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Film Discussion => The Vault => Topic started by: MacGuffin on May 28, 2011, 03:26:02 PM

Title: Knight of Cups
Post by: MacGuffin on May 28, 2011, 03:26:02 PM
Terrence Malick May Shoot *Another* New Film As Early As This Summer
Untitled Romance Starring Ben Affleck & Rachel McAdams Is Starting To Be Show For Buyers
Source: The Playlist

After taking two decades off between "Days Of Heaven" and the "Thin Red Line," then another seven years until "The New World" and six more years until "The Tree Of Life" which started its limited rollout this weekend, director Terrence Malick is suddenly very, very busy. Last year, he knocked out another film—formerly known as "The Burial"—starring Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem, Barry Pepper and Jessica Chastain and he's still got the universe spanning IMAX documentary "Voyage Of Time" (which was once going to be a companion film to "The Tree Of Life") in the works as well. But the 67-year old helmer is just getting started it seems. 24 Frames have dropped a few updates on where the director is going next, and Malick fans will be thrilled. Not only is the aforementioned, untitled romance now being shopped to buyers—with word coming in that the early footage being screened is even more "experimental" than "The Tree Of Life"—but he's getting ready to shoot another new film this summer. Of course, details are vague to non-existent at this point, but 24 Frames says that Malick's production team are being told to keep their summer and fall open for a possible shoot on a new film. The site goes on to claim "he expects to be finished with this one in a matter of months" but we'll see how it goes. Malick's lengthy and careful editing process could quickly turn months into years. But damn, with three projects now on his slate it looks like the wait for the next film from Malick wont' be so long. The untitled romance in 2012? Let's hope so. We're sure Cannes would love to him back.

--------------------------------------------------

What's next for Terrence Malick after 'The Tree of Life?'
Source: Los Angeles Times

His new movie is coming out this weekend, but hard-core Terrence Malick fans always want to know what's next for the director, even if he himself doesn't always know. Malick has finished shooting his new film, a drama once titled "Burial" and now without a title. Starring Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko, its contents have been shrouded in mystery, as is typical fora Malick project. What is known: It's a love story, and it uses some of the same radical slice-of-life production techniques used on "Tree." One person who worked on the film described it as even more experimental, in fact. It's also the first film Malick has made that's not in period, which should make for a switch for viewers used to his visions of throwback America. There's no U.S. distributor yet for the Affleck movie, but one person who saw a few minutes that are being shown to foreign buyers said that the meditativeness for which Malick is known is there in spades. There was no discernible story or a voice-over in the footage, but shots of Affleck and McAdams in Malick's trademark man-in-nature style. Of course, given the gaps between Malick's movies, the big question is when the 67-year-old's new project will reach theaters. There were at least two sets of reshoots that had the actors flying back to a Paris location after the production was complete, suggesting an elaborate, Malickian level of tinkering. But compared with "Tree," whose haul of effects bogged down the production, Malick's sixth project has considerably fewer visual arabesques. And Malick himself may have offered the biggest clue as to when his new movie might be ready: He has told members of his production team to keep the summer and fall open for a possible shoot of yet another film –-which means he expects to be finished with this one in a matter of months.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Fernando on August 19, 2011, 02:15:13 PM
Christian Bale Reteams With Terrence Malick For Another New Mystery Film
Rooney Mara, Haley Bennet, Clemence Poesy & Mia Wasikowska Vying For Female Lead; Film Will Shoot In Early 2012
source: theplaylist

For much of Terrence Malick's career, his workflow has been defined by single projects taking years at a time to take shape and finish before he moves on to the next one. Now, it seems the guy is making up for lost time. With "The Tree Of Life" hitting theaters this spring, the director currently has his untitled film—aka "The Burial"—in post-production and is also at some stage of development with his "Voyage Of Time" documentary which recently added Emma Thompson as a narrator alongside Brad Pitt. Earlier this year word cropped up that Malick was eyeing staring another film, one that would be small in nature, that would potential shoot late summer/early fall. Not much has been heard since, but it looks like that film is now moving full steam ahead with a early 2012 start being eyed.

Twitch reports that Christian Bale—who starred in "The New World" and was set for "The Burial" but was replaced by Ben Affleck—is set to reteam with the director on the new project. Of course, details are unknown other than it will apparently feature an even smaller cast than "The Burial" (which features Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem, Barry Pepper and Jessica Chastain) which certainly falls in line with earlier reports that Malick intends "to be finished with this one in a matter of months." The story will center around two leads, one male (Bale) and one female, with Rooney Mara, Haley Bennet ("Marley & Me," "Kaboom"), Clemence Poesy and Mia Wasikowska all said to be in contention for the part. And well, that's it.

Of course, when we'll get to see these pics is anybody's guess. The U.K. rights to "The Burial" recently sold to Optimum and we would guess that if indeed its coming next year, another trip to Cannes will be in the works. As for "Voyage Of Time" and this new project whose to say. But with early word that Malick expects to get it done sooner rather than later, that certainly bodes well though anything can happen when the mercurial director gets behind the camera. Hell, his whole vision for the project could change between now and the New Year. But clearly, the 67 year-old director is newly inspired and we couldn't be more excited. Let's hope more details arrive soon.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: picolas on August 19, 2011, 02:42:13 PM
jesus!!! i feel like all this time he was trying to make tree of life in various forms and now that he finally finished it he's like OH AND HERE'S EVERYTHING ELSE I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT. QUICK, BEFORE I DIE!!
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: MacGuffin on September 08, 2011, 04:24:03 PM
Malick picks his next leading lady
Relative unknown could follow in footsteps of Chastain, Spacek
By JUSTIN KROLL, Variety

Terrence Malick's demonstrated taste for unknown female leads has lifted the careers of Sissy Spacek and Jessica Chastain, and now he's chosen his next femme, who will join the helmer's untitled project with Christian Bale.

Malick is writing and directing the project, and while no deal has been struck, sources tell Variety that the auteur has made up his mind as to who will be in next summer's scheduled shoot. Variety reported earlier Thursday that Hayley Bennett was the one, but sources now say another candidate could close the deal.

Clemence Poesy was another in the mix that, despite Malick's affinity for lesser-known female leads, included Rooney Mara and Mia Wasikowska.

Sarah Green and Nicholas Gonda are producing the pic, expected to shoot next summer. As is customary with the director, story details have not been revealed.

Neither WME, which reps Bennett, nor the producers had comment on the casting process.

Malick is currently in post-production on his upcoming untitled film starring Ben Affleck, set for a 2012 release. Though that cast includes well-knowns Rachel McAdams and Rachel Weisz, auteur's previous projects have featured newcomers like Q'orianka Kilcher ("The New World"), Chastain ("Tree of Life") and Spaceck ("Badlands).

Bennett's highest profile roles were a supporting turn in "Marley & Me" and as Molly Hartley in the 2008 film "The Haunting of Molly Hartley." She's currently working on the pilot "Outlaw Country" for FX.

She is repped by WME and The Schiff Company.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Kismet on September 17, 2011, 12:49:51 PM
Hey look it's a bigfoot!
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia2.firstshowing.net%2Ffirstshowing%2Fimg3%2FBaleMalick-ACLphotocombowidetsr1.jpg&hash=75d35c386d614f2673ec1699fb2d7595af0bb3e2)
http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/is-terrence-malick-already-filming-christian-bale-in-his-next-project/ (http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/is-terrence-malick-already-filming-christian-bale-in-his-next-project/)


Head still spinning.

Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Stefen on September 17, 2011, 02:46:53 PM
This was taken at Austin City Limits. Terrence Malick was either filming or hanging out with Christian Bale at a live concert. Terrence Malick is making his second movie in less than 12 months. That is amazing.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Pozer on September 17, 2011, 03:45:27 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia2.firstshowing.net%2Ffirstshowing%2Fimg3%2FBaleMalick-ACLphotocombowidetsr1.jpg&hash=75d35c386d614f2673ec1699fb2d7595af0bb3e2) (https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.musicboxtheatre.com%2Fimages%2Fsized%2Fmbf%2Fposters%2Fterrence_malick_01_thumb-210x281.jpg&hash=b6a927798a555a37a400d6a717d774681fe5451d)

PTA brown shirt aint got nothin on Malick garb!
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: matt35mm on September 17, 2011, 05:01:19 PM
Yup. 2 miles from my house.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: theyarelegion on September 18, 2011, 10:56:25 PM
footage (!) of malick/bale filming a tracking shot at a concert
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/09/live_sasquatch.php
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Stefen on September 18, 2011, 11:20:50 PM
Quote from: theyarelegion on September 18, 2011, 10:56:25 PM
footage (!) of malick/bale filming a tracking shot at a concert
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/09/live_sasquatch.php

lol@1:41 when the girls are talking about how hot Malick is. "He is so hot!"
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Kismet on September 19, 2011, 12:20:53 AM
Wow, pretty amazing stuff!
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: matt35mm on September 19, 2011, 10:42:52 AM
You can see from some of the pictures that this film is being shot on the ALEXA camera. So Malick has gone digital.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Sleepless on September 19, 2011, 11:15:26 AM
I find it hilarious that Bale is so calm and easygoing since this seems to be quite a chaotic and on-the-fly shoot. Given the media's representation of him I wouldn't have thought he'd go for something like that. Whatever this is for, I'm looking forward to seeing the end result.

Anyone else think Bale looks like a 90s Tom Cruise in this?
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: edison on September 19, 2011, 11:54:01 AM
Fuuuuuuuuck!! I was there watching Cut Copy and they were right behind me!  damnit!!
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Ravi on September 19, 2011, 01:22:57 PM
Quote from: matt35mm on September 19, 2011, 10:42:52 AM
You can see from some of the pictures that this film is being shot on the ALEXA camera. So Malick has gone digital.

The film he did with Olga Kurylenko was shot on the Red. He also used it on Tree of Life, though I don't think any of that footage made it into the film.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Ghostboy on September 19, 2011, 02:53:17 PM
Quote from: Ravi on September 19, 2011, 01:22:57 PM
Quote from: matt35mm on September 19, 2011, 10:42:52 AM
You can see from some of the pictures that this film is being shot on the ALEXA camera. So Malick has gone digital.

The film he did with Olga Kurylenko was shot on the Red.

Yeah, but hardly any - it was still mostly good ol' 35mm.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Ravi on September 19, 2011, 03:16:33 PM
Quote from: Ghostboy on September 19, 2011, 02:53:17 PM
The film he did with Olga Kurylenko was shot on the Red.

Yeah, but hardly any - it was still mostly good ol' 35mm.
[/quote]

Didn't know that. If any movie is an advertisement for 35mm, its Tree of Life.

I assume Malick is experimenting with different cameras to see what kind of images they produce. The Alexa is a lower resolution camera than 35mm or the Red, so I wonder why he's trying that camera out.

BTW, is it too late to finagle my way onto the crew of this movie? :ponder:
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: RegularKarate on September 19, 2011, 03:54:02 PM
They were walking all over the place.  There's so much annoying Youtube footage of people spotting Bale and freaking out... then you'd see Malick was shooting the freak-outs too.

Interesting.  I'll bet we never see the footage.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: pete on September 19, 2011, 10:14:58 PM
Quote from: Sleepless on September 19, 2011, 11:15:26 AM
I find it hilarious that Bale is so calm and easygoing since this seems to be quite a chaotic and on-the-fly shoot. Given the media's representation of him I wouldn't have thought he'd go for something like that. Whatever this is for, I'm looking forward to seeing the end result.

Anyone else think Bale looks like a 90s Tom Cruise in this?

bale did a herzog movie; he's down for stuff.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: O. on September 20, 2011, 04:44:47 AM
Here's something for you gents to genitally froth at. A video of Malick directing Bale:

http://www.twitvid.com/TSXER

THANK ME LATER, S'ALL GOOD. ENJOY IT.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Pubrick on September 20, 2011, 10:40:03 AM
Quote from: O on September 20, 2011, 04:44:47 AM
Here's something for you gents to genitally froth at. A video of Malick directing Bale:

http://www.twitvid.com/TSXER

THANK ME LATER, S'ALL GOOD. ENJOY IT.

do you mean exactly the same video posted on the previous page that everyone has been commenting on nonstop for the last few days?

O my..
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: O. on September 20, 2011, 11:39:22 AM
look man i don't have time to READ things, i'm here for glory
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Sleepless on September 20, 2011, 12:12:20 PM
Exactly. That's almost as bad as having to hit a link to another website. Who has the time for that?
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: polkablues on September 21, 2011, 11:50:52 PM
Quote from: O on September 20, 2011, 11:39:22 AM
look man i don't have time to READ things, i'm here for glory

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi35.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fd179%2Fpolkablues%2FBF.jpg&hash=8d6fa6209c20f23313124f3de6ac1adacc8d554b)

Go for the glory, Huck.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: wilder on November 01, 2011, 03:44:11 PM
AFM: FilmNation Unveils Back To Back Terrence Malick Films 'Lawless' And 'Knight Of Cups,' With Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale And Cate Blanchett
via Deadline

(Los Angeles, CA) November 2, 2011 – FilmNation Entertainment is continuing their relationship with acclaimed director Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, The Thin Red Line) and handling international sales and distribution on his next two films. LAWLESS will star Ryan Gosling (Drive, The Ides of March) and boasts a supporting cast that includes Academy Award Winners Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, The Flowers of War), Cate Blanchett (The Hobbit, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) plus Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Social Network) and Haley Bennett (Marley & Me, The Haunting of Molly Hartley).

The second film, KNIGHT OF CUPS, will star Christian Bale with a supporting cast including Cate Blanchett and Isabel Lucas (Immortals, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). Both films are currently in pre-production and will shoot back-to-back in 2012. Sarah Green (Untitled Terrence Malick Project, The Tree of Life, The New World, Take Shelter, Mud) and Nicolas Gonda (Untitled Terrence Malick Project, The Tree of Life, The New World) will serve as the producers on both films with FilmNation Entertainment handling international sales during this week's AFM.

Glen Basner, CEO of FilmNation Entertainment commented: "FilmNation couldn't be happier to continue to act as Terrence's international sales agency. Terrence is a brilliant filmmaker and an enormous draw for talent and filmmakers alike. We look forward to robust sales at AFM on both of these films."

"Glen Basner and the entire FilmNation team continue to be excellent partners. We are thrilled to be working with them again to bring these extraordinary projects to audiences around the world", commented producers Sarah Green and Nicolas Gonda.

CAA will represent domestic rights to both films.

FilmNation Entertainment has secured sales for all territories on Malick's next currently untitled film starring Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem and Rachel Weisz. The following territories and respective distributors have been confirmed: Studio Canal UK in the United Kingdom; Roadshow Films in Australia/New Zealand; VVS Films in Canada, Ster Kinekor in South Africa; West in CIS; Metropolitan Film in France, Rai in Italy; Vertigo Films in Spain; Studio Canal Germany in Germany; Odeon in Greece/Cyprus; Sam Films in Iceland; A-Film in Benelux; LEV Cinemas in Israel; Italia Film International in Middle East; Lusomundo Audiovisuais in Portugal; Nordisk Film in Scandinavia; Elite Film in Switzerland; Kalinos Filmcilik in Turkey; Eastern European Acquisition Pool in Bulgaria, Czech/Slovak, Hungary, Poland and Romania; Cinemania Group is Ex-Yugoslavia; Sun Distribution Group in Latin America; HGC in China; PT Amero in Indonesia; Studio Solution Group in Taiwan and IPA in Thailand.

