MovieChat Forums > Knight of Cups (2016) Discussion > Antonioni rip-off?

Antonioni rip-off?

posted 8 years ago by idoubt_zr4_ithink
16 replies | jump to latest

Maybe Terrence Malick has been watching too much Antonioni, lately? The pool party scene was almost a "La Note" rip-off. Even Cate Blanchett looked a lot like Monica Vitti. Also, the dogs in the pool trying to catch a ball? Umm ... I hope photograph Seth Casteel was given some credit for that. (http://twistedsifter.com/2012/02/underwater-photos-of-dogs-fetching-their-ball/)

Otherwise, the cinematography was pretty cool. Some beautiful women, scenery... Some surreal architecture imagery. But nothing that hasn't been tried before, especially for a movie that wants to claim originality (I'm not sure what else it might claim). Worth a look, I guess.

[–] Chason_S 8 years ago

Worth a look, I guess.

...barely.

Just a guy in Texas who loves movies. 

[–] zuloworks 8 years ago

Go see movies that fit your horizon.

Antonioni dealt with the very same stuff (real movies, not feeding the brainwashed attraction society) as Malick does, but died too early.

[–] Chason_S 8 years ago

Go see movies that fit your horizon.

Huh?

Antonioni dealt with the very same stuff (real movies, not feeding the brainwashed attraction society) as Malick does, but died too early.

Malick is a great filmmaker - but he's just starting to get too out of touch with his subjects. Knight of Cups is just all an acid-trip. There's virtually nothing there at all.

Just a guy in Texas who loves movies. 

[–] zuloworks 8 years ago

I wouldn't say that he getting 'out of touch'. Just on the contrary: he is disregarding certain, agreed on forms in order to become more truthful about his subjects.

If this to you appears to be an 'acid trip' says that it seems to be over your head. Theres nothing wrong with that, we all have our likes and dislikes, stuff with that we can identify or not.

I am not trying to defend elitism here. I do not think that something is of greater value because there are few people able to follow.

But KoC has a very strong intention, it is only disregarding certain 'rules' commanding how a movie has to be done. I would assume that Malick is capable enough to do so on purpose.

If there was 'nothing there' that would mean a blank screen. Obviously not the case. If you were not able to make any sense of what you see, that means that it is 'over your head'. And again: there is nothing wrong with that.

But please do have the courage to say: I do not understand this; instead of calling something that comes from a credited filmmaker 'empty'.

KoC could be seen as one big void. But that very same void is a reflection about the voidness of the world we are all sharing. That full of empty promises world (what I named attraction-society).

And that's a line I see in all of his films: a frustrated view on false promises that do not hold up what's to be encountered in the real world.

Back to the movie: take the images of the dog going for the ball under water¡, missing it ...

I do love movies too, but I prefer those that are not looping false promises pretending entertainment where in reality there is nothing but brainless candy.

We are all to fat/frustrated, in our bubble of self-believe, to move accordingly right ...
Maintaining the only option that we are given: to be entertained as a measure to judge right from wrong. This is clearly not a good choice.

[–] zuloworks 8 years ago

[–] Chason_S 8 years ago

But please do have the courage to say: I do not understand this; instead of calling something that comes from a credited filmmaker 'empty'.

Thanks for your long reply. You have made some good points. I guess I just don't understand it - but honestly don't think there is a lot there to understand. It certainly cannot hold a candle to Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line or The New World - at last not for me. But maybe it will grow on me. I still look forward to Weightless (God please don't let it be more of the same) and Voyage of Time.
Again - thanks for taking the time to reply to me. We can all learn from one another.

Just a guy in Texas who loves movies. 

[–] zuloworks 8 years ago

wow, I wasn't aware of that upcomers ...
& happy to know that Malick is carrying on and coming through ...

Taste is subjective and, contrary to common believe, not feeding the status quo. Being truthful does ...
I really hate when 'decorated as exquisite' people are looking down from their bold emptiness.
Malick is the contrary, he is intending/inviting to share his view without pretending.

And no, I am not a fanboy; just emphatically sharing this introspection into human nature (and its emptiness), as it seems to be a very truthful diagnostic on what is happening ... Questioning ... Just as any good artwork should do in my agenda... Disregarding as much as possible the rumpus headed at entertainment values only ...

