Explanation

Hi there. I responded to your other thread asking about the meaning of the "Knight of Cups" title. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2101383/board/nest/252732997

(Keep in mind that these responses are just my interpretations of the film).

As for the basic plot, I read something interesting here on IMDB (I can't find the thread anymore but I want to credit that poster for their wonderful connection) about how director Terrence Malick might be injecting the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard into this film. According to a summary I read (because this goes way beyond my range of knowledge): Kierkegaard believed that were three spheres or "realms" of life: the aesthetic, the ethical and the spiritual.

The aesthetic is the lowest sphere and the starting place for us all. In it, we are only concerned with our own pleasures and base appetites. It's a natural state for babies and children, but some adults never outgrow this stage. Some don't even want to. Rick begins the film in this sphere...suspended or trapped in the hedonistic blur of life.

The ethical is higher up, and it's when humans become more concerned with the external world and other people. Rick's wife (Cate Blanchett) was a nurse/doctor who represented this sphere. She seemed more grounded and mature, and it appears Rick looked back on this relationship fondly (and remembers his own foolish mistakes which ended it). However, at the end of the film, it seems like Rick finds some form of contentment and "elevation" when he has a child. Marriage and children falls under the ethical sphere, because this is when you must think of others apart from yourself. Responsibilities increase but so does maturity.

The highest sphere is the spiritual and it is when a connection or devotion to God or the spiritual life is at its strongest. I think (in my opinion) Rick attains this when he is out in that desert at the end of the film. It is as if reliving his life memories out in the desert purified him, and he reached a new understanding (and woke up from his deep slumber). Here, his spiritual attainment doesn't necessarily mean going to church every Sunday, or constant praying and meditation. The way I see it, Rick has finally touched that spiritual sphere by reconciling his past demons and accepting things as they happened (there is a brief shot of him hugging his father and forgiving). The last chapter was called "Freedom" and we feel as if Rick has found his calmness, liberation and "wholeness" (the motif of separated pieces and fragments being prominent in his empty LA life).

At one point later in the film, a priest says that suffering can be seen as a "gift" (it is sent to us) to teach us something and make us wiser. And according to Kierkegaard, the path from the Aesthetic to the Spiritual requires going through hell. Anyone who has lived the easy life with no setbacks or malaise hasn't really lived a full life (and would probably be unsympathetic to the pain of others, keeping them stuck in the Aesthetic sphere). But someone who lives with pain, deals with it, learns from it and transcends it, is someone who has transformed into a "complete" person, for their new resiliency and experience is valuable (we wouldn't employ an Army general who has seen no battles, or a sports athlete who has never experienced any crushing losses).

I think one message here is that the totality of our life experience (the good and the bad) should be accepted for what it is. Bad things happen. Mistakes happen. Some parts of life might not even be fair. But learning from it (and lifting ourselves higher through this knowledge) is better than avoiding or fighting it.

(If I've completely botched Soren Kierkegaard's premise about the differing modes of life, I would like to apologize in advance, and I'm open to corrections and other interpretations).


Finally, what I found very interesting was the poster Malick chose for Knight of Cups. It's an old illustration (from the 1700s or 1800s?) but here we see spheres and earthly/spiritual imagery. So either the Kierkegaard connection was a coincidence (and maybe Malick had other philosophers in mind) or was intentional, and meant to signify Rick's transcendence from the lowest sphere to a higher one.

http://i.imgur.com/ev2IPfo.jpg