In addition, FilmNation Entertainment is handling international sales for the following titles at AFM: The Comedian starring Robert De Niro and Kristen Wiig and to be directed by Sean Penn; untitled Snow White project with Lily Collins and Julia Roberts; Jeff Nichols' Mud starring Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon; Oren Peli's untitled project; Zhang Yimou's epic The Flowers of War; Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike starring Channing Tatum and Alex Pettyfer; Wettest County starring Shia LaBeouf; Gambit starring Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz; Looper starring Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt; Crush starring Lucas Till; Under the Skin with Scarlett Johannson; and Midnight's Children.

Source (http://tinyurl.com/4ym5zve)

Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Sleepless on November 01, 2011, 04:59:16 PM
It's so weird that whenever I see this thread under "unread posts" I roll my eyes and think "Another one?"
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on November 01, 2011, 05:09:25 PM
WAIT. WAIT WAIT WAIT.

At the ever accelerating rate these movies keep coming, Malick seems to be spiraling towards some zero-point. They're so close now, these two even stick together, with Bale and Blanchett. Maybe he's heading towards a never-ending movie, that circle in the middle.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scene-stealers.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2011%2F06%2Fspiral-tree-of-life.jpg&hash=a1a09518bc479d3cf048d182491ac76abfed37f7)
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: MacGuffin on February 08, 2012, 03:30:07 PM
Natalie Portman Sets First Post-Oscar Roles, Back To Back Terrence Malick Films
Source: Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Natalie Portman has committed to her first two movie roles since winning the Best Actress Oscar for Black Swan and taking maternity leave. Portman is joining the casts of the Terrence Malick films Knight Of The Cups, and Lawless. Portman will join Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett and Isabel Lucas in Knight of the Cups, which shoots this summer. She will follow by starring with Ryan Gosling, Bale, Blanchett, Rooney Mara and Haley Bennett in Lawless, the film Malick shoots in the fall. It will be Portman's first time working with Malick, whose The Tree of Life won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and is nominated for Best Picture and Best Director Oscars.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: malkovich on February 08, 2012, 04:49:27 PM
I'm waiting for Malick to cast someone I'm just mehh about but I'm not quite sure that'll happen...
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: MacGuffin on February 23, 2012, 08:20:51 PM
Official Logline For Terrence Malick's 'Lawless' Reveals Tale Of "Sexual Obsession And Betrayal"
Source: Playlist

It looks like a layer from Terrence Malick's otherwise mysterious "Lawless" has been peeled back. The film, one of two the director will shoot this year, has been working under a veil of secrecy thus far, but it looks like that pre-production work last fall at the Austin City Limits music festival was a good practice round for the upcoming film. And a new logline for the film reveals another interesting thematic turn for the helmer.

Production company FilmNation has a logline for the film that describes the plot as following "two intersecting love triangles. It is a story of sexual obsession and betrayal set against the music scene in Austin, Texas." And well, that's all we have for now, but it's the biggest detail yet about the film that is set to star a great cast including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara and Haley Bennett. And Malick fans might want to snap up some passes for this year's Austin City Limits fest, as we're guessing the director will be back.

Before the end of last year, Mara revealed that the film wouldn't be shooting until September ("Knight Of Cups" is slated to shoot first this summer). Given that we now know the film will be playing out against the backdrop of the music scene in Austin, we wouldn't be surprised if the production schedules add some additional time to hit the festival again when it runs from October 12-14.

Either way, it's an interesting revelation about the film which finds Malick moving yet again in another bold new direction. The official word on "Knight Of Cups" is that it will be a "separate narrative" from "Lawless" but given the casting crossover between both films (Bale, Blancett and Portman feature in both films, which seems like at least one love triangle), we wonder...
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Sleepless on February 24, 2012, 09:31:55 AM
Excited.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Drenk on May 15, 2013, 06:09:13 AM
Knight of Cups.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKTS9G1CUAAW8gD.jpg)

Natalie doesn't want to dance.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on May 15, 2013, 06:16:21 AM
She probably saw To The Wonder.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Sleepless on May 15, 2013, 02:34:18 PM
All twirled out?
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Drenk on December 15, 2014, 02:51:39 PM
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: wilder on December 15, 2014, 02:56:34 PM
Wow this looks awesome
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Axolotl on December 15, 2014, 05:21:52 PM
Holy shit that looks fantastic
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: polkablues on December 15, 2014, 05:26:57 PM
Beautiful. It's like the best side of Malick sprinkled with the best side of Aronofsky.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Robyn on December 15, 2014, 05:58:48 PM
Yeah, I just watched the trailer and i'm glad you guys are as excited as me. This Looks great.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Kellen on December 16, 2014, 12:19:19 AM
looking forward to this.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: samsong on December 16, 2014, 12:31:08 AM
any and all new malick is cause for celebration for me so being excited about this is par for the course, but it really does look amazing. 

what the fuck is a knight of cups?

god bless the internet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_of_Cups

"If the card is upright, it represents change and new excitements, particularly of a romantic nature. It can mean invitations, opportunities, and offers. The Knight of Cups is a person who is a bringer of ideas, opportunities and offers. He is constantly bored, and in constant need of stimulation, but also artistic and refined. He represents a person who is amiable, intelligent, and full of high principles, but a dreamer who can be easily persuaded or discouraged.

Reversed, the card represents unreliability and recklessness. It indicates fraud, false promises and trickery. It represents a person who has trouble discerning when and where the truth ends and lies begin."

i'm thankful malick is still making movies.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Pwaybloe on December 16, 2014, 06:40:42 AM
I agree with everyone else that this looks like it has some heavy potential. This looks like a very hard right turn for Malick. Let's hope he doesnt decide to edit all what you see in the trailer out of the final product, like he is apt to doing.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Sleepless on December 16, 2014, 11:15:04 AM
The official synopsis is golden:

Once there was a young prince whose father, the king of the East, sent him down into Egypt to find a pearl. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king, forgot about the pearl and fell into a deep sleep. Rick's (Bale) father used to read this story to him as a boy. The road to the East stretches out before him. Will he set forth?
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Kellen on February 08, 2015, 01:57:33 PM
Berlin Film Review: 'Knight of Cups' (http://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/berlin-film-review-knight-of-cups-1201425546/) (Justin Chang, Variety)

Knight of Cups review: Natalie Portman and Christian Bale can't help Malick weave his magic (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/knight-of-cups-review-natalie-portman-and-christian-bale-cant-help-malick-weave-his-magic-10031874.html) (Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent)

Berlin 2015 review: Knight of Cups - MALICK'S BACK! With the least interesting spiritual crisis in history -  ** (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/08/knight-of-cups-review-film-terrence-malick-christian-bale) (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

Berlinale 2015: Knight of Cups (http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/features/articles/berlinale-2015-knight-of-cups-29196) (Sophie Monks Kaufman)

Knight of Cups Berlin 2015 Review (http://thefilmstage.com/reviews/berlin-review-knight-of-cups/) (Giovanni Marchini Camia, The Film Stage)

Berlin review: Terrence Malick's 'Knight of Cups' Starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, & Natalie Portman (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/berlin-review-terrence-malicks-knight-of-cups-starring-christian-bale-cate-blanchett-and-natalie-portman-20150208) (Jessica Kiang, The Playlist)

