By Dennis Polifroni
Right around this time of year, as it often happens, the film year begins
to rev up and start strutting its stuff in anticipation for a big movie summer.
Amidst the kiddie garbage that dots this season coming, many a big-time director
decides to alleviate the tension by unleashing their newest project on an
unsuspecting film-going world. For every ten TRANSFORMER and FAST AND THE
FURIOUS franchise dud that surfaces, often the work of an inspired director
slips in and bowls us over. Spielberg often saves us from the doldrums of the
season (his upcoming LINCOLN biography starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field
has movie hounds salivating with anticipation), and PIXAR seems to never let
most of us down (particularly if we have children in the house) but, rarely,
does the work of a reclusive genius rear its head towards us with the promise of
something truly special.
Terrence Malick is a slow mover in the same vein of the late, great Stanley
Kubrick. His work takes time and his work habits are methodical and as paced as
a great thinkers should be. Taking his time to perfect and make perfect every
frame of film that will click at 24 a second, his films often show themselves as
works of inspired intelligence that were truly worth the wait.
Kubrick. His work takes time and his work habits are methodical and as paced as
a great thinkers should be. Taking his time to perfect and make perfect every
frame of film that will click at 24 a second, his films often show themselves as
works of inspired intelligence that were truly worth the wait.
Surfacing as a major force in the business to be reckoned with with his
stark and hauntingly beautiful account of love on the run that was BADLANDS in
1973, he then sequed into DAYS OF HEAVEN (1977) and shattered the perceptions of
film as visual poetry forever. DAYS is, as Sam and I often commented, a visual
tome poem, almost completely devoid of dialoque, that works almost like a
visual, spiritual assault on the senses. Chronicling the budding tensions of a
deadly love triangle during the height of the depression, the visual dichotomy
of the movie set standards in a kind of film making that has often been related
to the filmic language of the late great works of the silent masters.
Basically, and for the novice, film speaking without words and allowing the
imagery to take over completely.
stark and hauntingly beautiful account of love on the run that was BADLANDS in
1973, he then sequed into DAYS OF HEAVEN (1977) and shattered the perceptions of
film as visual poetry forever. DAYS is, as Sam and I often commented, a visual
tome poem, almost completely devoid of dialoque, that works almost like a
visual, spiritual assault on the senses. Chronicling the budding tensions of a
deadly love triangle during the height of the depression, the visual dichotomy
of the movie set standards in a kind of film making that has often been related
to the filmic language of the late great works of the silent masters.
Basically, and for the novice, film speaking without words and allowing the
imagery to take over completely.
While I was initially tossed with THE THIN RED LINE (1998), Mallick’s
existensial take on death and the fears that seem foolish in light of the
journeys doorway opening, I have converted over the years and see the film as a
sublimely beautiful and visually arresting tour-de-force from a film-maker that
rarely presents what is initially seen as the surface to his films (and I will
admit that the film has usurped my fancies for the other big WWII drama of the
same year, Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN). THE THIN RED LINE is, like all of
Malick’s work, a film that works slowly to reveal its message and, like the film
that will follow, THE NEW WORLD (2005), needs repeat viewing to unfold a deeper
and more spiritual message to its viewer. It is this quality that resides in
EVERY film that Malick has made, draws legions of converts to his work and makes
every new film the director graciously decides to share with us not just a film,
but an anticipated event.
existensial take on death and the fears that seem foolish in light of the
journeys doorway opening, I have converted over the years and see the film as a
sublimely beautiful and visually arresting tour-de-force from a film-maker that
rarely presents what is initially seen as the surface to his films (and I will
admit that the film has usurped my fancies for the other big WWII drama of the
same year, Spielberg’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN). THE THIN RED LINE is, like all of
Malick’s work, a film that works slowly to reveal its message and, like the film
that will follow, THE NEW WORLD (2005), needs repeat viewing to unfold a deeper
and more spiritual message to its viewer. It is this quality that resides in
EVERY film that Malick has made, draws legions of converts to his work and makes
every new film the director graciously decides to share with us not just a film,
but an anticipated event.
Recently, I had heard whispers of a new project from the secretive director
from others on the net that take film-going seriously. I must say that I have
quickly matched their enthusiasm with each word written and every clip and
snippet of the new film that has risen to the surface. Putting them all
together, what is the new film about? Hell, if I know. However, knowing Malick
from his previous work, it’s a futile gesture to try to guess as the surprise is
always worth the wait.
from others on the net that take film-going seriously. I must say that I have
quickly matched their enthusiasm with each word written and every clip and
snippet of the new film that has risen to the surface. Putting them all
together, what is the new film about? Hell, if I know. However, knowing Malick
from his previous work, it’s a futile gesture to try to guess as the surprise is
always worth the wait.
THE TREE OF LIFE is the one film this year that has me more excited that
any other coming out for 2011.
any other coming out for 2011.
Yes I agree with you completely. I can’t wait to see it and really need to catch it on the big screen. It may not come to Kalamazoo, so need to search it out. My only worry is with Brad Pitt. However, the actors are usually not the emphasis, so we might have that working for us.
Jon, thanks for all your comments here in past weeks! I will add your site to our blog roll right now, and certainly will be over to visit!
The Assassination Of Jesse James proves you have nothing to worry about when it comes to Pitt. I think he will do a fine job. Malick seems to handle every actor well and sculpt their performances to his wishes anyway.
Agreed, I actually think amongst American movie stars Pitt is one of the better/best. He’s done a few nice character turns (TRUE ROMANCE), and I give him credit he’s stuck his name and production company on the line for some more artistic ventures (when the possibility of turning a profit must have been slim/none).
Pitt is a far better actor than most of his POPULAR films would make you think. When he can, he’s actually exceptionally picky about the projects he takes and he has a list of the better directors that he’d like to work with. I’d say his performance success rate is about 50/50 now and he tips his own scale whenever he levels something like THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES or FIGHT CLUB on us.
Unfortunately (except for most girls) his exceptional good looks relegate him to teenie-bopper status and is often offered big money to do shit that will horde the younger girlie crowd into the cineplexes.
Of his films, I happen to admire his performances in KALIFORNIA, A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT, FIGHT CLUB, SE7EN, 12 MONKEYS, FIGHT CLUB, JESSE JAMES and INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (that one proved he could be devastatingly funny).
I agree with you as well as little pop-ups in films like TRUE ROMANCE only add to his resume.
Funny though, with all the words about THE TREE OF LIFE written here today, nobody has mentioned that Malick has tagged the tremendous SEAN PENN for one of the leads. Wierd.
I think he will be in Andrew Dominik’s next film as well. He sure seems to know talent when he sees it. I agree on Pitt being better than most from tinseltown when it comes to movie stars.
Thanks for commenting Jon. Like you the TREE OF LIFE has intriqued me from the moment I read that Malick was making another film. Then I saw this trailer and was completely dumb-founded by what I saw in the imagery. Then I heard about thewhat the film was about and… and… and…
Well, you get what i’m saying…
I haven’t been this excited by a movie since Sam and I walked out of BREAKING THE WAVES in 1996!!!!!
Sure thing Dennis. I love this site. I’ve also already heard Malick has another film in the works with Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams. IMDB has very little information as of yet.
Wonderful overview of the near future Dennis! Like just about everybody, the Malick film continues to capture everyone’s imagination, and the trailer has opened new avenues of anticipation. We’ve had a great opening third of the year, and it makes sense that we would expect the high-quality to continue.
I couldn’t resist sending you this piece when I saw the trailer yesterday on YOUTUBE. The combination of imagery and music just sent me into smiling elation.
You and I have often spoke about how Malick is on of the few directors out there that say volumes in his films with hardly ever uttering a word and considering you and I are always bowled over by “visual tome poems” (as in the case of films like THE THIN RED LINE, ROAD TO PERDITION, CITY OF GOD, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES and Kieslowski’s BLUE), I thought I had to bring this to everyones attention if it hadn’t already entered their field of vision yet.
As Allan rightfully corrected me, this is THE American film I’m salivating for more than any other this year…
Well Dennis if you take a look at one of those summer preview articles in an entertainment magazine, you will realize that for commercial (or even semi commercial) American films, The Tree Of Life has no competition. Unless you are a pimply faced comic book fanboy, where else could you turn to other than the arthouse for even middle brow fare. Hollywood is shoveling the shit mighty high these days. The stench is ruining the popcorn…
MAURIZIO-say what you want about summer fare these days as I’m often in agreement that the yearly roster of American films is usually dotted with so much crapola that I’m akinned to wearing a fucking gas mask when I walk into a theatre.
However, take me back to a year like 1975 or 77 or 82 and I’ll show you times when summer fare was far more than just entertainment. Sure, some wouod say that Spielberg and Lucas were the architects that built the foundation for the death of real film, but I say you really cannot blame Spielberg and Lucas as much as you can the executives that only see cash cows and merchandising instead of allowing the memeory of w ell made film and a good yarn live in the minds if the opeople that thrilled to these films in the past.
I gotta give Spielberg props though. He resisted taking the mantles as a director on his two biggest films at the time when the money hound were demanding sequelization. He flat out refused to direct JAWS 2 and in the case of E.T. he fought tooth and nail with Universal to leave the film alone, that what he was saying there ended when the film ended.
He’s only lent his talents as director to sequels that he deemed necessary, or basically to films that had natural further chapters that he’d like to explore (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, based on the serials of the 30′s was a natural for more chapters and Chrichton did write THE LOST WORLD which Spielberg loved as a blue-print to launch his homage to KING KONG with). However, when most people bash Spielberg for funding films like TRANSFORMERS many forget he’s also producing films for directors like JJ Abrams who are talented directors trying to find a means to get their voices heard (the one real popcorn film this year I wanna see badly is Abrams SUPER 8) and make the kinds of films they loved when they were going up and hope kids today might find really nifty.
Spielberg, beyond everything, is a giant kid at heart. Often seen playing ball with the kid actors of his films on set and always wearing a T-shirt, Jeans and a battered baseball cap, the guy is the verey essence of a youth seduced by movies. Movies and film are totally different things, at least I have alway thought so, and I think Steven is just trying, as best he has knowledge about these things, to give kids the kind of wonder he got from movies all those years ago as he sat in the dark sucking on TWIZZLERS and munching soggy popcorn.
He’s not always on the mark (TRANSFORMERS is a far cry from the kind of gee-whizz entertainment BACK TO THE FUTURE is), but he’s definately got more bang for his buck than other with his influence have.
More than anything though, he’s a terrific film-maker and he usually succeeds in his attempt more than he fails. Some have a taste for his work and some don’t but I won’t back into a corner or change my tune when a assumed intellectual trounces a guy that I happen to admire and whose work has been a great source of joy for me since I was kid myself.
In the end there really isn’t anything wrong with entertainment (and Spielberg will usually balance the “entertainment’ piece with a more “mature” work in the very same year-i.e. think JURASSIC PARK in the summer of 93 and SCHINDLER’S LIST in the winter of the same year) and I have to give props to a man that tries his damnest to give a little of what he loved to those that may not have ever experienced the same.
I’m not saying Spielberg is the greatest director since the creation of sliced bread, but i also don’t see him as the devil incarnate that many here think of him as.
The devil would be George Lucas…
Spielberg is definitely a pillar of integrity and the last bastion of individuality amidst a sea of crass consumerism.
Better to rule on Mustafar than serve in “Days of Heaven”.
Seriously, though, I’ve come to believe that Lucas and Spielberg should’ve formally tied the knot as a writing/directing team back in the 80′s, and become something of a modern American equivalent to the Archers. Both of them have a wide, diverse set of talents that neither really have individually, and could’ve filled in the gaps in each skillset in ways that could’ve really maximized the potential they presented. Both are great visual talents, no doubt, and great at staging bang-up set-pieces. Spielberg’s the better hand with actors, Lucas has the more inventive imagination. The Indiana Jones movies show what they were capable of together in small doses– just imagine what they could’ve done if they joined forces in earnest.
