I watched about half an hour of this movie and had to stop. I get it, Rick is unsatisfied with his life despite being "successful"; but is the whole movie solely depicting that? Was a goal developed later that he works towards to get away from his unfulfilling lifestyle or does it just continue/devolve on anyway?
As far as this type of message goes I thought "Mojave" did it better.
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You made it 30 mins?
I shut it off less than 20.
Funny part is I didn't know it was by the same guy who did tree of life (I shut that off quickly as well).
While I was watching this.. I thought to myself "wow this reminds me of how disheveled and a mess tree of life was". I looked up who directed it
and saw it was Malick and said.."well this isn't gonna get any better"
and I ended the pain immediately.
I figure 30 minutes constitutes a fair shake. If it doesn't capture my interest by then it isn't going to later.
I'd never seen any of his films before but read they could get a bit......trippy. I just expected there to be some kind of point to it but it seems there really isn't.
Hmm. Maybe it starts with what you mean by "point".
A great many films don't have one, beyond "to tell an entertaining story with a modicum of skill". And that's totally fine, but you don't see people asking what the "point" is to, say, Batman vs. Superman.
What's a bit ironic about your post is that Knight of Cups is pretty unique in that it actually does have a point, one that's nicely expressed by another poster below. Moreover, the point can be easily universalized -- Bale's character has lost sight of any sense of self, and he sees this reflected in his interactions with various people. He's the Knight of Cups looking for the pearl, yes, but he's also all of us, who have squandered our very existence in myriad ways. Betrayed what makes us us.
Malick restores power to this commonplace tragedy through his artistry. The point is that we watch the film, relate to the sense of loss, the lack of direction, the absence of knowledge of self, and we take steps to rediscover who we are, and to value those around us. To not take for granted our brief human experience.
In a way Knight of Cups feels like an inverted Tree of Life -- or possibly an unofficial sequel, with Bale standing in for Penn's character. By that I mean, the former film took the universal (starting with the literal dawn of the universe) and made its implications personal. Here, he makes the personal universal.
He's basically built his career doing these things in one way or another, so what I'm saying is hardly news, but his more recent films have seemed much more focused on these concerns, "clearing the clutter" of any kind of foregrounded story or overt, conventional conflict.
Then it would have been better as a short. After the first 20 minutes it is painfully clear that Bale's character has no true self and the rest of the movie goes on to further that with no sign of his character taking steps to remedy that. And if he does, it's so far into the movie that the bulk of the movie is redundant.
If the point of this movie was to make us look at ourselves and assess how alike we are to Bales character, then it needs to be done in a way that also entertains or provokes. As it was, all it conveyed was an ever present "look how disconnected he is" while provoking extreme boredom.
Then it would have been better as a short.This isn't meant as a confrontation or provocation, but do you think it's wise to be making calls like this without having seen the entire film?
If the point of this movie was to make us look at ourselves and assess how alike we are to Bales character, then it needs to be done in a way that also entertains or provokes.Here too, I think we need to be careful about that word "point"; I told you what I got from the movie, but that's not to suggest that Malick's intentions align with my own, or that others won't derive something else. You're assuming that there's a calculated "take away" that can be transcribed into literal language and can/should be conveyed with maximum efficiency using an established method of storytelling.
You have a valid point. It is very possible that I missed a key portion of the movie that would have tied it together. However, since no one has been able to allude to or speak of one I'm left to conclude there isn't a pinnacle moment that ties it together neatly.
Your example of the Mona Lisa doesn't really fit though. In order to try to understand a painting you need to see the whole thing because it's a sum of its parts. While movies typically follow this rule, "Knight of Cups" doesn't as the whole movie is simply the same situations with different people. That's the root of my issue. A viewer could jump into the movie just about anywhere, watch 10 minutes of it, stop, and walk away with the entire movie. Stories have a beginning, middle and end and regardless of how they're ordered there needs to be some kind of progression or regression.
If there isn't an intended take away, then why make it? I may have said it somewhere else but "Mojae" was similar to this in that the main character was philosophically lost but unlike "Knight of Cups" it had progression and actual differing events that drove the story forward.
I will give "Badlands" and "The Thin Red Line" a look/watch. Perhaps that will tell me if it's his different ways of story telling or if I simply don't understand things the way he does.
