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You liked the notes on the script? I took many, that was just a small selection. Something new.

On ne s’arrête pas, je vous le dis. (Pickpocket)

I found out today that Ashley, that poet I have told you about (rides in planes, dinosaurs, etc), is still publishing. Maybe you already knew it. I didn't. Not surprisingly, Ashley is in total delirium, making sites and more sites full of Christian teachings. You will need plenty of time to read everything. Just some interesting quotes:

I've found that what I need to have every day is a routine. It helps put my brain in that "writing world" after a long day at the Day Job. [Job: “Where were…”]

Classic Crime on Grooveshark. I'm not really sure why, but Classic Crime has always been the soundtrack to my writing. At least for the last three years. I'd say they're probably my favorite musical group of all time. Followed closely by Anberlin [Hölderlin: Heidelberg], but I don't listen to Anberlin while I'm writing. Usually.

WIP (Work in Progress) pulled up on the laptop. His name is Wallace, btw. Henry asked me one time what I wanted to name my computer because it needed a name on the network. I think I'd just used numbers before. The first name that popped into my head was Wallace. (All the gadgets around here have weird names....my iPod is called Paco [Waco]. I don't even know.) What you see in this picture is WIP Book #2...

Ashley dreams about a house

When I close my eyes I see...peonies. Big, fat, pillowy peonies in shades of ballerina tutu and first kiss and fresh laundry. There's green grass stretching for miles and miles, and a barn down at the bottom of the hill. I don't have to go in the barn to know it smells old and cool. I see our garden, over on the other side of the yard, full of broccoli and cabbage and other vegetables I can't remember any more. There's a swing hanging underneath the porch. And a bike discarded in the hedge over near the road. There's a giant oak tree, and it loses its leaves after the fall. I see summertime and sundresses and high dives and haircuts.

The recent “How to stay safe online” is very instructive.

Beaver on the blu-ray.

Without looking ahead this currently has my vote as Blu-ray of the year in our end poll. It has our highest recommendation... of all time.

So how much do you think Fox is paying him for that quote?

It's hard to pay off someone who likes everything.

That's slanderous! Some films are "competent"

He wasn't too keen on Caligula, as I recall.

Tom Hagen wrote:It's hard to pay off someone who likes everything.

You cannot hope to bribe or twist
(thank God!) the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
unbribed, there's no occasion to.
(Humbert Wolfe)

Granted, Gary isn't British, but I'm sure that can be modified without losing the scansion.

I remember him being vitriolic toward Spielberg's War of the Worlds too, though that was about the quality of the movie rather than the disc.

MichaelB wrote: You cannot hope to bribe or twist
(thank God!) the British journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
unbribed, there's no occasion to.
(Humbert Wolfe)

Granted, Gary isn't British, but I'm sure that can be modified without losing the scansion.

So you're saying Nothing was almost right.

The maddening thing about Nothing is that he was almost right about a lot of things - but he was so spectacularly wrong about others that it tended to devalue most of what he said.

About the DVD/Blu Ray and more
Most people repress most of what comes to their mind when they see Malick’s films – and start quoting Heidegger compulsively.
Joke. Now, seriously. If those Fox site videos’ are the DVD extras reduced version, their interest will be very limited.
It is easy to identify and accommodate to our preconceptions about Malick most of The Tree of Life’s written sources: Job, Kempis, Dostoyevsky, Saint Paul, etc. To say it is “impressionistic”, “like a prayer”, “extraordinary”, of a man incapable of being “ironic”, “pure philosophy”, “pretentious”, “fascist” (I’ve read that in an Italian review), to carry endless and terribly boring discussions about if it is 25, 50, 75 or 100% Christian, if Malick’s conception of Grace and Nature is more or less “correct” (that beats them all), etc.
But who wants to bother to discuss in detail his cinematic, sometimes very explicit, sources, and not generalities? To think why the camera follows Chastain’s head as if she was Vertigo’s Madeleine? Who even notices it? And the sequoias? Why Scottie/Johnny O is a dinosaur in this film? Who knows that only a movie in the world, and not a very Christian one, could inspire the girl getting to asleep and awaking as a woman on a swing, The Scarlet Empress? What really is Wilfred’s light organ doing in the Tree? That “I give to you. I give you my son/sun” (nice alliteration, no?): I remember one situation that resembles very, very much, those three women’s choreography: you will find it in Riefhenstahl’s Olympia. Sounds horrendous? Unthinkable? Preposterous? Fascist cinema, or anything fascist, is definitely not my cup of tea, but I know the film and this resemblance is obvious to me. Just a resemblance?
Why people automatically think that Malick is making an “homage” to Kubrick but he doesn’t share his rather dark and cynical vision of the world? Have they ever sat with him to chat about that vision? Maybe it is ten times more cynical and dark than Kubrick’s.
In a certain temple it was written “know thyself”. This is generally considered wise. I am not sure. As someone said, nobody knows himself or is interested in such a thing. Why? Self preservation. There are regions of the human being better to ignore. I can’t advoid to quote Faust:

