"Tree" Reflection #2

Looking at the movie's format on a larger scale, it seemed fragmented to me when i first watched it. My idea of why that might be is this: Sean Penn is Jack all grown up and he is remembering memories from his childhood as he goes through some sort of rough patch in his adult life. No one can pick and choose the images/events the their mind remembers. For example, you may remember playing with your younger brothers in a friend's backyard one day but not remember what you ate for dinner that night with your family. This explains some of the serious time jumps that occur in the film. Unfortunately, this is also extremely confusing for the viewer. But memory is a tricky thing; usually we only remember snapshots of events, or a particular feeling. I think Malick tried to mimic this in his use of the camera.

Perhaps more importantly, my hypothesis for why the film started with the excerpt from the Book of Job was to establish the lesson of the movie before it even began. The particular passage, and even the rest of the film, try to tell us that we as humans cannot be too secure in where we are. I think the whole point of the movie is to humble us. Why show huge, elaborate, long Creation sequences and then focus on just a single man and family? I think Jack is meant as an example of how low humans really are, how significantly insignificant we are when it comes to the larger picture. Hence the title "Tree of Life": by choosing to eat from the Tree of Good and Evil human nature was condemned, and if we even want to get live forever we need to find the Tree of Life. The idea of living forever is conveyed by many characters in the film, especially the mother, who said in the beginning that no one who follows to path of grace comes to a bad end. But Jack is reminded on the anniversary of his brother's death, and he searches his past for some sort of meaning to apply to his current, empty and warped world. But no matter what, he keeps looking for answers in his childhood but has difficulty. He is Job. Job tried to find reasons for why God did the things He did, but Job was unable to understand. His friend basically told him he is nothing, just a worm. Jack is figuring this out, but he needs closure. He needs to reach the Tree of Life, gain knowledge and wisdom, and come to a "good end". Reuniting with his former self in the beach scene at the end of the movie may be a way of finding that closure and possibly gaining a piece of the Tree of Life.

"Tree" reflection blog #1

After Friday's class, my perception of the film had been completely turned upside down. At first I knew that the movie had a plot; it was that a son in the family had died at the age of 19 and the family was coping with it, as shown through the three boys' childhood experiences. But now I'm starting to think its not about the family coping as much as it is about Sean Penn/ Jack coping. Friday's class we watched the third scene when Sean Penn wakes up from a sort of dream and goes to work. That particular day, I think, was the anniversary of his brother's death. He was apologizing to his dad on the phone, even though he seems alone in this "modern" world of empty houses and office buildings. But then it jumped to him being placed in his childhood home, stroking his mother's face while his father sat on the couch in the back just staring from afar.
That, combined with the dream/ walking through the door in the desert made me think that this movie is more about Jack coping with his brother's loss, rather than the whole family. He had the two conflicting sides of nature and grace in him during his childhood. But as an adult, he doesn't display either of those sides; he's not acting out and being violent like he was in his childhood, nor is he being graceful like his mother and brother were. This makes me think that he's trying to get back to his deceased brother in order to reconnect with grace. Does he need some sort of closure? Maybe like a mid-life crisis?  He could be searching for answers about his own life (like what I assume happens during a mid-life crisis), and he must think that by following the path of grace he can get to where he needs to be. But I still don't know where exactly that is. 

Tree of Life review/ first impressions

It was a long movie. It kept me interested for the majority of its time, except for watching the universe expand for about twenty minutes straight. But my interest was also combined with sheer confusion. The flashbacks and flashwards were hard to discern from the "actual movie", for one thing. The mother was also making me extremely angry because she wasn't doing anything about the father! Why are you letting him hit your kids and tear apart the household?!More than once it seemed that he would have been better leaving that staying at home to teach his boys the lessons that he thought we valuable.  I was getting a little fed up with that and her constant questions that never seemed to get a clear answer. Maybe there is no clear answer for some of the questions she was asking God, but I was thinking, "at least give us something." Another thing that perplexed me was Sean Penn's character. I think he is the oldest son, but for a long time I also thought that the oldest son had died and gone on to the afterlife. So about halfway through him talking with a colleague over engineering blueprints I realized that he couldn't be dead (I was pretty sure they didn't need blueprints in heaven).
But most of all, I felt like I was choking on symbolism. What did the lights mean? What about the windows that were always shown? Why was every other shot, or so it seemed, looking at the sky through tree branches? There were also a lot of shots of just water, or seashores. And why were the mother's feet always shown getting washed?  Not to mention , there were so many awkward hugs between the father and boys. It just seemed like Malick was trying to convey too many themes in one movie, and I don't think symbolism enhances a movie when the viewer can't understand what you're trying to say with your symbols.

