence, but it's not definitive. This could just be interpreted as her yearning for there to be something called "Lord" out there, with this as one possible manifestation of it. Maybe it is really... just a ring of light (interstellar gas or whatever it might be).
2) While the film is framed around the lingering trauma of the brother's death (one that lasts from the beginning til the end of time) it's also marked by a desperate yearning for mom. I got the distinct impression in the present day scenes that mom was gone, with dad still being around, of course. One point that argues against this is that in his conversation with dad on the phone, he only mentions "I think about him every day" without saying "And mom too." Which would follow naturally, but maybe it was just the next line that we don't hear.
It is, at the very least, the most powerful evocation of desire for mom that I've ever seen in a film, the way he guards his precious and no doubt inaccurate memories of her as a sainted figure (w/ one major rupture when he confronts her about dad walking over her). There are many aspects I find moving about the film, but this one is the most meaningful for me.
3) On the way of nature vs. the way of grace. It's not just stated explicitly in the film, you can even go to the movie's website where you're asked to choose THE FATHER'S WAY or THE MOTHER'S WAY. As I said before, I don't think it's all that subtle, but it's not supposed to be, and that's just fine by me.
While I've eventually come around to the dinosaur foot scene being about grace, what I was first reminded of was the scene in Badlands where Kit places his foot on the sick/dead cow and tests what it feels like to stand on it. I'm not sure that Kit ever showed "grace" to anyone/anything though. Still, there was an echo there.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of watching ToL and discussing it (sometimes loudly) with others afterwards. I have another viewing scheduled this weekend and am really looking forward to it.
Some thoughts on a great post:
For the dinosaur scene, I agree with some here that we cannot specifically interpret it as an act of grace. I mean, who has a degree in dinosaur psychology? There is an ambiguity about that shot: maybe it's not compassion, but more a kind of display of power (who knows if the dinosaur lying is really dying, maybe he's only resting), like if the merciful one is saying: "I can kill you now, but I don't, never forget this". We can see that kind of behaviour between animals, and it would be related to how mr O'Brien raises his kids, with a threatening (for a kid) authority. It's also a mirror scene of mr O'Brien under his car: Jack seems to hesitate whether to harm his father or not, but I think it would be more accurate to say Jack learns at this moment that his father is not allmighty, that he's as vulnerable as he is, and that would be his first step toward his latter forgiveness, at the end, an understanding that his father is not the Father. Grace and Nature are always intertwined, there's no easy reading. And that strange dinosaur shot seems to be one of the most important, we can find many echo of it throughout the movie.
For the kid with the burns, I remember he puts his hand on Jack's shoulder, in a comforting gesture, and in the following shot, Jack is seen behind his father doing some dishes and we get the impression that Jack wants to repeat this, to put his hand on his father's shoulder, but he knows his father won't accept this gesture, not manly enough, or appropriate, for him. It was, for me, one of the most beautiful moment in the movie (there's so many details like this in the second part of the movie, gentle observations of the characters through hesitations and gestures, with a special attention to the hands, often seen in close-up, or at least clearly visible in the frame).
The picture book is Kipling's Jungle Book, and it's the scene where the serpent changes his skin to gain a new one, a kind of revival not unlike the one the characters go through in the last scene. I think the beach scene is mainly a rebirth, Malick re-uses a shot of the house under the water, the same from Jack's birth, and the beach is, well, in part, water. After the mourning, when death is finally accepted, comes a new world, a new vision of the world. While writing on Emerson (Ralph, not Jim!), Stanley Cavell said that philosophy comes only at the price of some loss, philosophy and mourning are inseparable, and when the crisis has been overcome, a new world opens... until the next loss, a feeling we can experience daily. This process seems to be the overall structure of the movie.
Jim, thanks for the response. Regarding the final sequence: I didn't mention it in my post because it was somewhat problematic for me too, though not as much as it was for you. It just didn't feel as emotionally immediate as the rest of the film. Curiously enough the Berlioz music was a lifeline through the scene for me. I think the 'Agnus Dei' goes beautifully with it, but we can disagree.
