Just watched...

...Terrence Mailck's 1978 film "Days of Heaven."

Regular readers know I am a huge fan of auteur director Terrence Malick. I have seen all the later films, but I had not caught up on the early films like his debut film "Bandlands" with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. So I was happy to see a 2007 Criterion Collection re-release of his second feature, "Days of Heaven" with digitally remastered sound and picture, supervised by Malick, editor Billy Weber and camera operator John Bailey.

Malick was certainly ahead of his time with his method of storytelling. Many crew members quit during "Badlands" because of his unorthodox working style, and the same thing happened during the 1976 filming of "Days of Heaven." Lack of a solid script, vague daily call sheets that changed on the whims of the weather and developing ideas from the director, and a photography style utilizing almost exclusively natural light tried the patience of film crews used to working on highly produced, glossy Hollywood films (the lighting crew were particularly dismayed to see Malick remove more and more instruments as the shoot went on). But Malick and his director of photography Néstor Almendros had other ideas, and based the look of "Days of Heaven" on silent films, documentary photographs of city and farm life from the start of the 20th century, and the works of painters Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, and the chiaroscuro work of Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.

Here is Hopper's House by the Railroad which influenced the major set of "Days of Heaven"...

...and Wyeth's iconic Christina's World served as inspiration as well.

The story is straight-forward enough: in 1916, Bill (Richard Gere) is a manual laborer in a steel foundry in a large city. After accidentally killing his boss in a shoving fight, he goes on the run with his little sister Linda (Linda Manz) and girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams). They hop a train and end up in the Texas panhandle to become migrant farm workers helping to bring in a crop of wheat for a wealthy single farmer (Sam Shepard). Secretive and mistrusting, Bill tells everyone that he and his girlfriend are brother and sister, but that only creates more problems than it solves as the farmer falls in love with Abby. Bill encourages the relationship as a way to rescue Abby from a life of poverty and despair but also as an angle to play to get money for himself. Abby marries the farmer and the game is set in motion, of course ending in an unpleasant way for all involved.

But as usual with Malick films, the story seems to be beside the point. Yes, his films are set in a time period and people make their way through their lives as best they can, but the overarching idea of a Malick film speaks much more to universal and existential ideas--things that span or transcend time periods and individual lives. We as an audience are remote, dream witnesses to people, their lives, and the world itself around them. They don't usually speak much--something I truly appreciate about Malick's films which let the medium itself carry the narrative. Film is a visual medium and he lets it be so. This provides plenty of space for characters in his films to ponder, to wander, to be...and take us long with them on their journey. While "Days of Heaven" has a bit more narrative drive and dialogue than some of his later films, one can see the seeds that grew into films like "The Tree of Life" and "Knight of Cups." Among recurring Malick motifs, there are lingering shots of nature, both breathtaking long shots of landscapes as well as close ups of animals and plants...there is a voice-over that provides a sense of introspection, acting much like someone whispering thoughts in your ear...and there are sections where we see characters simply being with each other and experiencing the presence of one another. Film is a visual medium and can give us information and ideas visually. I've said it before: there are really only a handful of directors who really let the medium of film be solely what it is, and Malick is one of them. The more a director bypasses words, the more that director bypasses intellect and taps directly into the subconscious world of deeper meaning.

The look and visual style of "Days of Heaven" is, of course, stunning. In fact, in a feature for Interview magazine, actor Owen Wilson said, "I think of Terrence Malick’s movie 'Days of Heaven'—one of Richard Gere’s first movies—you can push pause on almost any image in the movie and it looks like a painting." This applies to nearly any Malick film. Much of the exterior shots in the film were done in The Golden Hour, that short period of time at sunset where the light is golden and magical. And the eclectic soundtrack features "The Aquarium" section from "Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saëns, an original score by Ennio Morricone, folk music by fiddler Doug Kershaw, and some guitar pieces by Leo Kottke.

Recommend? If you are a Terrence Malick fan, or if you can appreciate art work that asks you to watch and interpret, of course.

Just watched...

...Terrence Malick's "Knight Of Cups" from a 2016 Unites States release.

