Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

Discussions of specific films and franchises.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#126 Post by tenia » Sun May 28, 2017 7:23 am

knives wrote:At least Dog Eat Dog is funny.
Unwillingly so, though, no ?

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#127 Post by knives » Sun May 28, 2017 8:15 am

Deliberately for sure.

User avatar
D50
Joined: Sat Sep 04, 2010 2:00 am
Location: USA

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#128 Post by D50 » Sun May 28, 2017 6:50 pm

Got my library to pre-order it and I'm first on the list to check-out.

User avatar
Foam
Joined: Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:47 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#129 Post by Foam » Sun Jul 02, 2017 5:20 pm

I thought this was great. Every bit the equal of his last four films, which from where I sit are all masterpieces or near masterpieces.

On Letterboxd and film twitter and some other places a meme has solidified around this movie something along the lines of "Well there are a lot of great performers here... too bad it's all for shit once everyone goes into the McMalick blender." And while I can understand that perspective, (as someone who used to hate To The Wonder) I really disagree when it comes to this film especially. As much as I'll defend To the Wonder and Knight of Cups, I'll admit that on some level most of the big name actors there could have been switched out with nearly anyone else and the film would have worked just as well (or, perhaps if he had the equivalent of his own no-name Bressonian models, would have worked even better). But I thought this film really benefitted from being grounded in the virtuosity of these particular performers who are suited for these particular roles. The freedom of Malick's recent approach is probably going to work better with performers who can flourish within such an environment; and it seems to me that Mara, Gosling, and Fassbender all fared better within these conditions than did Pitt, Affleck, or anyone in Knight of Cups.

I thought Mara in particular was really great here; this is probably better than her performance in Carol, even. Just because the camera-work isn't as deliberate and disciplined doesn't mean the performance isn't as detailed and committed and moving. I've seen some people trashing her performance while praising Portman's, which just boggles my mind. I half think it's because Portman's character is introduced by barking out a couple lines from her physical position within the scene. For some reason near-silent physical performance and voice-over, where Mara excels, is an assumed lesser form of acting?

One of the most interesting moments--at least in terms of straightforward semiotics--is when Gosling and Fassbender are improvising a song, G on piano and F singing in a faux-opera voice: "BROOOTHER! FAAATHER! MOTTHEEERR!" And people say Malick has no sense of humor about what he does!

Really a great film. And I sometimes think I'm the only person in the universe who isn't desperate for him to switch into a more traditional mode for his next film. I think I would happily watch him refine this approach for the rest of his career, just as Woody Allen steadily refined his.

Costa
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2010 5:10 pm

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#130 Post by Costa » Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:20 am

I love Malick (The Thin Red Line is one of my favourite films) but I didn't see To The Wonder and Knight of Cups due to very bad comments.
Is this considered better?

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#131 Post by tenia » Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:21 am

One thing though I think the marketing did wrong and that hurt the movie is trying to push the musical performances and background upfront, because in the end, they clearly don't amount for much. I'm quite sure it mislead many people.

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#132 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Jul 03, 2017 7:38 am

I don't envy anybody the task of trying to market a semi-wide release of a Malick film in a way that doesn't leave large swathes of the audience feeling misled.

User avatar
Foam
Joined: Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:47 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#133 Post by Foam » Mon Jul 03, 2017 7:55 am

Costa wrote:I love Malick (The Thin Red Line is one of my favourite films) but I didn't see To The Wonder and Knight of Cups due to very bad comments.
Is this considered better?
His last three films all have their fair share of haters. A lot of those haters will make an exception for one or two of them depending on the person. I don't see any general pattern as to why one is apparently complete shit but not another. People are of course entitled to their opinions, and they are all legitimately difficult films in their own ways. I really think it may be down to what you had for breakfast that day, whether these things happen to work for you or not.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#134 Post by tenia » Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:19 am

DarkImbecile wrote:I don't envy anybody the task of trying to market a semi-wide release of a Malick film in a way that doesn't leave large swathes of the audience feeling misled.
In some way, the issues remain in trying, movie after movie, to sell them as relatively standard productions, which they at least aren't from a style point of view.
This stylistic difference, starting with the quite loose narrative style, often is left aside. Starting by including them could be a good starting point.

