OT: Movies/TV Shows
- Thread starter BeLeafer
- Start date
Montana
Champion
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
CH1
The Artist Formerly Known as chiggins.
war is bad, mmkay
CH1
The Artist Formerly Known as chiggins.
Seriously, war being part of nature isn’t exactly a novel idea…and while it’s ok to recycle, it comes across very differently when you use a very didactic, on the nose, voice over.
It’s really an insult, tbh… ie the audience has never come across these ideas before
CH1
The Artist Formerly Known as chiggins.
Wrapped in a very entertaining collage.
Spielberg also assumed that we have seen a war movie or two… so he pushed the medium and literally showed us something novel that created a different viewing experience
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
None of those creatures are at war with anything.
The whole premise is what a first year philosophy student thinks a clever and original insight looks like.
CH1
The Artist Formerly Known as chiggins.
It’s possible finishing his intro to philosophy degree is what Terrence Malick did in those 20 yrs between films
zeke
Well-known member
Malick graduated Harvard philosophy summa cum laude and then used his Rhodes Scholarship to study philosophy at Oxford, with a particular emphasis on Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Wittgenstein. He went on to teach philosophy at MIT.
If you want to dismiss him (or one of the great american authors) as first year philosophy students, maybe because i described some general themes of the film in broadstrokes when they could be delved into endlessly (and have been by scholars all over the place), that's up to you.
zeke
Well-known member
Marty Morgan is a hardcore war historian who I'm sure many of you know about and have seen on tv. He's obviously big on historical accuracy and authenticity as a bigtime war nerd.
here's a good interview with him about The Thin Red Line: https://www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/256-the-thin-red-line-with-marty-morgan/
the whole interview is good and delves deep into both the war stuff and the film stuff, but some choice quotes which I found interesting given this conversation:
"It’s got its strengths and weaknesses. But overwhelmingly, I enjoy it every time I go back and have a look at it. And every time I go back and have a look at it, I learn something new in a way that private Ryan just isn’t doing anymore or Band of Brothers just isn’t doing for me anymore. I believe that’s because this is this is Art house. This is Terrence Malick taking this really compelling World War Two memoir and turning it into a larger meditation on spirituality and the human mind and the human condition. And he does all that, and he does that in a way that he’s very skilled at doing as an artist. But at the same time, he didn’t betray the book in a way that I think we have seen done before. When a director gets their hands on it, when it’s based on a true story and director gets their hands on it, they just part with it entirely. I feel like he still had sort of the spirit of the book in mind throughout. And so he said what he was having to say, but he also let what the book had to say shine through."
"Terrence Malick in cinema was notorious for being this sort of tortured artist with a vision, and we make fun of it. This is one of the greatest archetypes of them all. The artist who slaves a way toward his vision. And I’m particularly thankful that he did this movie. I remember when this movie came out and keep in mind, it comes out immediately after Grant and this this whole batch of douche bags that I used to hang out with that were all interested in World War Two and were, you know, cheering from the front row at Private Ryan. And they loved every minute of Private Ryan. They hated this movie, hated with a capital H and to the point that they had these really unfair these these unflattering names from the movie because they disliked it. And I think it’s because they showed up and got their popcorn and sat down expecting a war movie. And this is not a war movie. It’s a movie about the human experience and transcendentalism and nature and the duality of humankind and nature and savagery. And it just happens to be set during a war. I also think it’s an excellent war movie. But if you go into that expecting Private Ryan, you’re going to come out scratching your head."
here's a good interview with him about The Thin Red Line: https://www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/256-the-thin-red-line-with-marty-morgan/
the whole interview is good and delves deep into both the war stuff and the film stuff, but some choice quotes which I found interesting given this conversation:
"It’s got its strengths and weaknesses. But overwhelmingly, I enjoy it every time I go back and have a look at it. And every time I go back and have a look at it, I learn something new in a way that private Ryan just isn’t doing anymore or Band of Brothers just isn’t doing for me anymore. I believe that’s because this is this is Art house. This is Terrence Malick taking this really compelling World War Two memoir and turning it into a larger meditation on spirituality and the human mind and the human condition. And he does all that, and he does that in a way that he’s very skilled at doing as an artist. But at the same time, he didn’t betray the book in a way that I think we have seen done before. When a director gets their hands on it, when it’s based on a true story and director gets their hands on it, they just part with it entirely. I feel like he still had sort of the spirit of the book in mind throughout. And so he said what he was having to say, but he also let what the book had to say shine through."
"Terrence Malick in cinema was notorious for being this sort of tortured artist with a vision, and we make fun of it. This is one of the greatest archetypes of them all. The artist who slaves a way toward his vision. And I’m particularly thankful that he did this movie. I remember when this movie came out and keep in mind, it comes out immediately after Grant and this this whole batch of douche bags that I used to hang out with that were all interested in World War Two and were, you know, cheering from the front row at Private Ryan. And they loved every minute of Private Ryan. They hated this movie, hated with a capital H and to the point that they had these really unfair these these unflattering names from the movie because they disliked it. And I think it’s because they showed up and got their popcorn and sat down expecting a war movie. And this is not a war movie. It’s a movie about the human experience and transcendentalism and nature and the duality of humankind and nature and savagery. And it just happens to be set during a war. I also think it’s an excellent war movie. But if you go into that expecting Private Ryan, you’re going to come out scratching your head."
LeafOfFaith
Well-known member
All this because I said Tree of Life was bad.
I had no idea what I was unleashing.
I had no idea what I was unleashing.
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
That Malick is deeply educated on the matter doesn't stop the premise from being schlocky and overly contrived.
and let's be real here, the film is based about as loosely on the book as SPR is on the real events that "inspired" it. The film is Malick's philosophically driven masturbatory re imaging of the book.