Berlin Review: Terence Malick's 'Knight of Cups' Pushes the Director's Style to Its Limits (http://www.indiewire.com/article/berlin-review-terrence-malicks-knight-of-cups-pushes-the-directors-style-to-its-limits-20150208) (Eric Kohn, Indiewire)

Knight of Cups: 'lost in abstraction' - *** (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/knight-of-cups/review/) (Tim Robey, The Telegraph)

'Knight of Cups': Berlin Review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/knight-cups/review/771145?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thr%2Fnews+%28The+Hollywood+Reporter+-+Top+Stories%29) (Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter)

Berlin 2015: 'Knight of Cups' review - *** (http://www.cine-vue.com/2015/02/berlin-2015-knight-of-cups-review.html) (Patrick Gamble, CineVue)
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Lottery on February 08, 2015, 03:50:04 PM
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F4OIW8rP.jpg&hash=18dcb13c0f2c58eea9486fc9ae8f5571345a9958)

I didn't understand all the excitement behind the trailer in this thread but this is one nice poster.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: jenkins on February 08, 2015, 08:09:33 PM
Quote from: Kellen on February 08, 2015, 01:57:33 PM
MALICK'S BACK! With the least interesting spiritual crisis in history -  ** (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/08/knight-of-cups-review-film-terrence-malick-christian-bale) (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

bummed because "the least interesting spiritual crisis in history" was the working title for my autobiography
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Kellen on February 10, 2015, 04:59:11 PM
Film review: Knight of Cups is Terrence Malick's worst (http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150210-terrence-malicks-worst-film-ever) (Nicholas Barber, BBC)

In Knight of Cups, Terrence Malick doesn't even get the shoes right (http://www.laweekly.com/film/berlin-film-festival-in-knight-of-cups-terrence-malick-doesnt-even-get-the-shoes-right-5380394) (Stephanie Zacharek, laweekly)

BERLIN 2015: COME ON, PILGRIM: TERRENCE MALICK'S "KNIGHT OF CUPS" (http://www.rogerebert.com/festivals-and-awards/berlin-2015-come-on-pilgrim-terrence-malicks-knight-of-cups) (Neil Young, rogerebert.com)

"In fact, Knight of Cups is full of Malick's standard tropes, right down to its many twirling female love interests. But even in To the Wonder, the tropes still carried a genuinely meaningful charge: Olga Kurylenko's frequent gyrations in that film expressed—rapturously, to these eyes—an openness to fresh experience in an unfamiliar environment that would tragically curdle into disillusionment as the film went on. No such sense of, well, wonder exists in this film's soulless world" (http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/berlinale-review-knight-of-cups) (Kenji Fujishima, slant magazine)
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on February 16, 2015, 04:49:41 AM
It was dangerous to wait a few days before writing this. I saw the film on Friday and by now it's dreaminess has melted together and a lot of details are vague. Add to that the fact that my initially strongly negative reaction seems to have been dampened by Jenks' plea for me to consider it as a standalone film, divorced from expectations stemming from Malick's other films. Which is difficult, if not impossible, but I think that has triggered this film lingering more in my head, and giving it the benefit of doubt.

These were my initial thoughts: By now Malick's themes and tropes are so repetitive and general that you could put reactions from one film into another and have pretty much the same effect. He seems afraid to be specific. Everyone is interchangeable. Malick is building a sizeable archive of Manic Pixie Twirl Girls. The voice overs are by now little more than clichés.

In general, I felt too outside of Bale's character. Though, seeing that this is a film about someone who feels outside of everything, maybe that's not a negative.

Form-wise, Malick seems pretty much set now. It's ironic that such an experimental form as his didn't seem at all fresh to me, but I realise that's probably more a problem of my expectations and not of the potentials of the form itself.

These are some other thoughts: There are some superficial novelties that brings a bit of freshness into this. The choice of a contemporary urban setting and the use of iPhone-like footage is a welcome and fitting addition to his pallet and on the soundtrack Burial was a great choice and a surprisingly perfect fit for Malick's form. I got shivers when "Ashtray Wasp" grew up around Bale's decadence.

An excellent recurring visual is how Bale always seems to hover around the backs of the other characters, sliding in and out of the frame.

That's all I can say for now. The specifics are all mushed up, and the second viewing will probably be my first.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: jenkins on February 16, 2015, 05:12:25 AM
hell yeah(ish)

Quote from: Just Withnail on February 16, 2015, 04:49:41 AM
contemporary urban setting and the use of iPhone-like footage is a welcome and fitting addition to his pallet and on the soundtrack Burial was a great choice and a surprisingly perfect fit for Malick's form. I got shivers when "Ashtray Wasp" grew up around Bale's decadence.
love it
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Drenk on June 20, 2015, 02:19:57 PM


Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: cronopio 2 on June 21, 2015, 04:17:42 PM
hmmm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0pdwd0miqs

Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: wilder on July 15, 2015, 02:10:28 AM
For whatever reason I can't stop watching this trailer muted and synced up to Tears For Fears



Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: 03 on July 15, 2015, 02:50:56 AM
holy shit its perfect. how the hell did you figure this out
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on July 15, 2015, 04:50:19 AM
That was great wilder. Xixax keeps making me retroactively love this film.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Robyn on July 15, 2015, 06:37:30 AM
I clicked on this thread expecting a hollywood remake of 2 girls 1 cup set in the middle age. now i'm disappointed.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Robyn on July 15, 2015, 06:57:38 AM
thats great, wilder!

my favorite thing ever is to sync the sound from the sign to the lotus flower video. it's even better then the dark side of the moon and wizard of oz mashup.





the things you do when you are bored.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on March 02, 2016, 09:33:03 AM
Quote from: Just Withnail on February 16, 2015, 04:49:41 AM
That's all I can say for now. The specifics are all mushed up, and the second viewing will probably be my first.

Sadly I reacted pretty much the same after the second viewing, even after going into it extremely set on having an open mind to it. But weirdly, that second viewing was in November, and exactly what happened between the first viewing and that one, has happened between that viewing and now: I really like thinking about the film. Way more than the actual experience of viewing it.

I wanna give it a third chance, maybe that'll be the charmer.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: matt35mm on March 02, 2016, 11:14:09 AM
Quote from: Just Withnail on March 02, 2016, 09:33:03 AM
Quote from: Just Withnail on February 16, 2015, 04:49:41 AM
That's all I can say for now. The specifics are all mushed up, and the second viewing will probably be my first.

Sadly I reacted pretty much the same after the second viewing, even after going into it extremely set on having an open mind to it. But weirdly, that second viewing was in November, and exactly like what happened between the first viewing and that one, has happened between that viewing and now: I really like thinking about the film. Way more than the actual experience of viewing it.

I wanna give it a third chance, maybe that'll be the charmer.

Someday this'll become your favorite movie of all time.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on March 02, 2016, 02:14:50 PM
But probably not while watching it!

Here's a pretty lovely article about the shoot, which mostly retreads familiar ground about his method but adds some pretty interesting and funny details.


BUSINESS INSIDER
This is the most bizarre movie-set story ever — from an actor in mysterious director Terrence Malick's new 'Knight of Cups'


For over 40 years, director Terrence Malick has been one of the most genius and elusive talents in the movie business.
His films can best be described as esoteric fever dreams portraying a person's exploration of life, from adolescence in "Tree of Life" to enduring the madness of war in "The Thin Red Line."