If by coming together they could both be locked in the deepest oubliette never to be released until the end of days, then I’m all for it.
Comparing them to Powell and Pressburger is like comparing Rolf Harris to Caravaggio. No disrespect to Rolf. At least Coppola made the two Godfathers, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now before he became a waste of space. And that is a better rollcall than Spielberg and Lucas combined.
Considering Harris and Caravaggio didn’t exactly work in the same mediums, the comparison’s kinda iffy. And again, my point remains that together, they could have equaled the quality of P & P, as a filmmaking team. At the very least, they would’ve easily outmatched the redundant misanthropy of the Coen Brothers.
AWWWWWW, C’Mon Allan….
You’re being way too harsh on these guys…
What about HOOK and THE PHANTOM MENACE????????
I realize it should be of no surprise to anyone, but I actually like “Hook” quite a bit. It was the first Spielberg movie I saw in a theater, and really won me over, despite my being a little cynical about seeing it at the time. It’s silly as hell, sure, but it’s not hurting anyone.
Plus, I’m always amazed to consider it was the brainchild of “The Shape”, himself, Nick Castle. How do you go from starring as Michael Myers in “Halloween” and co-writing “Escape From New York” to penning a Peter Pan movie with Robin Williams in the lead? Such are the mysteries of this world that we mere mortals shall nary be privy to…
Dennis, your remarks appropriately indicate that Malick is an artist who speaks to us with special vigor. It’s very encouraging that such a thoroughgoing and restrained rebel has established a presence within the wide embrace of the film world.
I agree wholeheartedly JIM. As I said above, THE THIN RED LINE slowly worked me over. At forst I was disappointed by it, having been ravaged by the emotional brutality of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, I saw, in comparison, Malick film as slow and monotonous.
However, a year later, and with RYAN an afterthought, I saw that Malicks film wasn’t really about war at all. The film moved the viewer further and revealed itself as a meditation on the last moments before we die and the wonder and the peace of the greater journey ahead. I’ve seen RED LINE many times since that second viewing and I now consider it one of the most spiritually invigorating films ever made and a movie that moves me by its sheer audacity to tackle a subject and ideal that few filmmaker would have the balls to even consider. That the film, finally comes off so effortlessly and so visually beautiful is a testament to a director I shouldn’t have questioned in the first place…
yeah, as the years have passed the Spielberg looks like the overrated film that it certainly is.
Other than the great beginning I have to agree with Jamie. Ryan can’t tie the bootstraps of A Thin Red Line…
And the crazy part is I’m one of the biggest fans of Spiekbergs work.
In my mind there is really no competition when you put both of these WWII films back to back. The Omaha Beach sequence that spans the first 20 minutes of RYAN was what truly made that film. From that point on, it’s a plodding and often overly sentimental take on what being in a war like that really was.
Malick, on the other hand, really isn’t concerned with any of this and his THIN RED LINE reveals itself as having an entirely different agenda to the point where I cannot even say if it IS a war movie. He uses the backdrop of WWII as a springboard to delve into the more existensial and spiritual aspects of his message. And, as Kubrick had said, War is many things, its brutal, dispairing, violent, sometimes completely senseless, but it’s often very very beautiful…
I think that Malick was running with Kubrick’s quote as a slight before thought and took the ball to the goal…
I too am eagerly anticipating this new Malick film esp. that I’ve read about the sheer scope of this new effort. Malick is not only incorporating the story of a boy growing up in the 1950′s with a strict father but Malick is also supposedly including the creation of the Earth in it as well through innovative special effects supervised by none other than FX pioneer Douglas Trumbell. Can’t wait!
And yes, Malick is currently filming another film. For him, he certainly has increased his work rate.
But, J.D., the fear runs that he may not make another film after the next and he returns to seclusion again for another decade or two.
I’m not one to rush anyone on a project in making art. However, his films are beautiful it’s hard not to grieve when his films come to an end and we’re faced with the possibility he may never return again. Malick is now moving into old age and with his methodical track record the best we could hope for is, what, one, maybe two more films?????
well at his age ‘another decade or two’ will probably conclude his life.
Yeah Malick is like 67 years old. I think after The Tree Of Life we can probably expect about 2 more films from him. As long as they are good, I don’t mind the long wait. Eastwood releases a picture a year since the great Mystic River and his batting average is far south of 300. Making many films is no substitute for producing good ones.
Exactly JAMIE. This is why I wish and hope he continues to visualize his dreams more frequently…
Maybe he needs all that time to make them great. He doesn’t strike me as the seat of his pants kind of guy anyway. His deliberating and exhaustive thinking might yield the richer returns in the end.
In total agreement with you MAURIZIO. However, as I said earlier, his age is the only thing that makes me wanna push him a little. As you yourself stated, the man is 67 years old now… Considering the scope of his previoius films I can venture to guess that the making of his films is not an easy task and I fear that each film, getting bigger and grander in scope, may take a physical toll on the man and force him to end his career…
I sorta see Malick as the cinematic equivalent of Thomas Pynchon. He pops up occasionally to release something and when he does it’s an event. Both are notoriously press-shy and create dense works of art that fans of theirs pour over obsessively. I for one, am encouraged by his current work rate (which is pretty good for him).
Malick doing Pynchon’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ would just about be my ultimate dream project. It’s never been rumored, I’m just pulling it out of thin air… give him three films about 9 or 10 hours. Damn.
I can definately see the relationship you give Malick with Pynchon….
I saw the this trailer the other day and I was left speechless for some reason. I don’t know what the hell it was, the images and the music just took hold. And then, as I was ready to run to IMDB to see who was responsible for this film that looked so interesting, up popped the directors name on the screen and suddenly it all made sense.
Frankly, I could care less what the plot of this film is about. Knowing Malick, as we all do here, is enough to get me charged up and anticipating this film like no other headed are way all year to come!!!!!
This film and the Von Trier (which I’m actually slightly more excited about) are the two that I cannot wait to see this year.
Actually another feature of this film being released that has me tickled is much of his other films are getting revival big screen releases. An art house theater by me is showing all 4 of his films in back-to-back-to-back-to-back (got that?) plus his early penned POCKET MONEY. I’ll be seeing them all even though I’ve seen them all at least 5 times each. Can’t wait.
For sure on all the other films as well JAMIE. However, the fact that Malick has only 4 films under his direction listed on his resume makes the release of THE TREE OF LIFE even more special as anticipation goes. He could pump out one or two more and then, whoosh, back into seclusion.
Dennis, check your email.
Just got it JAMIE, what a wonderful added treat!!!!!
The Tree of Life is certainly the American movie event of the year, but I’m with Jamie, Von Trier’s Melancholia is the biggest event movie worldwide.
I’m also at least equally interested in the likes of Terence Davies’ The Deep Blue Sea, Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method and, eventually, Wong Kar-Wai’s The Grandmasters as I am in the Malick. As for Brad Pitt, I wouldn’t worry, if he can make a masterpiece with Colin Farrell, he can make one with Pitt. It’s more the somewhat pretentious sounding plot that has me worried, though I hope my fears are groundless.
“… David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method…”
Ah yes, another I’m incredibly excited for. Actually here’s a pretty good list.
http://www.ioncinema.com/news/id/5818
I’m also stoked for the 3d Wenders.
Freud vs. Jung certainly sounds more interesting than the past couple of Viggo-starring Cronenberg films. The sooner he gets to filming DeLillo’s “Cosmopolis”, though, the better. That alone will have made the past decade of stupid, slick action flicks not so much of a waste of time, after all.
Yes, Bob you and I disagree the last decade of Cronenberg are hardly ‘stupid, slick action films’.
Let’s just say his last two movies are the perfect Cronenberg movies for people who don’t like Cronenberg movies. They’re like “Jaws” and the horror genre, in that respect. They’ve got lots of nicely lensed and performed violence and hard-boiled plots, but they stay safely in the norms of mainstream conventions. The rest of his progressive, absolutely deviant filmography would simply terrify most squares who bothered to sit through it. “The Fly” is about as close as he came to making a movie that stays true to his nature that hews to the mainstream just enough to be somewhat pallatable to larger audiences, and with his Viggo films, he crosses over entirely. They’re too safe to be worthy of the rest of his work.
“Spider”, on the other hand– there’s some merit in that one. It’s not perfect, but it’s still pretty provocative. The next two are about as challenging as yesterday’s crossword.
Both are hardly mainstream, and they both contain Cronenberg’s milieu. He’s just advanced a bit philosophically, as they’re richer in language and between the lines interpretation. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again to you, but anyone who says a film that opens with a still born baby being born to a kidnapped Prostitute in a shady drug store is ‘mainstream’ isn’t being wholly honest in their assessment.
I think EASTERN PROMISES (along with DEAD RINGERS) are his greatest films, and I don’t have to prove my love/respect/understanding for his canon.
also this past decade of Cronenberg contained the short “At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World” which shows he hasn’t lost any edge, and how much he’s grown intellectually in his concepts.
They still fit the confines of the noir genre far more comfortably than any of his sci-fi body horror ever did in theirs. Frankly, you didn’t need Cronenberg to direct those movies into the kinds of stuff they became. His work in both is good enough, but a waste of his effort. I’d put it on the same level as Lang’s “The Big Heat”, which is probably at the bottom of where I rank his stuff. Nicely polished works for hire tend not to impress me. And frankly, I just don’t see how either movie is philosophically more advanced than any of his prior works. Better adapted to mainstream expectations, yeah, but if anything they signal him going somewhat backwards. They’re crime dramas. Nothing more, even with his pedigree.
I love SCANNERS but it’s not nearly as deep or ‘daring’ as you’re tiring to paint it, same for DEAD ZONE. He’s incredibly more consistent now, and he handles actors so much better now (I know, I know something the Lucas fan in you probably has little use for). Sure, you can say the two newest ones are ‘just noirs’, but you can write off anything when you’re being that simplistic. Essentially each ‘era’ of his career contains 2 or 3 interesting films. The early era it’s THE BROOD and VIDEODROME, then DEAD RINGERS announced the next phase of which CRASH and NAKED LUNCH stand out. The next phase was announced by SPIDER that contained HISTORY and EASTERN PROMISES. It’s a steady climb, but a climb nonetheless.
But you trying to claim ‘the early stuff’ as so adventurous and transgressive when in fact it’s more accurate to say it’s 2 or 3 real interesting films out of the first 6 or 7 (remember FAST COMPANY too). These are just the facts.
His craft has also improved quite a bit, the bath house scene in EASTERN PROMISES shows that.
Again, you not touching the still born baby comment with a ten foot pole is noted.
Speaking of COSMOPOLIS, the last I read it was Colin Ferrell… but now it’s Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche and it’s happening for sure. Can’t wait.
The still born baby thing is frankly a rather cheap trick, coming from him, the same as the extended opening with the kid being killed from AHOV. It gets your attention, it’s sensationalistic, but not much else. It’s yellow journalism filmmaking. I’d frankly forgotten about it.
Granted, not all of his films from the early periods are perfect. “Scanners” is lots of fun, and at times rather brilliant in the way that he keeps upping the game on his psychic premise, but at the same time it’s obviously the work of a guy who’s trying to attract a wider audience (I’d still put it above his first two full features, which are mostly just Romero knock-offs). The race-car and Stephen King shtick aren’t worth mentioning, either, but I’d say you’re ignoring some of the better stuff in his early works, as well. “Stereo” and “Crimes of the Future” are a little on the film-school side, but they’re a wondrous double-feature. “The Fly” shouldn’t be overlooked, either, for how it blends his artistry with mainstream narrative in the same way that “Scanners” did. “M. Butterfly” is probably the best of the films he’s made from somebody else’s screenplay, and “eXistenZ” is probably the most underrated, ignored gem of his career (and the capper for a great unofficial tripod of medium-based works with “Videodrome” and “Naked Lunch”).