The guy above you did a very good job explaining to you the magnificence of experiencing art, and I'm not saying KOC is a work of art, I didn't even watched it. I'm checking the boards to see if I should.
What people fail to understand is that cinema is an art medium. We are fooled by this, false sense of spectacle from action/blockbusters/conventional movies, that has altered in a way what we should expect from this medium.
Let me explain, we have been shaped by this genre, in a way that we expect movies to deliver a sanitized, homogenized and convenient message. As if we all should agree into what we got from what the director and screenwriter was trying to convey with the movie. We do not agree to disagree anymore. We can't believe that two different persons could actually exit from a movie with completely different messages taken from what they have experienced. We are rejecting art in cinema, we want sanitized from thought entertainment.
I did watched Tree of Life and I was utterly disappointed that I was going out not getting what I expected. I expected a convenient message, but I was whether blew away from the way he did the movie. To be precise, I was disappointed, but in a good way.
After watching again on TV and freed from my expectations, I got that he was exactly trying to take us into a place where we can all agree to disagree. Our childhood is a very personal place and we all take quintessential values and treasures to our adulthood that are a secret and nobody except from us, has a key to decrypt it.
Do not restrain yourself to what is expected with art, that is not the POINT. The POINT would be going on a ride and coming back a completely different person after it.
"Nobody cares. Nobody tries..."
And that would be fine so long as there was progression. At the end of the day film is simply another medium to tell a story and, while it can be artistically executed, there still needs to be some kind of movement in that story.
shareThere is a progression, I just told you. Look, in no way I could tell what the movie is about, to you, but the progression is there to exactly take you there.
As I said above, we are sort of given THE KEY that each of us has to ourselves. We would never be able to have this key to someone else. We are taken into this ride to decript what makes the protagonist, himself. All the key moments that have become who he is as an adult.
This would be possible just because the character is not a real person, therefore we are given access to what could be IT.
Look this is the close I can get, because going further than this, would be assuming I have any knowledge about any other self than me.
I'm not saying it is the best movie ever made, I'm just saying there is some originality in the concept/subject that are missed by the audience because these are not conventional but experimental storytelling ones.
I crossed the line here, but you can freely reject/deny the idea.
"Nobody cares. Nobody tries..."
I just watched the movie.
I think it is even better than Three of Life. I'm sorry that you think the movie does not have progression and I cannot help you finding it.
I can now assure you, IMHO, that Terrence Malick is making advances in what he is trying to do. Now, I need to take a look at TTW, because for me, he made a huge step from TOL to KOC. There is much more clarity without, I must say, losing anything in his search for it.
"Nobody cares. Nobody tries..."
This thread was never about the progression of the audience through the character but of the character through the story.
Essentially I'd settle for knowing whether or not Bale's character transitions at all or if he remains the same empty person he was at the beginning. The fact that you claim to be unable to offer insight into the progression you speak of says much of what I need to know, however.
Also, people aren't that complex if you know anything about psychology.
Nice try
"Nobody cares. Nobody tries..."
A response that implies I've somehow not succeeded in whatever goal you seem to think I strove to attain. In reality that goal was, in fact, attained. I summarized the intention of this thread, illustrated the emptiness of your claim to understand and/or recognize a progression in the movie, and referenced a field which demystifies internal motivations of oneself and others.
I would say "nice try" to you, but your attempt at trolling is so transparent as to reveal that no real effort was imparted in the first place.
Tilting at windmills with these folks in trying to create a logical argument for Malick's art. 30 minutes is like looking at only the upper right corner of a van gogh. Theres plenty of dreck in the multiplexes to keep these fools entertained
donkeywranglertothestars.com
@sly_3
There was a prince, a knight, who traveled west to look for a pearl. When he arrived, he drank from the cup of the kings and lost his memory, forgot why he was there. He was there to find the pearl, but he has forgotten.
Opening voiceover: "All these years living the life of someone, I didn't even know."
"I don't remember the man I wanted to be."
Closing voiceover as he's leaving LA: "Begin."
The movie is Rick's quest to find meaning, the pearl, in a vacuous city that has taken his memory, dreams, and will to improve himself because of the city's and entertainment industry's cold glitz and glamor. He realizes at the end only leaving the city and returning home can bring him wisdom and knowledge. The journey to that realization is the pearl for Rick, his quest is over at the end.
Malickian Protagonist