What makes him and his work even more mysterious is that he refuses to do interviews and shies away from public events. In fact, when he's been nominated for Oscars, he hasn't shown up to the ceremony. When asked, the publicist for his latest film,"Knight of Cups" (out Friday), told Business Insider there's no photo of the filmmaker available for this story.

Given Malick's enigmatic persona, it would be fascinating to know if his filmmaking method is as unorthodox as his finished product.

As it turns out, Malick's process is even stranger than his movies.

We found out when we talked to actor Thomas Lennon, who has a brief cameo in Malick's "Knight of Cups" playing a friend of the main character (Christian Bale) as they walk around a Hollywood party. (Others in the scene include Antonio Banderas, Jason Clarke, Ryan O'Neal, Nick Kroll, and Joe Manganiello.)

'No one knows anything about the movie'

Lennon is known for his comedic work, like "Reno 911!," CBS' "The Odd Couple," or his scene-stealing in movies like "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," "Balls of Fury," and "I Love You, Man."
So he's not exactly the kind of actor you'd expect in a Malick film. In fact, the actor told Business Insider he had never seen a Malick film when he got the offer to be in "Knight of Cups" in April of 2012 (the movie has spent two-plus years in post-production, not uncommon for a Malick film).

"I got a call from my agent and he said, 'Do you know Terrence Malick?' And I decided I would try to be a smarty-pants and I said, 'Of course,' but I had never seen any of his films," Lennon told BI. "I was aware of his name like you're aware of names like Atom Egoyan or Ismail Merchant and James Ivory, artsy-fartsy films unlike the things I'm in or write."

But Lennon agreed to the role, without being given any details about who he was playing or what the movie was about. And six weeks before the scheduled shoot, Lennon still hadn't received anything and was starting to get anxious.

"I started making phone calls to people — 'Could you please find out what role I'm playing? Is there a wardrobe fitting?' And the answer I would get back from everyone is, 'No one knows anything about the movie,'" Lennon said.

Three days before the shoot, Lennon was finally told some information: The scene is at a Hollywood party, so he should be dressed as if he were going to a party in the Hollywood Hills.

"That's all I was told," Lennon said.

No script, just a card with an inspirational phrase

Lennon arrived to the set, a mansion in swanky Bel Air. By this point, he'd Googled Malick's picture. Lennon worked his way through the estate and found Christian Bale sitting with Malick by the pool.

"I could only assume it was Terrence Malick because he was the most eccentric-looking person there," Lennon said. "He's in this sort of straw hat, slightly dirty khaki pants, and a real loose, floppy shirt."

They exchanged pleasantries, and then Lennon's good friend, actor Joe Lo Truglio, showed up to also be in the scene.

"We're all standing there and Malick hands out these pieces of paper to all of us," Lennon said. "And the one he gave me said, 'There's no such thing as a fireproof wall.' And I ask, 'Is this something I'm supposed to say in the scene?' and he said, 'I don't know.'"

Lennon learned, after talking to the director, that there was no script, just a phrase that might inspire him when cameras started rolling.

"And then Malick goes, 'Would you like some more? Because I have a whole stack of these.' And I was like, 'I think I'm good,'" Lennon said.

Lennon later asked Bale while Malick was away:

Lennon: "Is this how it goes?

Bale: "Yeah."

Lennon: "Every day?"

Bale: "Yeah."

Lennon: "How long have you been doing this?"

Bale: "This is, like, day 25."

11 hours of shooting for 1 minute of screen time

When Malick came back, Lennon asked him what the scene was about. Malick started off by saying that in the movie, Bale plays a Hollywood screenwriter, and Lennon didn't need to hear anything else — he suddenly knew why he was there.

"I was cast as Christian [Bale]'s douchey Hollywood Hills friend. I realized if his character was a shallow Hollywood screenwriter, two of his really good friends probably would be Joe Lo Truglio and me," Lennon said. "Terrence Malick actually is a genius."

But it would take time for Lennon to grasp what the director wanted. He, Truglio, and Bale began walking around the mansion, improvising their lines. For 11 full hours. Keep in mind the party scene, in the finished film, lasts about five minutes, and Lennon has at most a minute of screen time.

"Sometimes we would go outside, where the party was growing with more people," Lennon said. "Sometimes Malick would stop and introduce a new cinematographer: 'Guys, this is Marta, she's an up-and-coming DP from Mexico City and she's going to film the scene for a while.' And sometimes Christian would take a GoPro and shoot something."

The actors were also strictly instructed, according to Lennon, to make it as difficult as possible for the camera operator to shoot them, never standing in a way that they were squared up with the camera.
At one point, Lennon says, Malick halted the scene and brought in a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon to star alongside them.

Lennon admits that for the first few hours, he was "unbelievably distressed."

"I would ask, 'Like that Terrence?' and he would be like, 'Great, it's all great.'"

Filming Lennon's very real fight with his wife

Then things got even weirder.

During a lunch break, Lennon was speaking to his wife over the phone offset. Since the shoot would likely last a full day, Lennon had to change plans with his family. He and his wife got into an argument over the phone.

"We were basically yelling at each other," Lennon said. "And at that point Malick himself came up to me with a camera with a stubby lens and got, I'm not kidding, eight inches away from my face, filming me having this totally real fight with my wife. At first I felt it was kind of an invasion of privacy and then I was like, 'F--- it, this is the realest thing that has happened all day.'"

'An absolutely bats--- crazy day'

Eventually Lennon finally got comfortable with the whole shoot, and it turned out to be, he said, "The single most fun day I've ever had on a movie set ever.

"What I realized was, Malick loves to be on his feet and just making movies," Lennon said. "I don't mean the editing, just the location, shooting a scene, and letting things happen. I mean, it was honestly an absolutely bats--- crazy day. But I would have instantly come back and done it another day if the opportunity came up."

Lennon said he got a big hug from Malick when the day wrapped. He still has no idea exactly why he was called for the part or if Malick has even seen his own work. Three years after shooting, he'll finally see himself in "Knight of Cups" when it's out this week.

"I'll be honest, until they asked me to do some press, I had no idea I was in the film at all," Lennon said with a laugh.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on March 02, 2016, 02:49:15 PM
Wow, that was hilarious and enlightening. I want to call out my favorite parts, but I don't want to spoil anything.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: ElPandaRoyal on March 02, 2016, 05:29:09 PM
That was funny! One thing that keeps popping in my head, and it maybe just happened because I saw this the same week the Oscars happened, but after a few days of people talking about all the Hollywood glamour bullshit, here is a movie that gets some amazing, beautiful shots around Hollywood and beautiful people to be in it, and completely de-glamourizes everything. It's the saddest beauty I think I've ever seen. Did I like the movie? I don't know, and I don't really care. I'm just glad I've seen it.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Lottery on March 03, 2016, 04:50:30 AM
Definitely a cool insight into Malick's process. I do like the idea of Malick's style focused on Hollywood, seems like a nice change from the typical sublime sort of stuff he works with. Suddenly interested in watching this again.
There's somthing so fascinating about the process- I mean, typically you have a scene where a moment is created, staged and observed but with Malick- you get the feeling that the moment has always existed and luckily enough someone was there to capture it.

Also, damn, that Tears for Fears thing never fails to impress me. It should be official.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on March 03, 2016, 05:22:00 AM
For me, as interesting as it is reading about the process, I think it might have ruined a lot of the experience of these last couple of films of his. I feel like I can tell actors have little idea of what they're doing, often emoting without a feeling that it comes from within the character. Like I said a few pages back (or in another thread?), after Tree of Life I wanted Malick to go further and further into twirly-territory, to push his form to the boundaries of abstraction and find intensity of emotion in these violent juxtapositions that he used to do so well.