As for “Cosmopolis”, I could honestly give a shit who’s actually starring in it. Cronenberg and DeLillo is a match made in post-modernist heaven. Cast a mannequin in the lead, it’ll still be just as good.
if you think the openings are little more then ‘cheap trick(s)’ then it’s pointless to continue (watching the film AND having this discussion). Nothing the films present will therefor effect you; Vincent Cassel’s sublime monologue and nuance in the cellar when he and Viggo go down for wine won’t be fully understood. Making the entire film, and what it’s about little more then a ‘slick action film’. It’s why you don’t like it, but it’s not really a fault of the film or filmmaker.
I could say the same, somewhat, for “Scanners”. The absolute worst thing I could say about that movie is that it ends just as it’s really beginning to tap deep into the potential that he opens up with. There’s a great forward momentum pitch that keeps going right up until the deus-ex-machina ending. I’ll also say that it’s probably the Cronenberg movie that’s grown on me the most– for the first viewing, sure, it’s seems nothing more than a cheap, if imaginatively made diversion from a guy who clearly could and did make better stuff. But since then, I’ve really come to love it. The way that he uses simple fades to suggest the psychic harmonizing between scanner-assasins is wonderfully understated; the look of warm enthusiasm on the face of a villain when he realizes his enemy is using his telepathy to read the mind of a computer through the phone lines is infections; the way that Patrick McGoohan slowly goes insane. The only real mistake the movie makes is giving up its best trick right at the start with the exploding head– even though the rest of the film outdoes the mere splatshtick of that moment, it probably sets the wrong tone for everything that follows it. It asks the movie to be read as a gaudy piece of exploitation, when down deep it’s really more closely tied to the exploration of how social misfits learn to operate in a hostile society, as “Stereo” does somewhat.
AHOV and EP both have a fairly anonymous quality to them. I can’t really tell they’re from Cronenberg. I can see Peter Suschitzky’s work as cinematographer plain as day, but the director himself isn’t quite as present.
Again you’re wrong, though. Misplaced identities, body obscuration and psychological existentialism are what his auteristic films are about. His new ones are no different, in fact that he’s still making his films with his ideas within realistic settings and characters are what make them so interesting.
I understand you don’t like his new films (and that’s fine), but don’t confuse your subjective takes on the films with their objective traits and themes (and Cronenberg’s connection to both).
You got a link to some interviews where Cronenberg explicitly states that those are the objective themes he’s dealing with in his works? Because if not, that’s just as subjective a reading of his work as anything I was offering up. Never mind that they’re all rather vague enough (what the hell does “psychological existentialism” even mean, nowadays?) to cover pretty much anything you want.
At any rate, I’m uncomfortable with efforts to pigeonhole a director’s work to blanket terms of different set themes and “philosophies”, no matter how strongly they identify with certain ideas. I can easily say that Lucas consistently deals with myth, that Hideaki Anno’s work is always about social needs, or that Lynch’s stuff is always about “women in trouble”, but that’s unfairly reductive. Cronenberg especially represents something of a Pandora’s Box to me, somebody whose work is too full-to-the-brim with all kinds of conscious and unconscious expression that even if you were to ask the man yourself what his work was all about, you’d really only be scratching the surface.
But seriously, let’s see some links. I’m bored as hell right now, and it’d make for some cool reading.
Well obviously if Cronenberg’s themes are all subjective then you saying is new films aren’t ‘Cronenberg-ian’ enough is rather null.
Links? I’ll pass.
I didn’t say they’re not “Cronenbergian” enough (they aren’t, though– mere death and violence are hardly equal to the psychic and bodily perversions of the old and new flesh that his best work entails). Just that they aren’t interesting enough.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Jamie Uhler and Bob Clark!
Take a bow guys…
Just spark em off and away we go!!!!!!!
LOL!!!!!!
I don’t know… I just read through this JAMIE and BOB storm and I have to admit…
While I like Cronenebergs films I have to agree with BOB here that the directors recent films with Viggo Mortensen are missing something for me. I don’t know. To me there was something almost dangerous to pictures like SCANNERS, VIDEODROME, CRASH and EXISTENS that IO don’t feel permeating his most recent work. Those earlier films had an uneasiness to them that I associate exclusivelty to Croneneberg. A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and EASTERN PROMISES are great films, but I just don’t feel the Cronenberg hand on them like i do the others…
I don’t know… Maybe it’s just me…
I’d like to personally thank Bob and Dennis. You both have proved something to me that I didn’t think possible: that an opinion can be ‘wrong’.
Obviously i’m being sarcastic, to each his own. I happen to think EXISTENZ is pretty under developed and rather hokey (especially FX-wise). It pretty much showed to me why Cronenberg HAD to move on.
Besides it you want body-horror you go to the French extremity or Japanese stuff (like RUBBER’S LOVER or GOZU). Cronenberg birthed the genre largely, but he had to move on.
“Opinions can be wrong”? What, like my dislike for AHOV and EP, or not taking to the notion that they better express Cronenberg’s philosophy of whatchamacallit-existentialism? All our opinions here are equally subjective.
I agree that there’s something half-baked about “eXistenZ”, and I think it’s in the fact that Cronenberg is covering a medium that he may not fully understand or appreciate himself– games. As a designer I applaud his decision to treat them seriously as an artistic medium, enough to imagine a creator on the run from a Salman Rushdie-style fatwa, but at the same time I see his reliance on the old flesh-mechanics of pods and grizzle-guns as something of a feint, a way to avoid the real issues at work. Though I think I remember hearing him talk about PlayStation/Nintendo 64 generation consoles on the commentary track to the mive, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he hasn’t actually played a video-game in earnest since the Atari era. He structures his plot more as layers of free-associative dreams more than as a linear sequence of levels (something “Inception” did a little too well) or a non-linear expansive world that can be explored at will (something “Lost” did a little too well). Late in the movie, Jude Law complains that he has no idea what the rules or object of the game they’re playing is, despite the fact that’s precisely the point– it’s something that’s very much at odds with the fundamentals of basic game theory, and shows that to a large extent Cronenberg is focusing more on the idea of an artifically fabricated perception of reality more than anything that can be codified into a binary win/loss state.
Nevertheless, it’s still one of the better “down the rabbit hole” movies of the past fifteen years, and a real diamond-in-the-rough as far as the director’s work is concerned.
I wonder if part of his difficulty in expressing his old sci-fi strains lies in his unwillingness to work that heavily with CGI, and being overly reliant on practical effects, which by the time of “eXistenZ” really aren’t wholly convincing on their own, anymore. Hell, even by “Naked Lunch”, they were straining as far as he was pushing them. And there’s plenty more body-horror filmmakers out there, sure, but they’re above all HORROR filmmakers, with little in the way of genuine hard ideas, in comparison to Cronenberg. What sets him apart, in his best works, is that he takes the science as seriously as his scares.
I disagree about the new body horror practitioners. there are bad/average ones sure (SPLICE for example), but the good ones (IN MY SKIN, RUBBER’S LOVER or 964 PINOCCHIO, TAXIDERMIA, some Miike, and hell many consider von Trier’s ANTICHRIST part of the genre) are indeed vital.
Again, it’s not worth continuing the Cronenberg discussion when his themes are written off as ‘philosophy of whatchamacallit-existentialism’ as you’re essentially arguing the movies are interesting or auteristic because you’ve resisted grouping his themes in such a matter (at best) or took them at face value more or less (at worst). Of course they won’t seem interesting (I’m essentially saying various points of his entire career are interesting). I guess if you want challenging, intellectual, non-generic cinema you always have the STAR WARS prequels.
Jamie, remember that it’s the sci-fi in C’s work that interests me, not really the body-horror in and of itself. Basically most of the horror genre is borderline worthless to me, and seems to represent something that’s far closer to out and out pornography for gore-fiends nowadays. Even Hitchcock’s old maxim to “shoot murders like love scenes and vice-versa” seems indicative of a mindset that romanticizes the literal meaning of the word “ladykiller”.
And again, if you want to look at the broad-as-a-redwood themes of C’s work, that’s also fine. What bothers me is the assumption that it’s the only way to appreciate his work from an auteurist perspective, and that it immediately puts recent fare like AHOV and EP right at the top of his filmography, even when they bear little to nothing in common cinematically with everything that came before. It’s an interesting take, sure, but it’s just as subjective as mine or Dennis’ readings of his stuff, and shouldn’t be taken for granted as some kind of objective truth. What are David Cronenberg’s movies really all about? There’s only one thing that any of us can know for sure– they’re all about 100 minutes long, give or take.
And yes, I do have the “Star Wars” prequels. And I always will.
This is essentially why this conversation can’t continue, two back to back sentences:
“And again, if you want to look at the broad-as-a-redwood themes of C’s work, that’s also fine. What bothers me is the assumption that it’s the only way to appreciate his work from an auteurist perspective, and that it immediately puts recent fare like AHOV and EP right at the top of his filmography, even when they bear little to nothing in common cinematically with everything that came before”
So I’m trying to seek similar themes that are indeed ‘Cronenbergian’ (which to you is incorrect or worthless, see first sentence) thus linking him to himself in an auterist manner, then in the next sentence you say the new films aren’t ‘Cronenbergian’. I mean what the hell, you are arguing both sides (and no sides) at the same time in back to back sentences. It’s absurd.
Your points are Horror are valid, but moot, as I don’t like Horror like that, nor take the gore-porn stuff seriously. Never have, never will. One just needs to see the films I counted and ranked in the Horror countdown to see that.
The problem is, you seem to have your own private definition for what “Cronenbergian” means. You’re insisting on blanketing the whole of his filmography with the “philosophical content” that isn’t entirely there past the two Viggo pictures, which both lack the most defining aspects of C’s work– the surface value. Yeah, it’s shallow to look at AHOV and EP and dismiss them outright because they don’t have the same kinds of bodily transformations that we’ve come to know and love from Cronenberg, but it’s worth pointing out that they’re lacking that thing which the director is most closely identified with. It’d be a little like looking at Michael Mann’s work past “Heat” and ignoring the fact that it’s progressively lost all of its “Miami Vice”-era syle-over-substance flash for a somewhat more colorful version of Dogme ’95 guerilla pallate. Skin-deep values can’t be written off so easily.
And again, my problem with AHOV and EP aren’t that they aren’t “Cronenbergian” enough. To a large extent, I could say the same thing of “Crash” and “Dead Ringers”, as they’re both fairly realistic movies. The difference is both of those movies are good, and the Viggo stuff (in my humble, genuflecting and prostrate opinion) are boring as hell.
He eez Veego! You are like zee buzzinck of flies to heem!
“Yeah, it’s shallow to look at AHOV and EP and dismiss them outright because they don’t have the same kinds of bodily transformations that we’ve come to know and love from Cronenberg, but it’s worth pointing out that they’re lacking that thing which the director is most closely identified with.”
Ah, so AHOV didn’t contain a protagonist living within an assumed (fake) identity, and EP didn’t contain a protagonist also living within an assumed (fake) identity and having to alter his body permanently to exist within said environment. I’ll have to watch them again as evidently I’m thinking of all together different films.
Unreal.
I apologize that I’m seeking my own definitions to combat the logic that’s this sound and objective: “(they) are boring as hell.”
“Ah, so AHOV didn’t contain a protagonist living within an assumed (fake) identity, and EP didn’t contain a protagonist also living within an assumed (fake) identity and having to alter his body permanently to exist within said environment. I’ll have to watch them again as evidently I’m thinking of all together different films.”
The only other Cronenberg movie that I can take seriously as a story of “misplaced identity” is “M. Butterfly”, and even THAT is a huge deviation from his norm. And tattooing yourself is a far, far cry from body-horror.
Again, what you’re terming “Cronenbergian” has precious little to do with the director’s actual subjects. They fit AHOV and EP, but all that does is show how little they have in common with the rest of his works.
