Comments on: The Curious Case Of Terrence Malick & The Worrying Cost Of Diminishing Returns

By: yrret

yrret — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Go watch some Weerasethakul, some Tsai Ming-Liang, some Claire Denis and some Carlos Reygadas. Go watch some Sokurov and some Bela Tarr. Go back and watch some Tarkovsky, Bergman and Kieslowski. Then come back and try to tell me this guy is a great filmmaker. Angsty male undergrad whisperings over big budget pretty pictures do not automatically qualify as great filmmaking.

By: nate

nate — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

will someone please put this article in front of terrence malick

By: droop

droop — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Wow man, did you, or anyone, proof read this? The unprofessionalism on display here is staggering.

By: RNL

RNL — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

What separates To the Wonder, Knight of Cups and presumably Weightless from his previous films is their contemporary setting, which facilitates a new scriptless way of working, as no sets, costumes, etc, need to be prepared – Malick can just go out with Christian Bale and shoot hours and hours of footage of him wandering around different spots in LA, interacting with different people and things, and then find the film in the edit. He wouldn\’t be able to do that on, say, his proposed adaptation of Gawain and the Green Knight.

By: RNL

RNL — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

I quite liked To the Wonder and Knight of Cups, btw, but they\’re clearly Malick\’s weakest films.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Could it be that there is too much attention paid to devotee/unbeliever status and not enough to the actual work in question?

Much easier to write a vague critique of someone\’s work in what it did or did not do for you than to give the same love and attention to each edit, shot, and scene that the creator has. How many times does a reviewer view a film before writing a review? This specific piece of writing is little more than a summation of the conformist groupthink that has been circulating about Malick\’s trajectory on various sites that are getting harder by the day to distinguish from advertising.

The conundrum with criticism is that it presupposes that the critic will have something more to offer than the critiqued. Yet, as is often the case with artists that have devoted their lives to something (Malick, for instance), this is simply not true.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

I found Knight of Cups to be quite beautiful and found a filmmaker hitting his stride. It felt like the more developed version of the adult storyline in Tree of Life and I could not watch the film without thinking about ways to cut the two together into a 3 hour whole (there are many moments and images that would cut nicely). At this point, it feels like Malick is attempting a semi-autobiographical opus about his childhood, his brother\’s suicide, the relationships he failed, and the philosophical perspective he gained by going through it all. I don\’t think the moment-to-moment stories are literal adaptions of his life, but the organic process seems intended to capture a shadow version that expresses the spiritual and emotional arc. I thought a lot about Kerouac\’s Duluouz Legend — the idea that all of his books were based on autobiographical moments and he intended to eventually change the names to match across them all. I watched the characters in Knight of Cups as if they were the same as those in Tree of Life and found the story heartbreaking from that perspective. I still need to see To the Wonder, but it appears that story is very similar to Malick\’s own marriages. This film seems to answer the nagging "Where was Malick for 30 years" question. Hey may not have been in the same specific situations, but may have been feeling lost and at odds with himself in similar ways. Yes, this is a lot to read into the film, but it seems like there could be some support in the facts. Regardless, isn\’ this sort of batshit formal exploration exciting on some level? Again, I often wish for more from indiewire — not that anyone needs to like this film (it\’s not for everyone and not without flaws), but it is interesting. I mean, there are articles for Star Wars and Indy on the front page — can\’t we celebrate a vision as bonkers as these without hoping that it conforms back to a structure that is more traditional? For me, the problematic issue of this film is the depiction of women and it hurt the viewing experience of some women in the audience when I attended. I can\’t defend that, though there MAY be some intent there in that this movie is about the male gaze run amok – the seduction but also the rotten core or lack of substance behind it. There is a moment toward the 2/3\’s mark where it breaks into a sermon after this constant stream of sensual/sexual images and then a kind of calm and a slower rhythm of edits comes in. I felt it at an emotional level as a break from what came before. Despite it\’s faults I am glad that someone is flexing their power to play with form, expectation, memory, and personal filmmaking. That\’s rare these days. I wonder if these films will be seen differently in 20 years. After Malick passes away and they are put into a boxed set with an essay on his life and personal struggles. So many filmmakers would have explained their work by now through interviews or given us some lens to look through. Malick\’s refusal to do so seems important because the answers to those questions may be in the work itself.

By: Andrew M

Andrew M — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Ok- it sounds like your complaining the their wasn\’t a plot to speak of. And if he just had a plot- like days of heaven or badlands- he would be great again? Am i reading you right?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

There is a great conversation (which I cannot post without reading as spam) between Adam Cook and Daniel Kasman at Mubi for those interested.