These aren't movies that are going to have a wide appeal anyway, why do anything that might further antagonise people who didn't know better ? They might be curious about what the movie contains, but if not only they're just curious (in opposition to "connoisseurs") but also pretty much lied to, this isn't going to help.

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#135 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:50 am

tenia wrote:In some way, the issues remain in trying, movie after movie, to sell them as relatively standard productions, which they at least aren't from a style point of view.
This stylistic difference, starting with the quite loose narrative style, often is left aside. Starting by including them could be a good starting point.
Sure, but how do you get that across in a two-minute trailer, especially when so many trailers are rooted in a montage and voiceover style anyway? You could just show one two-minute clip of Gosling and Mara walking through tall grass and twirling around each other while whispered voiceover plays, but that doesn't really give people who are a generally inclined to see a Malick film a sense of the visual breadth and thematic scope, while also utterly failing to get people who aren't going to see everything the man does regardless of marketing to actually buy tickets.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#136 Post by tenia » Mon Jul 03, 2017 11:10 am

DarkImbecile wrote:utterly failing to get people who aren't going to see everything the man does regardless of marketing to actually buy tickets.
You answer your own question : why even thinking anybody could achieve this ? Haters gonna hate. Any additional Malick movie is just more cannon-fodder for them to act as a backfire effect on their prejudices towards his work. They probably haven't seen any of his movies since The New World.
On the other hand, people who like Malick's movies (including, specifically, his latest ones) are probably going to see a movie like Song to Song without even watching the trailer. So who is it trying to convince, really ?

By trying to gather as many different moviegoers as possible, I feel marketing is just diluting the movie appeal, it's flattening it. In the end, all the specifics are lost.

We have a saying in French which goes like "Friend with everyone = actually friend with no one". That's a bit my point there : you can only connect with so many potential movie goers. Why not trying to focus on the easiest part of it rather than trying to reach people who are clearly unreachable now ?


And again : don't put the musical guests anywhere upfront in the marketing. Just don't.

User avatar
DarkImbecile
Ask me about my visible cat breasts
Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
Location: Albuquerque, NM

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#137 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon Jul 03, 2017 11:26 am

That's too reductive. Part of the point of marketing any difficult movie is to present in such a way that it has appeal to people unfamiliar with the director or those type of films. Some percentage of those people enticed to see a film they wouldn't have otherwise will connect with it, and it's worth expanding the base of people interested in the work, even if this pisses off the "haters". Being insular to the extent that you don't even try to attract new viewers to difficult filmmakers is not healthy for these artists or their ability to make more films going forward.

This reminds me of the debate over the marketing for It Comes at Night; did it oversell the horror elements and downplay the grimness of the film? Sure, but who cares? The release paid for itself, and I know for a fact there are people who went to see one kind of movie and were pleasantly surprised to get something else entirely. For those who felt misled... too bad, I guess? Such is life.

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#138 Post by tenia » Mon Jul 03, 2017 11:31 am

DarkImbecile wrote:This reminds me of the debate over the marketing for It Comes at Night; did it oversell the horror elements and downplay the grimness of the film? Sure, but who cares? The release paid for itself, and I know for a fact there are people who went to see one kind of movie and were pleasantly surprised to get something else entirely.
But it got a D on CinemaScore so were actually so many people happy to get something else than what they expected ? I'm not so sure.

That's my whole point and I actually had this recent example in mind (that and Get Out too, on which I had to fend off colleagues from the website I write on because they were misled by the marketing to the point they wrote a clearly misled review which led to problems with some of our readers).

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#139 Post by Ribs » Mon Jul 03, 2017 11:35 am

CinemaScore doesn't reflect how audiences feel about a film, but how similar the film was to what the marketing depicted

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#140 Post by tenia » Mon Jul 03, 2017 12:06 pm

Ribs wrote:CinemaScore doesn't reflect how audiences feel about a film, but how similar the film was to what the marketing depicted
Doesn't it do both, actually ?
I mean, surely, if people were positively surprised by getting something else, they should give a relatively good score to the movie, shouldn't they ?