Student (reading Mephistopheles’ Latin inscription)
Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum. (“You shall be like like gods, knowing good and evil”.)
(the student makes his bows and retires)
Mephistopheles
Just follow the old proverb, and my cousin the snake, too:
And then your likeness to God will surely frighten you!

But: why this Blu Ray + DVD edition?
I've found an answer in the comment:

"Well on certain movies, they provide a DVD copy so parents can take the movie in the car for roadtrips. That makes sense. With Tree of Life DVD copy, parents can now put kids to sleep! I’m kidding"

She was kidding. Anyway, I don't advise you to let your kids watch this.
They don't need to be adopted by Malick. Their parents are certainly much better than the O'briens.

Shit's deep

Johnbnb wrote:But: why this Blu Ray + DVD edition?
I've found an answer in the comment:

"Well on certain movies, they provide a DVD copy so parents can take the movie in the car for roadtrips. That makes sense.

Yes, that was the BFI's rationale when they went dual-format - too many parents complained about having to buy the separate DVD releases of Primitive London and Permissive for their kids.

Maybe you want to discuss fire in Malick's cinema.
“Fire smolders in a soul more surely than it does under ashes. The arsonist is the most dissembling of criminals.” (Bachelard, Psychoanalysis of Fire)

From Badlands, Malick showed an intense attraction by fire. He has got a pyromaniac rib, no doubt. He is one of those guys that “hears the call of the funeral pyre.” (Bachelard)

In Days of Heaven, Linda tells us of apocalyptic fires:

I met this guy named Ding-Dong. He told me the whole Earth is goin’ up in flame. Flames will come out of here and there and they’ll just rise up. The mountains are gonna go up in big flames, the water’s gonna rise in flames. There’s gonna be creatures runnin’ every which way, some of them burnt, half of their wings burnin’. People are gonna be screamin’ and hollerin’ for help. See, the people that have been good – they’re gonna go to heaven and escape all that fire. But if you’ve been bad, God don’t even hear you. He don’t even hear ya talkin’.

The film’s love triangle is solved spectacularly in flames. In The Thin Red Line there is plenty of fire too. The Indian village is burnt in The New World.

In Badlands we never see extinguished that fire Kit starts on Holly’s home, burning gloriously while we hear the music. I believe Malick wanted that way. Somehow, her home is on fire since those days. That’s the way I see it.

Fire – cosmic or terrestrial, in flames or liquid, seen or evoked – is a most important presence in The Tree of Life. It is an explicit symbol of the power, of the authority, of the father. O’Brien lectures Jack (that Toscanini talk) while he is at the barbecue. Malick shows us very clearly the burning coal. The control of fire signals manhood. Bachelard confessed in his famous studie: “I still take special pride in the art of kindling I learned from my father. I think I would rather fail to teach a good philosophy lesson than fail to light my fire in the morning”.
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This authority envolves O’Brien’s knowledge (and, I would say, Malick’s…). Bachelard speacks of the desire of “intellectual mastery of fire” as the Promethean Complex, “those tendencies which impel us to know as much as our fathers, more than our fathers, as much as our teachers, more than our teachers” “It is the desire not only to surpass one’s father but, extended further, to deny any authority, to defy the gods, to steal their fire or their creative energy without attribution.” Goethe’s Prometheus (Ode to Prometheus) says:

I am no God. Yet look on myself as not less worthy.

So, bottom line, we are talking to be godlike. That’s a good bridge to Mephistopheles “Life’s golden tree” (Faust, Goethe)

Just follow the old proverb, and my cousin the snake, too: And then your likeness to God will surely frighten you!