It's no secret that I am huge fan of auteur director Terrence Malick. The more obtuse his films, the better I like them (see past reviews here). I know his style of filmmaking drives some to apoplexy, but I respond to it...it speaks to me. I see and feel the world in a similar way so I understand the language Malick uses.

And I am very happy that he has been hard at work in recent years, making a spate of films to keep fans like me satisfied for a little while. After the utterly astounding "Tree of Life" (previously here) and "To The Wonder" (here), we have the next entry, "Knight of Cups" starring Christian Bale and an extraordinary supporting cast with some amazing cameos (you might want to sit down for this list): Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Brian Dennehy, Antonio Banderas, Wes Bentley, Isabel Lucas, Teresa Palmer, Imogen Poots, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Freida Pinto, Cherry Jones, Nick Offerman, Thomas Lennon, Ryan O'Neal, and Joe Manganiello, among many more.

It is fitting that the story of "Knight of Cups" is told through the Tarot--there are eight sections to this film, seven of them being named after a Major Arcana card from the Tarot deck--since the Tarot is a visual medium that requires participation, meditation, and interpretation just like a Malick film. Film is a visual medium and Malick uses it to his full advantage, giving us information and ideas visually, without much dialogue. When people speak in his films, or more commonly when we hear their whispered thoughts and inner monologue, it is as if someone has called your name while you are asleep. Dreams can only convey a narrative or an idea to us in one way: it shows us pictures. A dream can’t—and indeed does not need to—tell us what it wants us to know, it shows us. That is the language of signifiers. That is the primordial, pre-conscious language of our psyches, our souls. That is our first, original language before words. So it is with film, so it is with dreams, and so it is with the Tarot.

A Malick film is impressionistic, not relying on spoken narrative or exposition, like so many films. For a visual medium, it is a curiosity that more directors don't operate this way. But then telling a story visually means that your audience must be in possession of interpretive powers. And that is something one cannot count on in today's world. It's a supremely powerful way to tell a story since it bypasses intellect and taps directly into the subconscious, the imaginative part of ourselves where dreams are produced, and where the symbols of the Tarot live (like Jung's archetypes...the Major Arcana are a set of powerful archetypes.) One must simply watch a Malick film--we must witness--to understand the story, and like so much of life, the edges are left frayed, and pieces are left unclear or untold. If you walk down the street and overhear a snippet of conversation from the people walking in front of you, you may hear an amazing story, but that story had a beginning you did not hear, and is presumably on-going. Your own story has a beginning of which you are most likely only hazily aware, and you certainly do not know the end since you are alive, reading this review. For a story, whether written or filmed or spoken, to be like real life, it must be continually moving, unclear at the edges, and a bit messy.

Here is what can be gleaned from the visual journey of our subjects in "Knight of Cups": Rick (Christian Bale) works in the film industry in Los Angeles but is a man who is supremely disconnected from himself and his life...as we see, he is disconnected from any sense of life, much less his own. He is, in archetypal terms, the Seeker. He is someone on a quest, a journey. In fact, the film starts with a quote based on the "Hymn of the Pearl" from the New Testament apocryphal "Acts of Thomas":
"Once there was a young prince whose father, the king of the East, sent him down into Egypt to find a pearl. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king, forgot about the pearl and fell into a deep sleep..."

Rick's life is empty, and he wonders how he spent the last 30 years of his life ruining it for himself. And of course the worst place to live a life of spiritual emptiness is Los Angeles, land of superficiality and illusion. He wanders through his life and through L.A. encountering people, situations, and lovers, but none of it seems to wake him. None of it serves to rouse him and remind him of who he truly is and what he's doing here. We see a string of women come and go in his life, girlfriends, one night stands, and those who could perhaps have been true loves, but while the women all dance and spin around him (literally), talking to him about themselves and life, he mutely watches. He can't participate for them or himself.

The emptiness is visually and thematically echoed in his surroundings. I don't think I have ever seen Los Angeles on film look so empty. Rick walks by tall buildings in downtown L.A. but courtyards are devoid of people. He wanders the back lot of a film studio, again, completely alone. We may get a glimpse of a single actress dressed as Marie-Antoinette or there may be some homeless scattered around, but it all still reads as empty.

