"No one asked Bob Dylan to play a song the same way every night..."
September 7, 2018 7:32 PM Subscribe
"Why should I have to make one film?" Terrence Malick says that the new, 188-minute edit of his 2011 drama The Tree of Life is another movie entirely.
2018's The Tree of Life was shown at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, and will be available from Criterion on Tuesday, September 11. (Both Blu-Ray and DVD will include restored versions of the 139-minute original and this longer rendition; it's uncertain if the newer version will be screened in theaters post-La Biennale di Venezia.)
"As cinephiles’ imaginations race, it’s important to note: The expanded 188-minute cut doesn’t contain more effects shots, and the epic creation sequence remains untouched. But it restores material that Malick was exploring for the version that was shown in Cannes, including specific events and characters that were referenced only elliptically in the original film." - Variety
Malick previously, and 2011's The Tree of Life discussion.
2018's The Tree of Life was shown at the Venice Film Festival on September 6, and will be available from Criterion on Tuesday, September 11. (Both Blu-Ray and DVD will include restored versions of the 139-minute original and this longer rendition; it's uncertain if the newer version will be screened in theaters post-La Biennale di Venezia.)
"As cinephiles’ imaginations race, it’s important to note: The expanded 188-minute cut doesn’t contain more effects shots, and the epic creation sequence remains untouched. But it restores material that Malick was exploring for the version that was shown in Cannes, including specific events and characters that were referenced only elliptically in the original film." - Variety
Malick previously, and 2011's The Tree of Life discussion.
Loved that movie and would totally be up for a longer version.
posted by octothorpe at 8:20 PM on September 7, 2018
posted by octothorpe at 8:20 PM on September 7, 2018
I loved this movie. I’d be curious if the themes are more apparent or accessible in the longer cut. As it is, I think Wordsworth’s Great Ode functions as sort of a key to make sense of the odder scenes (at least with the human characters), but I don’t remember if there’s anything thing that in the film itself that makes that connection so it’s just one possible interpretation among many.
posted by stopgap at 8:21 PM on September 7, 2018
posted by stopgap at 8:21 PM on September 7, 2018
Great movies are never long enough, and Tree of Life was a great movie.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:37 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:37 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
gucci mane, I totally agree with you about hoping for a theatrical release. I saw the original version on the big screen, and it changed the way I think about cinema. It's funny, though: I could not tell you what it was "about," but dang if I wasn't all teary-eyed when I walked out of the theater.
posted by MrBadExample at 10:08 PM on September 7, 2018
posted by MrBadExample at 10:08 PM on September 7, 2018
still probably the only movie I personally needed to see this decade. I look forward to crossing paths with this new take.
posted by philip-random at 11:36 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by philip-random at 11:36 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]
I had some seriously mixed feelings about Tree of Life when I saw it, and potentially Malick's point of view since then, but I can appreciate his effort to try and do something different and newish with his work. I say newish because Guy Maddin already made a "movie" that roughly seems to fit the idea Malick had about multiple version of Tree of Life for audiences to experience.
Check out Seances if that part of the project sounds interesting, and you have some affinity for Maddin. It's a project designed to provide each viewer with their own individual "movie", which is built/arranged from scenes pieced together from a collection of other very short films Maddin made in homage to lost or unrealized movies from film history, "recreating" them, sorta.
It's as much Maddin using them as catalysts for his own singular vision. It's pretty nifty, though NSFW, and relying on some archetypes of the silent era and beyond that did or do carry some troubling connotations in their reliance on outdated exoticism and stereotype in a way. Maddin is subverting those images, but the ultimate success of that is up to the viewer I think. Anyway you'll get your own unique movie with a title you get to choose from a title generator, so good or bad there won't be anything else exactly like it.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:33 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
Check out Seances if that part of the project sounds interesting, and you have some affinity for Maddin. It's a project designed to provide each viewer with their own individual "movie", which is built/arranged from scenes pieced together from a collection of other very short films Maddin made in homage to lost or unrealized movies from film history, "recreating" them, sorta.
It's as much Maddin using them as catalysts for his own singular vision. It's pretty nifty, though NSFW, and relying on some archetypes of the silent era and beyond that did or do carry some troubling connotations in their reliance on outdated exoticism and stereotype in a way. Maddin is subverting those images, but the ultimate success of that is up to the viewer I think. Anyway you'll get your own unique movie with a title you get to choose from a title generator, so good or bad there won't be anything else exactly like it.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:33 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
that 2011 thread sure is fighty
posted by thelonius at 4:36 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by thelonius at 4:36 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh do stop this "Tree of Life" nonsense, and check out gusottertrout's link to "Seances" above. It's something you can watch right now, on your own device, for free -- and it will have a strong affect on you, if you're at all interested in film and images and words.
posted by Modest House at 6:08 AM on September 8, 2018
posted by Modest House at 6:08 AM on September 8, 2018
thelonius: "that 2011 thread sure is fighty"
The first comment is a pretty classic dead goat.
posted by octothorpe at 8:12 AM on September 8, 2018
The first comment is a pretty classic dead goat.
posted by octothorpe at 8:12 AM on September 8, 2018
The first and second comments both were latched on to as something to argue about in lieu of the movie itself, which is of course much harder to pin down for discussion.
I think the way the first comment was written was a bit too accusatory seeming for it to go well, but the question isn't an entirely wrong one to ask, especially for something as purposefully opaque as Tree of Life is as to how one is to understand it overall.
Analyzing can act to distance the viewer from the gestalt of a work in the focus on demand for definition while relying on experience can be solipsistic for the trust it places in one's own reaction as sole measure of worth. Both have problems, but neither should be entirely rejected, just used with care.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:13 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
I think the way the first comment was written was a bit too accusatory seeming for it to go well, but the question isn't an entirely wrong one to ask, especially for something as purposefully opaque as Tree of Life is as to how one is to understand it overall.
