Reader Spotlight: The Meaning in Tree of Life and Hugo
I was asked by a reader in the comments and I decided to turn it into a whole post to open the discussion up for these two films:
From Luke:
Sasha, you said above that Hugo is the best of the bunch, and that the Tree of Life was great and all, but you didnt feel like it should be there. I agree with you that Descendants, Moneyball, Hugo, the Artist and Midnight in paris all deserve to be there, but I do believe the Tree of Life does as well. And, I know that when were talking about these movies were supposed to stay unbiased, but dont you think some of your love of Hugo could come from your own life? I mean you talk about your love for your daughter on here every so often and it really reminds me of what Scorsese was trying to do in Hugo. Some unconscious bias for Hugo could come from the relationship you have with your daughter. As for me, I don’t have kids but I truly did love Hugo. However, Tree of Life, for me, was the best movie of the year by far. Im in a place in my life where I don’t understand life or whats around us or the planet, and it was remarkable, IMO, that Malick basically took on a project that was his outlook on the meaning of life, religion and interpersonal communication. For me, it truly hit home and I will always remember that movie. So, to a degree, I do believe we are all a little biased for movies because of whats happening in our lives personally, even if we dont really notice it at first.
I absolutely respect and acknowledge that other people feel that way. Tree of Life has hit many people in significant ways. For that perhaps it is the MOST deserving of the Best Picture nominees. If it were me personally it would not be one of them but who can complain with that choice? I certainly can’t. Here are some thoughts about the two films.
When it comes to religion, Hugo gets to closer to what I think than Tree of Life does. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with my relationship with my daughter. Some movies I respond to differently because of my relationship with her. Before I had her I didn’t feel very much at all. I was kind of numb. But kids have a way of thawing out even the coldest of hearts and because of her I have greater compassion and appreciation for more sentimental stories (well not the King’s Speech, I know) – like a movie like Dolphin Tale, for instance. She is just now discovering Moulin Rouge! and I am thoroughly enjoying watching her fall for that movie the same way I did. But the whole magical kid thing you’re talking about, well, Spielberg has made his career on that and if that were all it took to draw me into a film I’d surely be a less surly blogger, probably.
But let’s start with Tree of Life. What I appreciate about it is that it is an impressionistic self-portrait by Malick. It is daring, unconventional, absolutely one artist’s vision. That it’s done at a time when movies are mostly something you’ve seen before, it is a miracle in and of itself that the film was made at all. It’s beautiful to look at and it reveals stuff about life, about desire, about our relationships that is mostly residing in our subconscious, not above the surface with neatly laid out outlines. Malick doesn’t color between the lines and to many that is enough.
For me, though, I have spent the the last three decades pondering the meaning of life. At the age of 25 it really hit me that I was going to die. Bob Dylan says we should get busy living or get busy dying and in fact, we’re all dying. The second we’re born we’re dying. That was a powerful moment because I saw the span of five years, from age 20 to 25 disappear. Now, each day disappears faster than I can keep track of them. My daughter is now in middle school about to enter high school. I’ve been doing this website, measuring my life Oscar year by Oscar year, for her entire life. Time slips away. And the older you get, the faster it goes.
But the one thing I never had was religion. You could say it was how I was raised, by an ex-Southern baptist who is now a passionate atheist. But both of my sisters and my brother are spiritual people. They aren’t skeptical like I am and they certainly aren’t non-believers like I am. I don’t believe man is the center of the universe. If there is a life force, whatever it is, it is in support of the natural world and is probably something so far beyond our comprehension it isn’t even worth discussing. Faith is something that you attain despite the logic that challenges it. For me, when I entered college I took a human evolution course and at that point a light turned on and suddenly things started to make more sense, how we are part of something much much bigger than anything we could conceive, like heaven for instance.
It was then that I turned to science to explain life’s meaning and there I found some relief. I have long wanted to do what Darwin did with his own wife, pretend to believe in Heaven for the sake of my daughter; believing that there is nothing after death is a horrible way to live. I was having this discussion recently with livingincinema.com’s Craig Kennedy. He was saying (and Tree of Life is one of his favorite films of the year, by the way) that religion is the coward’s way out. I don’t really think that – I believe it is sweet relief from the agony of believing in the nothingness. But yet, my brain won’t allow me to know the truth in any other way.
So to be turned on intellectually or spiritually by Tree of Life, I’d have to be close the realm of thinking that puts us into the linear — big bang, dinos, our lives, death, heaven. For me, I don’t think of it that way — even though I can dig it that Malick does and his own story so it’s worthwhile for that reason. Many others identify with it. It just never felt like there was any deep thinking going on. It is a beautiful, emotional memory — and a totally committed work of art. You can sit there and let it wash over you. It is not unlike Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 in that way. The difference is that 2001 is hard to watch. It is irritating, brutal, cold – it isn’t necessarily a spiritual uplift the way Malick’s film is. The collection of images in Tree of Life has to be among the best filmmaking, purely and simply, of the year.
It sounds crazy, I know, but I need something deeper to chew on for something to really dig in and make an impact with me — ten years ago I probably would think it was the most profound film I’d ever seen.
Here are Christopher Nolan and David Fincher on Terrence Malick – and they probably understand his work better than I do, have a listen:
If I go looking for deeper meaning the only place I can land is with Malick’s own inner world – his feelings about his father, his mother, his brothers, how he first came to a sexual awakening, where his self-loathing comes from. I am sure the directors love this film because it is 100% uncompromising. I’m sure every filmmaker in town would love to be able to have made an impressionistic moving painting of their own subconscious inner world. Can you imagine having the freedom to do that? In nominating it for Best Picture and Best Director the Academy and the industry are saying, we approve of this. It’s either that or homeboy has a lot of friends in town.
Hugo, on the other hand, is that deep. It’s easy to write it off as a “kid’s movie” but it is so much more than that. You think I only liked it because I have a kid so then I would have to ask you how long you have been reading my writing on film. The directors I appreciate are those who don’t give you everything at once but when you start reaching in, when you start digging and uncovering, they have left stuff there for you to find. Surely these directors aren’t ever going to make fuck-you money, and they will probably never win Oscars, well, unless they’re The Godfather I and II. But I went to film school, I studied film and I wrote about film for five years on a cinema listserv before I ever started blogging about the Oscars so deeper meaning, for me, is essential. And I know I am nowhere near the level I need to be – because I tend to fall too hard for films that most snooty critics wouldn’t look twice at.
Hugo has so many layers in it that it is almost like watching an entirely different movie every time I see it. Part of this is the collaboration of John Logan and Scorsese, who pack everything into one movie, so much so that most people don’t know how to categorize it. They aren’t comfortable with it being its own story, fresh and real. It has to be this or that. Probably because it looks so archetypical. It looks like a fable, or a typical Dickensian children’s story but that isn’t what it is. Hugo is everything Extremely Loud wanted to be. It’s about a kid who is an awkward outsider, someone who must peer through the wires and pipes of the train station at real life. He himself feels useless except in the way that he can put machines together. He looks to a machine to reconnect him with his father but it is a hollow reflection, just the automaton staring blankly, frighteningly back at him. Within it, a message from his father — it is tied to everything in the film. It fights within its story with the past and the future. It says everything The Artist says but says it in a deeper, more meaningful, more challenging way. The Artist is a perfect gem. But it’s a flower bouquet. It’s a tray of tasty chocolate treats. You eat one, and it’s delicious. But it isn’t ever going to be much more than that.
Hugo moves from the past to the present and he helps to revive a filmmaker who has all but given up his passion for making movies. Making movies is as much a technical exercise as it is an artistic one. Talk to any film director, any good film director, and they will talk to you about all kinds of things you don’t understand — cameras and lenses and lighting and timing. They talk much more about the machinery of it, which is surprising. But that is what Hugo is. The Artist is about the ultimate image on the screen. Hugo is about the making of that image.
