Knight of Cups (Terrence Malick, 2016)

[domino harvey]

I'm not a Malick disciple but I've found at least some value in all of his films, and even liked a few quite a bit (the New World and To the Wonder). But that record ends here. The worst case scenario of what you can be left with when you film a project using Malick's catch as catch can methods, there is nothing here you haven't seen before done better elsewhere, sometimes by Malick himself, often by others (even fairly MOR stuff like last year's the Ever After, also starring Teresa Palmer, brought far more to the Alienated In Hollywood tale table). Any five minutes of this movie plays out like a Judd Apatow parody of an art house flick, and it is so self-earnest and humorless about its twaddled cliches and trite insights that it is second-hand embarrassing. I would have given anything to have been at the premiere for this and just sat facing into the audience, watching the actors as they realized what putting their trust in Malick got them. (Probably the first time an actor would be upset about not being cut from a Malick film!)

[Foam]

I'm with John Cope. And I may go a step further and say it's Malick's best film. Starting with To The Wonder I felt a creeping nervousness about how much further Malick could go with this airy and breathy style he's been pushing since The Thin Red Line.

Here what I really appreciate is the richness and thoughtfulness behind how the voice-overs are clashingly discontinuous in their perspective and tone. It throws into question the temptation to get swept up into a simply unified sense of them, as The Tree of Life allows for--because they are all pitched to the same grandiose and lofty level, it's easy to accept the overall authorial voice as in a way "endorsing" each of them and unifying them. Here the different perspectives and tones clash so much that a simple common-sense sort of endorsement from a unifying authorial voice would be impossible and we have to try to see how they sit together in different ways. What I'm left with is the with-and-not-with sense you get from the best David Lynch films: each utterance has such a strange place in the overall flow that I was constantly trying to refigure how to understand the overall focalization strategy.

I think tuning into the way this shifts around was key to my appreciation of the film and justified how Malick does not use his actors in the way we might expect or desire. Increasingly it feels like Malick is trying to use them, in his own way, with as thoughtfully limited an expressiveness as Bresson did; but here it's more difficult because these actors are well known and therefore cannot have the same immediate anonymity as a Bressonian model. This in itself created weird effects for me that I also found pleasurable but which I am still not sure how to articulate. The film struck me as so unique in this shift of emphasis that even within Malick's filmography I've never seen anything quite like it. (So, I'll have to disagree with domino's complaint that you've seen this sort of thing already one thousand times; to put it very crudely that may be true in terms of theme/content/subject matter, or even overall form, but to me it felt like a singular film in terms of style, while still being consistent with the rest of Malick's work). It has me excited for his next film. And also excited to revisit the rest of his filmography in light of this one.

[Luke M]

Any five minutes of this movie plays out like a Judd Apatow parody of an art house flick

I hope this makes the DVD cover.

[The Narrator Returns]

Thomas Lennon describes his experience filming his one scene in Knight of Cups

[Fiery Angel]

Richard Brody loves it

[Trees]

"Night" is a continuation of the new narrative style Malick has been working on in earnest since "To the Wonder", trying to tell stories in new ways. Almost like trying to invent a new language. It's not easy.

Mick LaSalle from SF Chronicle is picking up on this.

Terrence Malick is inventing a new kind of cinema, one that calls for new language to describe it. This is a cinema of ecstasy, of the spirit, of witnessing the beauty in all things. As a story, his new film, “Knight of Cups,” is instantly forgettable, and that’s assuming you can find a story to follow. But the experience of the film is about something else, about creating a feeling of transcendence and joy through visual means. It’s remarkable.

....

Anyone who tells you this film is just a collection of pretty images didn’t understand what they were watching. “Knight of Cups” is thick with life. Malick pulls into this film so many aspects of consciousness and so many moments of previously uncaptured stray experience that it’s like watching someone tap into the miraculous.

And what’s especially impressive and gratifying here is that he tried to do something similar with his previous film, “To the Wonder,” and failed. But instead of retreating, he has gone deeper into this mature style....

[domino harvey]

Movies have had Freshman Comp poetics recited over swirling camera work long before this movie, Malick's just distilled the entirety of his film to this one note

[whaleallright]

People who write rhapsodically about these films often seem to forget (or never knew?) that there's an entire tradition of nonnarrative filmmaking -- or, rather, entire traditions. Not that the existence of such traditions invalidates Malick's recent work, but it does allow us to put it in a different context, in which his attempt to structure films according to poetic rhymes and juxtapositions no longer appears quite as novel or unprecedented.

(Sometimes Malick seems to be up to something like Eisenstein's overtonal montage, though without Eisenstein's rigor or purposefulness IMO.)

