Terrence Malick

What's your opinion on Terrence Malick?

Think he's pretentious or a genius? What about his films do you think succeed, and what parts fail? Which of those films are your favorite/least favorite?

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His work is about as deep as a puddle.

>What's your opinion on Terrence Malick?
he is probably my fav living filmmaker
>Think he's pretentious or a genius?
it doesn't have to be an either/or thing. in the sense of putting on airs or pretending he's something he's not, no i don't think he's pretentious, i think he's totally earnest, sincere, passionate, etc.
>What about his films do you think succeed, and what parts fail?
i think not having a screenplay on To the Wonder hurt the movie in the same way it did for Lynch with Inland Empire. it's harder to talk about the successes.
>Which of those films are your favorite/least favorite?
favorites: thin red line, tree of life, new world, days of heaven
least favorite: to the wonder

i agree with this guy. its his sincerity that's unmatched and it elevates his films.

him being so private and not even showing up for press bullshit isn't a big message about the media or a stunt, its an earnest act that seems to stem from his personality.

What do you think of Badlands/Knight of Cups?

I think a good way to gauge how much is actually in a Malick film (since his films are criticized as being shallow) is to look at The Better Angels which is a film that tries so hard to be a Malick film and ends up feeling wrong.

And I don't mean they have strong influences from Malick, I mean that they try SO HARD to make a Malick film it must have been their main goal. The voiceovers, the atypical editing, the freeform cinematography, the z-axis camera push-ins, the classical music score, its all not informed by Malick's films. Its imitation at its purest form.

This scene particularly (youtube.com/watch?v=kIffPQmzh60) is done identically to the moment in Tree of Life where that woman is trying to console the mother and says "At least you have the other two" down to it ending with a push in on the woman and her making a nonverbal remark.

The film is actually pretty good with some gorgeous black and white cinematography but the mimicry makes me feel pretty uneasy. If Malick didn't have a role as producer I would feel much worse about it.

I liked this film and I agree with you about it being a well done, if shallow, Malick imitation. It was directed by his editor so I think it's more of an homage of a student to his mentor than anything.
Though great fucking choice on using Dvorak's New World Symphony set to scenes of children playing. Reminded me of Malick's choice of the Ring cycle's Vorspiel to open The New World.

And Brit Marling is a real treat desu. I hope she get bigger, she really deserves it.

The Better Angels is a super interesting project but I want but I want Malick to be influential, not copied.

Cool !!

people take him too seriously
days of heaven was a great film but a lot of it was accidental. when his reputation grew and he decided he was an Auteur it seems he went off the deep end a little and started putting too much design into his films, and started using his actors as tools rather than letting them help build movie. thin red line is kind of...ponderous. tree of life is a mess that wouldn't be tolerated except coming from a big name.

Actors are nothing more than tools, nothing more than models for the cinematography.
Besides, Malick's films rely heavily on improvisation. Nowadays he doesn't even use a standard script.

Celebrity inflation has really tried to hide that truth. Actors are really just models, and great directors know how to get them to do what they are being paid to do.

Its people like Philip Seymour Hoffman, Day-Lewis, Mortensen, and Nicholson who know how to be serious about their work without endowing it with unnecessary self-worth. If they were all plumbers they would be the best damn plumbers around.

Fucking retard, DDL is a shoemaker not a plumber.

and Malick knows how to get the actors to do their jobs. This deleted scene from Thin Red Line (youtube.com/watch?v=4bRJ0yyVb_o) is the best acting Rourke has ever done. He doesn't even sound like himself by 1:20.

>Following The Boxer, Day-Lewis took a leave of absence from acting by going into "semi-retirement" and returning to his old passion of woodworking.[35] He moved to Florence, Italy, where he became intrigued by the craft of shoemaking, eventually apprenticing as a shoemaker with Stefano Bemer.[19] For a time his exact whereabouts and actions were not made publicly known.[37]

Well I'll be damned

>In early 2000, during an interview with Le Monde[18] regarding his new production facility[19], Poilâne asserted that he had unwittingly employed Malick between the years of 1980 through 1986 as an apprentice baker. Malick was using the pseudonym Antoine de Tournesol, and Poilâne recalled one of his interview responses 'de Tournesol' gave for wanting to work with him; "Our minds are like dough, our hearts like flame." De Tournesol was a model employee, according to Poilâne, and the reason given for leaving was "hearing again the drums of war." Poilâne proceeded to laugh the experience off, and was apparently "fond of Antoine's war movie," though didn't care for the pacing.[20]

Days of Heaven>To the Wonder>>>>Knight of Cups>The New World>Badlands>Thin Red Line>Tree of Life

A moment in the life of an authentic human being, right there.

