IMDB fails to list "A Hidden Life," on Terrence Mallick's home page, but he is credited as director on the movie's page.
Anyway, I looked him up.
And the two films of his that I've actually seen ("Pocket Money" from 1972 and "The Thin Red Line" from 1998, both where he is listed as writer and only the latter as director) I absolutely despised. As watchable as Lee Marvin and Paul Newman are ("were," I suppose) this film lacked any kind of character development, and just had two guys wandering around and accomplishing nothing. Thanks; that was really enlightening, even at 13. Thin Red Line, on the other hand, is an exercise in stream-of-consciousness dada-ist incoherence. IF there was a main character, you had no idea who it was because, with the exception of a few "name" stars, they all looked alike. And the "name" stars did nothing other than stand around and bloviate at intolerable lengths (Sean Penn), or be aggressively stupid (Woody Harrelson) who then blew himself up on his own grenade because he was too stupid to throw it away.
The only other director who has annoyed me this completely is Ridley Scott. People slobber praises about Scott without relent, and yet (at least until recently) the man could not -- no, revise that: WOULD NOT -- tell a fucking story, because he was too busy showing off what a clever director he is. "Alien"? Fucking seal youselves into a protected compartment and then vent the ship into space and just kill the damned thing. "Blade Runner"? An absolute abomination of Dick's story in which Harrison Ford's character only stands out for his complete incompetence. "Gladiator"? With a post relay of horses, it was three weeks from Germany to Spain, but Hero does it in two days and a night. Yet somehow the kill message got there ahead of him, at which point he passes out, and his picked up by slavers who wag his comatose body all the way across the Mediterranean ('cause that's what slavers do), which is another 3 week trip, by the way. Some of Ridley's work has become less idiotic since his brother (and superior director) Tony died.
That all being said, I'm afraid I will be very hard pressed to ever invest time or money in another Mallick film. Maybe he's grown up, as RS has shown signs of doing. But I won't pay for the privilege of finding out.
On a different note, more thematically oriented on the film's own themes, I'd like to mention that atheists are perfectly capable of having "spiritual" moments without apologizing for them. The "G-word" has been so corrupted by public discourse that many an "ouchie atheist" believes they must abandon -- indeed, aggressively excise -- any such thoughts or experiences from their lives. It is a rather sad position (I would argue) that is closer in logical structure to fundamentalism than it is to the supposedly scientific spirit such atheists claim they embody.
One way of looking at fundamentalism of any stripe, is that it is a technique employed to resolutely eliminate any last shred or scintilla of genuinely religious experience from religion. (John Dewey, in his lovely "A Common Faith," builds everything around the difference between the "religious" (the "spiritual") and "religion" (textual orthodoxy.)) I mean, think about it: people only appeal to dogmatic textual absolutism (fundamentalism) to hide themselves from any genuinely spiritual experience. The latter requires persons to open themselves up; the former demands they shut themselves down completely.
Most people who have genuinely sought the religious have, in the past, sought it in religion. There is no reason for this, as we've been (re)discovering these last 100+ years.
For the record, I certainly have no religion, and I do not count myself a religious person. I've had a few spiritual moments in my life, but I do not count them as defining.
Nice reply, Gares! Man, you must be hell in a theater. There is no plot hole that passes unnoticed by you, is there? I'd be curious to know what you thought of Malick's TREE OF LIFE. I agree that some of his earlier work, Red Line in particular, had the marrow sucked out of it by Malick's self-conscious and nearly hysterical camera angles. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. But in movies like TREE and, above all, A HIDDEN LIFE, I think he comes into his own. Malick IS a deeply spiritual man, but never dogmatic and never with an ax to grind.
I enjoyed Alien. At the time, especially, it was refreshing to have a female protagonist. "Get away from her, you bitch!" practically became my mantra when I knew what it was to be a mother. The maternal instinct is one of the most powerful primordial forces in the universe. Weaver saying that was a shot across the bow for ALL mothers. I appreciated the understanding.
I refuse to watch Gladiator. That dude is GROSS.
And I'm right there with you in terms of spiritual experiences and the occasional dogmatic nonsense of the non-believer. I liked your term "ouchie atheist."
"There is no plot hole that passes unnoticed by you" -- you should see me combing through my own fiction. On the other hand, there's not a grammatical or spelling error I'll find on my own ... 8(
"Get away from her, you BITCH!" was from AlienS, and that was James Cameron, a director who, unlike Ridley Scott, never sacrifices narrative to show off how clever he is (though his narratives aren't always successful). My friend Toni, coming out of Aliens with me, had to stop for several minutes to try and process what she'd just seen. And it wasn't just Weaver (remember Vasquez?) All of the women holding their own w/o anyone trying to "rescue" them.
If either of those Mallick films come up on my available streaming services, I'll give them a shot
Now, that's interesting. I HATE Cameron films (e.g., Titanic), but that was a powerful moment, one that understood exactly what women are capable of in order protect their own. I fully acknowledge my vulnerability there. I would do anything--kill, steal, whore, take a bullet for anyone I loved, especially my kids. Living with that as a generally compassionate person is a lot. But I am intimately familiar with my heart of darkness.
"Titanic" was, um, "deeply problematic." I was rather less impressed by "Avatar" than he was. But "Abyss" is, if anything, even better than "Aliens." Michael Biehn gets to display his acting chops in both films by being two very different characters in essentially the same suit.
IMDB fails to list "A Hidden Life," on Terrence Mallick's home page, but he is credited as director on the movie's page.
Anyway, I looked him up.