Actually I'm of two minds about this final sequence and would love to hear other views about it. One one hand I think it is a deal breaker for most moviegoers - or at least for those who make the effort to stay on Malick's wavelength throughout the duration of the film - but end up not liking the movie anyway because of it. The problem is not so much what we see but that the movie doesn't build up to it emotionally (or at least not in any obvious way I could feel while watching it). It just happens. It happens in the same way the 'creation sequence' happens too - but this is the end of the movie and you expect something…more emotionally filling. It's like there is some connective tissue missing there.
On the other hand I believe the final sequence makes some sort of sense afterwards, when you reflect on it. Much like Pvt. Train in 'The Thin Red Line' and Pocahontas in 'The New World,' Jack experiences, at the end of the film, a moment of understanding or an epiphany. Here Jack's soul has a 'vision' of the end of all things and the reconciliation that will happen then. The reconciliation itself began earlier, maybe with the phone call, maybe even earlier than that, but at some point on his way up in the elevator it blossomed into this 'vision.' I say this happened to "Jack's soul" because I don't think he was entirely conscious of the 'vision' in all its details. I think he was left only with a fleeting glimpse of it. Maybe the whole movie is the progress of his soul to this place of reconciliation and healing. Maybe the 'vision' is what people call 'faith,' i.e. a purely spiritual kind of knowledge or certainty. I don't know.
One thing for sure, though: when we see the final image of the bridge we can still hear the sounds of the 'vision' place. In fact as the final image fades into black we can clearly hear the seagulls and surf. Or at least that's what I remember.
But still… is it a good ending if it doesn't feel very good in the movie theater? What if it feels ok later on? Does that count? Or am I just rationalizing a poor piece of filmmaking because it's Terrence Malick we're talking about here? I don't know. Maybe 'The Tree of Life' is something you experience in a movie theater but only enjoy afterwards.
Note: Regardless of whether the final sequence works or not, I think the ending of 'The New World' and the ending of 'The Tree of Life' are very similar (although they feel totally different). Both endings are tied to words mentioned at the very beginning of each film. 'The New World' opens with an invocation of the Spirit/Mother. It ends with Pocahontas finally figuring out where the Spirit/Mother resides and then actually going there. 'The Tree of Life' begins with the mysterious flame in the darkness and (if memory serves) we hear Jack say the first spoken words of the film: "Mother, brother - it was they who lead me to your door." At the end of the film, sure enough, Jack finds a door which leads to a reunion with his family and some kind of peace. In both films the main character tells us at the very beginning the destination of their spiritual journey. The rest of both films is the means and circumstances by which they get there.
Goodness, this is a long and messy post. I apologize in advance. BTW: I just read "sylvain" interpretation of the final segment. I have to think about that. It sounds right, though.
Not being a spiritual person--and certainly not being a religious one--I found this movie intensely spiritual. Because of the matching of director to subject. Malick creates such rapturous, gorgeous imagery, of every day life and the cosmos, stunning beauty of nature, that one can't help but feel that the world and ourselves were created, like the Sistine Chapel was created, like symphonies are created--as objects of immense beauty. Of course there was a creator. How could it be by accident? Malick's almost silent film montages of exquisite imagery functioning as a narrative mirrored consciusness ahd how we percieve the world.
One could also appreciate the beauty of the world if one wasn't so inclined to think about such creation questions, if one was a strict atheist. (I am agnostic, whatever that means, could believe atheism, but found myself thinking if god/God was a movie, this would be it). Because then all the reasons for life are life and the natural world, of blades of grass being ruffled by chidren (which may be a Leaves of Grass reference; certainly the movie had Whitman's exuburant and liberating look at the world). And I found it in the spirit of American Transcendentalists. Thoreau certainly, but Emerson and his self-improvement mantra.
Which to me was what the film was about. Improving the godlike self. If there is no creator we are the gods. And if there is a creator he fashioned us in his own image so we are not playthings doomed to suffering, but divine. We can get over death by reminding ourselves of the memories of loved ones--I read the film as Jack remembering his childhood and lost brother as a way of mourning him and moving on. Death is part of nature. Death is change. Nature, as you saw in the creation sequence is nothing but change. Rivers flow turbently, lava flow hotly. Dinosaurs die. This is evolution.