What do you like about To the Wonder? I'm a fan of it myself but I'm interested to hear people what people like about it, since it normally gets negativity.

ephemeral

One of my all time favorite directors.


Wow, rare to see a person that likes To the Wonder. I think I love it the most out of Malick's filmography. I only dislike Tree of Life/ANW, but even so consider them worth watching.

What didn't you like about Tree of Life?

And To the Wonder seems like a less-baggy successor to the New World, but I'll have to think about it more.

I hope his films continue to get less and less structured desu, going to an empty theatre and watching Knight of Cups alone was pure bliss

Are there any other films that explicitly link together the concepts of romantic and divine love like in To the Wonder?

Under The Skin

...

I wrote about it in Malick thread couple days ago.

>I like the film for its technical aspects like its cinematography etc. but when it gets connected to context like its narrative, editing, script/screenplay it just falls down horribly hard. I don't like to use the word, but it comes off as pretentious when it tries to distinct the grace and nature in such a black and white judgemental way.
I also consider the Penn bits a bit awful, but it's balanced by Pitt, Chastain and Sheridan being great in the film. Sheridan's character watching the frog get smashed or stealing the panties are great scenes.

I've seen Knight of Cups probably ~12 times by now. Absolutely love it, too bad I can't have two ratings for number 1. Dying to see Weightless and Radegund. I share your hopes about his future films.

I totally agree with you guys. The less structured they are, the closer to reality they feel. And it makes them more experiential. Kinda makes all those people obsessing over narrative structure and theory look like they're just building a castle of sand.

I am super fucking excited for Radegund. Modern Malick making a WWII film is an exhilarating prospect.

100% pretentious. Malick is entry level film student bait. He's the first pretentious director they latch onto until they mature and realize all of his works are supremely shallow.

And I agree with Tree of Life. I only watched it with the nature/grace themes in mind recently and it kinda limits the film. It seems that with him forgoing traditional scripts altogether he may have realized that.

The way he changes his style from Tree of Life to To the Wonder blew my mind. It's just feels so free. He fucking shoots what he wants. And the way the camera movement itself feels so free and "searching" is one of my favorite things about him. There's a scene where Olga is dancing in the field and the way it is shot is just so beautiful.

I love his films he overuses God monologue way too much though it ruined a lot of Knight of Cups

I really think he was very self-aware. I honestly don't detect the parts that made me dislike ToL in KoC or TTW. Instead of banging the viewer to the head he allows the viewer to come to the realization is the least gay way I can put it.

Found the first semester film school student.
>I like the thing because of the way it is.
Deep insight.

The sound design in his newest films is fantastic. These films are great to listen at loud volume (they're properly mixed so they don't even sound "loud").

Also Knight of Cups had great song choices in it, but I think my favorite is this: youtube.com/watch?v=OcL4J0pzlAg

>I don't like to use the word, but it comes off as pretentious when it tries to distinct the grace and nature in such a black and white judgemental way.
It think it was a little more complex than that. Hard to believe it but we had a great thread about this exact argument a few years ago on this very board, about how both ways of nature and grace weren't as black and white as is apparent and how they had their own dualities within each (both nature and grace being simultaneously nurturing and harsh, the mother being one with nature while at the same time having the elegance of grace). So when you think about it, the whole "nature vs. grace" spiel doesn't come across as a strict yin-yang thing but a more nuanced way of looking at the characterizations.

You see, this is my issue with how most people criticize Malick.

Sometimes you get stuff like people saying how Thin Red Line was a bit in bad taste since he used the real-life experience of James Jones as an avenue for his own meditations on war and nature. That's a valid point and tere's a discussion to be had there.