And the two films of his that I've actually seen ("Pocket Money" from 1972 and "The Thin Red Line" from 1998, both where he is listed as writer and only the latter as director) I absolutely despised. As watchable as Lee Marvin and Paul Newman are ("were," I suppose) this film lacked any kind of character development, and just had two guys wandering around and accomplishing nothing. Thanks; that was really enlightening, even at 13. Thin Red Line, on the other hand, is an exercise in stream-of-consciousness dada-ist incoherence. IF there was a main character, you had no idea who it was because, with the exception of a few "name" stars, they all looked alike. And the "name" stars did nothing other than stand around and bloviate at intolerable lengths (Sean Penn), or be aggressively stupid (Woody Harrelson) who then blew himself up on his own grenade because he was too stupid to throw it away.
The only other director who has annoyed me this completely is Ridley Scott. People slobber praises about Scott without relent, and yet (at least until recently) the man could not -- no, revise that: WOULD NOT -- tell a fucking story, because he was too busy showing off what a clever director he is. "Alien"? Fucking seal youselves into a protected compartment and then vent the ship into space and just kill the damned thing. "Blade Runner"? An absolute abomination of Dick's story in which Harrison Ford's character only stands out for his complete incompetence. "Gladiator"? With a post relay of horses, it was three weeks from Germany to Spain, but Hero does it in two days and a night. Yet somehow the kill message got there ahead of him, at which point he passes out, and his picked up by slavers who wag his comatose body all the way across the Mediterranean ('cause that's what slavers do), which is another 3 week trip, by the way. Some of Ridley's work has become less idiotic since his brother (and superior director) Tony died.
That all being said, I'm afraid I will be very hard pressed to ever invest time or money in another Mallick film. Maybe he's grown up, as RS has shown signs of doing. But I won't pay for the privilege of finding out.
On a different note, more thematically oriented on the film's own themes, I'd like to mention that atheists are perfectly capable of having "spiritual" moments without apologizing for them. The "G-word" has been so corrupted by public discourse that many an "ouchie atheist" believes they must abandon -- indeed, aggressively excise -- any such thoughts or experiences from their lives. It is a rather sad position (I would argue) that is closer in logical structure to fundamentalism than it is to the supposedly scientific spirit such atheists claim they embody.
One way of looking at fundamentalism of any stripe, is that it is a technique employed to resolutely eliminate any last shred or scintilla of genuinely religious experience from religion. (John Dewey, in his lovely "A Common Faith," builds everything around the difference between the "religious" (the "spiritual") and "religion" (textual orthodoxy.)) I mean, think about it: people only appeal to dogmatic textual absolutism (fundamentalism) to hide themselves from any genuinely spiritual experience. The latter requires persons to open themselves up; the former demands they shut themselves down completely.
Most people who have genuinely sought the religious have, in the past, sought it in religion. There is no reason for this, as we've been (re)discovering these last 100+ years.
For the record, I certainly have no religion, and I do not count myself a religious person. I've had a few spiritual moments in my life, but I do not count them as defining.
Nice reply, Gares! Man, you must be hell in a theater. There is no plot hole that passes unnoticed by you, is there? I'd be curious to know what you thought of Malick's TREE OF LIFE. I agree that some of his earlier work, Red Line in particular, had the marrow sucked out of it by Malick's self-conscious and nearly hysterical camera angles. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. But in movies like TREE and, above all, A HIDDEN LIFE, I think he comes into his own. Malick IS a deeply spiritual man, but never dogmatic and never with an ax to grind.
I enjoyed Alien. At the time, especially, it was refreshing to have a female protagonist. "Get away from her, you bitch!" practically became my mantra when I knew what it was to be a mother. The maternal instinct is one of the most powerful primordial forces in the universe. Weaver saying that was a shot across the bow for ALL mothers. I appreciated the understanding.
I refuse to watch Gladiator. That dude is GROSS.
And I'm right there with you in terms of spiritual experiences and the occasional dogmatic nonsense of the non-believer. I liked your term "ouchie atheist."
"There is no plot hole that passes unnoticed by you" -- you should see me combing through my own fiction. On the other hand, there's not a grammatical or spelling error I'll find on my own ... 8(
"Get away from her, you BITCH!" was from AlienS, and that was James Cameron, a director who, unlike Ridley Scott, never sacrifices narrative to show off how clever he is (though his narratives aren't always successful). My friend Toni, coming out of Aliens with me, had to stop for several minutes to try and process what she'd just seen. And it wasn't just Weaver (remember Vasquez?) All of the women holding their own w/o anyone trying to "rescue" them.
If either of those Mallick films come up on my available streaming services, I'll give them a shot
Now, that's interesting. I HATE Cameron films (e.g., Titanic), but that was a powerful moment, one that understood exactly what women are capable of in order protect their own. I fully acknowledge my vulnerability there. I would do anything--kill, steal, whore, take a bullet for anyone I loved, especially my kids. Living with that as a generally compassionate person is a lot. But I am intimately familiar with my heart of darkness.
"Titanic" was, um, "deeply problematic." I was rather less impressed by "Avatar" than he was. But "Abyss" is, if anything, even better than "Aliens." Michael Biehn gets to display his acting chops in both films by being two very different characters in essentially the same suit.
I think I used to have a mild crush on Michael Biehn. I can't remember. It's been a LONG time since I had any celebrity crushes.
I still do, and I'm fucking straight.
That was a hell of an essay, Stacey. I will definitely seek out that film.
Be sure to tell me what you think--even if you hate it!