But there can be change from that and grace--the other dinosaur-- especially in us. We can choose to be good and accepting. We can choose to be happy in love when our careers don't work out the way we wanted. Mr. Obrien learns this. And we can choose, after a day of looking back on our childhoods and lost loved ones, to appreciate them all the more and to appreciate the beautiful world. Sean Penn cannot see the beauty of man's creation at the beginning, the skyscrapers around him, because he is so consumed with his brother's death. The irony from other organisms is that we have the consciousness to appreciate and glorify life and the natural world but also feel death and question it more than other animals, so that gets in the way, as I think it did for the adult Jack.
But, at movie's end, thinking about his childhood and how that was, and his family, he learns to accept death and to accept it as part of life. I saw a half smile forming on his face in one of the last shots. The final image is a bridge and I took that as a symbolic bridge between nature and grace--science and god.
The movie on a story level is an extraordinary look at childhood. Again, through Malick's own style it's come closer to sense perception than any other film I can think of that was about growing up. How kids learn and feel things. He really played to his incredible strengths here in fashioning a subject.
You'll be glad you read this.
www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/the-tree-of-life-encompasses-a-multitude-of-one/Content?oid=2523456
Was I the only one who wanted the birth of the cosmos sequence to just keep going on and on? Maybe it was perfect in how brief it seemed, overall. The imagery. The music. It's good to keep someone hungering for more, I suppose...but I would have loved to have seen even more.
I agree that the dinosaur sequence seemed a bit fake, CGI-wise. Oh well. It's still fairly brief. I agree that that particular location seems to reappear several times throughout the film. This kind of oasis in time.
Does the tree they plant early in the film ever "grow up?" I couldn't keep track of where it was supposed to be.
What about the scene where Jack has the chance to kill his father under the car, but doesn't? The scene struck me as false, initially, but also part of me wondered how it wove into the larger fabric of this wrestling with duality and interacting with the "Creator." Is this the first time Jack has the clarity to accept grace, or is it just one of many such attempts to connect to "grace" as a life pathway? A path he stumbles on and off of.
The musical score was tremendous, throughout. Such great choices. I remember learning that second movement of the Mozart sonata Mr. O'Brien plays on the piano (#16, K. 545 I believe), and how magical it is to play something that speaks to you on so many levels, none of them liminal.
What held it all together for me was that it slowly occurred to me that the dead son was the protagonist of the film, not Jack or his father. He was sort of omnipresent, nonjudgmental witness stretching back in time and forward to watch his brother's life, perhaps a bit like "Enter the Void". I don't think Malick intended it this way (or any strictly literal way), but it was a reading that worked for me.
I liked what you said here: "It's as if the characters' words are drowned out by their grief, only partly intelligible, and in their trances they move through rooms and streets like the ghosts of silent movie actors, staggering, kneeling, grasping, caressing." I felt the same way, and it stemmed partially from a brilliant early shot where the mother was outside the house and we saw her reflection in the windows in such a way as it looked like she was a ghost figure inside the house.
Great piece, Jim. I just got back from seeing this. I too cannot wait for another immersion (as you put it in a comment above). I also have so many questions...and that's a good thing. I would be weary of a six-hour cut of the film because it would maybe seek to answer some of the questions (isn't the mystery more fun?); or, perhaps it would just blitz my mind with more montage and overwhelm my senses for another four hours. Either way, I suppose if there's one filmmaker I could trust with a six hour film, it's Malick.
I guess, for me, the film can be quickly summed up (after one viewing) by these lines of whispered narration (this is from IMDb so I could be wrong, but I thought I remember the line going something like this): "The only way to live is to love. Unless you love, your life will flash by."
I loved everything about this movie...even the kinda-messy, soggy middle. And there's still so much to discover. Looking forward to the next piece on this.
Why does The Tree of Life have to have meaning or themes; why does it have to be "read" in any particular way?
The many genres and styles of cinema allow for many different types of enjoyment or appreciation. The point of watching Die Hard isn't to stimulate philosophical discourse. The value of The Seventh Seal isn't determined by whether it has any cartoonishly violent action scenes. So what's wrong with the notion of a kind of cinema in which the form and aesthetics are not so much means to an end, but more an end in themselves? In this kind of cinema, filmmakers create unique and rich experiences almost exclusively through carefully orchestrated images and sound; characterization and narrative are largely irrelevent. This kind of cinema is what I like to call "pure cinema," since what such movies offer is truly unique to the medium. If you want a great story, you could read a book. If you want great acting, you could go to a play. If you want pretty pictures, you could go to an art museum. If you want philosophy, there are plenty of venues for that. You could take away most of the things that are not unique to movies and, with pure cinema, still have a brilliant work of art.