There are also a lot of very "Los Angeles-style" images and events: Rick is wakened by a morning earthquake; we see freeway overpasses from below mixed with palm trees; we see Venice Beach; we see Chris Burden's Urban Light sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; we see a fashion shoot at the iconic Stahl House. But beyond this, we see a constant parade of pools (doesn't everyone in L.A. live in a house with a pool?) and seaside moments where people are pushed in, jump in, swim, float, play, contemplate. The presence of water as a signifier can be quite powerful. In Jungian philosophy, water is the subconscious. In the Tarot, water is associated with the suit of Cups and embodies primal emotion and intuition. The characters here are always trying to immerse themselves in this primalness, to connect to something authentic.

For a film without much dialogue and a run time of only 118 minutes, Malick manages to pack a lot of story into a small space. We also see Rick's brother Barry and discover there was a third brother who committed suicide, and we see their father played by a frighteningly frail Brian Dennehy who, much like his son Rick, can't seem to reconcile himself to his own failings in life. Rick reminds me of Neil, Ben Affleck's character in "To The Wonder" who spent the film going from disastrous relationship to disastrous relationship. Some critics have accused Malick of a dearth of ideas, saying that he has made the same movie three times in a row. But I suspect what he has done is cleverly made a trilogy of a theme and variations of being lost to oneself, being disconnected from oneself and others, suffering from a sort of ennui. And isn't that really the disease of our time? The current consumerism and social media and obsession with celebrity culture and reality television has forced so many to just exist without any shred of authenticity.

Malick and his cinematographer, THREE-time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki (who also lensed "The Tree of Life" and "To The Wonder") continue to capture breathtakingly beautiful shots using only natural light (a miraculous feat)--most of the film was shot with a stedicam but some sections were shot with a simple Go Pro. This allows Malick to work how he likes: to arrive at a location without a script, and ask his actors to simply inhabit the space, to do whatever they feel, to live in it and with each other so Lubezki can float, zoom, and hover around and in between the actors and the action. This technique often achieves a meditative quality; there are a few moments that are necessary for the actors and the story--and Malick--to propel the story such as the moment Natalie Portman breaks down in tears while telling Rick some bad news, but generally, and in keeping with the spirit of visual story telling, we see people simply being in locations with each other as a way to mirror internal emotional and mental states. Impressionistic. Abstract.

"There's so much love inside us that never gets out."
--Christian Bale as Rick

Recommend? Yes, if you can absorb information in an abstract way, on a holistic level, it is a lovely, penetrating, affirming experience: affirming of the power of art but affirming of life itself. And in fact, if you haven't, try to see "Tree of Life," "To The Wonder," and "Knight of Cups" relatively close together so you can see for yourself if Malick has made a trilogy. There are even some overlapping narrative details like a dead brother who is in both "Tree of Life" and "Knight of Cups", and all three depict men in spiritual crisis seeking some kind of meaning...not seeking the meaning of life since there is none, but seeking to live a life full of meaning. There is a difference.

http://www.theknightofcupsmovie.com/

"Awaken" by Tom Lowe

AWAKEN is a feature documentary film by director, cinematographer, editor, and producer Tom Lowe exploring humanity's relationship with technology and the natural world.

Shot over a 5-year period in more than 30 countries, the film pioneers new time-lapse, time-dilation, underwater, and aerial cinematography techniques to give audiences new eyes with which to see our world. Executive produced by Terrence Malick (auteur filmmaker, and creator of the experimental fim "Voyage Of Time, previously here) and Godfrey Reggio (director of the Qatsi trilogy of films: "Koyaanisqatsi," "Powaqqatsi," and "Naqoyqatsi"), AWAKEN is a celebration of the spirit of life, an exploration of the Earth, and an ode to the Cosmos.

http://awaken.film/

Just watched...

..."Voyage Of Time: The IMAX Experience" by Terrence Malick.

Malick started work on what was to become "Voyage of Time," unbelievably, in the 1970s when he got the idea to make a film about the origins of life on earth. Working sporadically in between projects, some early footage found its way into his miraculous, stunning "The Tree Of Life," previously here. And the film was clearly a labor of love as he continued work on the concept for the next nearly-forty years.