;-)

[–] JohnQuincyPublic 8 years ago

wow, I wasn't aware of that upcomers ...
& happy to know that Malick is carrying on and coming through ...

Have you heard about RADEGUND??

I got news for em. Theres gonna be hell to pay. Cause I aint Daddys little boy no more

[–] JohnQuincyPublic 8 years ago

I guess I just don't understand it - but honestly don't think there is a lot there to understand.

Have you read John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress?

http://theweek.com/articles/615904/terrence-malicks-profoundly-christian-vision

http://www.curatormagazine.com/trevor-logan/kierkegaard-in-l-a-terrence-malicks-knight-of-cups/

I still look forward to Weightless (God please don't let it be more of the same) and Voyage of Time.

I think WEIGHTLESS will continue in the same style as TO THE WONDER and KNIGHT OF CUPS, only more extreme (maybe).

I got news for em. Theres gonna be hell to pay. Cause I aint Daddys little boy no more

[–] Chason_S 8 years ago

I have printed out these articles to read thoroughly. Thank you for doing that for me!

Just a guy in Texas who loves movies. 

[–] zuloworks 8 years ago

I certainly have difficulties to find anything new in the christian interpretation, anything that are not inherent and easy to recognize inside the movie itself.
I am thrown off because it all has a sound of (ab)using the perspectives (urgencies) being presented in the film for making points. It sound too much like: 'Told you: Jesus was right, and know we have even more proof). The arguments seem to be very functional and not helping to expand on what already is present in the film.

The article with the Kierkegaard relation is totally different. It is not narrowing the film but opening it up.
And draws philosophical relations anchoring in the (tragic) experience of being human. This is one of the basic functions of art (even in a religious context) before the condemned-to-refund-entertainment-biz took over defining the rules of 'good and bad' alining our attention and criterias. This is, as he says, not a good thing for most of us. Only good for the few that are making more profits the more we are behaving as cattle ... happily being entertained by placebos (most of them make us sick and overweight and stupid) instead of searching for truthful experiences. Enlightenment was once the function of art. Not entertainment.

I think the writer is spot on to the values of the film. It seems only a bit painful to go through the ancients like Dante, Plato to Kierkegaard for getting proof to 'Malicks 'value'.

Not necessary for me.

It is all in the film. As the writer says. And very very beautifully depicted.

[–] JohnQuincyPublic 8 years ago

It sound too much like: 'Told you: Jesus was right, and know we have even more proof).

What does classical Christianity teach about human beings? That we are exiles, torn between competing and conflicting ends, at once prone to absorption in the world and its ways — and drawn beyond it, to something higher. That life is a journey, a pilgrimage filled with false starts and moments when we feel adrift, disoriented, lost. That we are strangers to ourselves, unsure of our own motives, susceptible to self-delusion and self-subversion. That self-giving love, and not simple happiness, is our end — and that the path to reaching it runs through self-sacrifice and suffering.

In a world that encourages us to deny so many of these precepts; in a culture that continually devises new and more seductive ways to distract us from thoughts of any end beyond the satisfaction of worldly desires; in a film industry that devotes vast resources and stupefying technological prowess to fashioning dazzling spectacles that overwhelm the senses but say nothing to the soul — in 2016 America it is astonishing that Terrence Malick has made a movie that offers its audience a compelling vision of an emphatically Christian outlook on reality.

It doesn't read that way to me - not at all. Perhaps the article warrants a more charitable interpretation on your part.

I got news for em. Theres gonna be hell to pay. Cause I aint Daddys little boy no more

[–] zuloworks 8 years ago

Thank you for talking.

"What does classical Christianity teach about human beings?
(...)
in 2016 America it is astonishing that Terrence Malick has made a movie that offers its audience a compelling vision of an emphatically Christian outlook on reality."

I really do not need to hear that voice. I am inclined to atheism/buddhism and have no desire to be aboarded by any 'mission' at all. Kierkegaard, being called a 'religious' philosoph, is fine though, as he's abstract enough, not lingering, to shut my alarm bells down. And his relevance is shown perfectly in the second article you mentioned ...
Charitable I am, for humans, not for institutions.