Since his form was recently hovering so close it felt like there could be very interesting possibilities for him there. But as he's actually gone more towards abstraction the intensity has been replaced by a flatness for me. The images don't seem to crash anymore, and I feel like he's lost a grounding in character that I now feel was a very important reason why his previous films work. The form has become so washed out now, saying the same thing over and over (both from film to film and within each film), and the additions to his pallet of the various digital cameras and an urban setting, that could have welcomed back this intensity of form, instead become just cosmetic additions.

Bah, I'll stop talking now, this was a lot of negativity. One day I'll write about the things I do like about it.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Ghostboy on March 03, 2016, 02:05:16 PM
This is all true.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Drenk on March 03, 2016, 03:34:45 PM
I loved how this movie showed the character walking inside his own memories. It felt like watching LA as if I were remembering the town. I've never been to LA. It's thin on character, but less than To the Wonder: I liked Bale's journey. That man is stuck. Sometimes, the movie is, too. But never too much. I liked it, a lot...
After disliking To the Wonder a lot, I'm glad to see that Malick's new method doesn't only propose what seems like auto-parody—to me, at least. And I'm very curious to see the next one.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: jenkins on March 03, 2016, 04:14:27 PM
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on March 02, 2016, 05:29:09 PM
completely de-glamourizes everything. It's the saddest beauty I think I've ever seen. Did I like the movie? I don't know, and I don't really care. I'm just glad I've seen it.

Quote from: Lottery on March 03, 2016, 04:50:30 AM
I mean, typically you have a scene where a moment is created, staged and observed but with Malick- you get the feeling that the moment has always existed and luckily enough someone was there to capture it.

Quote from: Just Withnail on March 03, 2016, 05:22:00 AM
a flatness for me. The images don't seem to crash anymore, and I feel like he's lost a grounding in character

Quote from: Drenk on March 03, 2016, 03:34:45 PM
I loved how this movie showed the character walking inside his own memories. It felt like watching LA as if I were remembering the town.

i like remembering the manufacturing of ourselves as characters is part of the illusion we create for ourselves. Seinfeld and Obama chat this topic in Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. movies are reflections of reality, characters are reflections of reality, and reality is this strange thing in the center (which no one appears able to control).

monadism, which has been crawling through my mind recently, it's a philosophical perspective on metaphysics. it's not wrong to say that Malick brings philosophical game. this is an example of a philosophical perspective that could so easily welcome Malick with open arms:

QuotePhilosophical conclusions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monadology)

This theory leads to:

1. Idealism, since it denies things in themselves (besides monads) and multiplies them in different points of view. Monads are "perpetual living mirrors of the universe."

2. Metaphysical optimism, through the principle of sufficient reason, developed as follows:

a) Everything exists according to a reason (by the axiom "Nothing arises from nothing");

b) Everything which exists has a sufficient reason to exist;

c) Everything which exists is better than anything non-existent (by the first point: since it is more rational, it also has more reality), and, consequently, it is the best possible being in the best of all possible worlds (by the axiom: "That which contains more reality is better than that which contains less reality").

description of monads:
Quotethey are eternal, indecomposable, individual, subject to their own laws, un-interacting, and each reflecting the entire universe in a pre-established harmony (a historically important example of panpsychism). [...] Monads are centers of force; substance is force, while space, matter, and motion are merely phenomenal.

i'm not trying to generate a conversation on monads, i'm not a scholar on this topic, or attempting to provide a concrete perspective on this movie.  it's that what i hear about this movie overlaps with current thoughts of me. that's a Malick talent indeed. recently i've been thinking of characters as vehicles for stories, our lives not being the stories we turn them into. i think character creation has its pros/cons, and humans have another larger story for themselves (which no one appears able to control).

so it's that hearing about this movie revs up my motor, makes me excited. thanks.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on March 05, 2016, 08:31:13 AM
I don't so much criticise the lack of character creation and the lack of story per se, but the way it's handled. Like I said, I very much wanted him to go further towards abstraction, and with that I fully expected his characters to go even more towards archetypal territory, becoming less classically character-psychologically realist. But I feel the road he takes to get there, makes all the emotion happen on the surface of the actors, making me see the acting rather than the feel the function of the emotions.

To go with the theme of not being in control, that you mention: to me it seems all to controlled, ironically. Not by the director, but by the actors. It feels like he's created an environment where he delegates all the control and responsibility to them (leaving many of them frustrated), and the randomness of his cards. To be sure, this goes excellently together with the theme of lack of control that you mention, and it could work as a metaphor for this. But a side-effect is that I see all too often when the actors are emoting, just because. I don't see a character who is in lack of control of his emotions or destiny, but an actor who in a very controlled and willed way forces out an emotion, now.

Compare the people who inhabit Malicks latest films, with say, the people in a Béla Tarr film, who deals with similar themes of cosmic alienation and lack of control over ones fate but often in an incredibly controlled, choreographed way. Tarr's characters can be similarly archetypal, we can be given mere snippets of information about them, and often they talk only in poetic monologues, like with Malick. But they always feel like they have a life outside the frame, and their emotions feel like they come from the inside. The display of utterly chaotic life and surrender to emotion seen in the long dance sequence in Satantango, in a completely fixed frame, contains to me a much stronger image of lack of control than anything in Knight of Cups.

Apples and oranges, to be sure, and one does not negate the other, but this is just to say that controlling the process can create a masterpiece about lack of control, and lack of control in the process doesn't necessarily translate into a good film about lack of control.

But, yes, again, I'm glad this movie exists.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Just Withnail on March 10, 2016, 04:27:30 AM
So when I say I actually like thinking about this film, reading pieces like these only amplifies that:


Terrence Malick's "Knight of Cups" Challenges Hollywood to Do Better
BY RICHARD BRODY

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/terrence-malicks-knight-of-cups-challenges-hollywood-to-do-better

Perhaps no film in the history of cinema follows the movement of memory as faithfully, as passionately, or as profoundly as Terrence Malick's new film, "Knight of Cups." It's an instant classic in several genres—the confessional, the inside-Hollywood story, the Dantesque midlife-crisis drama, the religious quest, the romantic struggle, the sexual reverie, the family melodrama—because the protagonist's life, like most people's lives, involves intertwined strains of activity that don't just overlap but are inseparable from each other. The movie runs less than two hours and its focus is intimate, but its span seems enormous—not least because Malick has made a character who's something of an alter ego, and he endows that character with an artistic identity and imagination as vast and as vital as his own.

As such, "Knight of Cups" is one of the great recent bursts of cinematic artistry, a carnival of images and sounds that have a sensual beauty, of light and movement, of gesture and inflection, rarely matched in any movie that isn't Malick's own. Here, he—and his cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki—surpass themselves. Where "The Tree of Life" is filled with memories, is even about memory, "Knight of Cups" is close to a first-person act of remembering, and the ecstatic power of its images and sounds is a virtual manifesto, and confession, of the cinematic mind at work. It's a mighty act of self-portraiture in dramatic action and in directorial creation. And because "Knight of Cups" is about the world of movie-making itself and is set mainly in and around Hollywood, it's also a vision of the modern world, the world of inescapable images and of their dubious demiurges, of whom the movie's protagonist, a screenwriter named Rick (played by Christian Bale), is one.