But most of the people against his work say it's "pretentious" or "shallow" and don't have anything to back that up other than describing the film on its surface (example: It's just a bunch of attractive people shot beautifully with voiceover) as if stating objective truths about what the film is adds to their point. And people on the other side, those who praise his works, can articulate forever on all the meaning and successes of his films.

An autobiographical meditation on vice vs virtue, carnal pleasures vs spiritual love, money vs poetry, from a deeply Christian philosophy erudite from Texas, who struggle with finding his place in the Jewified degenerate capital and is still crying everyday about his suicidial mariachi brother and harsh father. Experimental editing to evoke fragments of memories, intimate thoughts as prayers or confessions to evoke universal feelings, interweaving micro and macro. Just like tree of life opened with a story about nature vs grace, the pearl parable is about this constant struggle and quest to be a better man in this meaningless world; the pearl is the light (thin red line), the grace (tol), the wonder (to the wonder)
Terry admits in this flick that he's too fascinated with beauty, as he views it as the closest thing we wingless beasts have to reaching heaven; even though beauty is really the devil's temptation to make us shallow. He's a sinner and a hypocrite and he knows it. Bums and cripples are ugly and he knows they don't really belong alongside his perfume ads aestheticsand Hollywood actors. He knows Hollywood is Jewish hell but he still stays there and accepts their money because he loves shooting pretty Jewish actresses and their feetsies. He knows its a real struggle. It's an admission of guilt

>tfw you want to follow the way of Grace but Nature keeps pulling you back down
>tfw you want to be brought back to the Wonder but the Wonder is forever fleeting
>tfw the only way to be happy is to love, but love brings more pain than happiness
>tfw you'll never find the pearl
>tfw you wanna be like the monk but are closer to the pimp
>tfw your a dog chasing a tennis ball in a swimming pool
>tfw Hershlag will never tell you to open your mouth

Begin

people misunderstand what Malick enthusiasts love about him, hes devoid of pretentiousness, hes not a genius, its not about intellectual or philo depth even tho its there but hes a true soul, kind loving warm. wordlimit

I don't think Tree of Life was very nuanced or subtle about it. There's a scene with altruistic dinosaur and Chastain pointing the sky and saying the words "thats-where-the-god-is/lives." and the harsh scene of Pitt's character cooking some meat and saying about the symphony "it could be better" and being aggressive, well it just appears black and white to me.

The shot of the mother helping her son Jack up off the ground while that song plays and Brad Pitt says "Bless these boys" in voiceover has effected me more than a lot of great films have in their totality.

>>tfw Hershlag will never tell you to open your mouth

I feel that way about modern, ToL onwards, Malick.

Well if you're picking singular scenes then yeah you could say there's no nuance but what I was saying was that the whole theme of nature vs. grace isn't as black and white as you put it. For the scene of the dinosaur pity there is also a scene of mass extinction, for the scene of Brad Dad being a dick there is also a scene of him asking for forgiveness.

letterboxd.com/knightofcup/film/knight-of-cups/

a summary of an old knight of cups thread saved in a review form.

>what Malick enthusiasts love about him, hes devoid of pretentiousness, hes not a genius, its not about intellectual or philo depth even tho its there but hes a true soul, kind loving warm.
applies to me at least.

That was probably the best articulation on Malick's films I've ever read, and it addresses the faulty idea that great films have to contain complicated meaning.

Synecdoche is probably the most densely meaningful film I've ever seen. Charlie Kaufman made sure every shot, every piece of the set, every dialogue has a purpose in the story.

But I forget about Synecdoche all the time. It's impressive, but is that all greatness aspires to? Kaufman is a anxiety-riddled and pathetic man and he lets you know that. He is hollow and presents a hollow world.

But Malick has a god damn soul. His films aren't shallow, they're just simpler than people are expecting. Or, at least the entry point is simpler than one would think. His films are encompassing, formless, honest, and free.

*Synecdoche, New York

my bad

The film is all surface. You can't discuss it on any other level because there is none. That's why Malick plebs talk about how the camera work is so pretty. Because that's it. That's all Malick is. There is no depth.