What I admire in Hugo the most, though, isn’t the “magical world of children,” as I think you think I like about it. It’s the idea of usefulness. When Hugo finds his usefulness, when he risks everything for the chance to be a part of something bigger than himself, to put his talent to good use, to get the girl and the family all in one, it is the single most moving moment I experienced in any film all year.
But much of the worship I have for Scorsese is with his unique approach to the camera’s eye. He has never settled for traditional framing. This is what I love about David Fincher, too. If you go back and watch all of Fincher’s movies his eye, his framing is distinct, no matter what cinematographer he’s working with — this is how you can really separate the good directors from the ones who rely too much on their DPs. It couldn’t be anyone else directing those movies but him. And once you get that about Scorsese, about Fincher, about Kathryn Bigelow, about the best of the visual storytellers, you will never look at film the same way again.
From the first frame to the last, you are treated to an array of vivid, beautiful, astonishing shots. There isn’t a wasted second in Hugo, though many complain about the first hour or whatever, the fact is that if you’re looking at the art of it, the composition of it, you will catch your breath a dozen times watching the balance of color, music, and shot detail. Scorsese nailed the emotion this time around, something he’s rarely got a hold of. His characters tend to be cut off emotionally. And it is only in this way that having a kid could enliven my appreciation of Hugo; I get that Scorsese himself was transformed by his relationship with his youngest daughter. He probably couldn’t quite get there with his other kids because he was too involved with his career. Now, in his later years, he is seeing how exceptional it is to watch a smart young mind grow.
He puts all of that into the movie. But you don’t need that to respond to Hugo. You just have to open your eyes and look.
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I love this Sasha. You truly are the best blogger today. No one else gives their heart and soul the way you do. Everyone else tries to be crass and cool and they come off phoney and disingenuous. You are you, the coolest of them all. Thanks for turning out these great essays so often for us to read.
No disrespect, but I think you proved Luke (biblical)’s point. Your love of Hugo may not of stemmed from your daughter, but your would-view provided evidence as to why Hugo is better than Tree of Life. I never understand how you can casually say which picture is worthy for these awards without any qualifications about what makes something the “best.” Tree of Life is probably the only film, save for Midnight in Paris, that did anything for me this year. That probably speaks to my world-view, but if given objective criteria, I could at least argue my case. I don’t like, separate issue maybe, the ten best picture system. I accept that of the five nominations, most years I don’t like any of them. With ten, I am happy that Tree of Life gets in, or A Serious Man, or Winter’s Bone. But I almost like that my favorites never make it, because I don’t want the same viewpoint as an Oscar voter. Oscar voters have there own unique take on things. They like The Reader and The King’s Speech. But these are the films they like and could probably argue their merits. If the whole reason this new system started is The Dark Knight, that is ignoring the hundreds of great films that were never nominated for an Oscar. The Dark Knight is not there thing. It is not mine either, as I hate most fan-boy favorites. I don’t care about Avatar. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was, to me, some neo-superhero nonsense, and frankly, disgusting. Maybe put, in my humble opinion before every who should of been nominated or not discussion.
It would be nice, Tree of Life, if you could argue your point, talk about why you thought the movie was great, rather than try to deconstruct me. Here’s the truth about Tree of Life: it thinks it’s a lot deeper and more meaningful than it actually is. I’ve only had one person, a good friend, write to tell me why she loved the movie and it was all relating to her own life, her mom, her dad and how close the movie was to that. I suspect, if you have had life experience you might recognize a lot in that film. And if you don’t have a lot of life experience you might find it very deep. I am doing everything I can not to criticize the film because I do respect it in every way and recognize it as self-portrait masterpiece. But my response to IT and my response to HUGO WOULD BE THE SAME whether I had raised a child or not. I saw MYSELF in Hugo, not my daughter’s vision of the world. He touched SOMETHING IN ME that would have likewise been touched. He lights my imagination on fire in ways Malick does not. I wish I could be like you and see that but to me it’s a lot of faux depth. But I love to read more about why people thought it so great. I’m not bashing the movie at all, I promise you. Maybe in ten or twenty years I might revisit it and find it to really hit me deeply. But you know on some level it’s like listening to someone describe their dream for two hours. And you know how those usually go — except with Tree of Life you have those stunning visuals….
Sasha: It still sounds like you appreciate Hugo more because of your background, just maybe not in the way Luke thought of.
TOL is very much a story that deals with life in the context of a higher power, while Hugo is essentially an existentialist fairy tale. Since you say you “never had religion” it seems that it would be hard for you to connect with something that is blatantly “religious” in the usual sense of the word and gravitate towards something that eschews God completley and then deals with the dread of not having a purpose in life (something not really related to religion but universal nonetheless).
Sasha: It still sounds like you appreciate Hugo more because of your background, just maybe not in the way Luke thought of.
Well I’m waiting for Ryan to chime in because he loved Hugo too and as far as I know he doesn’t have a kid. Moreover, you probably think of me as being a Fincher fangirl but what you might not know about me is that Scorsese is my favorite director, has been for twenty years, so I am probably not going to ever be critical of his work. Since I started my website I have championed Gangs of New York, The Aviator — especially The Departed — Shutter Island and now Hugo. So, you know, I love the man’s films. Loved them before I had a baby, still love them now.
I suppose I like the film for the same reason I like The Thin Red Line. I don’t believe that a small child has the compacity to deconstruct his life as it happens, just as soldiers probably don’t go into war thinking in free-verse poetry about the meaning, or meaninglessness, of it all. I like Malick because he creates beautiful images and concentrates on primary emotions. He shows the interconnctivity of things It may be impressionistic, but I think he works with universals in an earnest way. I was so moved by the juxtaposed images of a father and son conflict in a backyard with DDT smoke on the streets. I don’t have time to go into this film image by image right now, but I like, above all, what this film is able to bring out of me upon viewing. I don’t think the film is trying to be “deep” just to be deep, but I do think it is trying to universalize the human experience. I thought the texas family storyline was intentionally meant to be sort of a generic family, so it is interesting that it was spot on for your friend. How fathers relate to sons, how mothers nuture. It all might be somber-hippy filmmaking, but I for one found it ver affecting and beautiful.
I didn’t mean to sound like I was saying something bad about you. Everyone has their preferences. I actually agree with most everything you said, I just connect with TOL in a deeply personal way so I think I enjoyed it more than you. I’m just trying to say that our backgrounds shape what we enjoy that’s all. (all that said, Hugo is a masterpiece and my personal favorite of the nominees.)
^
Got busy offline.
I will say that I never thought of Hugo as a kid’s movie. All three times I saw it in theaters, there were perhaps a grand total of 6 kids. Almost entirely college age and older audiences. (and that’s why it made art-house money instead of family film money.)
If I had any kids, movies like Hugo would be all the “kids movies” I’d ever let them see.
I’d rather my 10-yr-old watch Drive & Shame than Chipmunks & Smurfs… so Hugo is a happy medium.
what kind of kid grows up without a few nightmares burned into his head by movies he’s not old enough to fully grasp? No kid of mine.
Love this post… I’m chime in more later!
“…waiting for Ryan to chime in because he loved Hugo too and as far as I know he doesn’t have a kid.”
As far as I know, too… does anyone know who’s the daddy of that wise-ass E-Trade baby?
If I ever have a kid, I’m naming him Kevin.
I am touched and moved by your post, Sasha. It is such a pleasure to read your personal insights and professional ones on the movies that inspire you, and the life experiences that have shaped you. As a movie-goer and as a 40 something also, that reflective quality is often hard earned, but oh so rich as well.