Movies that I consider to work as pure cinema include 2001: A Space Odyssey and Last Year at Marienbad, which I rank as the #4 and #5 greatest movies of all time, respectively. Several of David Lynch's movies, especially Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire, also belong in this category. They all have thinly drawn characters and narratives, which is why, for many people, they may seem overly mysterious or opaque. The human mind instintively wants to make sense of everything that it perceives, and thus it may presume that there is something to "get" when there may be nothing at all. The movies that I've named have ostensible themes, but when you really think about them, exactly how deep do they go? I assert that the themes aren't deeply explored at all, as evidenced by how little that happens on screen has anything to do with those themes.
So it is with The Tree of Life. I don't think that Malick's previous four features can be called "pure cinema" because they are much more concerned with characters, narratives, and themes, although they contain many moments and aspects that do work as pure cinema. The Tree of Life is obviously a departure. The only character that comes across as a specific, well-defined individual within the framework of a narrative is the father, but even his characterization is severely limited by the lack of traditional narrative beats and dialogue scenes. While young Jack certainly is well-characterized simply by being the protagonist, to me he doesn't seem intended to be a unique individual about whom the audience learns. Instead, he functions more as simply the conduit of the childhood experience that the rest of the movie is trying to convey. He's the on-screen stand-in for the audience.
The themes of The Tree of Life are, like with other examples of pure cinema, broad and quite thin. The talk about "the way of nature" versus "the way of grace" is really just a red herring. There is virtually no discussion of them within the movie, and there are few moments that can be clearly distinguished as examples of "nature" or "grace." Conceptually, they're also poorly defined. In all of the discussions about the movie, many commenters have noted how "the way of nature" and "the way of grace" seem to overlap and be intertwined or otherwise ambiguous, but that just demonstrates to me how thematically weak and broad the movie is. To even discuss the movie in those terms is to submit to the sort of reductive thinking espoused by the mother and father, who are not presented as philosophically sophisticated people. Surely Malick, who is very academically accomplished in philosophy, did not intend such a reductive reading of the movie.
In press materials, Malick has stated that the premise of The Tree of Life is that a tragedy in the past of a middle-aged man, played by Sean Penn, causes him to struggle to reconcile the opposing worldviews of parents, upon which he has been raised. If the movie is about anything, it's about one man's personal struggle, which symbolizes mankind's struggle, not about the actual debate over one philosophy versus another. The bulk of the movie consists simply of impressionistic renderings of realistic childhood moments, nothing more and nothing less. The movie implies that Penn's character attempts to resolve said struggle by reexamining his childhood, but because we don't see anything resembling an attempt at self-debate, we can conclude that he comes to realize that both the "nature" and "grace" labels fail to adequately describe all that life is, and that the key to divining any sort of "meaning of life" lies in moving beyond such labels.
Based on the way that the movie is structured, the "afterlife" sequence doesn't seem intended to be taken literally. Instead, it symbolizes the conclusion that the adult Jack has reached about his own life and about life itself: Ultimately, what matters is the people who have interacted with you, your memories of them, the time that they have shared with you. This is why the vision of the "afterlife" here doesn't resemble any conventional notions of "paradise" or "eternal bliss" or less pleasant ones like purgatory or the underworld. Instead, there's a very elemental quality about it. But again, this ostensible theme is broad, thin, and even a bit cliche. So perhaps it's not actually a theme in the traditional sense of a "message" or "life lesson." It's just a conclusion to the experience that the rest of the movie conveys (and that experience is the real point of the movie). It's the final element that satisfies a neurological craving for some sense of intellectual and emotional closure or completeness, but it otherwise doesn't offer profundity.
So, ultimately, you can say that The Tree of Life is about life, but not in the sense that other works purport to be about life. Other artists are content with exploring some specific aspect of life, but in this movie, Malick makes the statement that life is simply an experience, no matter how meaningful or meaningless it may actually be. The experience of life encompasses happy moments, sad moments, scary moments, angry moments, mysterious moments, lustful moments, guilty moments, etc. The human experience of life is meaningful in itself. The movie is concerned with those moments, not with an overarching narrative or themes. And Malick is able to create such a vital experience of those moments through his aesthetics, which are pure cinema.