Tree, Our Town, Job: my "blind" expectations

It seems to me like there will be a component of pain in the Tree of Life. I have a gut feeling that it will not be as a big of a component as other themes, but I think it will still be there. Emily and Job both raise the question of pain, or misery, in asking the same question, "why do good things happen to bad people?" In Emily's case: why do good people realize that life has passed them by only when its too late, and they are forced to feel the pain of regret? Job 's question is a little more general: why do people have to feel pain in their losses in order to regain part of themselves? (in Job's case, he had to be spoken to by God and realize he was a worm before his possessions were restored sevenfold).
I am also expecting this film to address a lot of "human nature" themes, maybe like dealing with loss? or how morality may play into the individual coming from a family with complex issues? Often times, human emotions and reactions can be murky and difficult to interpret, and since I've heard that this film may have "pushed the envelope a little too far", I'm expecting it to be a little "out there" and obscure. I also think God will feature a big role in this movie, since history/time will be reflected on and humans will definitely be incorporated into it. Space and time, I have no doubt, will be the two governing themes of this movie. They are the two obscurest and hard-to-mentally-grasp concepts, yet they penetrate our daily lives and enslave us to them.  

"Tree of Life" Rotten Tomatoes Reviews

Based on the overall response that critics gave on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems like it was a positive experience for those that took time and put in the effort to unpack the film. Generally, there were more good ratings than bad, but the good ratings brought up some things that wouldn't normally be anticipated in a positive review.
For example, one man said, "Terrence Malick's astonishing masterpiece of light, movement, and spirit, casts a dizzying spell and somehow manages to pronounce the ineffable while telling its humble tale" (Hiller). A "dizzying spell" is not exactly what a viewer wants to hear going into a movie for the first time; I'm already getting a little nervous. And yet, a writer for Laramie Video Scope claimed, "I'm not sure all of its diverse elements successfully make a whole story, but I am giving this film extra credit for being so incredibly ambitious, visually stunning and humane. It is a refreshing contrast to films that show the worst of humanity" (Roten). This gives me a little sense of hope that maybe I can find something in this film to appreciate.
So far, it seems like people approve of how the film was made and directed. What I'm hoping is that the film has something prophetic to teach me about human nature through time, and that I'm up for the challenge. It's starting to sound daunting, but I am willing to put my trust in the reviews that say I will come out of this film changed if I am willing to put in the effort to unpack it.

Our Town (with some Beast connections)

The stage director is an outsider, yet very involved in the inner workings of how the community and characters are portrayed. He specifically separates himself while he is the narrator, but also pops in and out of other roles when they need to be filled. He reminds me a lot of Melies in this way. He stands back and lays everything out for the audience, and other times he can't help but jump in to enhance the story. Basically, the stage director is equivalent to a movie director's role. He determines what gets emphasized and when, who should come in next, and where they should go. He manipulates time too! Between the first and second acts three years go by. Between the second and third acts nine years go by. He picks certain days to show the audience, dictates time jumps from year to year and even determines how long characters live for. Additionally, he shares a special connection with the audience. In more than one instance, talks to them in a very informal, colloquial manner more like he's telling a memory, rather than a historical account of a town.

On a separate note (or maybe not so separate), Emily has a similar experience to Hushpuppy in Act 3. She enters “the afterlife” and finds a maternal figure in Mrs. Gibbs, her mother-in-law, similar to Hushpuppy’s encounter with her mother in Elysian Fields. Emily continues talking to her but Mrs. Gibbs shushes her, not in a stern way but more of a comforting, let-it-go way. At one point Emily says, “Oh, Mother Gibbs, I never realized before how troubled and how…how in the dark live persons are…From morning till night, that’s all they are- troubled” (97). I think this may be connected to the Bathtub and how it has so many holidays compared to the one or two that “normal society” has. Emily also gets the idea in her mind that she can go back to the world of the living and relive days, happy days. Is this what Hushpuppy realized after she was cuddled by her mother? That she can go back and make things better? Choose to live a better life? Emily keeps saying she’ll choose a happy day to relive; Hushpuppy went back and chose to help her father, and make her world happier. She went back to correct her error, to attain absolution for her sin, the sin of hitting her father in the heart and knocking him down. She went back to nurse him and comfort him, to try and make things right. And only then was he able to fully “rest”, by dying and no longer having to suffer in his sickness.