Couldn’t help myself…. the mob tattoos are a clear link to Cronenberg’s past and his concern with body horror/modification. Viggo must ink himself up and permanently scar his body to achieve a degree of usefulness in his foreign environment. I have really become fascinated with Cronenberg lately as compared to my past opinion of him. To me his best stuff is The Fly, Dead Ringers, Spider, AHOV, and Eastern Promises. Their is a maturity in his last three that takes his thematic concerns to new heights. I await his next film with baited breath…
Maurizio comes riding in bugle sounding, and flag waving. Fight the fight for sanity. It’s like trying to nail down a squirming gardener snake.
A crucial difference, however, is that in the past all the bodily transformations that Cronenberg’s protagonists witness or undergo are not matters of free-will, as they are for Viggo’s wolves-in-inked-clothing. Max Renn doesn’t choose to become exposed to the Videodrome signal. Seth Brundle doesn’t choose to become Brundlefly. “James Ballard” doesn’t choose to get into his first car-crash. There’s a big difference between body-modification and the slow-to-rapid changes of the flesh that occur in Cronenberg’s movies. It would be like saying cancer is a lifestyle choice.
Call it “maturity” on the director’s behalf for abandoning what made his work so visionary and unique in the past. I’ll call it how I see it– selling out.
I think the Viggo films simply are more subtle in their preoccupations with transformation and identity configuration. Its not that they are not connected to earlier stuff, but that Cronenberg has evolved as an artist and decided to frame his ideas in a different way. The 80′s was a long time ago…
Yeah, about as subtle as a punch in the face. Again, these concerns of identities in flux is really only something that’s evident in the past two films, and has to be reached for so badly in the rest of his filmography you practically have to pull your arm out of its socket just to graze it with your fingernails. It’s a matter of whether you look at AHOV and EP through the prism of his previous work, or whether you look at his previous work through the Viggo stuff.
So to recap.
Before I asserted AHOV and EP show Cronenberg’s themes. Bob said they didn’t. Now he says they do, and they’re “about as subtle as a punch in the face.” 90 minutes ago they, evidently, were yet to punch Bob in the face.
Again, like nailing down a squirming snake, just make this shit up as you go along.
Neither AHOV or Eastern Promises were exactly feel good movies for the whole family. Slight changes in the thematic blueprint is expected of any artist evolving over time. Calling Cronenberg a sell out after knowing the kind of commercial crap you praise is utterly strange. Then again from you it isn’t. I call it how I see it as I retire from this sub thread….. trolling.
No, Jamie. I’m saying the movies aren’t subtle, not the themes you’re projecting onto them, and the whole of his work. If I’m to be a snake in the garden, don’t put words in my fangs.
“Neither AHOV or Eastern Promises were exactly feel good movies for the whole family. Slight changes in the thematic blueprint is expected of any artist evolving over time.”
Compared to the rest of his stuff, Mauriz, they certainly are. They’re films that fit rather perfectly into the kinds of crime-drama thrillers where people feel comfortable seeing this kind of violence at play (especially skating by as they do with a recently minted box-office draw like the scourge of Carpathia, the sorrow of Muldavia). What was interesting about Cronenberg’s prior films was how they pushed the boundaries of what audiences were comfortable with seeing even in horror and science-fiction– there’s something utterly perverse and transgressive in stuff like “Videodrome”, “The Fly”, “The Brood” and yes, even “Scanners”. Even as he grew as a filmmaker with “Dead Ringers” and his literary stage, he still concentrated on projects that focused on challenging the norms, especially when it came to sexual morphology. If anything is missing from his recent stuff, it may be that aspect most of all– yeah, there’s plenty of sexual content in everything from “Spider” on, but it’s nowhere near as challenging. Everything’s fit into rather neat little boxes, and nothing really escapes the comfort zones we already have for these kinds of underworld mafioso potboilers.
And yeah, I call it selling out because it’s a fundamental change in the stuff he’s done as a director, primarily geared towards becoming more commercial. If that was already a part of his work (or maybe if he was using his more mainstream perch to do something more genuinely daring and adventurous, which he already did as far back as “The Fly”) it wouldn’t bother me. When I saw “Eastern Promises” advertised as “From the Director of ‘A History of Violence’”, I frankly felt sort of nauseous.
Yes, Cronenberg has sold out. George Lucas has not.
Like Maurizi, I retire into the cool April afternoon.
You’re absolutely right, Jamie. Lucas’ movies were always about fast cars, wishy-washy mythology and robots of all ages. The only thing that ever changed was the budgets he got to play with. Lucas never sold out– he just got a better rate of return.
Cronenberg, however, has changed courses entirely from what he used to do, and as such has seen bigger successes than he ever did before. That is selling out. Again, I hope the real director comes back to us with “Cosmopolis”, but until then it’s uncertain.
Ah OK, it’s better to never have aesthetic ethics then to evolve as an artist. Gotcha.
Bob you also live in a world where FAST COMPANY and DEAD ZONE aren’t apart of Cronenberg (early) filmography. This world is called ‘fantasy land’, the same place George Lucas is revered as an important, vital artist.
Creative evolution, just like selling out, is all relative. That’s why I chart Cronenberg’s growth downwards on the curve, pandering more and more towards the very conventions his past work struck back against. Better to have convictions that you stick to, whatever they are, then to abandon them late in the game for material gain. It’d be one thing if he were making a concerted effort to channel his creative spirit into a more mainstream direction (as he did in the past) or if he were capitalizing on his mercenary director-for-hire assignments (which he may yet do, hopefully, with the DeLillo project). But Cronenberg going Viggo is not Dylan going electric.
And Jamie, just because they’re a part of Cronenberg’s early filmography doesn’t mean I have to be a tremendous fan of them. “Fast Company”‘s a minor effort, but oddly one that’s full of stuff he’s into, like race cars and the like. “The Dead Zone” is actually a movie I feel has a lot in common with the best stuff in his early efforts– it has a deep focus on a psychic whose burgeoning abilities make him an outcast from society, just as the experimental subjects of “Stereo” and “Scanners”. To a certain extent, you could make a case that much of his work, especially those early efforts, are at least partly about the difficulty of communication– we have all these creative mediums and technologies that arise from the fact that we can’t express exactly what we’re thinking or feeling with one another on a direct mind-to-mind level, ie: ESP. They’re films that focus either on what happens when people can link with one another psychically, or on the different devices we create to achieve an indirect form of communication. Perhaps that’s why “eXistenZ” represented a closing effort for his early and mid periods, because it tells the story of a creative medium and communicative technology that allows for a one-to-one connection of minds. After that, it’s hard to go much further in that direction.
Do I wish that perhaps he’d found a way to tell that kind of story in a more refined sense? Perhaps. I wonder what might’ve happened if he had linked up with that other great pioneer of Canadian sci-fi– William Gibson. Imagine a “Neuromancer” directed by Cronenberg– better yet, don’t bother. It’d only be torture not to have the real thing for our viewing pleasure.
As for the fantasy world where Lucas is revered– I think it’s the same one where people actually give a damn about Terrence Malick, isn’t it? Sounds like a nice place to visit.
And they keep going and going and going and going and going and going and going….
What a THREAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had heard from discussion written on the film the same and most are likening THE TREE OF LIFE to being Malicks best film of all. I think the guessing should stop though, as we’ll be the ultimate judges of this work in the end.
Frankly, just from reading up on what the film is about and the concept that the director is going for I’m just amazed that he has the balls and audacity to even try something on this scale and magnitude. The world would be a much better place if deep thinkers like Malick were in abundance and putting there messages out there for all to see on a more regular basis…
The worlkd is a wondewrful place and life is a precious gift, it’s inspiring that there are still people associated with art that still feel it their compulsion to get that across, this thing so many of us take for granted…
My sentiments exactly on the Farrell/Pitt statement. However, I don’t see Pitt nearly as bad an actor as some make him out to be. On several occasions he’s risen to the surface and delivered brilliantly (12 MONKEYS, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES, INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS, SE7EN and, particularly, FIGHT CLUB).
As for the pretentious plot? Hey, weirder things have happened. He took the often told tale of POCAHONTAS and molded that into the breathtaking THE NEW WORLD, and after APOCALYPSE NOW, his THIN RED LINE is the very definition of existensial war film…
Von Trier is pretty prolific, we see him far more frequently than we do Malick. Same goes for Cronenberg and, to a lesser extent, Kar-Wai. Malick is like Kubrick in this respect. It could be years before we see another film…
The difference is that Kubrick was prolific enough early on to justify the long stretches where fervent admirers would wait for his next project with bated breath. If I were a fan of Malick’s, I’d frankly be a little pissed that he took so long a vacation between “Days of Heaven” and “The Thin Red Line”.
Still, now that I see it’ll have a stateside release at the end of May, I’ll admit I’m a little anxious. There’s seldom this kind of anticipation for a sci-fi release in the art-house crowd, so that’s a nice thing.
I wonder if The Tree Of Life is really going to contain sci-fi elements? I have heard such conflicting reports when it comes to dinosaurs and special effects. With his crazed obsession with editing and reediting, I wouldn’t be surprised if all that gets sacrificed from the movie. I read something from an inside source somewhere that this was his best film yet, but that the dino’s/CGI were terrible and brought down the movie. I hope whatever he decides, the picture is edited to it’s best potential.
If the sci-fi elements are excised, I really see no reason for all the excitement. Another damn coming of age movie about the trials and tribulations of growing up with an overbearing father?
It’s gonna be hard to completely jettison the sci-fi, anyway. The space stuff is there to see in the trailers, and the dinosaurs are kinda the worst kept secret about the movie. The cat’s already out of the bag.
Then again if it’s coming out during the summer months, you should almost expect to see at least a few seconds of T.Rex’s and stegosaurus’…
Like I said, the dinos and the space stuff are the hook for me here. Without that, it looks like a movie we’ve seen before. Remove Malick’s name from the project, and the idea of a coming-of-age story mashed up with all this sci-fi stuff is genuinely interesting, the kind of odd-bird montage that makes “Intolerance” the only really watchable Griffith movie. But try to imagine that movie without the cross-cutting of different stories, and all you have is another damn Jesus movie.
Let’s hope that the science stays in the fiction.
I’m 100% sure I read somewhere that the dinosaurs were not a given and that it made the picture look silly. Your looking for some Spielberg/Lucas…. I just want grade A Malick without superfluous blockbuster content. It seems the prehistoric stuff is not essential to the success of the film according to some insiders. He took the war film in A Thin Red Line and created something exemplary. He could do the same thing for the coming of age, overbearing father, trials and tribulations sub genre lol…
Either way we will find out soon enough. I just hope that if The Tree Of Life does contain sci-fi elements, that it works better than what some have hinted at in the press…
It’s that kind of thinking that makes me despise the blockbuster/art-house distinctions in general, and tends to encourage the very worst in both. The past decade has seen strong filmmakers create some of the best high-concept cinema made in quite a long while, especially as it concerns sci-fi. And as much as it must pain the detractors around here– yeah, maligned stuff like the Prequels and the Wachowskis’ post-”Matrix 1″ output are a big part of that, beyond the accepted likes of “Avatar”, Nolan and “AI”. Oh, there’s been some stunningly awful and disappointingly popular dreck out there in the multiplexes, but in the past decade we’ve seen plenty of directors make a concerted effort to use the resources afforded to them by the blockbuster and make ambitious epic that can and should be taken seriously.
Is it hoping too much to wonder if Malick can see past the fears of naysayers who still don’t like the idea of dinosaurs and spaceships spoiling their quaint little 1950′s growing up fable? I’d like to think not.
Give better examples as The Matrix and The Prequels are awful.
I dislike Avatar and Batman/Inception as well.
Remember, Mauriz, I think all of Malick’s movies until now are awful, too, so we’re at a stalemate.
I don’t see it. All of the films, THE MATRIX, the BATMAN films that Nolan made and AVATAR work as some of the best Sci-Fi I know I have seen on the screen in a while.
