Malick’s Knight of Cups

If you always suspected Hollywood was a den of vice and degradation, you are about to be vindicated by no less an auteur than Terrence Malick. His everyman screenwriter has been led astray by the hedonism Tinsel Town offers. Malick riffs on Pilgrim’s Progress, The Hymn of the Pearl, and Fellini’s 8½ while searching for higher meaning in Knight of Cups (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

The screenwriter’s name is “Rick,” but we only know that from the closing credits. Not a lot of names get bandied about in Cups and dialogue is rather sparse in general. Instead, we watch Rick’s life flash by in snippets better measured in seconds than minutes. He is the Pilgrim or the “Son of the King of Kings,” who found worldly success, but lost sight of his values. However, he has not forgotten his family. In fact, they are another cross to bear. His relationship with his devout but guilt-wracked father is strained, but reparable. Unfortunately, his unstable brother Barry is apparently a lost soul. He will also have relationships with a number of attractive women, but it is often hard to tell when he moves onto someone new, because of Malick’s insistence on filming the backs of characters’ heads.

Aesthetically, Cups might just be Malick’s most maddening film yet—and that is quite a heavy statement. Yet, what is really frustrating is the extent to which he undermines his own challenging ideas. This is not a sterile exercise in style at the expense of substance. Malick is one of the very few filmmakers working today who seriously grapples with issues of faith and an ostensibly disinterested God in a serious, mature, and non-kneejerk manner. He most definitely does so again in Cups.

In fact, the very best moments directly explore man’s spiritual yearning. Making the most of his fleeting screen time, Armin Mueller-Stahl delivers a shockingly powerful Christian apologia as Father Zeitlinger. Likewise, the late Peter Matthiesson (essentially playing himself) delivers a potent lesson in Zen Buddhism. “I can only teach you one thing: this moment,” he tells Rick. Yet, instead of letting these significant moments breathe, so we can properly digest them, Malick continues his MTV-style rapid editing, moving to the next stage of Rick’s life, practically at the speed of light.

Even though he is in most of the scenes, Christian Bale perversely hardly gets a chance to do any acting. Malick’s actors really have to make an impression quickly if they stand any chance of standing out. In addition to the wonderful Mueller-Stahl and sage-like Matthiesson, Brian Dennehy projects appropriate gravitas and poignant humility as Rick’s father, Joseph (remember, that’s a Biblical name). It is also amusing to watch Antonio Banderas essentially reprise his role from Nine under the persona of Tonio, the Hollywood playboy (he even looks like he is wearing the same suit). Problematically, the women in Rick’s life are almost used like props, but Cate Blanchett shows some forcefulness and gumption as his ER doctor ex-wife, Nancy. Presumably, that is why it did not work out between the two of them.

Cups could have possibly been a truly great film, but Malick’s approach is way too unfettered in its Malickness. Even as its wise men explicitly tell us to more fully live in the present, it hurtles ahead, like a cheetah suffering from ADD. This is a shame, because there is wisdom within its frames. Still, this is not a film that can be easily dismissed. Indeed, it is quite an important work when viewed in dialogue with Malick’s prior films, but as a discrete screening experience, it is bizarrely agitated and off-putting. Viewers who really want to wrestle with a film will find their match in Knight of Cups, but the more conventional should probably take a pass. Still, even now it defies any clear-cut rendering of judgment. For the auteur’s adventurous admirers, Knight of Cups opens this Friday (3/4) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine and AMC Loews Lincoln Square.

Sundance ’14: The Better Angels

That log cabin business was no joke.  Abraham Lincoln’s formative years put the “hard” in hardscrabble. Yet, they shaped him into the commanding and compassionate leader our nation needed. Young Master Lincoln comes of age in A.J. Edwards’ impressionistic The Better Angels (trailer here), co-produced by Terrence Malick, which screens as a New Frontier selection of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Narrated by Lincoln’s cousin reminiscing shortly after his assassination, Angels chronicles three years of his life as a gangly youth in the back hills of Indiana.  His devout but illiterate mother Nancy Lincoln recognizes her youngest son’s remarkable intellectual gifts, but his gruff father sees no value in a bookish education. Nancy Lincoln would die at a tragically young age, but her religious convictions clearly shaped her sensitive son’s ethical values.  A short while later Tom Lincoln remarries.  Sarah Lincoln also takes a shine to young Abraham, finally convincing her husband to support his education.