Roger Ebert noted how Kubrick was able to create poetry out of his visualizations (set to classical music) of highly technical and presumably very routine and dangerous procedures in 2001. Last Year at Marienbad purports to be about the dispute between and unnamed man and woman about what may have happened between them the previous year, yet virtually none of the information presented in the movie matters in the slightest. Instead, it remains one of the most vivid depictions of a dream/nightmare/memory that has ever been brought to the screen. David Lynch has stated that his movies are actually supposed to be very straightforward and easy to understand. These examples, along with The Tree of Life, speak to Werner Herzog's well-known quote: "We comprehend... that nuclear power is a real danger for mankind, that over-crowding of the planet is the greatest danger of all. We have understood that the destruction of the environment is another enormous danger. But I truly believe that the lack of adequate imagery is a danger of the same magnitude. It is as serious a defect as being without memory. What have we done to our images? What have we done to our embarrassed landscapes? I have said this before and will repeat it again as long as I am able to talk: if we do not develop adequate images we will die out like dinosaurs."
Does anybody have any idea why the movie ended on that image of a bridge?
Questions to God were often posed in V.O. simultaneous with shots of planets, barren landscapes, etc, and eventually an odd push-in on a wall in the O'Brien's house. Perhaps the implication is, if you're going to ask God, you might as well ask the wall.
The tall buildings and sterile interiors and three-piece suits in the Sean Penn scenes have an asthetic effect closer to those barren, lifeless landscapes than to the homey ground-level suburbs of Waco, in my opinion (I think even Pitt is usually wearing lighter colours in his scenes).
To reduce it as best as I can, I think it means: not only are we as individuals so small that we can't understand the universe, but we can barely understand our own species, as a whole, and its current place as the dominant force on the Earth, a place which was not arrived at by following "the way of grace."
When Pitt says, in V.O., "I wanted to be loved because I was great" there's a shot of him walking a bridge high in a gargantuan factory.
One note about the use of 'Father' as opposed to the use of 'Dad.' It's my understanding that the Hebrew word 'Abba,' which is used frequently in the Old Testament, and used as well by Jesus in prayer when addressing God the Father, has a meaning closer to 'Papa' or 'Daddy' than 'Father.' The word 'Ab' is the more proper and polite word meaning 'Father.' Whereas 'Abba' is more intimate and the word more commonly used by children.
I don't this takes away from the complexity and fear of God in any way, rather I think it only adds more color and shade.
i thought it out of character for the raptor to let the dying parasorolophus go. . . who was the kid that drowned? (for a bit I'd thought it was youngest brother). . . big bang and god (whoa!) . . . why was mother so painfully passive?. . .
still, the movie stayed long enough with me that I may see it movie again.
Regarding your question about the repetition of "It's an experiment" or "It was an experiment": I can't recall if Mr. O'Brien ever says this, but there is a scene in the architecture office with Sean Penn in which his coworker (I guess?) is telling him about relationship troubles. The gist was something like, he and his wife were separated and were trying to live together again. The guy ends the conversation with, "It's an experiment." I can't speak to the significance of this repetition, but in a film with so few lines of diagetic dialogue I would assume its inclusion is of some import (My friend's thoughts were "...we experiment with our emotions, dip our toes in the water, see how far we can take things, and finally understand our individual limits").
First, let me say that I came into the movie 20 minutes late, but the movie seemed really simple to me, in terms of what it was trying to say.
It seemed to me that the filmmaker (Malick) felt the need (or whatever you want to call it) to constantly kind of talk down to his audience in an authoritarian manner that he seems to agree with (which I don't agree with, unless you're a child and even then I'm not so sure...I have an uncle who has always talked to his kids like they were adults) and not only the manner that he agrees with but also the actual things that are being said about which he arrogantly thinks he is right (which I also don't think), all while being done in the kind usual insubtle authority (which mindless consumers cling to lots nowadays in all forms, maybe different sources but all forms in insubtle authority)in the form of a positive message: and that message (which is kind of the overall message of the movie, in a movie filled with messages) that he also bangs into our heads is "Look how goddamn beautiful the world is!"