And finally in 2016, we saw the release of "Voyage of Time," in two versions no less! A 35 mm 90-minute version narrated by Cate Blanchett was screened at the Venice Film Festival but word is that version will not be playing anywhere else. The second version, a 45 minute cut narrated by Brad Pitt was released through IMAX and played in many super-large IMAX theaters around the country, which is where I got to see it. I was lucky enough to see one of the only handful of screenings at the IMAX dome of the Tech Museum in downtown San Jose, heart of Silicon Valley. I am so glad I got the chance to see this apparently rare Malick film, since it is clear there won't be many chances in the future. If I hadn't, it would have forever been "the Malick that got away." But in a way, it still is the Malick that got away.

First, let me say that I adore Malick and his films, and while "Voyage of Time" is impeccably filmed with gorgeous analog and digital scenes, and while I certainly understand the overarching concept, the final product, after all this time, feels truncated. Perhaps that has something to do with recent nasty lawsuits filed from Seven Seas, the backers of the film, claiming that the production company had blown through $6 million without a film to show for it. Maybe in an effort to show that there was indeed a product, "Voyage of Time" feels cobbled together. Of course the production company has filed a countersuit claiming that Seven Seas never had the finances to support the film to begin with. Whatever the reason, we have only a 45-minute, painfully condensed tour of the story of creation. We witness pristine digital images of what must be the birth of the universe, of this reality. But there's an awful lot of time and space to cover, and while we move from prebiotics to single celled life, through some truly breathtaking footage of places like Iceland which stands in for the ancient Earth, to jelly fish and dinosaurs, we only see the briefest manifestation of human beings. And I have to wonder why the only city--out of all the major cities in the world--we ever see is Dubai. Humanity feels like an afterthought, but when one looks at the time line of this planet, we are pretty new here. Maybe Malick's point is that we are not the point!

Given the mind bogglingly expansive subject matter, I was expecting a grand statement, something visually, mentally, and spiritually transcendent. "Voyage of Time" is beautifully filmed, in the meditative style Malick is known for, and it certainly does give one space for thought and contemplation, but at the end, I felt like I had watched a film at a pavilion at a World's Fair...albeit a lovely, thought provoking film. But I have to wonder if this is truly what Malick had in mind, what he wanted and hoped for this film, for decades.

The good news is that the IMAX version will be released in a super wide screen format in selected regular theaters around the country this month, December, 2016. Officially titled "Voyage of Time: The IMAX Experience in Ultra Widescreen 3.6," the film has been re-cut without any narration which is, according to Variety, how Malick originally intended the film to be shown.

Recommend? Yes, it is a thing of beauty. Don't let my musings put you off. Keep an eye out for it and if it is near you, do make an effort.

Just watched...

...or I should say: finally watched Terrence Malick's "The New World" from 2005.

Watching a Terrence Malick film is like dreaming: images distilled down to the essence of something, whether a place or an emotional state or a person. When we dream, what we see are signifiers... because this is how we live life. The elements around us signify something if nothing other than the fact that we exist, and are alive. The fact of us. I think that is what all Malick movies can be distilled to: the messy, irrefutable, confounding fact of us.

I know much has been made of the fact that Malick is a philosophy graduate from Harvard (summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa) and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford. But he left that field after a disagreement with his tutor, the philosopher Gilbert Ryle (who coined the phrase "ghost in the machine") to become a filmmaker. His films are post-philosophy in a way. What he expresses, or maybe it is more accurate to say how he expresses what he does, in itself is a new kind of philosophy, at once cerebral and visceral. A unifying common theme in Malick's films, film critic Roger Ebert said, is how "Human lives diminish beneath the overarching majesty of the world." So what I have found is that no matter what story Malick is telling, it bears his unmistakable perspective on the world which dovetails very neatly with my own, and I suspect a great number of others (in a recent conversation with a very close friend who is quite sympatico with my own psyche, I confessed that I live my daily life on the verge of tears--just look around you, at the overarching majesty of the world, at it all, and I ask you how can you not?).