Having seen The Artist yesterday, and The Tree of Life a couple of weeks ago and Hugo in between, it is wonderfully reiterating to read your appraisal of Scorsese’s masterpiece. It is head and shoulders above the others, and quite possibly the best film i will see this year. I do not claim to be a Scorsese fan, but watching Hugo was a transformative experience both during, and since. I have a new found respect and insight into this most unique and talented artist. Hugo tells me so much about the man, and it tells me an exquisitely told narrative, that spoke to the adult in me, the child in me, and the movie fan within. That is some achievement. The smile never left my face for the first 2 reels.
I haven’t had much to smile about this past year. I have had cancer, and movies now more than ever help me to transport to another place, or simply hold up a mirror to my life. When the boy Hugo asks about his life purpose and meaning, it goes straight to my heart and to my soul, as i have been asking those questions for some time, and the movie celebrates without mawkishness or sweetness the true gifts and reasons for being alive and us being those works in progress. All the characters in Hugo whether they be grown-ups or children, artists or station officers, seek connection and belonging. I am not a parent, but the search for identity, the wish to belong, the wish to connect, the sublimation of one’s desires and needs into creative pursuits – these treasured feelings are all around the 3d wonderworld that is Hugo.
The Tree of Life brings me some of the most beautiful images and soulful fragments i have yet seen on the screen – but at the end of its duration, they were just that – fragments. If you will, like some of Iron Lady Thatcher’s rambling thoughts and memories – all dislodged and non linear in structure. I appreciate Malick’s stream of consciousness. I wish it had been more structured, but that is just my need – as i look for structure and meaning and answers. With respect to “The Artist”, i found none of the qualities i found in the other 2 films. It was super sweet and endlessly charming, but with no substance, no layers, just one hunka hunka burning spunk in Jean Dujardin, and the cutest sweetest supporting players – Uggie and Berenice! Next to Hugo, The Artist is just candy floss. It is beautifully put together. I wanted some ideas, some texture, something for me to really chew on. I wanted to like it more! I wanted to be moved and transported to another realm.
Great movies are transformative, they leave you wanting more – not less!
They allow you to go to places you might not otherwise dare to go. They keep on popping up in your thoughts, in your conversations and in the mind’s eye.
Thank you Sasha for weathering another tough season of criticism and reactivity. You put your opinions and agendas out there, and they are a marvelous springboard for discourse and reflection. It is for the love of cinema and for our own spirit mirrored on the screen, that we continue to deepen our experience and search for those treasured moments and illuminations that the movie culture can and does reveal to us.
Thanks for the space for me to do so.
One more thing, quickly.
Hugo, for me, is as much a kid’s movie as The 400 Blows, Murmur of the Heart, and Pan’s Labyrinth are “kid’s movies.”
Movies about kids that age range are often built to satisfy grown-ups and only the very smartest of tweens.
I personally think you’re making too much of Tree of Life’s religious themes and not enough of its family themes. To be fair, I only saw the film once back in June, but I didn’t think Malick was really making a statement about religion or the universe. It’s primarily a memory play, a fractured collage about one man’s childhood and how it shapes him today. I love when movies capture childhood without romanticizing it. Too many films have rose-colored glasses about childhood innocence, when in reality, being a kid kind of sucks in a lot of ways. Tree of Life understands that and perfectly captures life after a traumatic event under a disciplinarian father.
As for the images showcasing the formation of the universe, I saw that as a sort of “regime change” metaphor for Jack’s life. One moment amoebas control the earth, then dinosaurs rule it as the most powerful beings. But today all the dinosaurs are dead, and just like Jack’s father once reigned over him, today Jack is his own man. The powers that be in this world are always shifting, flowing from one to the next, just as Jack evolves over the course of his lifetime. As for the scenes on the beach, those too I felt were using spiritual imagery as a metaphor for a personal journey of grief, finally leading us to acceptance. In essence, I think Tree of Life is a very personal, human character study that makes use of cosmological and spiritual imagery to evocative effect. I don’t think it’s actually about the meaning of life.
Anyway, Tree of Life has many moments of brilliance in my opinion, but also things that don’t work: some dialogue, some scenes, some fake-looking CGI dinosaurs. It is not my favorite of the nominees (that would be Moneyball), but I think it is a positive thing that AMPAS is nominating such a unique, visionary work. I’m hesitant to call this year’s Best Picture line-up a total failure for the reason that such a dazzling avant-garde film is nominated, despite the three main failures of the new system (War Horse, Extremely Loud, Dragon Tattoo).
Superb writing, Sasha. With daveinprogresses’ added comments, you summarized very well some of the same reasons why Hugo resonated with me at numerous levels.
As for Tree of Life, I thought it was a beautiful, ambitious, but ultimately empty, shell. I respect those who hold different opinions of ToL, except those who suggest that anyone who does not like ToL just “didn’t get it”. I even respect the opinion that Malick could film (yet again) a woman in a flowing dress on a swing, from intriguing angles, with beautiful blue skies and clouds overhead, with a steaming pile of you-know-what near the swing, and a narrator breathlessly whispering “who left it here?”, “how did it get here?”, “where were you when it was dropped here?”, and Malick lovers would label it the masterwork of the year.
@Luke, it’s okay, its best to take Sasha’s posts with a grain of salt. Sometimes she’s more than spot on, and other times I’m flat out puzzled. But it’s because she’s very opinionated, which is more interesting to read and debate.
Tree of Life worked for me. I don’t think it’s trying to say anything profound—and to argue it thinks it does contradicts Malick’s entire filmography. He consistently works with unreliable narrators and uses the film’s structure to exhibit the theme (i.e. The New World). Remember, people found The New World scattered and picked up story lines and dropped them. But that was the point. When we arrived at this new world, it was all unknown. So we may venture up a river to find a dead end, or find it goes all the way to Mississippi. But, it’s also in the scope of a well-known story of Pocahontas. To the natives, this wasn’t a new world, they knew where the paths would lead just as we know where the story will ultimately lead. Malick’s films have all been based on something else for the most part: Starkweather, a novel, folklore/history.
It’s similar in THE TREE OF LIFE. He simply took the Bible and transposed much of its themes and episodic storytelling onto his characters. I’m going to be very reductive to avoid writing a novel. To start: Consider what shaped the Bible? It was written by flesh and blood people hundreds of years after Christ (and after most of the events they discuss). They blended stories they heard, experiences and thoughts they had, and those two influenced what they speculated.
So, in Tree of Life, you have characters that live and think based on stories. Not always obvious, but the whole film is about stories you’re told. Either by a priest, their father, their mother, their friends or in school. Much of this contradicts itself or one another. It was a brilliant approach to essentially have a film with only the impression of story but none. Having a conventional story would undermine the point—which is stories give us comfort or understanding.
We only have the lens of our knowledge to understand our surroundings. And we often feel life has no order, but when you look around, much of it is familiar. Take the Book of Revelations for example. Rapture, apocalypse—they’re all nutty ideas. But, are they? We know one day our sun will die, as will us and our planet. We also hear stories of near-death experiences. Death is an experience we cannot comprehend beyond abstraction since you don’t survive it. But we know can assume your brain panics and like when you’re trying to remember a phone number or how to ride a bike—it searches your brain for a way to comprehend what’s happening to it. To take these fragmented emotions and make sense of them.
In a way, it’s very similar to Tree of Life’s editing where you see life flash by. And we can only assume such stories occurred at the time of the Bible. Someone may have been resuscitated and recounted seeing his loved ones. Naturally, without science, you’d think you saw some sort of miracle or truth (and in a way, you did). These stories get passed around and become embedded in our stories (including the Bible). We search for themes that will make randomness appear coherent.
I can understand why people think Tree of Life is trying to be intellectual and philosophical. It really isn’t. I think he’s simply holding up a mirror.
