942 The Tree of Life

[Cde.]

And is Tree of Life even getting an Imax release? That'd be the only way we could fully appreciate the large format scenes. The double whammy of 35mm reduction and DI really kills the impact of the large format. I saw Inception this way, and the 65mm scenes were virtually indistinguishable to me. And Imax would be the only way for this film, since 5/70 cinemas are practically non-existent.

My understanding is that the 65mm scenes in Inception were committed to the same DI as the 35mm footage, which was then sent to IMAX for digital blow-up work. If the 65mm footage were transfered to IMAX 70MM separately, the increased resolution would have been noticeable. With the way things were done there was essentially no point to using the 65mm stock.

[Roger Ryan]

Mr. Pitt's line "C'mon...hit me, hit me!" perhaps unintentionally recalls FIGHT CLUB!

This strikes me as a film that should not have attempted to use a narrator for the trailer, but just let the images and brief snatches of dialogue speak for themselves. Then again, the trailers I like are the ones that suggest a tone and/or theme without actually showing any significant footage from the feature itself.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

Can anyone who saw the trailer in theater - and therefore with a degree of clarity about a thousand times greater than the youtube boot - verify what appears at a few points?

first shot -- space?

second shot -- cave?

fourth shot -- basking shark? whale? hippo?

after the voiceover "...and we'll understand it all." -- more space?

after the boy looking at photos of astronauts -- moon? primordial earth?

after that, the shot of Penn in the white office -- is that a doctor's office? what is on the counter to his left?

the shots underwater -- is that a house? a boat?

[Guido]

Fox Searchlight wants to make Tree of Life a big deal.

[CircusVocabulary]

Saw this with Black Swan and it was so incredible (Black Swan was amazing, too). It's almost hard to remember clearly because I was seeing it for the first time and was so blinded with emotion, but to the best of my recollection and in response to what certain shots were (not sure of these are spoilers, but someone might not want to read about/see the trailer):

Spoiler

1st shot: Space, some type of floating nebula or something
2nd shot: Also space, some type of gas cloud moving
3RD SHOT: No one asked about this, but its a comet hitting an ocean on Earth (left side of frame).
4th shot: pretty sure this was just looking up at waves crashing
After the voice over: more space, but with a smaller planet/comet/something floating towards the sun(?, the orange-ish gas)
After the photo of the astronauts: not totally sure exactly what it really is, but it looks like a deep, long cave
Penn in the white office: I didn't get the impression of it being a doctor's office and don't know what the object to his left is
Shots underwater: Yes, it appears to be a house flooded with water

Also of note, the shot towards the end (after Penn drops to his knees) through the front door of the house with the boy walking through it onto a barren desert. Very interesting.

[Murdoch]

And here I am just waiting for a legitimate release of the trailer to surface online.

[PfR73]

I posted this earlier today, but my post disappeared, so here we go again. I concur with alot of what CircusVocabulary said about these images, but feel I have a little more insight into at least one. I had forgotten this trailer was going to be attached to Black Swan when I saw it on Thursday. Once it began, it was hard to contain my excitement. I thought it was an enthralling trailer & the space imagery is really excellent looking on the big screen.

Can anyone who saw the trailer in theater - and therefore with a degree of clarity about a thousand times greater than the youtube boot - verify what appears at a few points?

Spoiler

first shot -- space?
A nebula

second shot -- cave?
Another nebula

fourth shot -- basking shark? whale? hippo?
Crashing waves shot from under the surface of the ocean

after the voiceover "...and we'll understand it all." -- more space?
I thought this looked like a planet getting consumed by a supernova

after the boy looking at photos of astronauts -- moon? primordial earth?
I think it's one of these two, but could be either; hard to tell, even on the big screen

after that, the shot of Penn in the white office -- is that a doctor's office? what is on the counter to his left?
It is an office, but not a doctor's office. I don't know what is to his left, but to his right is a white hard hat with an American flag on it. The style of the hard hat makes me think Sean Penn works for NASA in the film & that this is his office at NASA.

the shots underwater -- is that a house? a boat?
Looks to be a house submerged underwater

I'd never seen a Malick film before this summer, when I got Days Of Heaven on Blu-Ray for my birthday, & just last week I watched The Thin Red Line on Blu-Ray. I especially loved The Thin Red Line, & The Tree Of Life is now one of my most anticipated films of 2011.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

From Variety:

The Malick project, "The Tree of Life," is one of the most anticipated films of 2011, and Desplat began work on it as far back as 2007. As usual in Malick films, the score shares space with classical cues, in this case Ligeti and Berlioz, among others. Desplat also had to work largely without the benefit of images. He describes his contribution as orchestral, meditative and trance-like.

"(Malick) always told me that the music should be like a river flowing through the film," says Desplat, "and that's what I tried to achieve -- something that flows and never stops, very alive and fluid. He just wants you to create something that maybe he hasn't thought about."

Ligeti? Berlioz? Already compared to 2001 by Trumbull, this thing just gets Kubricker and Kubricker.

[Guido]

Malick's music choices here sound intriguing, if somewhat incongruous with his usual sensibilities. Here's to hoping that he's picked a more unusual Ligeti composition.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

And here I am just waiting for a legitimate release of the trailer to surface online.

Word is it will appear Wed

[willoneill]

The trailer is up at apple.com/trailers. I'm at work and I don't have Quicktime on my computer. Oh well.