So for Malick's fourth film (he is a director who is not in a rush, considering that he has been making films since 1973 and has only released eight films), we are taken into the past, to 1607 and the founding of the Jamestown settlement in Virginia. Captain John Smith (played by Colin Ferrell) is one of the men on board three ships that drop anchor in the James River. The English come ashore and set about building a fort, mistrustful of the Native Americans who were there first. But this film is far from a superficial costume spectacle or period drama. In fact, Malick and his crew worked closely with archaeologists, Jamestown historians, and Native American tribal leaders to strike the correct tone. The Native actors trained for weeks to become convincing members of the Powhatan tribe, the people who lived in that part of Virginia at that time, studying movement and voice, and choosing body paint and animal totems to express in dance. The white actors spent time training in weaponry (shooting a musket is fraught with complicated details), and fighting with swords. The fort was actually built by a crew of carpenters using logs and wood from the area in exactly the way such a structure would have been built. The Native village structures and longhouses were built using the exact techniques that were employed by Native Americans 400 years ago. The veracity went so far as using the correct strains of corn (our modern corn has been hybridized and cross-bred but Native corn was thicker, tougher, heartier, larger) and tobacco. The reality of all this helped Malick to film the way he likes: to let his actors loose to live this truth organically, to have his actors develop a relationship to a real place instead of an artificial set, to have this action happen spontaneously and unencumbered by storyboards, and for his cameraman to record it all without tracks, lights, dollies, grips, or extra crew in the way. Emmanuel Lubezki, the cinematographer working with Malick on this project, used a special lens from Panavision that allowed them to work in a widescreen format while using only natural light (a no-no in traditional filmmaking) and achieving a depth of field where everything (or almost everything) is in focus.

By the time the English attempt to make a colony, problems with disease, supply shortages, and a simple lack of information on ways to live in this land force Smith to take a trip upriver to a Native village to trade for vital food and supplies. But he is separated from his party and taken prisoner by a local tribe. Slated to be killed (possibly), the chief's daughter intervenes and manages to have his life spared. Not once in the entire film do we hear the name of this young woman, who Smith falls in love with, and who is ultimately cast out. We of course know it is Pocahontas (played with stunning innocence and skill by Q'orianka Kilcher), but as I said before, this is not a glorified period spectacle. In true Malick form, dialogue is sparse in "The New World" and often we only hear the murmurs of inner monologues of characters as we follow them, privy to the private, whispered half-thoughts in their heads and hearts. Who she is is not important. What she is doing and what is happening to and around her is.

And of course the film is ravishingly beautiful, with shots of unspoiled nature and humans simply living in the middle of it, walking and touching lightly. The fact of us. The fact of here. The fact of now. It is always now. And you are here, wherever you are. Jamestown is one story. There are more...

Recommend? Absolutely yes yes yes.

Just watched...

...Terrence Malick's beautifully mysterious film "To The Wonder."

Regular readers know that I am a huge fan of writer-director-philosopher Terrence Malick. I last wrote about his work when I posted a review of his phenomenal, transcendent masterpiece "The Tree of Life" here.

And "To The Wonder" shares some traits with "The Tree of Life." Both films have a narrative, which is to say there are characters in a setting and they do things and things happen to them. But this is incidental. Malick, unlike most filmmakers, is a director who truly utilizes the visual aspect of film purely for what it is. Both films propel their story forward visually. Sure, there are some lines of dialogue; mostly we are privy to characters thoughts via murmured inner monologues. But more than anything else, we witness the story. For a visual medium, it is a curiosity that more directors don't operate this way. But then telling a story visually means that your audience must be in possession of interpretive powers. And that is something one cannot count on in today's world. It's a supremely powerful way to tell a story since it bypasses intellect and taps directly into the subconscious, the imaginative part of ourselves where dreams are produced. As I wrote in my post about "The Tree of Life," dreams can only convey a narrative or an idea to us in one way: it shows us pictures. A dream can’t—and indeed does not need to—tell us what it wants us to know, it shows us. That is the language of signifiers. That is the primordial, pre-conscious language of our psyches, our souls. That is our first, original language before words. Watch. Look. See. Understand.

Some of the criticism leveled at this film centers on the lack of character development or motivation. I can see how one might come to that conclusion given the primarily visual nature of this work but Roger Ebert, in the very last review he wrote before he died, said of this film, "A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear. Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision. 'Well,' I asked myself, 'why not?' Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out?"