Well, I think The Tree Of Life is the film of 2011 we will be still talking about ten years from now. This does not mean anyone has to like it. After all, we are still talking about Gone With The Wind more than half a century since it was released and it does not speak to me personally.
What I love about The Tree Of Life is how it was willing to tell a very personal story (reviews have said it is autobiographical for Malick) in a very unique way. Many people have said the cinematic structure of the film is more like poetry in comparison to the more straightforward prose of other films. I absolutely agree with this idea.
The editing, cinematography, music, acting, and minimal dialogue are all put together to resemble a person’s memory. I rarely think back on my childhood in a clear linear structure like we usually see with flashbacks. Assuming the audience is viewing the world from the point of view of Sean Penn’s character, we are shown how a person might actually recollect their childhood. The stern father, the saintly mother, the loving competition among siblings. It is all so realistic, but told in a way that reflects an emotional truth rather than reality itself.
Yes, even I was confused about what the dinosaurs meant, and for me this restricts the films greatness slightly. I wish Malick had just focused on the family in Texas, but for all I know those beginning of time scenes have a context I cannot understand. Much like the confusing ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, perhaps it is all part of a greater whole, and the scenes should not be examined for individual meaning.
I think The Tree Of Life is truly one of the most radical Best Picture nominees ever. Much like a similarly radical film, Breathless, it completely destroys all of cinema’s rules for storytelling and I think pushes the art of filmmaking forward. Hugo is a wonderful companion piece to The Tree Of Life because Scorsese is celebrating the silent films which set the ground rules for the art form, while The Tree Of Life is almost a silent film itself which hopefully inspires filmmakers to look beyond the usual narrative rules. Film is a visual meadium, but far too many films use clunky exposition to move the plot forward. Critics often say it is better to show rather than tell, and that is exactly what Malick did. The Tree Of Life is cinema at its purest, and I am so grateful it was made.
The last movie that Scorsese directed that got to me emotionally as much as Hugo was The Age of Innocence. These two are not typical Scorsese films on the surface. Both of these films are period films and are full of references to other movies. Though you don’t have to know about these references to enjoy them.
Hugo has obvious references to Melies and Harold Lloyd. But then there are homages to the Lumiere Brothers, Jean Vigo, Rene Clair, Truffaut, and even Hitchcock (the way Hugo is framed by an opening in the wall overlooking the train station is very much like the James Stewart character’s positioning in Rear Window). Hugo walking through the cemetery is definitely something out of a Dickens novel.
In the Hugo companion book, it says Scorsese show the cast and crew several films including three British films, The Fallen Idol, A Kid for Two Farthings and The Magic Box. Scorsese gave Chloe Moretz Roman Holiday and Funny Face to watch to inspire her.
I guess what I’m hinting at is that watching Hugo is a gift to anyone who loves movies because frame by frame it’s all about the joy of filmmaking. And storytelling, which is why the bookshop and the film library are so important in the film.
But Sasha hits the nail on the head when she mentions Hugo wants to find his purpose, his usefulness in life. And Isabelle needs to find that too. It’s such a touching moment when he shares that need with Isabelle, who by the way, is much less developed in the book.
I have no idea why some find the first hour of Hugo boring. The first 10 minutes or so before the title of the film appears grabbed me immediately. This is a film in which all the technical elements are impeccable, yet it is also a very personal film at the same time, so you don’t sit there divorced from the visual effects and hovering camera angles.
The Tree of Life also got to me emotionally in all the family scenes but I was jolted out of the film by the footage about the creation of the world and by the scenes with Sean Penn, which never made any sense to me.
I connected much more with Malick’s Days of Heaven and The New World.
I used to post under a couple different names, most recently DDLFTW, (Daniel Day Lewis For the Win…he is my favorite actor) anyway I will be Luke from now on because of this post. Sasha, first off I have to say its awesome to see you respond to my comment this way. I doubt I’d go anywhere else and see the kind of response to comments that you have, and I sincerely appreciate it.
Anyway your right I have not read your writing that long, about
a yeartwo years now, almost every day though. My comment stemmed from a piece you put up earlier in the year, about Scorsese and his youngest daughter and how this movie, (I agree, it is far from a kids movie) was really Scorsese’s life coming full circle. How he did so many movies with central characters (especially DeNiro) being very hard on the outside, but always easy to connect with for the audience. I loved Hugo because Scorsese used his star actor in a different way, many could connect with him and you could also cheer for the character. It was hard to “root” for many Scorsese characters, but Hugo…you can definitely root for Hugo. I also agree with you about how its easy to spot a film if its by a great director, you can always tell when your watching a Fincher or Scorsese film, or even a Tarantino film. So I do agree with your many points on Hugo.However, my point with Tree of Life was this. I am not religious, nor have I ever been. My parents are very religious, as is my sister, but by the time I turned 13 I was already questioning it. The thing that hit me most with Tree of Life was the uncertainty of it all. Malick was showing his thoughts on life through film, yet he still left it open to interpretation. That movie can be looked at differently by anyone who sees it. That’s why it is so hit or miss, people were cheering and booing at Cannes, and its because people connect with the movie in different ways. At thirteen I started questioning religion. It was at this time where I started staring up at the night sky and just thinking. About life, religion, nature, just about everything around us, and that is something that I have carried with me throughout my life. But no, I have not lived that long and am a young movie lover still in college, in my twenties. But I didn’t come out of Tree of Life high saying “wow those were some pretty pictures” I came out of that movie with a tears in my eyes because I was so blown away at the thought that Malick had made a movie about the wonders I’ve had my whole life. That all the questions I had may never had answers, but it is not wrong to think about these things. It is not crazy to think of these things, its human nature. Its what we all think about, some of us think about it more than others, but we all have days where we stare into the sky (like the images Malick shows of Trees with the sun blazing through them) and we wonder about the universe, about creation, about family, about happiness, about life. Why are we here? All of these questions man has been asking for centuries they were asked through a film that challenged peoples’ thinking. I walked out of that theater with tears in my eye, not because it was the most beautiful film I’ve ever seen (which it was) but because it was finally a film that forced people to think of the things that really matter. It forced people, for 2 hours, to not think about the trivial things that happen in society today, but to think about what is important to you, what makes you stare into space with a blank expression and just wonder. Tree of Life was Malick showing us what he thinks of when he stares off into the distance and I came out of the theater knowing that its good to do that. To stare off and question yourself, your society, your family’s religion, your life in general, because without that I don’t think a person can grow.
Sasha, for me both films were great and I honestly connected with both, but (and its just my opinion) the Tree of Life really made me look at myself and the world around me in a different way, and for that Ill always remember that movie.
I mean I could talk to Malick and he could say I’m completely wrong, but I hope he would say his film is open to interpretation, and people will think of it whatever they want to think of it. That’s why its such a beautiful film.
Oh, and quick correction, I have been a reader on here for two years, not just the one.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful response, Daveinprogress. What a great comment. What an awful year it must have been but I love how transformative art can be and honestly, I don’t know how I could live without it.
I think it depends so much on your criteria and it’s interesting to me that in reviews and comparisons its never clearly stated exactly how the author is referencing the movies discussed. For example The Tree of Life, in my own POV far excelled in terms of giving the audience an experience that went far beyond the usual “entertainment” criteria one usually assumes.
It felt to me as if Mallick was trying to give his audience an experience of deep contemplation, introspection, maybe even meditation.
For me the best films, the ones that stay with you and that you continue to have an intimate active relationship with, long after you’ve left the theatre, are those that have excelled as films and have transcended into giving an experience that goes far beyond entertainment. They are usually like The Tree of Life, and rather than presenting answers and ideas. They present questions and possibilities.
For me the subject matter at hand here is most intimately about ones own relationship with God or Spirit. And that is a matter of ability to be connected and be aware within ones self, to learn and awaken to what truly is it that God or Spirit is, inside of us.
