The New World

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

This makes me sad. Midwestern fields have the kind of beauty that just saturates you, fills you up so contented.

I wasn't being entirely serious but perhaps that's part of this issue. I think in britain people tend not to have that contented sense of beauty. There's always a but.

And often that but is expressed in self deprecation or sarcasm, or sometimes in a wilful embrace of ugliness.

 

[sus]

Yes, Malick has no irony, and no but. It just is.

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

But early malick did have that. badlands is very ironic, funny, sharp, beautiful but in a cruel way. And exciting because of that.

 

[constant escape]

Maybe the faith was so strong it could swallow that irony whole without the slightest trace of indigestion.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah I feel he stripped something away and left nothing in its place
Replying to Simon there

 

[luka]

But early malick did have that. badlands is very ironic, funny, sharp, beautiful but in a cruel way. And exciting because of that.

is that that stupid one with the Sean Penn voiceover or is it the one i havent watched?

 

[luka]

Sus.... did you see this film Kaili Blues? It seems to me to be the kind of film that Malick wants to make or even thinks he's making.

looks like you can watch the whole thing on your laptop screen

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

is that that stupid one with the Sean Penn voiceover or is it the one i havent watched?

Its the martin sheen one.

 

[IdleRich]

It's quite different ie good

 

[luka]

thats the one ive not seen

 

[IdleRich]

It's the one that made his reputation and had a-listers queuing up to in his increasingly disappointing follow ups.

 

[constant escape]

Badlands could fit in with the Easy Rider, Raging Bull crowd, albeit more ethereal, no? Good heart, rough skin, against the world.

 

[constant escape]

And yeah it doesn't play almost anything like his later ones, at least not to me.

 

[IdleRich]

Especially Thin Red Line which was his first for a hundred years... in that film every single extra or cameo is super famous, the interest fell off bit by bit as his films became less rare and less good.

 

[IdleRich]

Badlands could fit in with the Easy Rider, Raging Bull crowd, albeit more ethereal, no? Good heart, rough skin, against the world.

Definitely a bit more... yeah delicate. Bonnie & Clyde or Gun Crazy but without all the murdering and more real.

 

[constant escape]

Delicates a good word for it. I do get the sense that Martin Sheens character is, in a way, just a little boy who has gone this far without adjusting, however noble or pathetic that may seem.

 

[IdleRich]

Malick is actually on screen for a sec, he stepped in to be a door to door salesman cos the actor dropped out. He planned to re-film it but Sheen refused so as to trap him on screen.

 

[constant escape]

Forgot about Thin Red Line. I think we can mark that as the point in his filmography where plot began dissolving, no? For better or worse. Knight of Cups got blasted for lack of discernible plot, and the same could be charged for Song to Song, To the Wonder, and Tree of Life, it seems.

 

[constant escape]

Didn't know that, thats always fun.

 

[IdleRich]

Forgot about Thin Red Line. I think we can mark that as the point in his filmography where plot began dissolving, no? For better or worse. Knight of Cups got blasted for lack of discernible plot, and the same could be charged for Song to Song, To the Wonder, and Tree of Life, it seems.

Definitely a kind of fulcrum in his career.