[ermylaw]

Although I liked Knight of Cups, especially as a conclusion to this trilogy of films including Tree of Life and To the Wonder, it is true that Malick is not inventing a new style of filmmaking. In my opinion, he is using and expanding upon filmmaking techniques in a way that suits the emotional content that he is trying to convey in his films. I don't think that he could meet his goals by using more conventional filmmaking techniques -- either from a narrative or technical perspective.

But, since I think that this technique is particularly appropriate in this trilogy of films, I do hope that he moves beyond it or uses it in a different way as he makes more films. The more often it is used, the less it has an impact. And, as Domino says, it can tend toward an attempt at profundity where actual profundity is lacking. Malick has been skating the edge of pretentiousness with these films even though they happen to work for me.

[hearthesilence]

Although I liked Knight of Cups, especially as a conclusion to this trilogy of films including Tree of Life and To the Wonder, it is true that Malick is not inventing a new style of filmmaking. In my opinion, he is using and expanding upon filmmaking techniques in a way that suits the emotional content that he is trying to convey in his films. I don't think that he could meet his goals by using more conventional filmmaking techniques -- either from a narrative or technical perspective.

Pretty much in agreement. I really like Tree of Life, I think it's a genuinely great (albeit flawed) film, but the argument that he's inventing a new style (much less a new filmmaking language) oversells what he's doing (and shortchanges other older films and film styles that look like the foundation of what he's doing). I was not a fan of To the Wonder and still have my doubts about this one.

[Trees]

Perhaps a more precise way of saying it is that he is trying to find new ways to use cinema to convey ideas and emotions. While he was shooting "To the Wonder", he was just beginning to feel out these new ways. They are better realized in "Knight", yet he still hasn't reached the promised land quite yet, and is still feeling his way around in the dark, so to speak.

I am glad he is out there trying.

[Roscoe]

Movies have had Freshman Comp poetics recited over swirling camera work long before this movie, Malick's just distilled the entirety of his film to this one note

This. Man oh man THIS.

[Foam]

People who write rhapsodically about these films often seem to forget (or never knew?) that there's an entire tradition of nonnarrative filmmaking -- or, rather, entire traditions. Not that the existence of such traditions invalidates Malick's recent work, but it does allow us to put it in a different context, in which his attempt to structure films according to poetic rhymes and juxtapositions no longer appears quite as novel or unprecedented.

This may not have been a response to me, but I'm well aware that Malick is far from the first nonnarrative filmmaker. And, I would be more swayed by the dismissals if they showed much evidence of engaging the poetic rhymes and juxtapostions that are obviously present in them, rather than all too often being satisfied to say, "Meh, more of the same lofty bullshit! No one even talks!" I have yet to see a negative review which tries to follow through on answering "why this tarot card titling this particular sequence?" for example.

[John Cope]

People who write rhapsodically about these films often seem to forget (or never knew?) that there's an entire tradition of nonnarrative filmmaking -- or, rather, entire traditions. Not that the existence of such traditions invalidates Malick's recent work, but it does allow us to put it in a different context, in which his attempt to structure films according to poetic rhymes and juxtapositions no longer appears quite as novel or unprecedented.

This may not have been a response to me, but I'm well aware that Malick is far from the first nonnarrative filmmaker. And, I would be more swayed by the dismissals if they showed much evidence of engaging the poetic rhymes and juxtapostions that are obviously present in them, rather than all too often being satisfied to say, "Meh, more of the same lofty bullshit! No one even talks!" I have yet to see a negative review which tries to follow through on answering "why this tarot card titling this particular sequence?" for example.

Well, believe me, this is a detail I'm addressing in the piece I'm writing on the film. It's among the many seemingly small details that I'm trying to address that have been generally overlooked, especially in the broad dismissals of the film we see. But I do think that KoC, and late Malick in general, has the likelihood of meeting with polarizing responses. It may be that you're either receptive to this technique, especially as it gets more and more rarefied and refined, or you are not. It doesn't meet you half way--it's all in. For those on the fence, if there are any, I would suggest that this is an intricately structured film and benefits from, or even relies upon, a willingness to carefully consider its construction. This seems crucial because, yes, obviously Malick is building on past models but the very specific ways in which he does that on a shot-by-shot basis are what distinguishes the radical refinement of this technique. It's not some generic application. The issue that many apparently have about Malick being given undue or excessive credit for inventing a new form seems frankly just churlish to me and an effort to avoid again the specific challenges of the film (whether they be aesthetic, emotional, philosophical, spiritual, etc.). And the sweeping, rote dismissals of it all with the typical write-off that it's banal poetry affixed to banal imagery frustrates because it evidences an unwillingness to take the film seriously at all, to consider the formal and substantive details (it's similar to the way in which movies with characters who have intelligent and overtly philosophic conversations are automatically written off by some as "college bull sessions" as though either any conversation like this is unacceptable for some reason or that they all must be at the level of a series of seminar lectures). The dismissals are insulting to a work that demands more and deserves far better but they are, of course, as with all critiques, a reflection of those who make them, often in this case being those who can't or won't get beyond the surface even though the film itself consistently and overtly and emphatically points beyond that.