The tree of life provided such a rich canvas through which I could contemplate and experience my own self, my own thoughts, emotions and more, regarding the topics of grace v nature; of the role and the paths to God and love. I just love it. For the freedom and respect it gave me as a member if the audience, I just got so much out of thus experience.
I loved this article and discussion.
Thanks Sasha, Onwards + Upwards!
This is the best entry of the whole season – terrific writing Sasha, thank you
I’m dying to write extended pieces on each of these films, which continue to switch places as my #1 and #2 of the year. I’ve always admired the films of Martin Scorsese, but I’ve never really felt connected to them. Hugo certainly changed that, and it affected me on a deep emotional level. Those close to me think it’s because it’s a love letter to cinema. That’s certainly a big part of it – but more so because of how it speaks to finding one’s place in the world and fulfilling one’s purpose. This is a concept that speaks greatly to me, and occupies my thoughts most of the time.
Similarly, this is also what speaks to me about The Tree of Life. I’ve never been terribly sure about my religious beliefs. I’d call myself spiritual, but I have a great many questions about the nature of the universe and how I fit in. The Tree of Life didn’t really seek to answer these questions, just raise them in cinematic fashion. I’ve heard many say how it speaks more to those who had a similar upbringing to the family in the film, but that certainly doesn’t apply to me. I felt emotionally connected to the characters in the film seeking for meaning and purpose in a world in which the answers can only be found in the bond of human connection.
These two films stir my soul, posing questions that I have asked myself for many years. I think Hugo gets the edge because one of it’s characters finds his purpose as a cinematic artist – which makes the connection even more personal for me. Cinema is, after all, my great love. Yet The Tree of Life, while asking much broader questions about purpose and reason, could also only be achieved in the cinematic medium. I’ll be switching them to and fro in the many years to come, but I’ll just say that these two gems mean a great deal to me. A great deal.
Let’s remember, the title of Selznick’s book is “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” — like many titles, it carries a double or triple meaning. The automaton is a damaged invention that now belongs to Hugo, “The Invention of Dreams” is the book written by René Tabard about Méliès about the first movies ever made. But most of all the book recounts the story of Hugo’s invention of Hugo Cabret himself — Hugo invents a valid reason for his own existence when he discovers his purpose in life.
In the book, Hugo does have a brief night-sweat dream about the train derailing when its brakes fail. John Logan and Scorsese do the book one better by placing Hugo right inside the dream within a dream within a dream… a dream in which Hugo himself imagines that he’s an automaton. This addition beyond anything Selznick wrote is the clue that Hugo and the automaton are both dormant, deactivated inventions in need of a key.
In the same way that Isabelle possesses the key to unlock the full capability of the automaton… in Hugo’s dream he sees a second key on the tracks in the trench between the boarding platforms. Isabelle holds the key to the automaton’s purpose. Hugo’s subconscious provides him with a dream-key with which he’s able to unlock his own potential.
(am I hitting this point too hard?)
I think it’s no accident that Brian Selznick gave his book a title that’s phrased so it can mean the story of “The Invention of Hugo Cabret himself.” Invention as the act of inventing — not a thing but an action, you see? Hugo discovery of his own potential results from the self-activating re-invention of his life so that his destiny can be revealed.
(Hugo’s nightmare dream within a dream and the dream-key Hugo almost dies trying to retrieve in that dream — neither of those events occur in the book. Those essential embellishments are the invention of John Logan. Like every other enhancement Logan added to the screenplay, they serve to connect the episodic structure of the book into something far more coherent and meaningful.)
Great and insightful post, Sasha, about the two, arguably, best films of the year. And I keep re-readng the responses to the post. Fantastic stuff.
Hugo was magical, to be sure, and is probably number two on my favorite Scorsese films list. I’ve only seen it once and, as I’m a frequent re-watcher, I can’t wait to delve deeper knowing Scorsese’s love of movies.
Tree of Life. Maybe it was the advantage of having a generational bond with the filmmaker and a shared set of spiritual beliefs that I reacted so deeply to this film. Each scene seemed to flow logically and emotionally for me, and the relief I felt by the end that somebody had finally documented a thoughtful, personal journey where there are no answers, as such, just observations along the way to a conclusion that is.
Malick somehow has managed to remember not only details, but how those details appear in memory – the lower camera angles looking up at adults, ground level shots where you can almost smell the grass and feel it brushing your cheek, breezes you can feel as they push past the curtains, and the suspended, muted eeriness of summertime dusk. The character of the domineering, but well-meaning father (I guess everyone had one of those back then) and the nurturing mother guide us through a brief portion of life in this world with all its beauty and dangers as best they can, imperfectly. If one did not have a similar life experience growing up, it would be difficult to appreciate all that Malick has included in these sections.
Then, to tie these observations to the bigger cosmic picture – a real challenge. Life (and the universe) is not linear, and neither is Malick’s film. He doesn’t answer any questions, but neither does he ask them – because of his technique and his masterful eye, he gets us to ask them, both while we are watching the film and long afterward. Why the dinosaurs? Why the people is the answer. The stage remains the same as nature evolves and progresses, some survive and some don’t. It not for the players to understand why.
I couldn’t be more grateful that someone made a conscious effort to involve the audience in a very personal and poetic journey. Tree of Life has been compared to a symphony, an impressionist painting and a philosophical dreamscape. Just as the universe has no rules – that we can comprehend, anyway – Malick’s film doesn’t conform to standard storytelling. It was a miracle that it was nominated for BP, but it obviously connected strongly with enough voters who see it as a major achievement in cinema. I know it was the high point of my movie viewing in a very long time.
I thought this was a good post as well – and since both movies are partly (or arguably, mainly) about capturing the point of view of a child, this is a good comparison to make, and you don’t fall in the trap of bashing one movie just to praise the other, or implying you can either like one or the other, both of which are arguments I despise – but TREE OF LIFE is still my favorite movie of the year, with HUGO as a close second. Understand, this is not to deny the achievement of Scorsese’s film. HUGO was a magical and transporting movie, it hit me on an emotional level, it was a feast for the eyes, everything about it from the acting to the writing worked, and it’s a celebration of art – which is why I can’t stand the current backlash about how it’s self-reflexive and anything about the movies is navel-gazing. No. It’s about how, to paraphrase Robin Williams in DEAD POETS SOCIETY, art is what we stay alive for.
However, TREE OF LIFE expanded my view of both life and cinema. I didn’t think a movie could do that, and Malick did it. It’s not just the images, though they are powerful. It’s not just the way he’s able to frame the argument humanity’s been wrestling with since creation – the way of nature vs. the way of grace, or however you want to put it – though he does that in a stunning way. It’s not how he’s able to really get inside the viewpoint of how magical and disheartening childhood can bee, though he shows that better than almost any film I’ve ever seen. And it’s not even his sharp-eyed view of family dynamics, though, having a difficult relationship with my own father when I was growing up, I connected to that part of the film in an emotional way. No, it’s how Malick is able to combine all of those aspects onto film and it works. Again, I didn’t think such a thing was possible. That’s why it’s my favorite of the year.
On The Tree of Life: It sounds crazy, I know, but I need something deeper to chew on for something to really dig in and make an impact with me — ten years ago I probably would think it was the most profound film I’d ever seen.
On Hugo: He puts all of that into the movie. But you don’t need that to respond to Hugo. You just have to open your eyes and look.
Apparently you don’t really need something deeper to chew on in Hugo – all you need is the pretty images.
But wait, isn’t that why you dislike The Tree of Life? Because of it’s lack of “something deeper”?