It seems to me the movie was Oscar-bait, but I must say, perhaps the best example of Oscar-bait there ever was. For example, it wasn't sentimental like "Crash" or a Spielberg one (although, just as condescending). It probably has raised the bar for those out there trying to win Oscar for best picture; I kind liked what the movie was doing except for all the condescension (which perhaps was necessary to bang into the academy's head that this movie was, to all the jerks out there, about goodness): the messages of which were also often just plain wrong.
For example, there was a part were the Brad Pitt character tells his son (paraphrased) "You know, it took Toscanini 65 takes to record an album: and you know what he said after that? 'It could be better.' Think about that."
Yeah, do you know Why it could be better? That's because it wasn't being interpreted as it was intended. Click on my name if you want to hear someone play it as it was intended, from my youtube page.
I felt like screaming back at the screen.
However, aside from all I've just said, it was well-made. I did actually like how the movie, for example, at one part, kind of flew away from the scene with a butterfly, I think it was, and kind of said "hey, look at that; isn't that pretty?" What I didn't really like was WHY the movie was doing that constantly, which was either to win an oscar or to talk down to us (and in the usualy insubtle fashion of consumer society) about how we need to look ("You, look") at how beautiful the world is.
I also did like the efficiency of how the movie did either tell it's story (or tell the story of life...athough, it was kind of hard me to see that with all the condescension).
Basically, you could see the movie's strategy and it was like this:
Talking down to audience in the form of
either showing them the beauty of life ("You, look")
or just telling them all these little authoritarian things: which it seems came from the director: that he believes that this authoritarian manner is necessary; at least that's what I assume for lack of a counterargument.
And that's another thing with the movie, with all it's cramming, it does seem the director is constantly saying a lot of things, such as little moments that they seem to be true (like the boy wanting his father to die), but I'm not so sure if I believed it; it seemed the director just kind of wanted to throw in little moments that do seem to ring true, but that he didn't really want to explore why; it was just real basic: he's authoritarian, therefore, you want him dead, true? It didn't seem to me like the boy was really tormented to the point where he'd want his father to truly die; it just seemed that that director wanted to say something true: and maybe it was, but I'm not sure I believed it in terms of the characters.
So, the whole poetic kind of artiness of the movie (with, yes, lots of editing, which I know dazzles some...how it can throw in so much stuff) I did like, as well as the kind of efficiency of storytelling (not sure I'd call it arty; it didn't seem that challenging: but maybe I need to watch it again; I didn't really think about the different voice-overs, which does change my opinion more substantially). I just could have used a lot less preaching (the insubtle authority of which might, for some reason, perhaps commercial, be necessary to win an Oscar). So, if I had to watch Oscar-bait, I'd definitely want it to be of this kind.
Ah, it certainly seems no one was able to pull a quick one by you. Your opening senentce was very telling. May I kindly suggest a second viewing, unrushed, beginning with the opening reel of the film? This time, humble yourself and keep in mind the amount of time Malick devotes to each film (this is only his 5th film since '74). What you wrote off as too simplistic or condescending could, after an additional (or even multiple) viewing(s), reveal itself to you to be different aspects that maybe you were not in the right mind-frame to contemplate at the time. Or maybe you'll feel the same way. Malick's past films are well known for their laudatory reputations'; when he puts out something new, at least afford this new work a proper viewing with an open mind and a punctual spirit.
The last thing I said was before I read Roger's review, and maybe I'm seeing a little bit differently. Maybe it doesn't delve too deeply into the reasons of the character's behavior because it is kind of more about existence (or itself, or whatever), and maybe I'm wrong about in thinking that all the things that are being said are coming from the director's beliefs(although they certainly appear that way). Or even if they are, it is still rare to see a movie that kind of has a sentimental message that isn't sentimental.
For example, there was a part were the Brad Pitt character tells his son (paraphrased) "You know, it took Toscanini 65 takes to record an album: and you know what he said after that? 'It could be better.' Think about that."
Yeah, do you know Why it could be better? That's because it wasn't being interpreted as it was intended.
Do you happen to know the name of the piece playing on the record player in the scene Fathers Away ? Father & son share a moment of playing it together later in the film on guitar & piano. Thank You.
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