John - you're getting my Irish up with these responses. Haha. I just protest in life to generalities like "if you care about film as something serious and not pure entertainment, you have to..." no matter what you finish that with, I'm probably going to disagree with you. I think that a person's individual way of seeing things isn't always the way everyone else must see them. I think it's entirely possible for someone to take film seriously and care about it for more than entertainment and yet not be totally convinced about one individual film from one director, no matter who that director is. It's also not that I'm not willing to wrestle with Malick or this movie. Me asking these questions IS me trying to wrestle with it, it's probably just not the same way you wrestle with it. I'm not dismissing it. And I'm not saying, there were things in this film I didn't understand so it was a piece of shit and so is the director. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I don't think it's wrong to ask why about aspects of the film. But instead the conversation gets shut down because "Lots of people with more knowledge than I have are already pretty much agreed on the issue." Maybe... but The Tree of Life isn't as old as Beethoven's 9th and I'm not so sure that there is a consensus on this film. And anyway doesn't that defeat the purpose of this club? I get the symphony metaphor, but what you're saying about Beethoven vs. pop music is trivializing what I was getting at. I'm not saying everything has to be accessible, I'm saying we should be able to talk about why it's not and what that means. And I am not saying he uses narrative "wrong," I would never say something like that. I'm saying that it's frustrating that a person can't even have this conversation with someone about a film because it was a certain director. At this point I'm not even really talking about Malick or this film in particular. I don't know what I'm talking about... I'm so tired right now, I need to wrap this up. Oh wait, but one more thing I just thought of - the movies I've been watching lately (which I think you're referring to as "wine coolers"? thanks dude lol) is partly because for the last 5 years I've been working 80 hour weeks in a shitty cutthroat industry in a very stressful New York City with an anxiety disorder, sadly. Picture walking through Times Square twice a day just to get to your transportation. As you can imagine, coming home and watching a serious film isn't always what I feel like doing. But that doesn't mean I don't care about serious film! I know you guys don't really see value in watching these other kinds of movies, like American indies or documentaries, and that's okay, but I do see value in it, and I don't think there's One Right Way. I protest that idea, always. Just because I enjoy films for entertainment value and watch indies and an occasional romcom doesn't mean I don't also take film seriously and don't enjoy and care about Serious and Important films, you know? It's not mutually exclusive. I've been watching Serious and Important films forever. I like film so much that I like watching all kinds of films (except when I get too scared like with horror films, that's because of my anxiety issues). Based on your metaphor, I think it's possible that you don't take my opinions seriously because you don't care for the kinds of movies I've been watching lately. What can you do, right? I don't take my opinions seriously about anything, so there you have it. As Jason said in the name of his blog, "You win, John." :)
My only point with this entire stupid argument is that I think the world of film and film criticism can be really snobby and pretentious and it irritates me and I wish everyone entrenched in the film world was more open to questions and discussions about a film from a beloved director regardless of the positive or negative charge of the questions. (I know you guys aren't pretentious, we hung out in person, and that just solidified my knowledge of that - again, I am just talking in general about Film with a capital F.) I'm not trying to say anything to disparage Malick or this film. I liked it. I'm just raising questions. I think the three of you see things very similarly in terms of your approach to films and as the new kid it's easy for me to start feeling a bit ganged up on I think. But I know I was invited in to the group to bring a different perspective. It's just that sometimes coming from a different perspective makes me always feel like I'm wrong and I have 5 people telling me why. Sadly I don't ever really have much fight in me, I'm sensitive and lack confidence in this area and am not a good debater especially against the championship debate team of the internet, you guys should enter some kind of competition. ;)
Brandon I really loved your review too. It is the total opposite of the frustration I was expressing, which made me so happy, especially since you wrote the first half of it before I even bitched. You were grappling with the same stuff I was grappling with too, I love that. I like that you explored the intentions and what this what about and whether it worked, I was with your train of thought the whole way. And this is where I live my life: "And as I think about it more and more there were plenty of things that I would say I disliked about TREE OF LIFE. It’s a letdown. It’s also everything I had hoped it would be. It’s groundbreaking and as such it’s in desperate need of revision." This is the kind of stuff I say all the time. I live in that grey. It's hard for me to see things as strictly black and white, all or nothing, right or wrong, that kind of stuff. So it leaves me questioning things a lot of the time. And the fact that my friends who are die-hard Lynch fans or whatever won't even entertain a conversation about it all pisses me off and leaves me writing 4am rants. ;)
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