I loved the imagery of Hugo, but the film’s script felt very disjointed, all over the place, and overlong for me. There are times when I felt that the characters talked in expository dialogue and times when I felt the film was talking down to me about its themes. You see the two kids watch a film in the movie theatre and you see all of their emotions that arise from their viewing of Safety Last! And then you hear them talking about how fascinating it is and how wonderful movies are afterwards. What? How is this kind of dialogue not pounding down Scorsese’s message? Is it only okay because the message is deeply accepted within cinephile circles?
But then I look at something like The Tree of Life that has imagery that confuses me, tires me, disturbs me, and moves me in ways that I cannot express – and not simply in religious or spiritual ways, but in ways that make me re examine life, and I can’t help but feel awed by the sheer vision of it all. It elicits the feelings that I suspect many found back in the twenties when they saw a Meilies film for the first time.
I guess what I’m saying here is that Hugo is a film about machines because the film itself is a machine – it’s conventional, it has a message, it has dazzling special effects, and sumptuous visuals. But The Tree of Life transcends that machinery by having the same dazzling effects and visuals but with a gigantic heart being poured into it. Yes, it’s true – it’s pure uncompromised vision of a man’s inner subconscious. Hugo, by comparison, has gone through so many filters to be as basic as possible for mostly any viewer who doesn’t fall asleep during it.
I haven’t seen Hugo, so I won’t comment. In re: to The Tree of Life …. saying that a film that spans 2 millenia of western thought isn’t as meaningful as it thinks it is is a losing battle.
Sasha nails another thoughtful piece. She’s been like DiMaggio on his hit streak these last few months and dicey nominations or not, Awards Daily has gotten me through the baseball offseason beautifully, so thank you all.
Below is a comment which I posted last month on my rather negative response to The Tree of Life. It’s one of the only times I’ve put out a cogent opinion on film in writing, so I want to get some mileage out of it
“Days of Heaven was a stunning film, full of lush imagery and an appropriately simple plot assisted by Linda Manz’ often heartbreaking narration. It was also 90 minutes long. The lean quality allowed me to appreciate the magic hour shots of vast fields, the quick shots of animals, and warmer scenes like the four leads playing baseball. The Tree of Life, at 2 and a half hours, requires a particularly layered plot, or at least scenes filled with building tensions. And the scenes with Brad Pitt delivered. His performance, Oscar worthy, elevated the film every time he appeared, acting as the contradictory loving adversary to Hunter McCracken’s young son. Pitt represented the best and worst of fatherhood, the overarching power that produces love and fear in equal turns. The small touches of childhood, with your father playing a beautiful organ piece or viscous arguments that never reach real conclusions, contributed to a moody narrative that reached deep into my mind. The Tree of Life at its best created a universe that envelops the viewer in the same anxieties and warmth experienced by McCracken’s character.
“Then…then there were the endless shots of space activity, of Sean Penn staring out of glass, of dinosaurs…I entered the primary narrative scenes bored by images not out of place in an educational video on the universe. Just as Malick drew me into his vision, his indulgences left me cold. Were the non-dialogue scenes brief interludes, I might have remained within the film’s familial setting. Since they occupied such a lengthy piece of the film, I needed them to matter, to merge into the primary story in some comprehensible way. I could see the parallel between the fallen dinosaur and McCracken, the threatening dinosaur and Pitt, the manner in which a similar creature can instill dread before moving away as a distant body when protection and care are wanted. But understanding a scene does not mean finding it necessary. Malick had Lubezki, he had Pitt, he had McCracken, he had his own understanding of the world he brought to screen. He had them, he lost them, and he let grand sweeping statements about the world’s creation overwhelm a potentially beautiful story.
“To those of who you loved The Tree of Life and found the excess imagery well, not excessive but welcome, great. At the very least, Malick’s film contains the ambitions and patient development missing from mainstream productions. If it moved you, you are better for the experience. Just realize that a whole body of thoughtful movie-goers like myself feel differently.”
Hi Sasha,
This is a really good piece, and I respect your honest take on “Tree of Life,” which conveys respect and admiration even though it doesn’t speak to you. I really hope, though, that you retract this statement:
“Here’s the truth about Tree of Life: it thinks it’s a lot deeper and more meaningful than it actually is. I’ve only had one person, a good friend, write to tell me why she loved the movie and it was all relating to her own life, her mom, her dad and how close the movie was to that.”
…and then this one…
“If I go looking for deeper meaning the only place I can land is with Malick’s own inner world – his feelings about his father, his mother, his brothers, how he first came to a sexual awakening, where his self-loathing comes from.”
I can definitely understand how many people feel that way about “Tree of Life”–that it has certain high ambitions and pretensions, but is ultimately a specific family story. But I think it is important to see “Tree of Life” in conversation with far more than we might be prepared for as movie-goers. He is in fact engaged with conceptual traditions that far precede the cinema, and I think appreciating that helps re-orient his films. Here are a few: #1) a history of theological texts (i’m thinking primarily of Augustine, Milton, and Coleridge), and in particular the genre of a “confessions,” a growing-up story based in remorse and finding Grace. Malick is not “quoting” anybody, but speaking to and with these thinkers. Anybody that’s read Augustine’s “Confessions” can surely see how ToL is a kind of response 1,700 years later. #2) Romanticism, as always for Malick–mainly Wordsworth and Coleridge, but also Rousseau (particularly when it concerns the anthropological view of native peoples, as a kind of pre-Fall state–a major Rousseauian theme explored in both “Thin Red Line” and “New World”). Significant to Romanticism is the challenge to embrace a secular view of nature in the Modern age. This was no less a problem for the Romantics 200 years ago than it is for Malick today. #3) The tradition of Phenomenology, as explored by Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty in the past century. Malick has been grappling with these thinkers (especially Heidegger) since his years at Harvard and Oxford, and has in all of his films investigated what Heidegger calls “being-in-the-world”, being in a position of “thrown-ness,” in media res. Malick’s frequent return to buildings with open windows, over-hearing conversations, breezing past the ephemeral… these are all ways of exploring basic concerns for this 20th century German-French philosophical tradition.
Of course, you don’t need to be an academic to appreciate Malick (thankfully!). But having some appreciation for the scope of Malick’s engagement (beyond that of a “personal family story”) might help stave off notions of Malick’s “under-delivered pretentions”. Hope this adds something!
Very helpful post, Jerry – thank you.
In addition, Malick called on his knowledge of Eastern philosophies, primarily Buddhism, and asked David Hykes to provide some of the score. His site is linked here:
http://www.harmonicworld.com/
Malick is probably the first filmmaker to successfully present the Lebenswelt (lifeworld) which is the personal world where we, as individuals exist an everything in it has specific meaning only to us, but the objects/events are not exclusive to us.
Researching some of this I found that, in 2007, the International Phenomenolgy Congress was held in Istanbul. The topics for discussio as described in the call for papers:
“A) Memory in the Self-Individualizing Logos of Life: Life and non-life; organic, vital, sharing-in-life biology, biochemistry, genetics, anthropology, sociology, history
B) Memory in the Primal Functioning of Consciousness: Memory as the operational factor of association and continuity in the origin and course of experience; The thread of memory in deliberation and the continuity of the creative process
C) Memory as Remembrance: Retrieving “traces” of the past: origins, becoming, coincidences, reasons (origins of tradition, culture, history)
D) Memory as projecting the associative links between the traces of the past and expectations of the future.”