That they do what they set out to do is far more than most art house films ever achieve. IMO
I’m just saying where are all these great sci-fi classics? A deader genre you can’t find me. Even the western throws out more classics per decade. Science Fiction/comic book stuff has devolved to only interest pimply faced 15 year old fanboys with no social life.
Agreed. I’m not a huge-upon-huge fan of either Cameron or Nolan’s stuff (at least nowhere near as I am of Lucas), but I admire the ambition and applaud their imaginations. I’d put what the Wachowskis have done above “Avatar”, “Inception” and the Batman movies, but still, they all have a great deal more to offer than people take for granted.
Well you have Dennis in your corner I guess.
Memento and The Prestige are the real Nolan films. The Batman stuff is just cashing the paychecks….
Yeah, but only to a certain extent. I doubt he’s going to start singing the praises of “The Phantom Menace” anytime soon.
And as for Westerns– After the passing of Sergio Leone, has there been even even one movie that was really worth calling a “classic”? People always flock to “Unforgiven”, but to me that’s nothing but the first few whips given to a newly dead horse.
The cowboys are finished. That frontier was taken off the map a long time ago. Git along, little doggie.
Oh, and “The Prestige”? I called that bird in the first 30 minutes. Biggest waste of time I’ve seen since the likes of M. Night Shyamalan.
And, yet, MAURIZIO, my dear friend, I see the BATMAN films as the ones that Nolan is closest to than any of his other films. I truly believe that he was busting to make them and give what he thought would be the finest adaptation than any other attempts at them would be.
As entertainment, and I don’t think even he would think they shoud be taken overly serious, I think they work abnormally well.
THE MATRIX, and I am NOT talking about its sequels, is, simply, a creatively executed mind bender that worked on many different cylinders. it’s Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, Action picture all rolled into one and its breakneck speed never allows the audience to catch its breath. That the film goes further to tease the mind and ask questions about the percetions we have about reality was an added bonus to an extremely well made entertainment.
AVATAR, while being a message film about the rape of this planet, was unabashedly entertaining and wonderfully detailed in creating its fantasy world. I ask those that don’t like the film if it’s possible to just allow yourselves to release yourselves for a few hours and just let a film like that take you.
I know I did and I found the film an experience that still resides in me…
Not the greatest films of all time, or even this decade, but you all bash this stuff like it were a plaque that was killing and choking innocent babies in their sleep…
Looks like Dennis and I are finally in agreement. I’m chomping at the bit for this one. Too bad you guys couldn’t have the you tube showing with the picture as you’ve done in the past.
Well, I’m finally glad we could agree. As for the YOUTUBE thing, I really don’t know how its done as Sam was the one that posted the article and embedded the trailer. However, something must be fucked up on WordPress as the bulk of my article was all jumbled when finally printed here…
Whoever replaced the link with the full trailer panel, all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
A little bird on my shoulder tells me it’s Dee Dee!!!!
I think you right Schmullee and that little worker mouse DEE DEE is staying modestly silent right now…
Where is DEE DEE by the way? I fully expected to see her rear her lovely face on this thread the moment we mentioned her.
Did she get eaten by the boogy-man?????
The only film of Malick’s that I saw in the theater is The New World and that was an experience like no other film. Just the vast scale of that film in terms of compositions and Chivo’s photography. All I can say after that screening was “one more film”.
I’m extremely anticipating for The Tree of Life though I will keep expectations low. I’m currently working on a beginner’s guide for people interested in Malick’s work in anticipation for the new film.
I should also note that Malick is currently in post-production for another film which I think will be released in 2013-2014. My bet is on a 2013 release. It currently doesn’t have a title as the film stars Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem, and Barry Pepper.
A beginners guide???????
Please please please let us know where to go for this on the web. The concept is intriguing and I would love to preruse it as i’m sure many of us here would too.
I’ve been reading up on TREE and, as per Malick’s history, he’s been tinkering and re-editing TREE for a while to get it “perfect”. However, word from those that worked on the film and the few distributors that have seen the final product have likened it as Malick’s 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY and one artical I read quoted a viewer in saying that this film is one of the rare ones that changes the perceptions we have when we think of what the limitations of film-making are.
That Malick is so obsessive and so guarded till he thinks things are perfect, I have no doubt that this film will live up to all the excited anticipation passionate film goers are experiencing now that they know “one more film” is on the way…
TREE was actually the film he was set to do right after DAYS… then he soured on something went to France, taught Philosophy, ect… and waiting 20 years to make another film. That’s how old this project/idea is.
He taught Philosophy…
Well, there you have it…
Is there any wonder why Malicks films are heavily slanted towards the philosophical and spiritual? In all honesty, thinking back about his films and re-reviewing them in my mind, I don’t think its a broad or wrong statement to say that he is one of the crown jewels in modern American film-making and an intellectual force to be reckoned with.
Shit, I would have loved to smoke weed with this guy back in the day when that was an hourly routine with me…
Turn on a little Radiohead, perhaps a Beethoven Symphony, serve up some vegan dishes with wine and let the guy go go go….
Oh Dennis, wow I didn’t know you didn’t know that.
Malick is a true philosopher almost a filmmaker second. One of my prized possessions in life is Heidegger’s THE ESSENCE OF REASONS english translation by: Terrence Malick. As a grad student he was translating one of the greatest minds the world has ever know.
oh and bravo:
“Shit, I would have loved to smoke weed with this guy back in the day when that was an hourly routine with me…
Turn on a little Radiohead, perhaps a Beethoven Symphony, serve up some vegan dishes with wine and let the guy go go go….”
I loved that (I’d go for 14-16 pints of English Ale hope thats ok?!). But don’t apologize for your Malick love. He’s my favorite American filmmaker bar none.
14 to 16 pints of Ale????
You, Sir, are a bottomless pit!!!!!!!
Well, I’m nearly done with the guide. It’s just for newbies who don’t know much about Malick’s films. If I was going to do something about Malick, I would have him in my Auteurs essay but I’m going to wait on it once he releases his next film and hopefully releases the Lanton Mills short that he did in 1969 that can only be seen in the AFI school in California.
What I’m essentially doing with the guide is to prepare newbies for what to expect in a Malick film. Which one to start with and their availability on DVD/Blu-Ray.
We’re also into darts, billiards and chess when we can get to a bar that can accomodate us with that stuff. Actually there is a great sports bar on 21st street between 6th and 7th avenue that can handle all of the combative activities we seek.
Nothing like expounding on film and music while shooting a rack and getting totally tanked at the same time…
Afterwards, I would suggest CAFETERIA on 17th and 7th for some of the best Soul Food in the city or HOP KEE in Chinatown for the best Spare-ribs and Hot and Sour soup in the Tri-State area.
Of course, then there are the hot-dogs at Gray’s Papaya…
If you want music, the Knitting Factory has four floors of different types of music. Live Jazz is on the first, live Rock on the second, live classics on the third and live electronica on the fourth.
and then…
Where were we?
Oh, Malick…
He’s great too…
heh-heh!!!!!
Well, Steven, whether for novices or scholars I’d still love to preruse your guide…
Sound completely interesting and intriguing!!!!!!!
JAMIE-
Any time you happen to come the way of the East Coast, Manhattan particularly, don’t hesitate to look me up. I’m sure I could be persuaded to come out for a night an partake in a few things I have put to side (at least for a while)…
I was out a few nights back with a few friends in Hoboken (one is a painter-canvasses not walls-and the other is a musician)and we talked the night away of much beer, good sushi and, well, I’ll let you guess what else was being done…
The subject of conversation was mainly slanted towards film, literature and music. The buzz I had from the combination of good food, great beer (STARBAR has one of the greatest selections of beers from around the globe) conversation and, um, you know, was something I hadn’t experienced in many years.
You are more than welcome to join in on the fun and tempt me out of the house any time!!!!!!
Oh the next trip/vacation I get I want to hit up NYC… the Sam, Dennis, MoMA et al.
Absolutely, although I will warn you…
Sam doesn’t drink, smoke or partake in alternate means of mind expanding…
I’ve tried for years to corrupt him but he won’t budge an inch…
One of my dreams is to get Sam totally drunk and stoned and see where his big brain will go!!!!
It could only be a blast!!!!!!
MOMA is so much better, although great any way you go, when your “a little under the weather” shall we say…
I actually have a membership at MoMA, fyi. I think it gets up to 5 people in free/cheap.
I think I got one of those cards for MOMA too. Gotta go rummage around through the moving boxes. Moving is never easy…
Oh yeah I have one of those too, thanks though. I donate money their annually around the holidays. It’s a cause I feel rather strongly about.
This is my most eagerly anticipated film of the year.
Great write-up on Malick’s appeal and a preview of ToL.
I hate to be a stickler, but you state that DAYS OF HEAVEN takes place during the height of the depression when it takes place circa 1917 well before the depression.
Also, while it may be sparse on the dialogue, one would be amiss not to mention the importance of the memorable voice-over work (another hallmark of Malick).
But yeah, man….yeah…agree with your enthusiasm here all the way.
And after seeing the recent trailer, ditto my excitement for Von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA – though ToL I think is till more of an “event”.
Yup, yup, yup, you got me DAVE…
I wrote this little article in about 4 minutes flat the other night before sending off to Sam and my memory failed me completely.
The film is set in 1917 and for some reason, partly the fact that its been years since I revisited the film, I pulled a major blunder.
As for the voice-over work, I’m with you all the way as I am also a big fan of his use of Saint-Saen’s CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS as the overture to the film that blankets the title credits montage.
However, even with mistakes like that (and I have to admit being totally sheepish in the making of such a glaring mistake), I think the enthusiasm that sparked this amazing thread of discussions can over-ride a few dumb-bell blunders. Watching these guys get going on a passionate conversation is an amazing thing and everyone here added great channels of discourse that I would never have dreamed would drum up off a little do-dad piece that accompanied a 2 minute movie trailer.
but, the proof is in the pudding and its easy to see the awe that Malick inspires with his film work…
I too, am looking forward to the Von Trier film as well…
Totally agree, Dennis – you stirred up a great thread!
I love the “Carnival of the Animals” opening credits sequence, too…I can play it over and over with the images in my head at will.
It’s almost like Malick isn’t directing a film…he composes it…and like great music, its melody and lyrics stick with you forever.
Well, JAMIE hit the nail on the head for me when he mantioned that Malick has taught philosophy.
I now understand where Malick is coming from and why his films resonate with such a spiritual/musical quality. He’s using film to work out experiments of his own thinking and way to present his philosophical takes on the world and life and death as HE sees it.
Call him the Deepak Chopra of the film world if you like…
As for the “composing” you speak of, absolutely. The flow and the tide of his films are deeply symphonic the same way Kubrick’s work and Scorsese’s is. I see Malick more of a classical composer like Kubrick. Scorsese is more hard rock and jazz….
Sam Juliano said,”Whoever replaced the link with the full trailer panel, all I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
A little bird on my shoulder tells me it’s Dee Dee”
@ Hello! Sam Juliano…
You’re very welcome!
@ Dennis said,”Where is DEE DEE by the way? I fully expected to see her rear her lovely face on this thread the moment we mentioned her.”
Dennis, Thanks, for the show Of “concern,” but I was assisting my parents and doing some other things offline too!
…”Did she get eaten by the boogy-man?????”
(Laughter!)…Unfortunately, no or is it fortunately, no?!?
Good to see you here DEE DEE!!!!
Also: THANK YOU so much for helping us out with embedding the YOU TUBE video for us on this wonderfully surprizing thread.
As for the Boogy-Man? I was getting a little worried about you but I saw that you were leaving comments on other post on WITD and my fears were extinquished…
Glad to have you chime in with us!!!!!
Hi! Dennis…
What a very interesting review about films in general and very interesting over-all look at director Terrence Malick, work on film in particular.
