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Better than 25-30 replies and zero 'views'.  (Ie. people replying who clearly have not read the initial post and don't care about what the author was interested in.)
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Posted: |
Jul 21, 2011 - 8:58 PM
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By: |
Sean
(Member)
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I think Malick works best when he uses overt conflicts (Badlands, Thin Red Line) instead of internalized struggles (New World, Tree Of Life). So despite some startling moments, it's not my favorite movie from him. It seems to struggle with its greater meaning through smaller scope, which is strange considering how effortless he did that in Days Of Heaven.
Bullseye. (Even though I hated Days of Heaven.) I sat quite literally rapt throughout the first performance of The Thin Red Line (and orgiastically extoll its virtues whenever prompted), but I took 3 whole days to pound through the New World DVD in 15 to 20 minute bursts of sheer will power. (I instinctively knew I'd crawl the walls if forced to view it in the multiplex.)
However, interestingly, I found the Big Bang sequence The Tree of Life's most compelling passage. I couldn't have cared less for the Waco storyline, and kept wishing Malick had eschewed the bucolic for the bombast. Kubrick indeed, LeHah.
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I just came home from seeing it, and my first reaction is to express relief and gratitude that it contains not one single gun battle, drug bust, or car chase, let alone gratuitous sex scene. I don't know if it's a great film, but it is without doubt a stimulating one, and any film that makes audiences think is a major accomplishment nowadays.
I was entranced with 2001 when I first saw it, and returned many times, in its original release, in Cinerama, complete with all the roadshow accoutrements.
I wanted to see TREE OF LIFE in a theatre, so that I could give it my complete, undivided attention. I felt that it would be that kind of film, and it is.
I've actually never seen any of Malick's other films. I'm naturally contrarian, and when someone's work is extolled by everyone, I characteristically shy away from it.
So far, I feel it's a meditation on life in general and the father-son relationship in particular. I have all sorts of questions about the plot. (Like: aren't there THREE sons? And what about the other dark-haired boy, who is mostly ignored by everyone, including the camera?)
Anyway, I'm glad I saw it, and I may go back, just to see what sort of reaction I have from a second viewing.
(Interestingly, it does have a direct connection to 2001: Douglas Trumbull is credited with working on the special effects....)
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Posted: |
Jul 23, 2011 - 4:55 AM
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By: |
Hurdy Gurdy
(Member)
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Not being a fan of that whole 'needle-drop' style of soundtracking, I thought the film would have benefited from a more rounded, thought out score.
I think it's a weakness of directors like Kubrick, Malick and Tarantino, who have to use their own 'familiar sounding' music to track in, as opposed to trusting the skills of a film composer who could write something more direct and supportive for the scenes.
I quite enjoyed the 'big bang' sequences, probably more than the disparate, unfocused family scenes that seemed to have strayed from something like Revolutionary Road, but I know I would have enjoyed them more with original music written by any of his previous composers (Morricone, Zimmer, Horner or Desplat).
While we don't need to know how the son died, it may have helped the narrative and given the audience a chance to care a little bit more about gurning Pitt and co. Personally, I never cared a jot about any of them. The most sympathetic character is the little dino who nearly got his head squished.
In a debate with a friend, who really loved this film, he argued would I rather Transformers 3. To me, this is the other end of the spectrum from that, obviously, (though to me, neither offer film as entertainment, so both fail for nearly the same reasons) but I prefer the enjoyable, entertaining films that fall somewhere between both stools.
Things like Adjustment Bureau, Source Code, Paul, Tangled and True Grit give me far more bangs for my buck. I place entertainment over preachiness (in this case) and noise (Transformers 2/3) when I go the flicks.
I laughed the other day when my mate said he thought Sean Penn was looking for the guy from 127 Hours during those scenes of his 
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I was blown away in every positive sense Sat. night...and this was at a cheapo theatre with a stain in the middle of the screen...an incredible display of indelible images...I too would have preferred a conventional original score, and yet what was there worked mighty fine...then again, how do you write a cohesive score with so much image flipping and imagery?...you resurrect Alex North, that's how...Malick pulled off the impossible/seemingly impossible task of visually capturing the abstract and turning it into something concrete...and it's all framed around the recurring question, Where were you?...and my only question is why is this post on the wrong side of the 'board?
The thread was about the film, not the music per se, so 'twas here it belonged.
I wish I had felt that Malick pulled it off, Howard, but it just didn't work for me.
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I ended up seeing it a third time. And a third time is probably enough, but when I went to the movies this last weekend, I still felt more like just ponying up for another TREE OF LIFE screening than whatever else was on. I ended up seeing something else, but TREE is definitely my kind of film.
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I ended up seeing it a third time. And a third time is probably enough, but when I went to the movies this last weekend, I still felt more like just ponying up for another TREE OF LIFE screening than whatever else was on. I ended up seeing something else, but TREE is definitely my kind of film.
I'm tempted to see it in the theater again. It's not an "audience film" because of its meditative nature so I'm eagerly awaiting the disc release, yet I'm not sure if the sequence with the Preisner music will be as effective on my TV!
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That's the thing. I think the personal story will work well on a smaller screen, but I find it hard to believe the creation of the universe will quite stack up when it's not writ large on a wall.