[Cde.]

It does look pretty friggin' spectacular in HD.

The teaser one-sheet is extremely beautiful.

[willoneill]

God bless Youtube. Awesome trailer. Cool poster too, and I'm not one you usually cares about the posters. If I didn't already have May 27th off work, I'd book it off now.

[CircusVocabulary]

This is it, people. The end of cinema. It's been a nice run, but it's over.

Spoiler

The shot towards the end after the comic book definitely looks like a barren planet or landscape as opposed to a cave

[GoldenPilgrim]

Those kids being sprayed with DDT looks absolutely gorgeous!

[Cosmic Bus]

90 high-res images for those wanting to spend some quality time admiring the visuals.

[Kellen]

90 high-res images for those wanting to spend some quality time admiring the visuals.

Awesome, so many good photos in there. Looks like i'll be having a new desktop picture.

[Roger Ryan]

Why did I think this trailer used a narrator? Watching it again, I see it just combines enigmatic images with snatches of dialogue...which is the way I like 'em. Bravo!

[flyonthewall2983]

The 1.85 aspect ratio makes sense now. There's a physical closeness to the images and the story you otherwise wouldn't get from 2.35 if that rings true for anyone. It still retains a strong sense of the cinematic epic we're all hoping it to be, and then some.

[kemalettin]

anyone know which music used in trailer?
edit: ok found it.vltava by smetana...

[Nothing]

The opening two shots are opticals, not CGI. Trumball's work, presumably.

Tbh, the trailer raises some concerns that I hadn't been anticipating. The cinematography is spectacular, no doubt, as is the optical work. If Malick can sustain this degree of visual beauty for 2-3 hours, well... Let's just say that any comparison to a knock off Levi's commercial is supercilious at best. It'll also be a crime if 1 second of that marvelous creation footage is missing from the theatrical release. However.

If Malick's recent work has one unifying weakness it is his predeliction for idealised, somewhat objectified, earth-sprite representations of women. He gets away with it with Pocahontas pretty much, her being a 13-year-old native American child. The "wife" character in The Thin Red Line is more obnoxious, but only lasts a few minutes of screen time - and can, in a sense, be justified as an idealised figment of her husband's imagination. Here, however, it seems as if this character has been promoted to a starring role... Problem. Second problem: Brad. I don't find him at all convincing in this trailer, but that shouldn't be too much of a surprise, I guess, as I've only ever found him convincing in comic roles (Burn After Reading, True Romance, Inglourious Basterds). Third problem: this theme of dichotomy, of the male (willful, violent) and female (peaceful, graceful) influence over the central character is somewhat cliched and, at least in the trailer, surprisingly overworked. If, as reported, the majority of the film centers around this theme, embodied by these two characters, then the jury, surely, must still be out on whether or not the film will be entirely successful.

To be fair, all of Malick's recent work treads a thin (red) line between profound honesty and hokey sentimentality and this has so far proven to be a strength - that he is willing to bear his soul and his feelings in a way that the tiresome post-modern minimalists de jour are not. But, as I said, it's a fine line... And, in this trailer, at least, he steps over it. Take the last line of voiceover: "unless you love, your life will flash by." Is this not, in fact, gibberish of the Forrest Gump variety? Will your life not flash by whether you love or not? And what is meant by the word 'love'; is this something the film will explore, or something it takes for granted? Ironically, I believe it is precisely this flaw which has made the trailer a hit with the web community - American teenagers are sentimental, to quote Don Draper.

[John Cope]

Take the last line of voiceover: "unless you love, your life will flash by." Is this not, in fact, gibberish of the Forrest Gump variety? Will your life not flash by whether you love or not? And what is meant by the word 'love'; is this something the film will explore, or something it takes for granted?

Actually, I had a problem with this too, though not the same one. Obviously we have to assume here that what's being referred to is the way it feels to live your life but regardless I would assume that you're more likely to feel as though your life has passed in a flash if you are in love or caught up in something you are devoted to. Doesn't time generally tend to seem as though it's dragging by more when you're doing something you hate?

As to your other issue, I have no concern about how Malick's handling of the female charcter will come off here, though I'll admit that I can see why that might be troubling for some. It would be troubling for me if I didn't have implicit trust in his abilities. He has always ultimately provided the shading you're talking about, whether through context or implication, so I have no reason to be concerned that won't be the case again here (I suspect you'll be confronted with yet another instance of this in the next film, btw). In the meantime, I'll appreciate the trailer with the fully infused assumption that those nuances are already present in the rendering of the final film. And that's what allows the sentiment to work and be as powerful as it is.

[Nothing]

I guess I don't have implicit trust in anyone or anything

Three more nitpicks - I don't like the casting of the child lead, he's far too cutesy in a Hollywood drama school kind of way. Not at all keen on the music in the second half of the trailer (is that still Smetena or is that score?). Finally, the CGI looked better in the bootleg, where there was still some space to dream...

Incidentally - the first time I saw the bootleg, I couldn't get the sound to work for some reason and my reaction at that point was pretty much the same as yours.

[flyonthewall2983]

It's definitely not Smetana, but can't be sure or not if it's from the score.

The child lead has an uncanny resemblance to Jim Caviezel.

[kaujot]

Yeah, the close-up of him almost resembles something out of TTRL.