Unfortunately, I’am not familiar with director Terrence Malick’s work on film yet, (with yet being the operative word, but never fear I now have a Netflix account…)
Therefore, I’am quite sure I can add his films to my queue anytime…before deciding to purchase his films.
Thanks, for sharing!
DeeDee
While Malick might be an aquired taste for some, it’s hard to believe anyone wouldn’t be smitten or taken back by his films as he’s mostly concerned with exploring the big questions most of us have about life, love, relationships and death in general.
His canon of work is easy to follow though as he has only made 4 films in his life time since he first debuted in 1973 with BADLANDS (starring Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen).
However, considering the subject and theme of his newest film, THE TREE OF LIFE, I’m gonna hold off before I state which one of his movies is my favorite after I see it…
I’ll see the movie, of course, but not because it’s directed by Malick. I haven’t really enjoyed any of his movies in the past, and I don’t really expect this will be any different. But, it’s science-fiction, so…
…yeah, that’s pretty much it.
Frankly, it looks a little overly familiar. “This Boy’s Life” plus “The Fountain”, or something along those lines. I feel like this is a trailer to a movie I’ve already seen a bazillion times on TNT, in bits and pieces.
Always the optimist BOB…
DEE DEE-
Terrence Malick filmography is easy. If you like, you can copy and past the listing i give you here to your Netflicks queue.
Here they are:
BADLANDS (1973) Starring Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen
DAYS OF HEAVEN (1977) Starring Richard Gere, Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard
THE THIN RED LINE (1998) Starring Jim Cavaziel, Elias Koteus, Sean Penn, George Clooney and Woody Harrelson
THE NEW WORLD (2005) Starring Colin Farrell and Christopher Plummer
THE TREE OF LIFE (2011) Starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn
SAM’s gonna shit when he gets home and sees the numbers for this thread!!!!!!
The common theme for all these long threads is the same… Bob shows up and starts saying all sorts of crazy oddball shit that gets everyone’s panties in a bunch lol. I swear if the discussion turns to hardcore George Lucas content, I’m out.
Yup, yup, yup, just get Bob on a thread and have Jamie respond and the fireworks are a garauntee!!!!!
LOL!!!!!
I’m right there with you MAURIZIO!!!!!!
At least I try to participate in a conversation where I can, even if I’m not the biggest fan of the guy being talked about. I’m hoping “Tree of Life” turns out for the best, but I’m rolling my eyes at the Malick adoration just as much as you would to my appreciation of Lucas. There is one thing I would ask you to consider, though– at least you’ve got company. Me? I’m lucky if Stephen’s around to back me up on Lucas (but then, he’s a big Malick fan, as well– which would make him to perfect negotiator, for this conversation).
BOB-Make no mistake from me anyway…
I adore having you here and you always add a different perspective to a conversation. I’ve admired your writing from the get go, all the way back to your earliest articles for WITD and you SCI FI meditations are, simply, some of the best written and thought-provoking stuff I have ever read on the net.
And, while you and I have parted ways in our opinion of HEAVENS GATE, I recall I was one of the biggest voices on that thread calling your essay on the film one of the greatest pieces ever written for the site. That piece is still one of the models by which the others are weighed against…
Yeah but Stephen is even crazier than you are lol. Didn’t he have Home Alone 2 in his top 50 films ever. Knocks Citizen Kane but goes gaga over Caulkin. I like the guy but…
At least he managed to do the one thing I’ve never seen any fan of “Citizen Kane” manage to do, myself included– get people to actually TALK about “Citizen Kane”. As a lover of that movie, I can’t tell you how much I appreciated the conversation that critique of his inspired.
Like Jesus you must not talk about Kane. Only speak in hushed reverence about how great it is. I agree that the conversation was a hoot.
I thought SAM’s head was gonna explode that day. I was feeding him aspirins from the moment I walked through his front door.
I’m amazed he didn’t overdose and had to call an ambulance.
I remember him laying on the bed with a hot compress on his forhead muttering over and over “not Kane, not Kane, not Kane”…
You must have switched to morphine with the beating Driving Miss Crappy and Dreamgirls took…
This is why it pays to be a massive Prequel lover. Thanks to the beating those movies took from critics and fanboys, I’m more or less immune whenever one of my other beloved films falls under attack. It’s like an innoculation from reacting too seriously should ever a contrary word be mentioned about something I dig. The same is true of “Heaven’s Gate”– loving unpopular movies boosts your cinematic immune-system.
No MaURIZIO, I wasn’t around for the DREAMGIRLS thing. However, Lucille rolls her eyes whenever it’s mentioned…
I just got in now. This thread has me completely floored.
C’mon Dennis stop ass kissing. Bob did indeed write a wonderful essay on Heaven’s Gate. It may very well be the best piece on this site, but now that me and Allan have both expressed our admiration for that film, the contrarian trolly side of him has probably already dismissed it from greatness lol. The guy gets off on conflict and verbal warfare. If we all agree with him that Lucas is the greatest, I think his head will explode like a certain Cronenberg film not featuring Mr Viggo…
I’m not saying I do agree with BOB…. In the early days of WITD when I was here on the night shift BOB was my biggest nemesis, and at times I’m sure he’d say the same for me, BIGGEST PAIN IN ASS GOING.
But, what I love about Bob is his ability to infuriate everyone so much as to bring some of those writers to their best thinking and writing…
The discourse YOU, Maurizio, have brought here was in no small part due to BOB challenging you…
BTW, SAM just emailed me and said he cannot get over how amazing this thread has become. Both in numbers and conversation…
No, Mauriz. “Heaven’s Gate” is still my second favorite film of all time, and I doubt it’ll be knocked down to third anytime soon (the way the “Rebuild of Evangelion” movies are shaping up, though, I might just consider that for an ending that doesn’t involve the word “Disgusting…”).
And if you, or anyone else besides Stephen started praising Lucas, I wouldn’t say my head would explode. Yours might, but that’d just be thanks to the fact that I’d now know we’re in another layer of the game’s dream-world, thus making it safe to shoot everyone with a gun that fires teeth.
Death! Death to the demon, Maurizio Roca! Long live the New Flesh!
I know Sam, totally UN-BELIEVE-ABLE!!!!!!!!!
What is interesting about Malick and his place in the blogosphere is how little his ‘other’ projects get discussed. Namely I’m talking about his studio scripts, a job that largely turned him sour to the point that he decided to make his own film (a turn that has made most cinema fans incredibly happy).
I had the chance to see POCKET MONEY on the big screen last weekend, and found it incredibly uneven. The script has a few points of interesting introspection, and the two leads are funny more or less. Same goes DEADHEAD MILES, which I think is overall a more successful film (it’s available to play now on netflix), and I’ve never been able to track down THE DION BROTHERS. Obviously like most I’ve never seen his student film LANTON MILLS either. But it is interesting that ALL these scripts form what I’ve seen and read about the others is that they all try the same idea: off beat humor with slow witted Americana.
As much as Malick is discussed around here these never get discussed, I find that strange. Also in his filmography only BADLANDS hints at this approach at all (and even there it’s just fleeting).
The only Malick I recall with any clarity is ‘Badlands,’ (1973) a superior debut followed by the overly elegiac and ostentatiously gorgeous ( the great Nestor Almendros doing a coffe-table book on art photography) ‘Days of Heaven,’ starring the insufficiently compelling Richard Gere. I lost interest in Malick after his 20-yr. hiatus between ‘Heaven’ and ‘The Thin Red Line,’ but after reading all this critical rapture I think I may have some catching up to do before the release of ‘Tree of Life.’ I may be derelict dismissing Malick after just two films.
Still, there’s one shot in ‘Badlands’ I’ve never forgotten after all these years. Near the end of the film Sheen pulls up at a gas station and parks his car next to the side of a building painted with a huge Coca-Cola (?) advertisement. Instantly, I felt the loss of Spacek’s murdered father, who was a signpainter, shot by Sheen. A lovely, sad moment that’s not laid on merely for Beauty’s sake.
In my opinion Mark, The Thin Red Line and The New World are superior to his 70′s work (though that is a minority view). I have come to regard Days Of Heaven as his weakest effort, even if I would still rate it about 9/10. If you think Heaven is overly elegiac, there is a good chance the newer stuff won’t move you.
THIN RED LINE is the film of his I return to the most. The script is just so complex. I can’t say which of his is my favorite (and it’s pointless too), but that and BADLANDS I watch the most.
I plan to watch Malick’s entire filmography from ‘Badlands’ to the present. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the 70s films and I’ve seen none of his work since ‘Days of Heaven.’ I’ll revisit ‘Days’ with an open mind. ‘Badlands’ is a film I admire already, but I’ll watch it again just for the great score (from Mickey and Sylvia to Orff). And the deadpan lines are great – “You’re some individual, Kit” or “I’ll kiss your ass if he don’t look like James Dean.” And Spacek’s running commentary, the cliches of popular romantic magazine kitsch.
Jesus, I don’t know how I’ve remembered some of those lines.
Mark S, you should see those films again, of for the first time.
It took me about 3 or 4 viewings to get past the sheer beauty of the images to realize what was being expounded on, it’s essentially this fantastic socialist/class film. You then start to understand how complex his films are, and it has little to do with their pictorial beauty which is what most are so damn awed by.
I’m speaking of DAYS OF HEAVEN of course.
Anyone who thinks Malick is just about pictorial beauty should hand in their library/movie buff card. A whole Texas sized amount of ideas/concepts have passed over your head…
Where’s Bob?
Yeah, like I told Maurizio, I’ll watch all Malick’s films again – all five of them!
To keep this thread moving along… other possible all to rare Hollywood or American films that interest me include:
The Master/Inherent Vice–Paul Thomas Anderson
The Wettest Country In The World–John Hillcoat
Cogan’s Trade–Andrew Dominik
A Dangerous Method/Cosmopolis–David Cronenberg
Gold/Big Tuna–Michael Mann
Actually there are quite a few films I’m looking forward to this year. Scroll up to where i posted the top 100, many, many films in there. Hell there is even a strange action film with Ryan Gosling of all people that appears to just be a car-chase film (the sort of thing we haven’t seen well done consistently since the 1970s). The director is an interesting up and comer. So there’s more then you’d think.
I’ve stayed away from Malick because I fear he’s become another Kubrick, a photographer not a filmmaker.
But I’m willing to give his later work a chance.
Eh. Kubrick, at least, had the balls to photograph interesting stuff. He didn’t just shoot postcards of pretty scenery and as you to project all your own philosophical treatises onto them, yourself. Mallick has a visual style. Kubrick had a visual imagination.
See, to Bob, projecting Philosophy or a personal Philosophy takes no imagination, creativity, or thought process. It’s what happens when Chewbacca, light saber duels, and CGI mean more to you then Heidegger, Rilke, or Sartre.
Oh God I just realized Bob, that you’re saying Malick DOESN’T project anything on his films and rather asks the viewer to… jesus. If you think this then I must really wonder if you’ve ever seen a Malick film, let alone taken in what is going on.
No, Jamie, you understood me the first time. Malick projects, and Kubrick doesn’t. Or at least not as much. It’s the preachy narration in hackneyed middle-American prose schtick that really ruins most of Malick’s stuff for me. You mentioned “The Thin Red Line” before, and there’s actually about 90 minutes or so of really solid stuff, once you get away from all the endless inner-monologue and “nature is pretty” crap. I especially liked how he gradually builds the Japanese attacking from their bunkers from an unseen, disembodied enemy and slowly reveals them over the course of more than an hour, piece by piece. The rest of the movie, however, just bores the hell out of me.
Interesting (and sad) that in that list of American movies you’re looking forward to, there’s only two directors who are actually American themselves.
It’s more sad/interesting to me that people continue to value Mann’s cinema… He’s glossy popcorn, which is fine but when the whole thread is tinged with cries to rise above that, he’s a strange filmmaker to champion.