By: ok

ok — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

This is just a guess but it feels like he was given the cash to go ahead with tree of life, which he wanted to make for a long time, with the agreement that he would crank out a handful of other films for the studio starring certain actors and within a certain time frame. how else can you explain malick casting ben affleck?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

I may be reading into this, but I\’ve seen it as a filmmaker who knows he may not have a ton of time left to keep working and who wants as much freedom to make these films as possible. The star power (both in terms of leads and also cameos) can make that happen. I don\’t think it necessarily pays off at the box office, but I would think that it helps with packaging and financing.

By: Stanze di Cinema

Stanze di Cinema — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

It\’s true, his last couple of films were received with mixed reviews. But the influence of his style and his themes became wider and deeper in the last 10 years. From Andrew Dominik to David Gordon Green and David Lowery, from Cary J.Fukunaga and Alex Garland, to Jeff Nichols. Even Christopher Nolan, Zack Snyder or Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu paied their homages and evidently were inspired by the work of Malick and Lubezki… his legacy is really huge.

By: TR

TR — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

That last sentence summarizes exactly how I feel about Malick lately too. Actually it pretty much summarizes the majority of contemporary artists that I used to respect. I need to start playing it safe and just go back to admiring the work of the dead ones.

By: Joseph Dutra

Joseph Dutra — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

I thought Knight of Cups was a step up from To The Wonder, the best film to come out this year so far in my opinion.

By: Noah

Noah — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

I find it a little more than problematic that people year after year ask for something new in cinema, and then when Malick gives it, complain that it isn\’t there. I\’m not saying that Malick\’s latest films have been masterpieces, in the traditional sense, but perhaps if we disconnect ourselves from traditional narrative storytelling as much as Malick clearly has, we may see something in his recent work – aside from his problematic view of women, which seems to have hit a low point here.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Malick is not worth writing about with his history of underwhelming and tiring films. After Badlands, which had some good writing, everything went downhill. His reasons for hermetic avoidance of the media can only be seen as a fear of answering to the details of his process. Artists, should not shy away from their critics forever. It\’s suspicious.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Article was p creditable before the suggestion that "The Great Beauty" was anything other than hackery by Sorrentino

By: Gua South

Gua South — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Nobody cares about this overrated insular Hollywood drivel. We want superheroes and action. Not this naval gazing guff. Boring aimless tedium, self importance, self denial.

By: brit

brit — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Weightless might be different. Sarah Green, Malick\’s producer said it was "plot driven" in a recent Q&A.

By: Smith

Smith — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

To The Wonder is quite a strong film, in retrospect. Yes, he\’s developed an minimalist style with regard to plot and character, but his direction of the actors and the general moods he creates are quite unique and strong. I think the thing most actively working against the appreciation of his latest films is the fact that we\’re living with them right now, piece by piece. I suspect that he has an end goal in mind for these modern Malick films, that will make more sense in retrospect. I hope.

By: Jen

Jen — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Malick DOES owe me something….2 hours of my life !

By: JOHN

JOHN — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Has the writer ever seen any films by jean-luc godard or michelangelo antonioni? similar methods are not new and should not, in my opinion, be considered weaken entries. filmmakers are allowed to experiment. whether you are able to go along for the ride or not is your choice as a viewer.

By: ANONYMOUS

ANONYMOUS — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Knight of Cups isn\’t my favorite Malick film, by any means. But I did appreciate sections of it (and more specifically, scenes featuring Wes Bentley and Cate Blanchett).

By: Vincenzo

Vincenzo — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

"The legendary director behind “Badlands” and “Days Of Heaven” […] has had such a distinct impact on cinema that he’s practically created his own genre. Any contemplative, dreamy and poetic film with impressionist cues that revere and revel in natural beauty is often described as such". Oh well, I thought that any "any contemplative, dreamy and poetic film with impressionist cues that revere and revel in natural beauty" had to be associated to Andrey Tarkovsky, and that Terrence Malick was just a big English-speaking rip off of the Russian genius.

By: Zak

Zak — Mon, 23 May 2016 02:51:52 +0000

Knight of Cups was wonderful. I can\’t articulate better than Richard Brody, but defenders of Malick should maintain a defense that he has a right to explore. It takes balls to do what he\’s doing. It doesn\’t take balls to write an article that concedes to closed-mindedness.