[domino harvey]

The notion that the film is tantamount to secret (or, from the rarified responses here and elsewhere, sacred) knowledge is either laughable or insulting, probably both. Some of us aren't engaging with this film as a game changing or exemplary work of art because it's not one. If you think you've just seen the second coming of cinema, that's fantastic, I look forward to hearing a defense that isn't just deriding those peasants too dumb to understand the brilliance of Christian Bale poorly imitating Lost in Translation while suffering the horribly ignoble fate of having countless beautiful women wander in and out of his life, his paramours frequently stopping to wade ankle-deep in a nearby shore or letting the wind whip their hair into the camera lens, and always wordlessly talking while a monotonous and meaningless narrator prattles on about the winding rivers of the heart or whatever.

[Mr Sausage]

The notion that the film is tantamount to secret (or, from the rarified responses here and elsewhere, sacred) knowledge is either laughable or insulting, probably both. Some of us aren't engaging with this film as a game changing or exemplary work of art because it's not one. If you think you've just seen the second coming of cinema, that's fantastic, I look forward to hearing a defense that isn't just deriding those peasants too dumb to understand the brilliance of Christian Bale poorly imitating Lost in Translation while suffering the horribly ignoble fate of having countless beautiful women wander in and out of his life, his paramours frequently stopping to wade ankle-deep in a nearby shore or letting the wind whip their hair into the camera lens, and always wordlessly talking while a monotonous and meaningless narrator prattles on about the winding rivers of the heart or whatever.

That's not a fair characterization of John Cope's post. He can't be treating it as a secret or sacred text because he says several times that one has to consider the movie's "construction," and never says anything about apprehending the movie on a plane above or outside how it's put together. His final sentence also says the movie is "consistently and overtly and emphatically" showing you where it wants you to go, not a statement from someone who thinks this is an esoteric movie for adepts only.

John Cope's real criticism seems to be about the tone of the responses, a lot of which are dismissive and mocking and avoid making serious criticisms about what the movie is attempting to do. Which is an ok thing for him or anyone else to be frustrated about, because while no one has to take a movie seriously, it is hard to have a dialogue when no one from the opposite side wants to discuss it on a level beyond dismissing its key surface features. John Cope seems to want people to really engage with this thing before rejecting it as much as they are.

I don't agree with everything in his post--I am fine if people are too exasperated or uninterested to want to engage with a movie even if it happens to deserve it--but I think what he wrote is far from laughable and not very insulting, and he is no more wrong to say you've all missed the boat than you are to say it of him.

[domino harvey]

Do we need to discuss the Room in conjunction with its Tennessee Williams-level passion beneath the surface?

[Trees]

Some of us aren't engaging with this film as a game changing or exemplary work of art because it's not one.

You are stating that as if it's a fact. That's your opinion. For others, including some fairly serious writers who have been linked to in this thread, and including some fairly smart members of this forum, it is a serious film worthy of thought and consideration.

[domino harvey]

Of course it's my opinion, that's an impossible position to ever be objective. You don't have to write "In my opinion" every time you give your opinion...

[mfunk9786]

Is it really in dispute that not every film holds artistic value to every person that sees it? Criticism allows for outright dismissal if the critic has cause for it, and it allows for effusive praise if another critic has cause for it, and neither person is wrong or guilty of not giving something enough of their respect.

[Trees]

Of course it's my opinion, that's an impossible position to ever be objective. You don't have to write "In my opinion" every time you give your opinion...

Maybe we could objectively say that Michael Bay's "Transformers" movies are crap, though?

[mfunk9786]

We can say that about The Assassin, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to paint Transformers with that broad a brush.

[criterion10]

We can say that about The Assassin, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to paint Transformers with that broad a brush.

Welp, you beat me to it.

[Trees]

We can say that about The Assassin, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to paint Transformers with that broad a brush.

[aox]

While I'm sure my last post was ignorant in terms of film grammar, and since it has come up, what film(s) are/is Malick aping with ToL, TtW, and KoC?