I feel the opposite, finding less reason to be enthused in PTA. Frankly, up until TWWB, his movies are all pretentious, self-indulgent shit. Was his last movie a fluke, or the real deal? We’ll see as soon as this next one gets off the ground.
As for Mann, aside from the stumble of his last movie (which was derailed at least partly by the horribly miscast Depp and Bale), I find all his stuff fairly fascinating, even a huge piece of clusterfuck like “The Keep”. He’s got a wonderfully keen eye for visuals, characters and their philosophy that’s shared in common with the subject in question on this thread, but he pares it with an expert hand at on-screen action set-pieces that helps all those things come to life instead of stagnating in a static sort of way.
In short: Michael Mann is like a version of Terrence Malick who makes movies where stuff actually happens. OH SNAP!
Ah Bob the great Wonders troll. I suppose we do need one.
THE KEEP = Good (as are all of Mann’s films)
MAGNOLIA, BOOGIE NIGHTS, etc = Shit.
STAR WARS PREQUELS = Masterpieces
TERRANCE MALICK’S catalog = Shit
It’s a scorecard I have to remind myself of before beginning a discussion here.
Oh and the ‘set piece’ in THE THIN RED LINE where three men flank the hill top bunker that happens about an hour and 15 minutes in or so, is a better action set piece then anything Mann has done (only a thing or two in HEAT enters the debate), and since Malick is an actual filmmaker the sequence has greater weight and significance.
Jamie, I didn’t say Malick’s movies are shit. I have a begrudging respect/occasional admiration for them. They look nice, have a nice vibe to them. I just think people make way, WAY too much out of them.
It’d be more like… Malick is overrated, the Prequels are underrated, and “The Keep” is the very reason why a term like “So Bad It’s Good” has a reason to exist.
“Magnolia” and “Boogie Nights” are shit, though. You got that part of the scorecard right.
It’s just interesting for me to see these side by side:
(Bob) “In short: Michael Mann is like a version of Terrence Malick who makes movies where stuff actually happens. OH SNAP!”
(Maurizio) “Anyone who thinks Malick is just about pictorial beauty should hand in their library/movie buff card. A whole Texas sized amount of ideas/concepts have passed over your head…”
I’ll let you decide which one I align with. MAGNOLIA we’ll agree to disagree, maybe if it had some of Lucas’ cracking dialogue or a ‘Yipee!’ pod race you’d find it more worthwhile.
Lets get one thing cleared up. I love Heat and Public Enemies. I find both of those movies to be great modern neo noirs that have me excited about Mann when he makes a certain type of crime film. I find The Keep, Miami Vice, and most of the rest of his filmography to be somewhere between total shit and numbingly ordinary. Why do I love Public Enemies????? The scene where Depp is watching Manhattan Melodrama is the key to unlock that particular puzzle. The essence of noir is held within those moments that place Dillinger in the same harrowing company as Dix Steele and The Swede. Glossy popcorn is an inaccurate statement in my opinion… Mann has something to say, and it is inline with most of the noir ethos.
Saying that, Malick is the superior filmmaker who other than visual glorious is about as opposite of Mann as possible. I don’t see the connection to be honest. One is a genre director who is evolving the form, the other rises above any such petty classifications.
Well Bob that tradition goes way back…. just look at this noir countdown. Siodmak, Wilder, Lang, Preminger, Tourneur, Laughton, Reed, Mackendrick, Brahm, Zinnemann, etc…
‘Popcorn’ was a simplification of that type of cinema. PUBLIC ENEMIES isn’t popcorn like THOR, but it’s not intellectual cinema, art cinema, or experimental cinema.
The fact that the guy that made MIAMI VICE isn’t discussed as such, even for a second, says more about the state of cinema then any Hollywood condemnation thread we could have. It’s one thing to value and see art cinema (and say you champion it), it’s another to try and place Mann into it too. I think it’s OK that you like PUBLIC ENEMIES (and you know my thoughts on it), but we must agree that in classifying it its closer to Corman’s DILLINGER then it is Ferreri’s DILLINGER IS DEAD.
Well film noir and westerns are not intellectual/art cinema either. I would never claim that I find Persona better than Sunset Boulevard because I don’t. I place Malick and Mann in the same company only in the sense that they both have films I admire. How they should be classified matters little to me. I love some Mann films because he creates modern noir that resembles what I like in the genre. I have no problems saying that I would rather watch Public Enemies than Von Tier’s crappy Antichrist. The weaker art/intellectual movies do not rate higher than wherever you want to slot Mann. Still I rather watch the worst kind of art film over true low brow popcorn Hollywood fare. Not sure if this makes sense… it would be easier to explain if we were face to face or if I had more time to craft a fully realized explanation.
I guess I rather watch genre films that are well made (in my opinion of course) like Chinatown, Unforgiven, and Rififi over pretentious crap like Peter Greenway’s whole career, Antonioni, and “most” of Paosolini (but not all).
Genre films can certainly be art films, or experimental films. Art film or experimental film generally speaks to how the film is made or envisioned not what genre it sits in.
Hell, is 2001 an art film or just mere sci-fi?
the Greenway comment I just have to assume you’ve never seen, say, A ZED AND TWO NAUGHTS.
ANTICHRIST is crap? um… ok.
The problem is that “art-film” has become something of a genre of its own, a descriptive that’s used with a sense of entitlement only for those movies that break through their primary genre affiliations and maintain a critical mass of pedigree opinions, which allow commentators the self-assured kind of elitism which gives the permission to disparage a whole swath of movies belonging to a certain kind while praising a handful as exceptions to the rule. It’s sad to see someone hypothetically asking if “2001: A Space Odyssey” ought to be labeled a “mere” science-fiction film, as though the canon of sci-fi were something to be any more questionable than that of noir, westerns, horror, or anything else.
I can understand it when “art-film” is applied to something whose technique falls outside of mainstream sensibilities enough to require some kind of a modifier, but most of the time there’s a more descriptive term that can be found instead.
I used ‘mere’ to highlight the ‘generalness’ at which Maurizio spoke of genre films, that they are separate entities of their own. Thus attempting to make essentially the same point as you Bob. Clearly I adore stuff like ALPHAVILLE, WORLD ON A WIRE, STALKER, etc. which are clearly art films, but also heady sci-fi.
I agree that ‘art-film’ has becomes a sort of separate entity for some real boring trash nowadays, but you never want to judge things using the worst offenders. But I do agree with your overall point, some like ELEGY would fit into there, it’s trying to strike all the right poses but it’s just as slick and thoughtless as a Chanel ad.
I actually like “Elegy”, if for no other reason than it’s one of the better, more thoughtful modern literary adaptations of the past several years. Antique dreck like “Pride & Prejudice” and “Jane Eyre” keep getting filmed again and again (with nary a complaint from anyone allegedly tired of se/pre/requel-itis clogging up originality in cinema), but it’s rare we see anything based on the work of an author who’s still breathing that doesn’t hail from the magical-teenagers young adult variety. “Elegy” wasn’t very deep, but it was a far better, more affecting adaptation of Phillip Roth than, say, “The Human Stain” was. Also, it had one of the least sexually-objectifying (and yet paradoxically, sexy as hell) nude scenes from recent movies, when Penelope Cruz poses for Ben Kingsley towards the end. As glossy and commercial as anything in the multiplex, yeah, but that doesn’t always have to be held against something.
My main objection with the term “art-film” is how it immediately elevates whatever it’s used to describe above anything else, or at least intends to. It’s the verbal equivalent of putting something on an ivory pedestal, and does a disservice to both it and everything around it. Call something an “art-film”, and even if it’s good, it only encourages you to take it for granted. Meanwhile, it encourages you to ignore whatever else is in its genre as being somehow beneath it– something I obviously have issues with, and not just with the sci-fi franchise you might immediately assume.
Basically, the term “art-film” implies that some films deserve to be called “art”, and some films don’t, and I think that’s ludicrous. They’re all art, damnit. Some of it might be high, some of it might be low, but in their own ways they’re equally valid.
Interesting, (RE) ‘Elegy’, I found it to be quite poor (not even really sure why it was my ‘go-to’ ‘bad quasi-Art film’ maybe because I just watched it). I’ve read 2/3 Novella’s ELEGY pulls from (I’ve read ‘breast’, and ‘the dying animal’ which ELEGY is most closely adapting). Roth is seemingly an ‘easy’ author to adapt; most of what the stories are about is right there AND he writes in such a quick, often funny dialogue style (‘Portney’s Complaint’ still remains one of the funniest books I’ve ever read). Almost like a slightly more literate Woody Allen version of Kurt Vonnegut.
The nude scene you speak of at the end is not that poor, but all the love scenes before that convey love about as deeply as a Calvin Klien ad. Thus rendering the emotion of that late scene to be not fully earned or stylistically consistent. I won’t comment on the human strain film as I’ve never seen it (but that book is sublime).
I’ll also wholeheartedly agree about the state of literary adaptations; but to bring the conversation full circle will say much of this is on the directors. Do these people read serious books anymore? Look at the great directors and the books they adapt– not only classics but personal favorites that show taste. Today’s directors are more likely to turn to a graphic novel written for 16 year olds.
In many cases, frankly, I’ll take a good deal of graphic novels over so-called “classics” any day. Aside from how long they’ve existed as hand-me-down tomes, are works like P&P and “Eyre” really all that “great”? Are old and older-fashioned love-stories told in purple prose or epistolary formats really the kinds of things we want to preserve for the ages? Or maybe, just maybe, they were the equivalent of soap-operas and chick-flicks of their days, disposable entertainment that nobody ever got around to disposing. I’d favor something like “Watchmen” being taught in a high school class above golden-calf classics like those, any day.
Again, this is a big reason I’m so happy about Cronenberg tackling DeLillo, probably the most essential American literary voice since Hemingway (or at the very least, since Salinger disappeared into his own private field of rye).
Well you misrepresent what I mean by ‘classic’, believe me I want more Austin and the like like I want a hole in my head. I define the ‘classics’ as the Walker Percy’s (The Moviegoer as only been discussed once as a film entity, by you guess it Mr. Malick), Yukio Mishima (‘The Temple of the Golden Pavilion’ is what Fincher would do if he had a brain), Murakami (David Lynch come on!), Osamu Dazai (‘No Longer Human’ might be my favorite book ever), Thoman Pynchon (who gives your DeLillo/Hemingway claim some run), and on and on and on. These are book that easily de-pants anything said about Graphic freakin’ novels as anything close.
Hell even authors that have had a few films made of works can still be mined, why not go at Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ (it’s cinematic as hell), Anthony Burgess (I’d love a ‘Doctor is Sick’ film), and again, one can go on and on and on. We just need directors that still like to read words and dream up images, not have the books give THEM the images (as is the case in Graphic Novels).
Good assortment of writers for the title of “modern classics,” Jamie. I keep thinking that Pynchon is British, for some reason, but still put DeLillo above him as a distinct and essential American voice. “White Noise”, “Libra” and even the “Pafko at the Wall” portion of “Underworld” all tackle the grand national themes on a far more immediate and impressive scale than Pynchon’s bricks of books– good stuff, mind you, but there’s something to the old adage of brevity. I’d rate him somewhere below Vonnegut, but above Dick, and that’s a high compliment.
When it comes to adapting graphic novels and other visually based works, I wonder if it’s as essential to get the previously established look of the story as faithfully as the characters, story or dialogue. Yeah, we may whine about how little original thought is contributed by stuff like Snyder’s “300″ or “Watchmen”, or especially Rodriguez’s “Sin City”. But if the graphic qualities of the comics in question are a big factor of their enduring appeal, I’d say they’re fair game to treating with reverence. Just as the language of Shakespeare is a little more important than the exact reproduction of his plots (Lurhman’s “Romeo + Juliet”, Olivier’s “Hamlet” and such all do a lot of shuffling around), sometimes getting the look right is of premium importance. After all, in a visual medium, the vision is the language the story is told in, not the words.
