Song To Song (15.)
Directed by Terrence Malick.
Starring Rooney Mara, Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Berenice Marlohe, Cate Blanchett and Holly Hunter. 129 mins.
In the early eighties, comedian Jasper Carrott came up with a radical formula for filling an hour of ITV's Friday night schedule. With some mates and a film crew but no script, he would fly to Spain and make a film about three friends going on a package holiday, and see what hilarity they could come up with on the hoof. The answer was very little, and he never did anything like that again. (The programme, Carrott Del Sol, doesn't appear on his Wikipedia page.) Three decades on esteemed director Terrence Malick has adopted a similar formula: he gets groups of Hollywood stars, gives them a vague idea of a plot but no dialogue and lets them loose on barren terrains in the hope that they will come up with some profound insights. They don't.
The Emperor's New Clothes has been the recurring theme in reviews of Terrence Malick films post Tree of Life, but the analogy only works if the Emperor was a chronic exhibitionist. For four decades he had many of us convinced that he was one of the most remarkable filmmakers on the planet, partly because he hardly ever made any. Then, from the moment it was pointed out that he was in the altogether, we can't get him to put it away. His first four films were spread out over 32 years; the next four have been in the last six, and there are two more on the way, each one that bit more insistent that we get a good look at his shortcomings.
In Song to Song lots of stars spend half the time horsing around – coyly throwing petals at each other, play wrestling, gently teasing each other and going backstage at an Austin Texas music festival – and the other half feeling glum. Maybe they feel guilty about doing all that mucking about when they could've been doing some actual work.
Shot in 2012, it is another piece of aspirational angst. He's an artist for whom only the very best of everything will do – flash cars, luxury apartments, exclusive parties, the biggest stars, the coolest backstage passes, the best seats in the house and sexiest women with the longest legs. The subject isn't simply the meaninglessness of possessions, it's the meaninglessness of the very best possessions.
It is marginally less hateful then the other films in his loose existential lifestyle porn trilogy (To The Wonder, Knight of Cups) in that you can at least guess what the plot is about (overlapping love triangles), there are bits of concerts, musician cameos (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, John Lydon, and a genuinely touching contribution from Patti Smith) and the stars are more engaging. Where Affleck and Bale floundered, Mara, Fassbender, Gosling and Portman all just about retain the majority of their dignity, which is no small feat. There is a standard thespian gush that so and so is such a great actor I'd watch them reading the phone book. I think that could be adapted to so and so is such a great actor I'd watch them in a late Malick film.
Why does the modern world defeat him? The worse parts of Tree of Life were the present day bits. (Or maybe they were the best bits – anything that makes Sean Penn look like a right nana has my tacit approval.) His period dramas all have a sense of place, of reality; you believed in them. His films used to be full of feelings and emotions. Now they are barren, completely detached from humanity and the needs of audiences.
Song to Song is the film's third title having previously been announced as being called Lawless (but he then allowed the title to be used by John Hillcoat's film) and then Weightless, which got dropped, probably because it sums up the film all too perfectly.
Directed by Terrence Malick.
Starring Rooney Mara, Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Natalie Portman, Berenice Marlohe, Cate Blanchett and Holly Hunter. 129 mins.
In the early eighties, comedian Jasper Carrott came up with a radical formula for filling an hour of ITV's Friday night schedule. With some mates and a film crew but no script, he would fly to Spain and make a film about three friends going on a package holiday, and see what hilarity they could come up with on the hoof. The answer was very little, and he never did anything like that again. (The programme, Carrott Del Sol, doesn't appear on his Wikipedia page.) Three decades on esteemed director Terrence Malick has adopted a similar formula: he gets groups of Hollywood stars, gives them a vague idea of a plot but no dialogue and lets them loose on barren terrains in the hope that they will come up with some profound insights. They don't.
The Emperor's New Clothes has been the recurring theme in reviews of Terrence Malick films post Tree of Life, but the analogy only works if the Emperor was a chronic exhibitionist. For four decades he had many of us convinced that he was one of the most remarkable filmmakers on the planet, partly because he hardly ever made any. Then, from the moment it was pointed out that he was in the altogether, we can't get him to put it away. His first four films were spread out over 32 years; the next four have been in the last six, and there are two more on the way, each one that bit more insistent that we get a good look at his shortcomings.
In Song to Song lots of stars spend half the time horsing around – coyly throwing petals at each other, play wrestling, gently teasing each other and going backstage at an Austin Texas music festival – and the other half feeling glum. Maybe they feel guilty about doing all that mucking about when they could've been doing some actual work.
Shot in 2012, it is another piece of aspirational angst. He's an artist for whom only the very best of everything will do – flash cars, luxury apartments, exclusive parties, the biggest stars, the coolest backstage passes, the best seats in the house and sexiest women with the longest legs. The subject isn't simply the meaninglessness of possessions, it's the meaninglessness of the very best possessions.
It is marginally less hateful then the other films in his loose existential lifestyle porn trilogy (To The Wonder, Knight of Cups) in that you can at least guess what the plot is about (overlapping love triangles), there are bits of concerts, musician cameos (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, John Lydon, and a genuinely touching contribution from Patti Smith) and the stars are more engaging. Where Affleck and Bale floundered, Mara, Fassbender, Gosling and Portman all just about retain the majority of their dignity, which is no small feat. There is a standard thespian gush that so and so is such a great actor I'd watch them reading the phone book. I think that could be adapted to so and so is such a great actor I'd watch them in a late Malick film.
Why does the modern world defeat him? The worse parts of Tree of Life were the present day bits. (Or maybe they were the best bits – anything that makes Sean Penn look like a right nana has my tacit approval.) His period dramas all have a sense of place, of reality; you believed in them. His films used to be full of feelings and emotions. Now they are barren, completely detached from humanity and the needs of audiences.
Song to Song is the film's third title having previously been announced as being called Lawless (but he then allowed the title to be used by John Hillcoat's film) and then Weightless, which got dropped, probably because it sums up the film all too perfectly.