At the beginning of the film, Rick is trying to remember: he recalls, in voice-over, as if addressing his father, a legend about a knight whose father sent him out West in search of treasure—and who, there, was served a drink that made him forget his quest, his origins, himself. The "West" for Rick and the movie is Los Angeles. He has been there for thirty years and feels lost—specifically, feels not like a whole person but like "fragments—pieces of a man" (a marvelous echo of Gil Scott-Heron's 1971 album). Surfacing from a Lethe of his own making, Rick wants to remember, and it's one of the movie's majestic paradoxes that his desire to make himself whole involves not an artificial synthesis from the start but the acceptance of fragments—of incidents, experiences, episodes, impressions—from which their own unifying principle will arise. "Knight of Cups" is Rick's act of remembering, and it follows the strange double logic of memory—the triggering efforts of willful thought and the free-flowing associations of the unconscious mind.

Between a snippet from "Pilgrim's Progress" announcing the vision of a dream and some intertitles derived from tarot cards (and there's a brief scene of a card reading, in Serbian, to bring the theme into action), Malick offers the slightest hint of metaphor to fleeting moments, to visions and sounds that bring pieces of Rick's latter-day life (as well as flashes of childhood) rushing ahead with an irrepressible energy. The movie organizes itself around several intimate dramas, especially one that recurs throughout the film, the furious and violent bond that Rick has with his father (Brian Dennehy) and brother (Wes Bentley), as well as the death of a third (unseen) brother, which stokes their agony and rage to white heat.

It turns out that the main incidents in Rick's life, as he sees it, are his relationships with women—some that are bonds of obvious emotional depth, such as his marriage to a doctor (Cate Blanchett), with whom he didn't have children, to his regret, and his fiercely tender relationship with a married woman (Natalie Portman), and others that are obviously more fleeting, as with an undefined Hollywood starlet (Imogen Poots), a model (Freida Pinto), and a pole dancer (Teresa Palmer).

But, crucially to Malick's sensibility, these latter characters are at least as sharply lucid about their own lives and about their relationships to Rick as are characters of apparently greater intellectual achievement. The dancer speaks insightfully to Rick about her work and its place in her life, as well as in his own, and Rick recalls her with admiration—as he does the starlet, seemingly a lighthearted playgirl of no obvious professional accomplishment, who nails his heart to the wall when telling him, "You don't want love, you want a love experience."

Rick has also had several one-night (or one-day) stands, even a casual threesome, and the movie flickers, intermittently, with his brief recollection of sexual pleasure and the sensual, visual pleasure that goes with it—albeit with an inhibited man's wistful, slightly self-satirizing detachment mingling delight and regret. (What an idea: that several women with whom Rick had flings years ago should still somehow loom large in his memory years later, and with frank—yet reticently abashed—delight in their bodies! Let other critics throw the first stone.)

Hollywood is a party scene, and Rick has taken part in its revelry. There's only a little bit of time spent on the business of movies—a few brief meetings with executives, a moment on a set alongside a horse—but lots of time recalling the social side of Hollywood, from vaguely erotic frolics to a formal industry bash where Antonio Banderas, Ryan O'Neal, and Bruce Wagner turn up. (Banderas delivers the movie's exemplary Hollywood-asshole line, explaining that he changes women as if they were flavors of ice cream.) There's a relaxed Las Vegas disco party, where Rick has trouble relaxing. Malick doesn't depict Rick as a man of woe but as an introvert thrust into an extrovert's playground, as someone who has trouble throwing himself wholeheartedly into the throng because he has the habit of standing back from the event even while within it. (As the model played by Pinto tells Rick, "You told me that sometimes you felt like a spy, always had to pretend.") An intellectual near-prude who may never have gone near a strip club before getting to Hollywood, an ambivalent party-goer, not a man of the night life, Rick is watching the events from afar, and also seeing himself there, with some embarrassment—and, all the while, he's filled with images, not ones that he's actively composing but ones that compose themselves in his mind.

That very vision of spontaneous inner creation is at the core of the film. Lubezki has won Oscars three years in a row—twice for his work with Alejandro González Iñárritu and, before that, for filming Alfonso Cuarón's "Gravity," a trio of films in which he normalizes, rationalizes, and banalizes the boundary-breaking styles that he developed with Malick (it's like giving Leonardo DiCaprio an Oscar for "The Revenant" rather than for "The Wolf of Wall Street"). Where, for Iñárritu and Cuarón, Lubezki provides a mere adornment to their narrative, for Malick he creates a new way of cinematic seeing—because Malick himself creates a new mode of directing.

For Malick, the cinema is also a matter of the unconscious, of indeterminacy, of tension between decision and accident. Most of the movie's images are done with a handheld camera, and most of them involve so much motion, on the part of the actors and the camera alike, that they would defy, in the rapidity of their complexity, any attempt to calibrate them in advance to the exact framing and composition. Malick creates the circumstances under which Lubezki can make these images; Lubezki, untethered to storyboards, roaming freely around and past the action, collects images that embody Malick's ideas and emotions without being overdetermined by his intentions.

These images, brilliant and radiant with a love of light, rapturous with a love of motion, bring to the cinema a big and great idea: the overcoming of the distinction between subject and object, between recording and imagination. The images are both of and from Rick, showing the practicalities of his experience, his sensory apprehension of them, and his inward visual projection of them at the same time, in the same shot.

No less important than the images is the freedom with which Malick edits them. Recognizing that the memorable things that people say aren't necessarily memorable moments of life, Malick separates the image and the sound, including snippets of synchronized dialogue along with snippets of voice-overs, turning the words themselves into images. He separates scenes into nodules of dramas that unleash their implications in flashes packed with imaginative potential. The full version of "Knight of Cups," unfolded in the familiar styles of dialogue-centered dramatic scenes in chronological order, would be a multivolume monster.

Yet, in another sublime paradox, this very dramatic compression and abstraction renders the remarkable cast's performances all the more powerful. Malick moves them into a middle ground between the theatrical and the existential. The actors are neither leached of expression in undefined situations nor composing continuously psychological characterizations. Rather, Malick creates an acting style that's in between, filled with dramatic power but rooted in how they move, how they talk, how their glances flash. Malick's incisively fragmented and recomposed editing emphasizes the actors' strongest and most emblematic moments. He turns the fluid frames into mnemonic spaces of movement, gesture, and inflection that burn them into consciousness exactly as they're burned into Rick's, and into Malick's own.

"Knight of Cups" is also very much a Los Angeles movie, and it features some of the most aesthetically ambivalent architectural modernism since Antonioni's heyday. In "The Tree of Life," skyscrapers mocked the ambition and marked the alienation of the protagonist, whereas, in "Knight of Cups," Rick can't help delighting in the soaring forms and shining light of the modern city, from its glass-and-steel towers and marble halls to the lights and lines of the street as seen from the rush of the cars that he drives. (It's no less a poem of Los Angeles—and of the view of the city from moving cars—than is Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere.")

It's a movie of the many cities in one—a city of seemingly limitless luxury and almost supernatural refinement, as in a glisteningly white, cavernous, and ornate Versailles-like reception hall built like gilded whorls of whipped cream. There's the natural paradise of the beach and the ocean, the inferno of cracked desert flats, and the wastelands of abandoned cottages and uninhabited hills. There's the workaday face of the city, with its storefront closeups and its luminous nighttime streets; there's crime and hardship, as in a scene where Rick's brother takes him on a tour of the streets where he endured his own down-and-out days; there's physical ruin, as in scenes of the hospital where Rick's wife tends to patients who seem to suffer from grave maladies (perhaps even leprosy); and there's the suave suburb where Rick and his wife lived—and the staff who keep it looking suave.

Within its lavishly overflowing beauty, "Knight of Cups" is an angrily prescriptive film, the contention of which is: the bullshit of Hollywood lives is reflected in the bullshit of Hollywood movies, including the ones that Malick has made. If filmmakers can make films in which they see that bullshit for themselves and let other people see it, too, they might well find a way both to live differently and to work differently.