Making of Beasts

Benh Zeitlin said he went down to the very fringes of the south to discover, and eventually recreate, the environment that would become the Bathtub. I thought it was interesting and ingenious to live among the dwellers of the swamp to get the closest, most organic vibe from the community. He and his crew became part of the community they were going to portray. I think that is the only way to make sure that one's film accurately depicts the tensions and temperament of the area. The film has a documentary feel because of its organic and home-grown feel. I puts the viewers right smack dab in the middle of the south, just as the crew was. Living modestly, even working out of an abandoned gas station, was Zeitlin's way of paying homage to the Bathtubbian mentality. "This immersive, grass-roots approach to filmmaking blurred the lines between Mr. Zeitlin’s invented world and the place that inspired it", said Rachel Arons. I completely agree with this assessment, and applaud his unstilted and casual way of going about film. It shows a true dedication to his source material and his work's objective.

"Beasts" NYT review

"They (young heroes) also remind us of the metaphysical arrogance of childhood. Because the self and the world are perceived, by an awakening mind, as opposites... it seems to follow that they must be equal. I, too, am a cosmos" says A.O. Scott in his review of the film. As a girl living in a man's world and in nature, Hushpuppy is forced to learn survival techniques so that she can be self-reliant. This movie really emphasizes this theme of living on one's own, being self-reliant and yet caring towards nature. Hushpuppy herself criticizes the "other people" who live on the other side of the levee, shopping in their grocery stores. As her father and the rest of the Bathtub society are teaching her, she is only a part of a bigger world. This proves her being "arrogant", but I would argue that "naïve" is a more fitting word to start out with. She starts as a naïve youth, trying to understand nature by listening to animals' heartbeats, observing the codes they speak in. Her father does not give her the attention that traditional parents do. It is only once Hushpuppy is forced to live on her own, completely without her father, that she develops an arrogance towards her position in the world. Then the arrogance fades to understanding as she learns to "beast it", now that her father has fully demonstrated his role and his love towards Hushpuppy. It is only then that she finds her place in the Bathtub, now knowing that she does not need a mother or any other bolster to take care of herself as a piece of the worldwide community.

developing/ expanding thoughts for Prompt C

Hugo inside the clock at the end of the first scene is a metaphor for what will happen as the move progresses. Machines will take on a human element and be hailed as helpers for mankind. Because machines will take on a human inner form (be able to emote, help people), they are comparable to early film. Early film was concerned with the viewers’ connection to the content. Showing an image up on a screen was not enough. Showing an image and getting a reaction, pulling something out of the viewer, was the aim. Framing, as a technique used in both old and new film, is meant to draw a viewer’s attention to something of particular meaning, or what the filmmaker may deem important to the viewer’s experience. The focus on experience was early film’s main goal; as long as viewers felt something during the movie, or came out of the theatre with something new, it was worth it.

As John Sloan’s painting suggests, early film was an action/reaction relationship with moviegoers. The woman looking back at the painting’s viewer is like the movie looking back at the audience. Film puts something out there, but expects a reciprocated return of emotion from the audience. Melies intention of showing a man’s face in the moon was a way of getting a reaction from the audience, and he certainly did. He showed an image that had never been seen before. As Hugo’s father put it, it was like dreaming in the middle of the day. It opened up possibilities and ideas undiscovered to people in their own day-to-day lives. Early film was giving people a way to dream, to create, and to enjoy that they could not do on their own, or could not as easily be shared. It began an exchange of dreams: show one image of a dream and it gets other people dreaming.   

"Machinal" & Modern Times

The young woman in Treadwell's play is suffocating. The office environment is restricting her to the point that she can't think for herself, can't make decisions, can't even process what is going on around her. She keeps complaining that she needs air, like she's a caged animal rattling the bars that hold it captive. The sheep in the opening shot of Modern Times are comparable to the young woman, and everyone else in the office for that matter, except for Mr. George H. Jones who is the overseer as is the president in the tramp's factory.
Work is an impulsive, jolting, and systematic action that consumes the office workers. I pictured men and women as recordings being played over and over again, not thinking of what they are doing or saying, but just carrying out the actions because that's all they have been taught, allowed. They are all stuck on a rotating wheel with no way to get off. They are so consumed by their work that it's impossible for them to do anything else. Reciting numbers in manic manners, repeating the same phrases over and over again when answering a phone, etc., and they are just so blind. They can't help repeating each other's words; they hardly speak in full sentences because the stress and urgency of the workplace demands it.