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Posted: |
Aug 9, 2011 - 10:34 AM
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By: |
Howard L
(Member)
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.................PROBABLE SPOILERS....................
I wish I had felt that Malick pulled it off, Howard, but it just didn't work for me.
The short response is that it worked for me because he tackled an issue that universally confounds people of faith/no faith and 'played it out' in both hard-hitting and poignant fashion with a particular family. The issue involved the old what-is-the purpose-of-life question but was more centered around the question of why a supposedly loving creator allows death and suffering, especially as it relates to the death of a child, the worst family tragedy of all.
It was even played out in a tangential manner with dinosaurs in both the predator vs. prey scene and in the object striking Earth that evidently led to extinction. The WHY of the divine allowance of the latter is, again, a universally confounding question.
Very ambitious stuff!
Everything in the film needs to be understood within the context of a spiritual dimension. And this is why the production rankles those who resist films of a "meditative nature." If issues of spirtuality are of no concern, then this film is a crashing bore, although the scenes of family life may hold redeeming cinematic value on their own.
In that regard, they packed a wallop for me. I don't know if I have ever seen a depiction of growing up, coupled with an entire family overcoming dysfunction, both individually and collectively, all handled with such definitive grace. And if you understand that young Jack was denying the inner sensitivity passed down from his mother while fearing he was becoming the tyrant that was his father...and how both father and son eventually redeemed themselves after being humbled and then repenting...then you will appreciate why the film worked for me in spades. Among other reasons.
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Posted: |
Aug 9, 2011 - 11:16 PM
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By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
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.................PROBABLE SPOILERS....................
I wish I had felt that Malick pulled it off, Howard, but it just didn't work for me.
The short response is that it worked for me because he tackled an issue that universally confounds people of faith/no faith and 'played it out' in both hard-hitting and poignant fashion with a particular family. The issue involved the old what-is-the purpose-of-life question but was more centered around the question of why a supposedly loving creator allows death and suffering, especially as it relates to the death of a child, the worst family tragedy of all.
It was even played out in a tangential manner with dinosaurs in both the predator vs. prey scene and in the object striking Earth that evidently led to extinction. The WHY of the divine allowance of the latter is, again, a universally confounding question.
Very ambitious stuff!
Everything in the film needs to be understood within the context of a spiritual dimension. And this is why the production rankles those who resist films of a "meditative nature." If issues of spirtuality are of no concern, then this film is a crashing bore, although the scenes of family life may hold redeeming cinematic value on their own.
In that regard, they packed a wallop for me. I don't know if I have ever seen a depiction of growing up, coupled with an entire family overcoming dysfunction, both individually and collectively, all handled with such definitive grace. And if you understand that young Jack was denying the inner sensitivity passed down from his mother while fearing he was becoming the tyrant that was his father...and how both father and son eventually redeemed themselves after being humbled and then repenting...then you will appreciate why the film worked for me in spades. Among other reasons.
It wasn't that the film was so hard to understand -- our understandings of its intentions are pretty much the same. Hats off to Malick for taking on the virtually impossible, I certainly can't fault him for the effort. The lumbering procession of National Geographic scenes in the middle (it felt like 40 minutes of them to me), and the CGI dinosaurs, and the repetitious shots of treetops and the sky, just didn't send spiritual shivers up my spine like it did for some folks. I was fully prepared, by a friend whose spiritual sensibilities are similar to my own, to be knocked on my ass by this film. So the spiritual dimension was a concern to me. But the film turned out to be a crashing bore even so, as the "cosmic" imagery (with full chorus) seemed like familar territory to me, bordering on the trite. I did find some redeeming value in the interpersonal dynamics of the family, the young boy's pain, the contrast of Brad Pitt's unintended but soul-crushing cruelty with the mother's unqualified love for her children. But the elements of this "plot" are merely sketched in, and are left largely unresolved. So it was neither a real story nor a meaningful spiritual experience for me, and thus was ultimately not much of anything at all, objectively or subjectively. The popcorn was pretty good, though.
Interesting that there are such differences in people's perceptions of this film.
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Posted: |
Aug 10, 2011 - 12:31 PM
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By: |
Dana Wilcox
(Member)
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I gotcha. Your gripe is with the execution of his intentions, and execution is most certainly in the eye and ear of the beholder. I am admittedly in awe of his having tackled and tapped into a cosmic zeitgeist in such epic and ethereal fashion to the extent that to render criticism of almost any aspect, for me, is impossible. This does not happen too often.
My only point of confusion was when the Dad lamented how he had criticized his son for the way he turned pages at the piano. I thought he was talking about the son that died, since he was in mourning, and the only page turner in the film was the oldest son (Jack). So for a while I was under the impression that the oldest son had died and Penn was the adult version of the middle son with whom the oldest was closest. Something tells me there may have been an edit problem somewhere in there.
Yes, sketchy at best in the "story" department. I was back and forth myself during the film on which child had really died.
And who knows why some imagery works (for a given person) and some doesn't? The visuals during the final phase of 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY, including the tunnel of colors and the stark, echoey room with the old old man, just blew me down in 1968, and still works for me after all these years and viewings. Not that I was expecting TREE to be at all the same...
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we've absolutely no desire WHATSOEVER to be 'loved').
