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Thursday, July 14, 2011

ESSAY
"The Tree Of Life": A Multi-Part Exploration


Fox Searchlight
 

by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW
Thurs
day, July 14, 2011

INTRODUCTION                                                Cover | Part One | Two | Three

As artistry in this young new century no feature film surpasses "The Tree Of Life" as an enriching cinematic yet wondrously quizzical experience.  Terrence Malick's two hour, 18-minute masterpiece of collage, abstraction and impressionism is a deeply spiritual and existential journey about life and faith, and questions and answers about both.

Ever since its long-awaited arrival, Mr. Malick's film, shot entirely in Smithtown, Texas in 2008, has polarized audiences, first at Cannes in May, where it won the Palme D'Or amid some controversy, and audiences in the U.S., where a fair share (about 3 or 4% -- an estimate) of moviegoers have departed.  Critics have been roughly 80% positive about Mr. Malick's film, which explores birth, life, death, fatherhood, adolescence, motherhood, nature, grace, God, faith and guilt.  The Popcorn Reel reviewed the film at length in May.  (For those who would rather watch a three-minute review instead, click here.)


During its two hour, 18-minute running time "The Tree Of Life" contains roughly 20 minutes of dialogue.  (Note that "2001: A Space Odyssey" contained less than 40 minutes of dialogue over a slightly longer running time.  The two films have some similarities in rhythm, although "The Tree Of Life" is warmer emotionally.  A picture in a book, shown later in this essay, may be an homage of sorts to Mr. Kubrick's film.) 

Non-linear, Mr. Malick's film does not possess a narrative that films typically do.

The music score by Alexandre Desplat is solemn, triumphant and nostalgic, and there is music from Brahms and other legendary classists.

"The Tree Of Life", released theatrically in the U.S. in select cities on May 27, 2011, stars Brad Pitt as Mr. O'Brien, a man who possesses numerous patents for an invention, who works at an industrial machinist plant, Sean Penn as Jack, a man pained and guilty over the loss of his middle brother years ago at the age of 19, and now married and working as an architect.  Jessica Chastain plays Mrs. O'Brien, the mother of three boys, including Jack (played in youth by Hunter McCracken.)
 
Mr. Malick's film is set in 1950s Waco, Texas and in the present day.


A shot from Terrence Malick's drama "The Tree Of Life".  Fox Searchlight


BACKGROUND
 
Terrence Malick's five films explore natural habitats as deeply as they do human behavior.  Cinematically, trees, leaves, sunsets, water, blades of grass have never been adorned in as detailed and as abundant a manner as Mr. Malick lenses them.  Whether it's late cinematographer Nestor Almendros with "Days Of Heaven", Tak Fujimoto in the earlier "Badlands", John Toll ("The Thin Red Line") or Emmanuel Lubezki ("The New World" and "The Tree Of Life"), the atmosphere is fully contemplated.  Nature isn't a vacuum, especially in this, the director's fifth and current film.  (Mr. Malick has finished shooting a sixth film.  There have been reports of a six-hour edition of "The Tree Of Life" or longer.)

Mr. Malick's use of narration and whispers, mostly of questions, marks his work. 

You could stitch each of Mr. Malick's films together as one and they wouldn't look out of place in a continuum of habitat, feel, mood, investigation and contemplation.  Together and apart each film is timeless, even as several, if not all, are distinct period films.


"The Tree Of Life" is a film that, like all art, means so many things to so many different people.  Some adore this film, claiming it has changed their lives in some way.  Others absolutely detest the film, declaring that it has no substance and is as empty as the hole in a donut.  There's no real middle ground.  "The Tree Of Life" in my humble estimation, will be a classic in 20 years.  It's already a classic.  It will gain the wide respect and regard that "2001: A Space Odyssey" did not enjoy in its early days.  Many critics weren't impressed by that film when it was first released in 1968.

You can feel that "The Tree Of Life" is very personal to its director.  You can sense that the film is something that Mr. Malick has thought about for many years, perhaps for as long as he can recall.  Yet the film is an unabashedly universal experience.

Across oceans.  Across galaxies.  "The Tree Of Life" encapsulates nature, planets and the lives that revolve and struggle within those realms.  A nostalgic Garden of Eden is wrapped around the blips of narrative, some 25 minutes of total dialogue, including the trademark whispering voices that Mr. Malick has been so fond of over the course of five films.  The nature scenes include a most astonishing, extraordinary 18 minutes of breathtaking, overwhelming imagery, which is somewhat reprised in 9 minutes in the latter half of the film.


Click here for part one

                                                                                 Cover | Part One | Two | Three


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