Oh – and the theme of the conference? “Under the Tree of Life”
I definitely think Tree of Life was of the most deserving to be among the Best Picture nominees. I also connected to it personally, I consider it a flawed masterpiece. Of course not everything that Malick throws at the wall sticks, but most of it does, and when it does, it’s glorious. I just think the vision that Malick puts forth in Tree of Life and how close the movie gets to doing everything right, makes it absolutely deserving of a BP nominee. The Descendants, The Artist, Hugo, Moneyball are all well-constructed, well-written, well-acted films. But I think Tree of Life is going to be the one film from 2011 that will be talked about the most in the future. I don’t think it’s trying to be deeper than it is, you could argue that some people think it’s deeper than it is, but I think Malick’s films are exactly what Malick wants them to be. Otherwise, it wouldn’t take him so damn long to make the film. He takes forever to edit his films and so there’s no doubt in my mind that the film we all saw is the film he wanted us to see. Some see it for being more than what it is, some don’t. It’s going to mean something different to everyone. A movie like that should be celebrated and deserves the accolades it’s receiving.
I agree that War Horse, The Help, and Extremely Loud do not deserve to be on the BP nominee list. I did not expect Tree of Life to be one of the nominees, but I think it should be taken as a welcome surprise, that movies like that can have a spot on the BP list.
Either way, you seem to respect the film on some level and I appreciate you sharing your honest thoughts about the film. I just hope when you say things like “this year’s best picture nominees are among the worst in Oscar history,” Tree of Life isn’t a reason why you’re saying that.
Good Piece Sasha. Your love for Scorsese is evident. I do agree though, Hugo was amazing but the real question is what are your thoughts about Terrence Malick? Have you enjoyed any of his films? Its very easy to not see the greatness in someones work if your not really a fan or haven’t enjoyed any of their previous work.
Ryan Adams — See your comment above
You quoted me, not daveinprogress!
This is so good it demands posting on multiple articles-
“Ok, I think this’ll be a fun experiment…let’s go through the IMDB user ratings…”
[No, re-posting identical comments to multiple threads is spamming. Don't try to hijack this thread. We're trying to have a grown-up discussion. Your nick alone proves you're not really qualified to participate in this conversation.
Take your erudite "artsy-fartsy" terminology to another topic. Not here. - Ryan]
Now you would think any logical person would have a difficult time defending a that film which 37.6% give a failing grade!!! However, the stats for The Tree of Life demonstrate more passionate nuts then I thought. I figured no more then 10% would have rated it a 9 or 10.
Tree of Life is a confusing cinematographic film trying hard to be as profound as Inception or Black Swan but failed. The trailer was wow!, but when I watched it, I did not enjoy it. It feels like a film made to-be-nominated-for-an-oscar. Great Visuals, Complex Plot, but it was not made to entertain common people like me.
huhu824, there was no complex plot…the plot was virtually non-existent, it only exists in the minds of the pretentious director who made the film and the artsy fartsy snobs who mistakenly find the film to be “profound”, lol.
Excuse me, I mean those who were brainwashed into thinking it’s profound.
…and there had been such constructive conversation going in this thread.
“Here’s the truth about Tree of Life: it thinks it’s a lot deeper and more meaningful than it actually is”
I think that’s the truth for you but I don’t think you can label that observation as an objective truth. I’ve never liked the “thinks it’s deeper/clever/etc. than it is actually is” criticism because I find it condescending and presumptuous. I don’t think Malick has said anything about the film so for all we know he doesn’t think it’s deep at all.
The Tree of Life really isn’t that complicated: it’s about situating the microscopic joys and sorrows of human life within the greater context of the history of the world — about saying that there’s a connection between the tensions between dinosaurs, or the way a meteor sends waves crashing against a shoreline, with the fight between a father and a son, or the way glass shatters when a young child throws a rock into the window of a wooden shed.
The perfectly observed middle hour and a half, which packs more insightful observations about what it FEELS LIKE to be a child – through inventive camerawork, through sound, through beautifully staged miniature scenes about the small changes in a boy’s life – is enough to make it one of the best films of the year.
But it’s not pretentious window-dressing that this part is preceded by that stirring, moving rhapsody on creation and evolution and is followed by that weirdly comforting vision of heaven as simply a blank space where the whole of human history can collect together. Those segments are absolutely germane to the architecture of the film as a whole.
Although I will say I do think Hugo is the only other Best Picture nominee from this year that anyone will be thinking about/watching in twenty years time.
Someone in 2032: “Oh yes, let’s remember the underappreciated second golden age of Steven Spielberg and put on War Horse. Or should we revisit The Descendants and see how well that film holds up?”
“trying hard to be as profound as Inception or Black Swan but failed”
…Black Swan was profound?
Anyways, as someone mentioned above, I think that The Tree of Life is what would be considered a ‘flawed masterpiece’. It’s obviously not perfect, and at times can be a bit overreaching and even a little exasperating, but it’s still the movie that had the greatest impact on me when I left the theater. I thought about it the most more than any other movie I saw in 2011, and has held up remarkably well for me on repeated viewings. It’s not as good as some of Malick’s other films (especially The Thin Red Line) but it will definitely be talked about for a long time.
I mean, I kinda unabashedly love Black Swan, but it’s basically just a really well-done Giallo horror film. Profundity isn’t really what it’s aiming for, or getting.
I’ve seen the Tree of Life four times and with each viewing I find it more and more ambitious, and successful in the ambition. I haven’t seen Hugo, so I can’t comment on the comparison, but I thought I’d share my thoughts about this film which I think is the best film of the year.
Malick’s brother committed suicide when he was 18, he was a classical guitar player, like the brother that dies in the film. I didn’t know this when I first watched the film, but reading this fact afterwards I think it put the film in perspective. ToL is Malick trying to cope with his brother’s suicide 40 years later. The question, simplifying it, is why do bad things happen to good people? I think he finds the answer in the universe, the beauty and the severity of nature combine to create the flowing river of life. I think the answers he gives are subtle, and there is something there for everyone; the vignettes of childhood; the growth from innocense to the torment of adulthood. We watch as the boy grows, each episode a new emotion that the boy does not quite comprehend; regret, power, sexuality, defiance, death; I think it mirrors the creation of the universe, from the ball of gas, to the complexities of life on earth, the destruction of the dinasaurs, and the rebirth of life on earth. Its mystical, beautiful, hypnotic. Malick moves from simplicity to complexity with ease. People are right there is no plot, rather its impression and feeling that build a narrative of life, of loss of childhood.
Like no other director, he combines the visual with narrative and music to create a singular symphony. I’ve been a huge Malick fan ever since I saw The Thin Red Line when it first came out years ago. I’m shocked that he can still get funding for his films but I guess there are people in the industry who are of the same opionion as myself. His films lose money, but they are unbridled forays into the human condition.
Czech John wrote:
“I’m shocked that he can still get funding for his films but I guess there are people in the industry who are of the same opionion as myself. His films lose money, but they are unbridled forays into the human condition.”
After seeing ToL, I too am shocked he gets funding for his films. Also, I wished he had bridled this particular foray.
So David Baum, did you see anything redeeming in ToL? Anything you liked?
Loved the images and cinematography in the 1950′s family scenes. Enjoyed the acting. Did not like the narration very much. Thought the Big Bang-Earth-dinosaurs, etc. was fascinating but remarkably disruptive and unnecessary (even if, to some, it embodied the film’s theme), thought the Sean Penn scenes were empty and wasted, loathed the afterlife scene.
Loved Days of Heaven, Really liked Thin Red Line.
When you describe “The Tree of Life” as an autobiography, I think it relly puts a stamp on the film that I don’t think it necessarily sets out to. You can say the film centers on young Jack, that could or could not be Terrence Malick, but just as much as Jack, the film also focuses on the mother and the father and their perspectives. “The Tree of Life” has nothing to do with Terrence Malick as much as it looks at life through the perspective of mother, father, and child- and through this everyone should be able to relate and feel for these characters, as the film is full of questions and emotions everyone feels through life.
So in the end, “The Tree of Life” is about all of us, I think.
HUGO was amazing, as well. I hope it takes the cake! I keep reimagining my childhood if I had a “kids” film like HUGO growing up.