Oh god this whole post is like pleb 101. Synecdoche NY is the most meaningful film you've ever seen? Have you only see 5 films?

In Malick films whenever a character says something, I always get the feeling it's deeply subjective to this character and never meant to be a truth, these characters are always doubting, wondering, asking questions
I dont think there's any judgment to the nature grace dichotomy, simply a deeply personal (that somehow rings universal) about how parents typically behave, that then gets amplified as the POV is that of a kid. I dont know about you but I also had an aggressive father and a passive mother, and a lot of scenes from the film hit me right in the heart and memories in a way no other films have before. The dinner fight scene especially had me feeling terrified, as if I was 10 again and witnessing my whole world about to explode whenever they fought.
>mother (naive but kind), father (pragmatic therefore harsh), always you wrestle inside me, always you will
Keep in mind its autobiographical, as seen through the eyes of a boy who idealizes his mother, but also through the eyes of adult Jack who realizes what it means to be a man, and carries a part of his father's harsness within him, regrets seeing him in such a subjectively negative light when objectively he knows he did his best to raise his boys properly, which is something every man goes through when turning adult, becoming father as well, etc.
I also think the film indirectly hints at various ideas, physical or psychological concepts, etc. remains unspoken but it's in every scene, the root of oedipal jealousy, a kid evolves in the womans womb, etc. to justify the mother preference or subjectively negative light the father gets painted in at times. Judgment free, simple human nature
it blows my mind that a film about growing up in 50s texas manages to evoke so many deep and unspoken memories and feelings within me despite having been raised in another era and country, different culture and values... how something so autobiographical also understands things so universal, it's a beautiful paradox

>I say thing. Thing is true. Because that's it.

heidegger and kierkegaard as freeform cinema

preach

Writing this post without reading a lot of the others so my opinion remains unpolluted by reasonable points by others:
Memes aside he's pretty good. He captures moments, I don't give a shit about Heidegger metaphor through cinema or his Christian belief, or man vs. nature dialectic but you know those shots in Two the Wonder where either chick spins around in the long grass? Fuck that's beautiful!
Or when the mom in Tree of Life hold's a butterfly, or that fucking river styx scene when the tide draws out. And who the fuck can forget those epic shots of the locusts in Days of Heaven?

The voice overs consistently don't give a fuck about though.

Damn fine filmmaker though.

he likes grass a lot

He created it.

You should give a shit about his branch of Christianity and at least read the wikipages to Heidegger and Kierkegaard.

It makes you appreciate him even more

>his branch of Christianity
I've always felt Malick is a non-denominational Christian existentialist.

I understand how his latest three, TTOL, TTW and KOC are semi-autobiographical works and thus are viewed from Malick's POV.

I honestly think he wrote the whole misguided father thing better in the few scenes it was in Knight of Cups.

That overwhelming sound in the background when they show the family fight was 10/10 scene for me

This guy sums it up pretty well. Malick isn't trying to be something that he is not, so I can't call his films pretentious.

malickbump

bumpp

You realize that filename is referring to the personification of the devil?

D̛̪̯͍̰̖̓̅ͪ͌̍͘O̺̪̥͌̈̇͗ ̗̗̲̝̣ͬ̑͊̄̂́Y̯̣̗̲̳̲͇̰͍̅ͦ͛̀͡͝Ő̜͓̠͎̓ͣ̐ͨ͘Ų͇̦͑̇͑ ͚̭̹̝̫̳̝ͬ͢B̞̲͎̙̖͖̠͑͋E̶̸̢̱͎̟͇̞̣̩ͬ͒̑L͈̘̜̤̮̅̉̏͊̐̓͂̈́ͅI̵̵͇̯̳͉̦̗̲ͪͣͦͦͦ͜Ẹ̪͇̜͙̫̥̰͋ͨ̃͛͋̐͂̈͂͡ͅV̉ͩ͛ͬͪ̅̽ͦ҉̰͙̜̤̹̫͓̟E̥͉̼ͯͯͩ̾̆̽͊?̱͓̳͔ͭ̒

Hahahah wtf