Unlike "The Tree of Life" which scrambles past and present with a vision of the future, the story here is fairly linear...but within that linear story, there are moments that shift, slide, repeat, happen again or next to each other. The result is beautiful, not like encountering an event but more like remembering an event, or even a dream, as Malick edits together snippets from the same moment, just out of order. Ostensibly, the story follows Neil (Ben Affleck), an American who, while in Paris for a period, falls in love with a lovely woman named Marina (Olga Kurylenko). When he returns to the United States, she decides to take her ten-year old daughter and come with him. But things do not go well for many reasons including the eventual bitter unhappiness of Marina's daughter who went from life in Paris to life on the barren plains of Oklahoma, no friends, no culture to speak of, nothing to do and nowhere to go. Of course she misses and yearns for not only her life, but a sense of life in general. More on this theme later.

The contrast between the two locales couldn't be greater. From a land rich in history, art, and architecture, they move to a featureless land, living in a succession of featureless houses (there must be some kind of autobiographical compulsion on the part of Malick to show us so many subjective, below-eye-level shots of living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms), in a featureless life. With nothing outward, there is nowhere to look but inward. And this triggers something in Marina. She and her daughter return to Paris while Neil takes up with a woman he knew when he was much younger, Jane (Rachel McAdams).

And here we have another contrast. Whereas Marina is full of life of life, energy, and movement (she is in a near-constant state of playful dancing, twirling, or jumping) and has a loving, giggling relationship with her daughter, Jane has a painful past with a ne'er-do-well husband and dead daughter. Jane reads the Bible, looks down at the ground, and feels mopey, heavy, inert. It is ironic that visually (on a symbolic level), the darker woman is light and the fair woman is somber.

But Neil cannot commit to Jane either and they end badly. Meanwhile in Paris, Marina has seen her daughter return to live with her ex-husband. She cannot find a job. She misses Oklahoma. So she returns and she and Neil get back together, marrying. But this too soon turns sour.

Through this all, Father Quintana the town priest in Oklahoma (Javier Bardem) counsels not only the impoverished residents of this farming town, the prisoners, the homeless, but Neil and Marina. He seems to be a man busy in the community, but we often see him wandering, lost, unsure, without personal purpose or direction. We hear his inner thoughts talking to the God he cannot see or touch or hear or experience directly. We are allowed in to his crisis of faith. And just like "The Tree of Life," this contemplation of religion is actually an anti-religious statement. Malick does not give Father Quintana or us comfort, or a sign of divine presence.

While I was watching this film, I felt Neil was a cold, selfish man, unable to commit. But then with more time, I felt my perception of him shift. He is not a bad man. And Marina is not all good. And Jane is a contradiction as well. All our characters are trying their best, trying to get somewhere, trying to reach for something. But 1) Neil is not at ease in his relationships, 2) Jane yearns for a kind of stability yet life for her is stagnant, and 3) and 4) Father Quintana and Marina are the ones who, above the others, want something even more, something more than this world can offer. Like all of Malick's films, this may be about certain people in a certain place at a certain time, but ultimately, it is about matters that are metaphysical. And I mean that in the literal sense: things that are beyond the physical. Everyone has a yearning within them. It is the theme of existence itself. There is no divine presence, just an endless succession of here and now and each other, or as Marina puts it in one of her inner monologues, "an avalanche of tenderness."

Like I have said, the vehicle of this story is the film itself--the visuals--and Malick is known for capturing absolutely ravishing scenes like Mont St. Michel in fog or a herd of somnolent bison in tall grass. For "To The Wonder," he and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (who also lensed "The Tree of Life") startlingly used all natural light to oftentimes breathtaking effect. Sunlight filtered through trees, the golden light of the setting sun across a plain, light reflecting through con trails in the sky...in addition to the themes I have spoken of, this film is about light. And in a way, perhaps light stands in for the thing that seems to be beyond everyone's reach, the thing none of the characters can actually grasp and hold and keep.

Recommend? Oh. Yes.

http://www.magpictures.com/tothewonder/#