The crucial question of the modern novel is memory—specifically, the tension between fiction and nonfiction, between the sharp-edged exclusivity of the contours of a finely crafted story and the loose-ended and associatively meandering and indeterminate formlessness of experience as captured (or trapped) in memory. That's why the grand landmarks of literary modernity—such as those of Proust, Joyce, Woolf, Bellow, Hemingway, Faulkner, Duras, and the Roths (Henry and Philip)—are simultaneously struggles with the irrepressible profusion of memory and the hotly forged imperatives of style and idealizing abstractions of form. The cinema has lagged behind; some of its modernists—including Jean-Luc Godard and Chantal Akerman—have made mighty attempts to create a memory-cinema of a distinctive style. In "Knight of Cups," Malick brings the effort to a full and radical flowering. No less than do these reflexive modernists, his contemporaries, Malick has made a movie about the possibility of making a movie, images that are the troubled source of a future cinema.

In its displaced confessional mode, "Knight of Cups" is about the kind of movie that filmmakers make when they're being honest about their experience, and, at the same time, it is, itself, that kind of movie. They'll have affairs; most people do, maybe especially in Hollywood. They'll divorce; many people do, especially in Hollywood. There will be tough business deals and the allure of money; most will yield to it. Luxury is impressive, vulgarity is alluring, and the mighty and gleaming architectural and urbanistic modernity that runs on massive infusions of corporate money and government collusion—well, it can also be spectacularly beautiful. Nature is majestic and terrifying; the leisure to contemplate it is expensive. Physical and emotional pain is everywhere; poverty imposes specific and grievous agony, people who endure it are very nearby, and you're likely to be upset by the sight of those who suffer from it—as you walk past them. Family relationships may suffer; that's a sad commonplace. And there may well be a temptation to leave, to go home, or to go, at least, elsewhere. You are not likely to be an angel; it's not part of the job description for being in the business, or, for that matter, for being an artist. But be honest about your experiences, about your failings—and about your enduring intimations of beauty even in places and situations that you'd hesitate to call beautiful, because the production of beauty in a world of suffering, and from your own suffering, is the closest thing to a higher calling that an artist has, the closest thing to the religious experience that art has to offer.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: jenkins on March 10, 2016, 11:23:49 AM
Quote from: Just Withnail on March 10, 2016, 04:27:30 AM
Where "The Tree of Life" is filled with memories, is even about memory, "Knight of Cups" is close to a first-person act of remembering, and the ecstatic power of its images and sounds is a virtual manifesto, and confession, of the cinematic mind at work.

nice. i also liked when Drenk said this in his lovely French way.

QuoteWithin its lavishly overflowing beauty, "Knight of Cups" is an angrily prescriptive film, the contention of which is: the bullshit of Hollywood lives is reflected in the bullshit of Hollywood movies, including the ones that Malick has made. If filmmakers can make films in which they see that bullshit for themselves and let other people see it, too, they might well find a way both to live differently and to work differently.

this is how i imagine i'd describe it if/when i see/saw this movie.

QuoteThe crucial question of the modern novel is memory—specifically, the tension between fiction and nonfiction, between the sharp-edged exclusivity of the contours of a finely crafted story and the loose-ended and associatively meandering and indeterminate formlessness of experience as captured (or trapped) in memory.

"the tension between fiction and nonfiction" makes me dance.

apparently i like thinking about this film more than i like seeing it, although eventually i'll see it yeah.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on March 16, 2016, 10:05:24 PM
Matt Zoller Seitz has a lovely review:

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/knight-of-cups-2016
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: jenkins on March 30, 2016, 02:51:16 AM
does he begin by quoting The Pilgrim's Progress, then write his own thing? there's the dreamer dreaming part, but i want to quote about how he forgets he's a prince because of drinks that clear his memory.

such a sizzler of an opening v.o. this movie is mostly composed of v.o. the emotional tempo of the editing, especially at the beginning, grabs hold of me. so he pulls me in.

Antonio Banderas is in a party scene, and this is his first v.o.
QuoteTreat this world as it deserves, there are no principles, just circumstances. Nobody's home.

on top of that, Banderas jumps in the pool while entertaining everyone, and taps his shoes to impress a girl.

that's absolutely how i've always dreamed of Antonio Banderas.

on top of that, still at this party, knowing that Malick shoots and shoots and shoots and no one knows what he's going to keep, or what will sound true or important to him, Malick chose to include a moment of Bruce Wagner.

outta town in terms of if Malick holds up for me. in terms of low spirits and utterly followable sequences which overall connect into a portrait of a persistent nothingness.

low spirits are difficult to make compelling in cinema. Malick compelled me. Brian Dennehy didn't do much then suddenly he'd say

QuoteYou think when you reach a certain age things will start making sense, and you find out that you are just as lost as you were before. I suppose that's what damnation is. The pieces of your life never to come together, just splashed out there.

some problems from others might stem from swelling music overlapping into people standing around sometimes. on the beach or in a parking lot, people standing around, kinda pacing about. i like the Vegas parking lot when the guy says ~"i work in the dark but live for the light." (he says roughly that, it's better when imdb has the quote.) that's a great line from a guy standing around in a parking lot for some reason. pacing around the beach. around Venice. walking the bridge toward the Santa Monica pier.  pacing around by the Annenberg Space for Photography. pacing around downtown.

the movie is mostly people pacing around and v.o. i liked it a lot. it was a better idea for me to watch Knight of Cups than watch Tree of Life again.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Gold Trumpet on April 04, 2016, 07:55:55 PM
I actually really loved this film. I'm not even much of a Terrance Malick fan, but I saw a great thought process to the visual layout and a wonderful execution for themes already done in other films but Malick made deeper and more provoking here. I do want to write about it at length because what I'm saying here isn't much.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: Alexandro on June 02, 2016, 06:34:05 PM
I think Just Whitnail nailed it. The problem is the actors improvising over very little information. That's why they all seem to be doing the same shit.
I won't even compare acting here with other filmmaker's films. In Tree of Life you have Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt all playing full round human beings. Penn is quoted as saying the script for that film is the best he's ever read. When actors have information to build characters and get the chance to improvise, they will likely come up with gold. But when they're confused, that's what you get. They all seem confused, not about life, but about the fucking movie.
Now, the film is beautiful to look at, and in that sense it's never boring, but I had the feeling all the way through that I could just stop it and never think about it again and I wouldn't miss it.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: jenkins on June 03, 2016, 07:37:09 PM
"but I had the feeling all the way through that I could just stop it and never think about it again and I wouldn't miss it."

in particular this sentence -- this is how i feel about myself sometimes. if i died today, what. what? oh who cares. then -- am i confused about the right things? do i give gold to this world? on my worst days i'm all confusion and no gold -- and some people only have their worst days, and i think this is a good movie about those types of people.

there's beauty and depression and that's so difficult to accomplish cinematically. i often don't like movies about depressives because the movies themselves become fixated on some problem or another, so in my head i'm like thinking "yup, this isn't a good plan." "should've seen another movie," you know, i think that when i do, but i didn't think that during this movie, and for me personally it's rising in my rankings based on me thinking that it's the difficult perspectives on being human which art should handle.

so i think this movie is about a depressive and i think the movie is depressing, i love/love that it's not some daily problem, personal problem situation, no, this whole movie is the problem, and its overall is lifted by the grace of cinema (if only the same were possible in life...)

repeating myself, really. for the movie. i also agree with everyone who doesn't like the movie, of course i do.
Title: Re: Knight of Cups
Post by: jenkins on November 05, 2017, 02:08:28 PM