Case in point– when Otomo did the anime of “Akira”, based on his own manga, he was essentially cutting the bulk of the plot in order to put the vision that was there in the comics onto the screen in as full and impressive a theatrical scale as possible. Now, if he’d gone the OVA or television route, he could’ve preserved the entirety of the story intact, but would that have necessarily been in its best interest? As Hideaki Anno and his team tackled the post “Operation Yashima” episodes of “Neon Genesis Evangelion” for the “Rebuild” series of features, there have necessarily been rather drastic changes in the overall narrative, but visually things are mostly consistent with what came before, just at a much more expensive scale.
My point is– adapting a work in one visual medium into another visual medium is going to be more complicated than adapting a literary work, because you’ve got that much more essential content to deal with.
That’s a decent ranking, I wouldn’t put Dick anywhere near the top, he’s good mind you but on the list of great American writers of the 20th century? Not sure. Specifically post-Hemingway names like Roth, Heller, Bukowski (several of the Beats actually), etc. come to mind, but I understand you like Dick, so it’s a personal pick (and I’m not really interested in discussing literature if people aren’t putting their personal opinions first and foremost). I’d put a few writers I like more then most on my list too (like a W. Percy for example).
There’s actually another I adore but his books are relatively hard to find: Harry Crews. I’d much rather seen someone like the Coen’s go here then where they are currently (Chabon’s ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’, even if I think they’ll make a great film out of it). If you get a chance seek and read ‘The Gypsy Curse’. Artful, but manic and wild as hell.
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As for the graphic novel visual discussion, I think you are correct but it’s also why I don’t understand their appeal from a directorial standpoint. Obviously some books offer much more leeway as many are illustrated in such a generic comic book style, and at that point whatever but the ones that come wholesale with a look (Miller’s books are of particular note here) I don’t understand why a director would want to be a director and do these. Especially in the case of SIN CITY where not only is Rodriguez lifting the look exactly, he’s also replicating shots (camera placement) and cuts! I mean damn, what’s the role of the director then? Then there is something like WATCHMEN that was written specifically for the graphic novel form (attempting to utilize things only it can do in the story telling process), attempting to become something ‘unfilmable’ (these are Moore’s exact words). Then not only is it adapted, but it’s incredibly streamlined thus taking away much of it’s art.
That and I’ve read ‘Watchmen’ twice and still can’t find the brilliance in the damn thing.
essentially what I mean (RE: Watchmen) is how much of graphic novel visual information really essential to carry over? Because I feel most of those directors doing those films are more concerned with getting the costumes, production aesthetic, and actors looking ‘correct’ and damn the atmosphere (via every tool in the film grammar toolkit) of said stories. Which is where the actual filmmaker should come into play I’d think (and from what I know about you I think you’d agree).
Re: Dick– in terms of prose, he’s sort of abysmal, and at times damn near incoherent. But it’s an entertaining kind of abysmal, and even at its most lackadaisical it’s still more readable to my eyes than, say, Burroughs. Dick organizes his ideas better than his narrative or his language, but sometimes that’s all you need to drive things forward.
Is he a favorite writer of mine? Nope. But I do think he’s one of the most influential of the past 50 years, somebody who’s shaped ideas and trends both in and out of science-fiction in all mediums. But I recall what William Gibson (that great American expat author in Canada) said about Dick– he never got into him, having already read Kafka. Dick is great at articulating all those same themes in a wonderfully contemporary American landscape.
I’ll say this about Dick– I think he’s a hell of a lot better than Carver.
Re: Graphic Novels and their Films– For the most part I agree. “Sin City” is a comic-book series I’m none too fond of to begin with, as it represents the slow creative death of Frank Miller as a writer (his best works are probably his “Daredevil” and “Batman” collaborations with David Mazzuchelli, and his “Martha Washington” books with Dave Gibbons), but the movie that Rodriguez did is all sorts of terrible. It’d be one thing of he were concerned with duplicating Miller’s panels for the screen with real-world locations, and whatnot, but the artificial crap in that movie gives CGI a bad name. I can understand if you want to create sci-fi or fantasy worlds out of whole cloth, but do you really need a green-screen to create a seedy bar, an alley way, or a hotel-room?
Snyder is very close to the comics he adapts, but he strays and embelishes just enough to make the works come to life in a certain way. “300″ has an artificial look to it that actually works, as it makes it all feel more mythic, more propagandizing. “Watchmen” duplicates the look of Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’ world enough for the realism to seep through in a wonderful way. Visually, it’s damn near perfect– the real flaws of that movie are the parts of the script that recite the book word for word (there’s dialogue that works in word-balloons, but not spoken aloud). It’s more of a genuine adaptation, and not just a recreation.
When it comes to how much visual information SHOULD be replicated, it depends on the strength of those visuals, how well they’ll work in the new medium, and how much room you might have to change things around, and come up with stuff of your own. If an image works just as well on the screen as it does on the page, not making use of it is tantamount to arrogance. If you’ve got an idea that works better, though, more power to you– case in point, Snyder did a good job changing the first Silk Spectre to more of a Varga pin-up than the chorus showgirl look she had in the graphic novel.
“Nausicaa”, “Akira” and “Rebuild of Evangelion” are different beasts, though, because they’re adaptations by the original creators.
I don’t know, I guess I fall into the middle of this arguments and balance myself on a fence.
I agree that most of these films are too worried about casting and costuming and not interested at all in creating mood and sense of place. However, the ones that DO create the mood and sense are often bashed for using the arsenal that is handed to them to create it (i.e. CGI). I for one am not a snob and so much of a “purist” that I cannot recognize a filmmaker going out of his way to create within the fabric of his film a totally immersive world that the characters and events reside in. Case in point, 300.
I have been perplexed by all the bashing that this film receives from so-called “artsy” types. What the fuck was so wrong with this film. The director used CGI to help create a totally believable adaption of a novelists own hand and in the process dropped the jaws of about everyone who was fortunate enough to see it on a big screen.
As someone who knew the graphic novel well before I saw the film, I was not only floored by the striking visuals that enveloped the film like it was a real place, but was thankful for the filmmaker going the extra mile to go the distance and say: “Miller’s artwork is so unique that thge only way we can really present it so it has the same impact is to adapt the artr work to the screen as well”…
I look a something like DICK TRACY (by Beatty) or Snyder’s other interesting film WATCHMAN or Rodriquez’s SIN CITY (which I like for it’s look and style, I was never a fan of the books stories) and I know I am grateful for filmmakers that take that extra step. Regardless to what the “intelligentsia” thinks, this is art too. That Snyder was able to also keep the themes, reamain faithful to the characters and thier plight, and still be able to “open” the book up, I will go to the mat defending the use of these tools to create something like 300.
But, this is the same argument I have had when I was going head to head with many of you on Jackson and his LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY…
But, that arguments has already concluded…
And, as per JAMIE’s quote:
“essentially what I mean (RE: Watchmen) is how much of graphic novel visual information really essential to carry over? Because I feel most of those directors doing those films are more concerned with getting the costumes, production aesthetic, and actors looking ‘correct’ and damn the atmosphere (via every tool in the film grammar toolkit) of said stories. Which is where the actual filmmaker should come into play I’d think.”
My answer:
Well, I think it depends on the story. I know that in the case of something like SUPERMAN (1978) you have to be ape-shit concerned about everything when dealing with such an iconic character. However, where most other filmmakers would have been far more interested in getting the costumes and actors correct and then plunging into the “plot” (i.e. action sequences), the director of that film (Richard Donner) and the head writer (Tom Mankiewicz) felt that the lifting of COMPLETE story would only add to the essence of the s=film and therefore most of the imagery from the comic pages and graphic novels dealing with the character were essential for replication on screen. Frankly, if you don’t recreate on screen, in total, the worlds that Superman inhabits, then he’s just some actor in a silly suit whizzing around like a bad middle school production of Peter Pan where the star is dangled by wires over a tired audience.
For something like WATCHMEN, the lifting of as much of the graphic novels visual design is integral to the success of the film. Creating a viable world where the audience can say: I BELIEVE only enhances the believabilty of the story and the characters.
To a certain extent, I think this is why Nolan’s BATMAN films work so extraodinarily well with most of todays audiences. The setting is something real to them. Miller’s vision of the world HIS Batman comes from is cloiser to home than the city-upon-city noirish art deco and gothic interpretations by the Bat’s creator, Bob Kane and artist like Jack Kirby. However, as a child of THOSE books, I have often wondered what would have happened if guys like Nolan and tim Burton came together and compromized. What would have happened if we took Burtons visual style and incorporated it with the more “realistic” plots and characterizations of Nolan’s BATMAN world…
That would be really interesting and I doubt too many would be so dismissive of the work as they are with their individual visions…
But wait…
Eric Radomsky, Paul Dini and Bruce Timm actually WENT the extra mile. Take a look at something like their legendary BATMAN: The Animated Series and you’ll know it can be done.
The lifting of the visuals from book to screen, I think really has to do with the subject on a book to book basis. Their can be some editing, no doubt, but, as seen in the most seemless example (SUPERMAN), you’d be hard pressed to convince me that any less of 99.9% of what you see in the books would be successful in bringing the Man of Steel to life…
Unbelievable…
I write a fucking novel as a reply to this interesting back-and-forth by JAMIE and BOB and now the thread is so silent you can hear crickets chirping….
Dennis, you wanna hear crickets, go read my “Evangelion” piece. It’s practically a plague of locusts, in there.
Nolan’s “Batman” movies have done a great job of coming up with their own visual language instead of appropriating that of the comics. Granted, in his hands all that really amounts to is appropriating a bunch of movies instead (“Blade Runner” and “Hero” for “Batman Begins”, “Heat” and stuff like “The Fugitive” for TDK), but at least it’s something that has a more indigenous feel to its medium. But Batman is a basic idea, a core set of characters who can be rotated about and changed when they need to be, and therefore can be treated with more freedom than the exact science that is “Watchmen”. There, the visuals of the comics absolutely part of the core substance of the work– the postures and the costumes the heroes take on tell you who they are, what the represent (Rorshach as a gritty, nihilistic version of The Quesion and detective-style heroes; The Nite Owl as a tech’ed up Batman/Blue-Beetle do-gooder with a mid-life crisis, etc), and the world they live in is full of the ephemera that’s naturally built up over the years of seeing superheroes guide its destiny.
In comics, the images are the language you have to pay attention to for adaptation.
Dennis, ye have little faith, Bob and I have been going back and forth sometimes a day or so between replies. Thursdays are generally a night I take off, watch my sole guilty pleasure (BONES) and get some decent sack time.
My response is forthcoming, this has become the thread that will not die.
Ok, whew, that said…
I gotta go and wash my dishes!!!!!
Don’t let Hollywood near late 20th century American fiction.
Two words: ‘Myra Breckenridge’
Fine novel, execrable film.
Ditto ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’
“Don’t go Shootin’ all the Dogs because one of ‘ems got fleas”
this was a line uttered in HUD, but it fits here.
You’re right. I’m still bitter all these years after the Hollywood massacre of DeVries’ ‘The Blood of the Lamb’ and Heller’s ‘Catch-22.’ Thank God the studio hacks never took their meat cleavers to Bellow! Is ‘Hud’ a McMurtry, I forget? I sure didn’t care for the J. Brooks’ version of ‘Terms of Endearment’ (except for Nicholson’s Breedlove). Oh, and thanks for the tip on the Penn book, my friend.
Yeah. “American Psycho”, “Fight Club”, “No Country”– all great films based on great late 20th century American lit. It can be done, and done well.
Hey, I just checked out DeLillo’s “Cosmopolis,’ the only DeLillo here at the library, so I must be slowly dragging myself into the new millenium. The dust jacket notes make it sound VERY interesting. Wonder what Cronenberg will make of it?
And I realize I’m entering DeLillo’s work in medias res, but at the moment have no choice.