User avatar
Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#141 Post by Ribs » Mon Jul 03, 2017 12:19 pm

The questions it asks directly relate to expectations from marketing, without really ever asking what they actually think of the movie. This doesn't stop Deadline from taking this as a black-and-white "what audiences think" measure.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#142 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jul 03, 2017 12:22 pm

It would be great if Malick disciples could quit telling me I couldn't possibly like To the Wonder and hate Knight of Cups k thnx

User avatar
tenia
Ask Me About My Bassoon
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:13 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#143 Post by tenia » Mon Jul 03, 2017 4:31 pm

domino harvey wrote:It would be great if Malick disciples could quit telling me I couldn't possibly like To the Wonder and hate Knight of Cups k thnx
I relatively liked To The Wonder and vastly disliked Knight of Cups.
But I also don't particularly like Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, so what do I know ?
Ribs wrote:The questions it asks directly relate to expectations from marketing, without really ever asking what they actually think of the movie. This doesn't stop Deadline from taking this as a black-and-white "what audiences think" measure.
My bad then. I remember reading quite detailed articles (which indeed was on Deadline, but also this one from the LA Times) explaining that the CinemaScore grade relates quite well to the multipliers from the first weekend to the whole BO results, hence my understanding that it was a good indicator of how people were liking the movie post-viewing / which can of word of mouth the movie was getting (hence the higher it is, the best the movie is appreciated by the audience seeing it).

In any case, the RT "Audience Score" of It comes at night currently is 43% / 2.6 and Metacritic User score is 5.7, both massively lower than the critics scores, which would seemingly support again that there doesn't seem to be so many people pleased by what the movie actually is VS what they were led to believe.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#144 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jul 06, 2017 10:58 pm

I can’t fathom the suggestion that Malick should go Bresson and cast unknowns— the only reason anything works here is because of what casting name-brand actors in these roles means for audience interaction with and validation of what is fundamentally improv footage from everyone’s Austin vacation. This is Malick’s To Catch a Thief. The film comes out of the gate a hot mess, with a first act that looks like we’re getting an all-star remake of Home Movies from the Zanzibar group as scenes unfold seemingly stitched together by hitting ‘shuffle’ in the editing bay. I think the overall trajectory of this one thankfully misses the grandiose pretensions of Knight of Cups, but it would have been better with zero narration— did any character utter one single line of interest in VO? Better to have taken this created-in-the-editing-room Frankenstein’s monster to its natural extreme and just given us what Malick seems to care most for: unfettered, fleeting moments. The film’s visual beauty is so oppressive, repetitive, and quickly-glimpsed that there’s little hope of caring about it by aesthetic metrics— the film is edited in shot-lengths readymade for GIPHY— and no chance at all of investing in the endlessly maudlin emotional outpourings spilling from the narration (and the film only counters these lines with braindead improv, especially from Fassbinder). But there’s something oddly intriguing in how Malick has convinced so many talented A-Listers into letting him play around with them (and fondle each other while clothed in assorted beds). I suspect this will be the last Malick film we get constructed like this, as I am skeptical many stars are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in the wake of these last couple films without a more concrete script. But Song to Song closes the book on this cycle by highlighting in the final product the strange existence of the production itself, which is something, I guess.

oh yeah
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:45 pm

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#145 Post by oh yeah » Sun Jul 09, 2017 7:54 am

domino harvey wrote:I can’t fathom the suggestion that Malick should go Bresson and cast unknowns— the only reason anything works here is because of what casting name-brand actors in these roles means for audience interaction with and validation of what is fundamentally improv footage from everyone’s Austin vacation. This is Malick’s To Catch a Thief. The film comes out of the gate a hot mess, with a first act that looks like we’re getting an all-star remake of Home Movies from the Zanzibar group as scenes unfold seemingly stitched together by hitting ‘shuffle’ in the editing bay. I think the overall trajectory of this one thankfully misses the grandiose pretensions of Knight of Cups, but it would have been better with zero narration— did any character utter one single line of interest in VO? Better to have taken this created-in-the-editing-room Frankenstein’s monster to its natural extreme and just given us what Malick seems to care most for: unfettered, fleeting moments. The film’s visual beauty is so oppressive, repetitive, and quickly-glimpsed that there’s little hope of caring about it by aesthetic metrics— the film is edited in shot-lengths readymade for GIPHY— and no chance at all of investing in the endlessly maudlin emotional outpourings spilling from the narration (and the film only counters these lines with braindead improv, especially from Fassbinder). But there’s something oddly intriguing in how Malick has convinced so many talented A-Listers into letting him play around with them (and fondle each other while clothed in assorted beds). I suspect this will be the last Malick film we get constructed like this, as I am skeptical many stars are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in the wake of these last couple films without a more concrete script. But Song to Song closes the book on this cycle by highlighting in the final product the strange existence of the production itself, which is something, I guess.
Not that I expect it to happen, but I certainly think it would be best if Malick forgoed the usual V.O. narration entirely for at least one film, if not more -- it worked for the first few movies, quite beautifully, but I haven't found it at all essential to anything he's done this century, and even though I actually really liked Knight of Cups I still think the narration was simply unnecessary, uninteresting, redundant, as with Wonder and Tree and maybe New World.