Let’s talk about another "complex".
Penn lights a candle in his home and concentrates on its flame. Would it be too much to approach this candle to the Lumia’s hypnotic flame like wavering movement that opens (with Penn’s voice) and closes the film? Bachelard devoted a book entirelly to The Flame of a Candle, with famous poetic considerations about its image producing and reverie stimulating powers (“un des plus grands opérateurs d’images”; “La flamme nous force à imaginer.”; “La flamme est un monde pour l’homme seul.”; etc), a work that Malick knew for sure. Did you noticed the way the camera is attracted by all the lamps in Waco, ex terior or interior? And how the ’50s narrative ends with the candle, like the architect had never left its vision, or, at least, had transported it in his mind? This candle has been understood as part of a ritual related to the architect’s brother death anniversary, but that seems to me only the pretext to light it.
Going through the “door” was for Penn’s character choosing the way of fire, the way of magma, the way of the volcano. Remember that the woman waiting for him on that door’s other side gives him “looks” just like that school girl to McCracken: “Next word is VOLCANO”, said the professor.

Bachelard would put this under the Empedocles complex: “In these circumstances the reverie becomes truly fascinating and dramatic; it magnifies human destiny, it links the small to the great, the hearth to the volcano, the life of a log to the life of the world. The fascinated individual hears the call of the funeral pyre. For him destruction is more than a change, it is renewal.”

Bachelard shows, using Georges Sand as an example, that the fireplace enchantment is enough to evoke the volcano. If the reverie is strong enough, the candle as the same power:

As soon as the reverie becomes concentrated, the genie of the Volcano appears. (...) "Come, my king. Put on your crown of white flame and blue sulphur from which there comes forth a dazzling rain of diamonds and sapphires." And the Dreamer, ready for the sacrifice, replies: "Here I am! Envelop me in rivers of burning lava, clasp me in your arms of fire as a lover clasps his bride. I have donned the red mantle. I have adorned myself in your colors. Put on, too, your burning gown of purple. Cover your sides with dazzling folds." (...) In the heart of the fire death is no longer death. "Death could not exist in that ethereal region to which you are carrying me... My fragile body may be consumed by the fire, my soul must be united with those tenuous elements of which you are composed." "Very well!" said the Spirit, casting over the Dreamer part of his red mantle, "Say farewell to the life of men and follow me into the life of phantoms."

Maybe this will help you to understand the “shore of eternity”.

I like the part where the dog is riding in the car with his head out the window

MyNameCriterionForum wrote:I like the part where the dog is riding in the car with his head out the window

Ha ha ha! If you are interested in the dog, the name is Shep (2007 script). In Jack's last Waco shot, in the car, Shep's ass is turned to the boy. Almighty Malick couldn't spare his Jacob that last humiliation.

Ugh, this thread

I applaud the critical examination of fire within the works of Malick. That said, the following doesn't help me "understand" the beach(ed) scene. It just confirms why I disliked the shore of simplicity when I first saw it.

In the heart of the fire death is no longer death. "Death could not exist in that ethereal region to which you are carrying me... My fragile body may be consumed by the fire, my soul must be united with those tenuous elements of which you are composed." "Very well!" said the Spirit, casting over the Dreamer part of his red mantle, "Say farewell to the life of men and follow me into the life of phantoms."

Johnbnb wrote:Maybe this will help you to understand the “shore of eternity”.

Team Terry, bitchez!

At the end of the street brawl, Team von Trier punches a few passing pensioners in the face and then employs mass self-mutilation, collapsing in a bloody heap while Team Malick, which has spent the entire battle staring at the curtains in the window of a lamp store, forgets why it's in the street in the first place and accidentally walks into the path of a bus driven by Robert Redford. No one is sure why Robert Redford is driving the bus.

Probably making a cameo appearance due to having provided the funding or in order to invite the winner to screen at Sundance.

swo17 wrote:I need to rewatch ToL to see if it still has the same impact on me as it did at first viewing, but I think I would say it's fallen a bit in my estimation, owing to effusive fan worship and, yes, seeing Melancholia.

Funny, it's the other way round for me. I actually kind of liked Melancholia but if your lot thinks that the Malick camp is putting neutrals off the film with their obsessions, it's not any different with the Melancholia supporters.

To be fair, I remain at the MOR shrug-level for the Tree of Life and while I like Melancholia a lot, it's not even in my Top Five for the year, and it's certainly no Antichrist. I also don't see anyone in this thread deifying the auteur in question in quite the same manner as the Malickians-- the praise in this thread is no different than that found in discussion for other films, while the Malick As Our Sainted Savior of Cinema thread is a beguiling anomaly for this board

Has anyone been pushing that besides Nothing? I mean, ToL is my favorite movie of the year, and I haven't even gotten to see any other Malick yet, so I'm fairly sure I haven't been overpraising him (as opposed to the film) and while there are some fairly bizarre posts in the ToL thread they're mostly about reading the movie, not deifying Malick.

Have you visited the Tree of Life thread lately? Word of advice: don't.