Throughout Angels, Malick protégé Edwards maintains a style consistent with that of his mentor, but scene after scene resonate with far greater emotion than the austere To the Wonder. This is a simple story, but it is deeply moving.  Aside from the exquisitely beautiful opening shots of the Lincoln Memorial, Angels never leaves the Indiana Hill country, circa 1817. Yet, Lincoln’s later significance is unambiguously stamped upon the film.

Visually, Angels is a true work of art.  Each and every frame of Matthew J. Lloyd’s black-and-white cinematography is suitable for framing. As sort of an illustrative tone poem-tribute to Lincoln, Angels fits comfortably enough in the New Frontiers rubric.  Nevertheless, the film boasts several very fine performances. Diane Kruger’s turn as Sarah Lincoln is wonderfully sensitive and finely wrought, but Jason Clarke’s work as the demanding but ultimately loving Tom Lincoln sneaks up on viewers, landing a total knockout punch.

Yes, Angels is deliberately paced, favoring sensory stimulus over narrative drive. It is also an unusually powerful and evocative film. There will be plenty of people who just won’t get it, but they will be wrong. Elegantly crafted, it is one of the high-end high-points of this year’s Sundance. Enthusiastically recommended for patrons with adult attention spans, The Better Angels screens again today (1/22) and Saturday (1/25) in Park City.

Malick’s To the Wonder

It seems eerily fitting that Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder would be the final film reviewed by the auteur’s longtime champion, Roger Ebert.  It is rather more surreal to think Olga Kurylenko commenced production on Malick’s latest in 2010, the same year she worked on the forthcoming but already infamous mermaid potboiler Empires of the Deep.  Yet, any new film from Malick is a cinematic event in its own right.  The director’s admirers will find it is very much a Malickian statement, except perhaps more so, when To the Wonder (trailer here) opens tomorrow in New York.

Neil and Marina meet in France and fall deeply in love.  He is a visiting American.  She is a Ukrainian single mother.  Intending to start a new life together, she and her daughter Tatiana move into his Oklahoma home, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.  Their dreamy ardor persists for a while, but soon fissures develop in their relationship.  Eventually, Marina and Tatiana return to Europe.  She and Neil eventually feel compelled to make another try, but this time her daughter stays with her (unseen) father.  Despite the support of the equally alienated Father Quintana, the couple’s issues persist.

Just under two hours, Wonder is practically a short subject by Malick’s standards.  However, he makes absolutely no stylistic concessions.  Frankly, it is more like a series of tableaux than a movie, even of the art house variety.  Framing lovely images is a hallmark of Malick’s work, so his striking vistas should come as no surprise.  Yet, at some point, moving pictures really ought to, you know, move.

Throughout Wonder, Malick’s favored perspective on Ben Affleck’s Neil is the back of his head, which is obviously deliberately distancing.  Yet, in a way it suits the reserved and reticent Oklahoman.  Even as Malick and his characters seemingly strain to shut viewers out, cracks of profundity occasionally open up in the film.  In one particularly heavy moment, Father Quintana counsels Neil it is always difficult to be the one who loves less than their partner.  Indeed, Neil has plenty of guilt to process without the consolation of Marina’s emotional reveries.  There’s something for the daytime talk shows to chew on.

Naturally, Father Quintana has lost (or at least misplaced) his faith.  Nonetheless, it is a deeply sympathetic portrait of a man of the cloth.  Malick unflinchingly captures his loneliness and the imperfect solace he finds in service to others.  Javier Bardem might not dig into such deep and dark places as he did for Biutiful, but he still conveys a sense of a man with a long, complicated history. 

Since nobody is really granted a substantial backstory, it is incumbent on the cast to evoke the sense their pains and regrets are rooted in something real and universal.  That is a real strength for Bardem.  Whereas Affleck is supposed to be cold and aloof, Olga Kurylenko is also surprisingly effective and affecting as the passionately needy Marina.

Viewers who lose patience with Wonder are not shallow philistines.  Malick de-emphasizes plot and character development in favor of imagery and in-the-moment impressionism.  It is slow and at time pretentious.  Yet, at the fleeting junctures where it all comes together, it is like the epiphany produced by an audacious free jazz performance.  Dashed demanding, To the Wonder is mostly recommended for hardy Malick followers when it opens tomorrow (4/12) in New York at the Walter Reade Theater uptown and the Landmark Sunshine downtown.