I do like seeing movies and listening music that are offering transcendence, without any slings attached.

Also I would wonder what TM has to say about the christian embracement ... Anything?

[–] JohnQuincyPublic 8 years ago

I really do not need to hear that voice.

Well, I'm not so sure about that.

I do like seeing movies and listening music that are offering transcendence, without any slings attached.

Also I would wonder what TM has to say about the christian embracement ... Anything?

"It may seem like a trivial question, but I cannot help wondering whether the title of this book has been lifted from the closing lines of Terrence Malick's 1998 film adaptation of The Thin Red Line. It would make a kind of sense, given the themes of Malick's films, and Malick's Heideggerean background, and the way Heidegger seems to haunt this text like a genial specter. If so, then it seems to me that Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly might have done well to learn a few lessons from Malick and from his mesmerizingly beautiful pagan-Christian-gnostic peregrinations about the nature of the human longing for the divine, about its terrible ambiguity and urgency, and about its openness to both nature and grace."

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/03/whooshing-through-life

"Mesmerizingly beautiful pagan-Christian-gnostic peregrinations." I like that.

I got news for em. Theres gonna be hell to pay. Cause I aint Daddys little boy no more

[–] zuloworks 8 years ago

Okay, I asked for a TM statement, what he thinks about a christian takeover ...

You answer with even more (in my view: fraud intents to aboard a genuine, transcendent work) christian colored intents to reclaim something that is above that realm, even if it share the same root. In my experience there are a lot of better answers to the riddle of 'human existence' in popular culture then christianity as able to give. Most of them are just boring because of their low entertainment value.

Malick on the contrary is top noch. Why don't you the time to go through his movies and find out for yourself, without any security ropes of 'higher believes' attached. Just naked, you may find out something about yourself (and the voidness of the secret believes you need to hold so strongly onto). There is no bigger exterior narrative, coming from elsewhere; it is just you and your believes.

And yes, I am very sure that I do not need to be saved by any kind of superior being (that is imagined anyway, this is why we have invented movies contradicting such forces as the divine; we can make it on our own, masturbating, producing cultural items that temporarily redeems while continuing searching for the [imaginary] wholeness, no need to be blessed or redeemed; because yes we can)

I am out of here. Nice talking to you and good luck with your mission ...

[–] JohnQuincyPublic 8 years ago

Malick on the contrary is top noch.

The muses are gaily capricious in the favors they bestow upon us, but humorlessly imperious in the demands they make of us. One never knows when inspiration may strike; one knows only that, when it comes, it must not be resisted. In my case, the occasion was an idle afternoon this past week, as I was irascibly considering the reaction of a few conservative Catholic critics to Terrence Malick’s strange, beautiful, perhaps slightly mad, and deeply Christian film The Tree of Life . One review even described the sensibility of the film as “New Age,” a judgment bizarrely inapposite to Malick’s often dark, often radiant, emotionally austere, and deeply contemplative art.

The film, in fact, is brilliant, mesmerizingly lovely, and almost alarmingly biblical. Even if one is not enchanted (as I most definitely am) by Malick’s signature cinematic mannerisms, or by the fleeting hints of his more recondite intellectual preoccupations (Heidegger? Gnosticism? Buddhism? Russian Sophiology, perhaps?), surely one ought to recognize the ingenious subtlety of the scriptural allegories around which the film is built, and of the film’s meditations on the mystery of God’s silence and eloquence, and on innocence and transgression, and on the divine glory that shines out from all things.

Or so I was thinking as I drowsed there, warming my pelt in a pool of sunlight. Then, however, it occurred to me that perhaps, after all, these critics did have a kind of point. Oh, yes, The Tree of Life is profoundly, if mysteriously, scriptural - with its images of Eden, Cain and Abel, God speaking out of the whirlwind, divine Wisdom dancing at the heart of creation, Christ the man of sorrows, and so on - but is that sufficient to make it a truly Catholic film, at least of the sort these earnest critics so obviously crave?

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2011/07/seven-characters-in-search-of-a-nihil-obstat

I got news for em. Theres gonna be hell to pay. Cause I aint Daddys little boy no more