Prompt C- Hugo in the clock & film painting

The image of Hugo inside the clock at the end of the movie's first scene is a really powerful image. Its a sort of metaphor for what is about to happen to the automaton. The automaton, its metal skeleton, will be filled with human emotion by the end of the movie, having a human quality inside of it mechanical framework. There will be more meaning behind just the empty metal body. The vital organs of the mechanical man consist of Melies' love for old film, as that is his purpose in life, just as the automaton needed a purpose to fill its creation. The camera frames Hugo's face in this shot much as the artist does in his painting. The emphasis is placed on the person's experience. Scorsese highlights Hugo's experience by mirroring the camera to what Hugo sees in the train station. By studying the painting, we notice that the entire audience is enthralled in the film that is being shown, and the woman is inviting us to do the same, to become enthralled in what film has to offer.
The exit sign, located right next to the screen, suggests that film is an escape from the world going on around us. The audience's attention is completely consumed by what is going on on the screen, as is Hugo's face with what's going on in the train station, as if Hugo's eyes are a camera projecting what he sees out into his world. Its almost as if Hugo is assessing his situation so that he can best going about solving it. Other than that, I'm still trying to figure out how Melies' broken past can connect with the painting, besides that both are obviously about old film and the magic that it has lost.

NYT review of Hugo

"This is a story shared by all children, who begin as observers and turn (if all goes well) into participants." I love this line in the review. We were all children at one point. We can all remember at least one memory from our childhood in which we watched, as an outsider, something take place. Hugo is doing this almost the entire first scene of the movie. But before we know it, his role has shifted and he winds up completely involving himself in fixing Papa Georges and his wife, the Station Inspector, and even himself. This is the true crux of the movie; Hugo's enlightenment and conquering of his insecurities and helping to conquer the insecurities of the others around him. He orchestrates the gears of the clock perfectly, as he does also the gears inside of the other characters.

As Scorsese says in his interview, "With Hugo, the fantasy is very real, but it’s in your head and in your heart. It has to do with the mechanisms — whether it’s the clocks, the interiors, the locomotives, the trains, the automaton — with the inner workings of these objects." He's completely right. The fantasy is in watching old film be incorporated into the new 3-D medium that Scorsese uses, but more importantly, the fantasy is in journeying with Hugo as he collects the pieces that are needed to fix each person. As Hugo said, no clock ever comes with an extra piece. He fixes each person, and double-checks that all the pieces are perfectly in place by the end of the movie. Hugo says he sometimes feels like a machine himself, maybe in the way that his life has been so repetitious, that he just keeps living his days in eternal purgatory, winding clocks, trying to figure out the automaton's meaning and his father's message.  But Isabelle, his saving beauty, is his partner in crime that helps him to find all the gears and put everyone back together. 

Illustration Series, ch. 2 beginning

The series of illustraions that start off the second chapter of the book are not neccessarily a huge part of the story's plot, but definitely of its meaning. Hugo starts out just entering through the metal vent into the wall of the train station. From that first picture, Hugo is always moving in the ones that follow. Selznick build suspense with the images of Hugo running through his "playground", a close-up of his shoe, him winding up the strairs, around corners, and beginning to open a door. The reader's viewing range zooms in and out, as Hugo gets closer to his destination. Suspense is building until finally we find him in front of this mysterious door, not knowing what lies behind it.  All of the pictures are very dark, getting even darker the closer he gets to the door. This series of pictures provokes anxiety in the reader, awaiting what comes next. I believe it is part of connecting to the reader, and trying to make them feel the rush that Hugo feels as he hurries through his tasks as commander of the clocks.

Role of film: general and Hugo

The purpose of any film is to capture a theme. Maybe the theme is deep and meaningful like the fragility of human nature, or its just a shallow statement like funny things happen all the time. Depending on the goal of the film, the power and weight the images have depend on the light in which they are portrayed. In Hugo, the beginning is a dark, damp, depressing sequence of childhood tragedies that a young French boy has survived. But as the film progressed, lighter parts are incorporated in until, at the end, all the dampness has been dried and the warm light is seen in all the characters.

There is not much complexity when it comes to the plot, or even the characters, but the theme of Hugo has many small crevices that the viewers are allowed to discover. Time is a huge theme, as is the idea that everyone needs a purpose in life, and Martin Scorsese does an excellent job of showing that in more than just Papa George's case. Hugo himself, as a protagonist, is one of the more interesting characters to see transform. As we watched the film it was very easy to see how he was changing, and to feel happy for his victories both along the way and in the end. I jus loved the theme because it is one that everyone's life can be applied to. What are we if we don't have a purpose? We are a rusting machine, sitting in a corner, guarding secrets that can never bring joy to other people.