Thanks for this amazing post!
-Aaron (http://theeyeoffaith.com)
Being a Catholic and a man of science, there is that constant tug-of-war between religion and science and at 28 years of age I haven’t yet reconciled the two. The thought of nothingness before I was born and after I die complicates things even more. For me, The Tree of Life is Terrence Malick telling us that he has done that, tied up religion and science, and he uses visions from his childhood to tell us how he got there. So I congratulate him for that and hope someday that I may be able to do the same, and then I congratulate him even more for making an extraordinary film that conveys his most personal of thoughts.
“Thought the Big Bang-Earth-dinosaurs, etc. was fascinating but remarkably disruptive and unnecessary”
I don’t understand the complaints about the dinosaurs. In simplest terms, if part of the intention was to represent how our individual time on Earth is but a blink of an eye in cosmic terms, then what’s wrong with letting us ruminate on that thought while taking a brief look at the prehistoric planet. It would be strange to show Jurassic Earth unpopulated by living creatures — in fact it would defeat the whole point.
But here’s the hang-up. What do we think when we see the word “Jurassic”? We’ve been conditioned to think whenever there’s a dinosaur in a movie, he’s got to wreak havoc. Can’t a dinosaur just be standing around, living his life, like a cow or cat does today? Nobody complains about shots of cows grazing in fields in movies. Nobody questions the presence of a cat. (Though, sure, whenever we see a horse in a movie, he’s going to be the hero. No doubt about that.) Leave Dino alone!
(DavidBaum, I’m not trying to argue with you. Just that you’ve said something that I’ve heard over and over. I’ve been wanting to speak up in defense of dinosaurs for months, and you just gave me the opportunity.)
Ryan:
The placement and duration of those scenes, not the dinosaurs themselves, made the scenes distractive and disruptive to me.
I would have preferred a shorter interruption, and perhaps the inclusion of a couple of minutes of Dino, Fred and Wilma thrown in to tie all the themes together. Or, why segment the film that way – - why not jazz it up by having the dinosaurs roam right into the 1950′s Texas scenes and threaten the family? And, Malick could then have added some meat to the narration – - “Where were you [when the dinosaurs came]?” “What path should I travel [to get away from the dinosaurs]“, etc. And, the telegram could have been delivered by…you get the point.
DavidBaum,
ok, I can understand that (and was expecting you might say so — that’s why I wanted to be clear I wasn’t singling you out for that aspect.)
It still comes back to expectations, though. There are some people who don’t expect to see a dinosaur in a movie unless he’s biting some guy’s head off. There are also lots of people who don’t expect a movie to give them a long interlude when they are not being led down a narrative storyline, don’t expect to be allowed 20 minutes to sit in the dark, soaking in music and images, don’t expect a movie to give them a break intended to make them think: “What’s this all about?”
The only thing I ever liked about going to church as a kid was how it forced me to sit still, listen to a choir, and let my mind wander while I gazed at magnificent stained-glass windows. I didn’t expect Malick to find a way to get my head back in church-mode, but that’s how I felt, and I found it fascinating.
You’re really going to enjoy Pacific Rim! I’m sure I will too.
Hugo was amazing but the real question is what are your thoughts about Terrence Malick? Have you enjoyed any of his films? Its very easy to not see the greatness in someones work if your not really a fan or haven’t enjoyed any of their previous work.
Again, he’s not a director whose work that resonates with me. It just never has. But I totally respect those who do respond to it. If I wanted to be cool and liked I would pretend that I thought he was a genius and all of that. He might be a genius, probably is. For plots that mean nothing I would say David Lynch is kind of my god. Days of Heaven and Badlands are my two favorite Malick movies. I’m excited to see where his career goes from here.
Sasha – really wonderful piece, my favorite that I’ve read from this site so far though I admit I’m a complete newb to AD, just stumbled upon it about a month ago or so. Well, if anything was going to make me a fan for life, it was this article. Your passion for movies and art really screams out and, regardless of differing opinions, those are my kind of people.
For one thing, you’ve made want to re-visit Hugo even more than I wanted to before. And I know I always love to hear people will watch something again after I try to explain what it meant to me, so as a fellow lover of cinema I’m sure you can relate.
That said, as much as I loved the respect you showed my favorite film of ’11 in your article, when you said: “Here’s the truth about Tree of Life: it thinks it’s a lot deeper and more meaningful than it actually is.” that was like vinegar compared to sweet apple pie. A little too sour, no? Made me think of the naysayers of the film that can only blab about how people will find anything masterful in Malick, or how we’ve been brainwashed etc. (like a few flies that buzz around here and need to be swatted) So i hope that was just a spur of the moment phrase and not something you truly believe, as your whole article before it was full of respect and admiration.
For me the Tree of Life was more about childhood, memory, the relationship one has with ones parents and siblings. All of that under the cloak of uncertainty worn by religion, and with the Job quote and Penn’s Jack asking answers from God you can clearly see that it’s Malick’s religion that is at the forefront. But the film is so much more than that, I think, because religion is represented as a huge uncertaininty, and something deeply personal. Something that I relate to immediately because I believe in a higher-power I can’t define, understand or put into words. Malick attempts to put it into images because I too feel like he can’t understand his own higher power. For this, he gets my respect and ultimate admiration. It’s bold, daring, unconventional, deeply personal yet wholly universal with more multiple meanings than I’ve seen in an extremely long time (possible since 2001 actually). On another level, in every truthful sense of the term. Add to that that I’m completely fascinated by the structure of memory and the impact of memory on our lives, which this film deals with better than any I’ve ever seen.
So I will rewatch Hugo, you have certainly convinced me to not just brush it off as a kid’s adventure which to me it was at least for that first hour. It’s clear that you connect with Scorsese much more than Malick though, and everyone will walk into a theater with some pre-conceived notion no matter how hard we try to stay objective.
Thank you for this article. And to those mature posters as well, extremely thoughtful renditions and takes.
Both great films, really breathtaking films. Scorsese is also my favorite director still working; and despite what I feel about him, no one can deny that he is one of the best ever (I tend to lean more towards his earlier work, but again that is just me.)
I have to say this though about Malick’s “Tree of Life” though; the film does exactly what it is intended to do. It is intended to be a tapestry of emotion, a mosaic of life’s experiences, all of life’s experiences. The viewer’s job is to look into this piece of art and experience it for what it is. What makes this interesting is the movie is not as focused on storytelling as it is on imagery, and using imagery to evoke certain emotional responses. It is left for the viewer to decide what the art is or isn’t.
That being said, no one should be criticized for feeling what they feel about this movie, because that is exactly what Malick intended. The movie polarizing, and it is meant to be so, in the same way that life itself can be interpreted in many different ways, both cynically and optimistic.
@CarsonT — I’m with you. Scorsese is great, but I like his earlier films better. HIs character were more honest and fascinating. Leonardo DiCaprio just doesn’t cut it these days, he gets too caught up on these character outlines and giving his character ticks. Very methodical, but doesn’t compare to DeNiro just looking in a mirror.
And if you see my early post, I think it’s very focused on storytelling, but in an inverted way. If you’re searching for meaning in the film than you’re right there with the characters (especially Sean Penn)! lol I’m 100% with you, you’re supposed to absorb this mosaic and find meaning in it. A narrative gives the audience too much comfort in knowing there’s a structure. If the only structure is the emotion beat-by-beat, it’s more realistic. Everyday we feel we’re almost part of our own story while also being oblivious to the grander progression of time. Like Sean Penn says, “Take me, to the end of time.” We want to know how it ends.
I’m not intending to criticize you on the storytelling point. But it’s a misconception also attributed to Charlie Kaufman. People say both their works are structureless and scattered and plotless—but I think they both are extremely concerned with structure and plot. It’s just not conventional to typical plot points.