Analyzing can act to distance the viewer from the gestalt of a work in the focus on demand for definition while relying on experience can be solipsistic for the trust it places in one's own reaction as sole measure of worth. Both have problems, but neither should be entirely rejected, just used with care.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:13 AM on September 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
I don't think Tree Of Life is deliberately provocative. Far from it. It's an artist deliberately NOT worrying what people will think and simply, beautifully, creating a work that's in accord with his personal obsessions and concerns.
Yet he had to know that it would provoke.
From my perspective, as someone's who's long loved cinema that goes beyond the accepted norms and/or boundaries (in fact, it's more and more the only kind I'm really interested in), I wish that more people were capable of first accepting stuff that is thoughtfully, deliberately strange (ie: giving it 139 or 188 minutes of their life) ... and then getting to the critique and analysis. Which I can very much enjoy.
posted by philip-random at 10:18 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yet he had to know that it would provoke.
From my perspective, as someone's who's long loved cinema that goes beyond the accepted norms and/or boundaries (in fact, it's more and more the only kind I'm really interested in), I wish that more people were capable of first accepting stuff that is thoughtfully, deliberately strange (ie: giving it 139 or 188 minutes of their life) ... and then getting to the critique and analysis. Which I can very much enjoy.
posted by philip-random at 10:18 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
The sadly defunct blog New Strategies for Invisibility wrote a very good essay about this movie back in 2012, titled Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? Where has he gone? No one can tell!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
The film works in approximately the opposite way that most serious dramatic films work: these films generally depict a few significant events and the reactions of a group of characters to them, and then leave it up to the audience to infer what’s going on in the characters’ heads and hearts. Tree, on the other hand, doesn’t much care about telling us a story, but DOES want to show us exactly what its protagonist is thinking and feeling. (One almost imagines Malick starting with a truism about film—that it can show images, but has to induce its audience to infer ideas and emotions—and then setting out to disprove it.)posted by vibratory manner of working at 4:19 PM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
Thanks for the links vibratory manner of working, it was a good essay with some nice additional links too. I didn't agree with all of it, I'm not really sure, for example, that the film does tell us what Jack is thinking as much as provide the context behind his feelings, which admittedly is a pretty fine grained distinction perhaps, but what is left out of his thoughts seems telling for keeping the character narration at a remove from the visible action, we're still left to infer much of his thoughts in the moments we witness, there is just the feeling we are meant to attach more weight to the emotional/metaphysical perspective of, for, or from the character than is anyway typical.
The article touches on most of the major conceptions regarding the film, the emphasis on it being more experiential than "intellectual" in construct, the referencing of Heidegger and autobiography, and looking at many of the same key elements of the film, the nature vs grace quote, the benevolent dino, and the how that ties in to Jack's view of his mother and father and, through them, himself. Like so many of the essays on the film, it almost inevitably turns back to wondering about Malick himself and how he makes movies. All fair questions I think, but often ignoring their own main claim of the movie experientially constructed to dally with intellectual deconstruction instead.
In that I mean I think a potentially more useful approach is to speak more of the experience of watching the movie, what was "felt" and what distracted from feeling, then speaking of the challenges posed in experience of the movie. While it certainly may be true or even likely that Malick was channeling his thoughts on Heidegger and his own life, if the film succeeds, then that knowledge shouldn't need to have the result of that reintegrated into the film after the fact through secondhand sources, it should be "felt" as one views it. The autobiographical or philosophical information should more give alternative terms of reference than be necessary for engaging with the movie. I think that is largely the case, for both good and bad, which is why the movie causes such divided opinion.
Here's an essay by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky that touches a wee bit on the experiential angle and some problems he had with it that points a little towards some of my own difficulty with the film. Ignatiy is pretty critical of the movie, but also listed it as one the best of the year later. It's just that kind of film. It has a number of the hallmarks of a major work, but also seems to resist being easily placed into that slot without challenge for many reasons that I'll set aside so as not to even further extend an already overlong comment.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:24 AM on September 9, 2018
The article touches on most of the major conceptions regarding the film, the emphasis on it being more experiential than "intellectual" in construct, the referencing of Heidegger and autobiography, and looking at many of the same key elements of the film, the nature vs grace quote, the benevolent dino, and the how that ties in to Jack's view of his mother and father and, through them, himself. Like so many of the essays on the film, it almost inevitably turns back to wondering about Malick himself and how he makes movies. All fair questions I think, but often ignoring their own main claim of the movie experientially constructed to dally with intellectual deconstruction instead.
In that I mean I think a potentially more useful approach is to speak more of the experience of watching the movie, what was "felt" and what distracted from feeling, then speaking of the challenges posed in experience of the movie. While it certainly may be true or even likely that Malick was channeling his thoughts on Heidegger and his own life, if the film succeeds, then that knowledge shouldn't need to have the result of that reintegrated into the film after the fact through secondhand sources, it should be "felt" as one views it. The autobiographical or philosophical information should more give alternative terms of reference than be necessary for engaging with the movie. I think that is largely the case, for both good and bad, which is why the movie causes such divided opinion.
Here's an essay by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky that touches a wee bit on the experiential angle and some problems he had with it that points a little towards some of my own difficulty with the film. Ignatiy is pretty critical of the movie, but also listed it as one the best of the year later. It's just that kind of film. It has a number of the hallmarks of a major work, but also seems to resist being easily placed into that slot without challenge for many reasons that I'll set aside so as not to even further extend an already overlong comment.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:24 AM on September 9, 2018
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posted by gucci mane at 7:42 PM on September 7, 2018 [1 favorite]