I also don't expect Malick to ever go back to anything remotely approaching the more classical style and much longer ASL of his 70s work... but Thin Red Line (my favorite Malick of all, esp. when factoring in just pure visceral/emotional reaction) was really a very interesting kind of middle ground between those early films, so obviously grounded in the more languorous New Hollywood editing style, and these mostly disappointing and fragmented later Malicks which have the audiovisual attention span of a fly. Thin Red Line, though, is a good example of how to live between those two extremes and also how to wring poetry and pathos out of more abstract narration and more fluid editing. So perhaps we will see at least one Malick that more resembles that film or New World (which was in many ways closer to TTRL than it was to all that followed it).

Then again, I kind of doubt this. Artists can't help but evolve, whether we like it or not - Lynch's evolution, or devolution to my mind, since Mulholland Drive has been on my mind lately when weighing the various pros and cons of the new Twin Peaks episodes. And so if a director were to suddenly revisit an entire approach to filmmaking that they had 20 years prior, it'd probably be due to some calculated, money-grubbing reason; I can hardly imagine Malick caring what his critics or viewers think enough to make some kind of deliberate effort to time-travel back to when he had a more coherent aesthetic. I fear that he's past the point of no return, and I can't help but wonder how much of a role Lubezki played in bringing this all on - things changed immediately when he came on board, and as talented as both men are I'm just so incredibly tired of seeing the same handheld camera movements, super-wide angle lenses, clipped/borderline-incoherent editing patterns, et al.

But maybe I should just accept the fact that Malick isn't making movies for me anymore. Hell, even with a film I kind of loved like Knight, I have to fight back the suspicion that it's all a load of superficial nonsense that somehow slipped past my critical faculties the one time I saw it. And even if that's an exaggeration, I certainly can say that it's nowhere near as substantial and powerful and meaningful to me as Malick's first three features.

And that's the thing - these new films are so thin, so precious, so understated and anti-narrative/anti-dramatic in their warm-n-fuzzy looks at various beautiful people laughing and throwing each other around on beds as they joyfully smile and staring at the ocean and dancing and frolicking, et al, that they leave little to no real strong impression in my brain after viewing. These are the kinds of films that are so abstracted, but not in an interesting way necessarily, that they flirt with nonexistence.

User avatar
All the Best People
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 7:08 pm
Contact:

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#146 Post by All the Best People » Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:28 pm

Malick embeds too many thematic ideas in his VOs for him to abandon them completely without severely altering his style. That said, his style has been altered considerably over the course of his career, so he may well do something like that.

User avatar
solaris72
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:03 pm
Location: Baltimore, MD

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#147 Post by solaris72 » Sun Jul 09, 2017 6:41 pm

Worth noting that his preferred version of Voyage of Time is sans VO.

User avatar
John Cope
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
Location: where the simulacrum is true

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#148 Post by John Cope » Sun Jul 09, 2017 7:16 pm

solaris72 wrote:Worth noting that his preferred version of Voyage of Time is sans VO.
I really wonder when and how he arrived at that determination, especially as I consider the Blanchett version of VoT among his finest films in large part exactly for its VO; it's among the most elegantly and beautifully written of all his films. But of course I've always loved that element of his work even as it became progressively more and more fractured and fragmented along the way (always complementing the work though and inextricable from it as far as I'm concerned). The significance of and the emphasis placed upon that form of language is deeply appreciated during a time otherwise so consumed with pure image.

User avatar
Foam
Joined: Sat Apr 04, 2009 12:47 am

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#149 Post by Foam » Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:15 am

For all the folks complaining about the voice-overs, question: what is your model for interpreting them?

Taken out of what I think the context is (an unusually orthodox if esoterically-tinged Christian value structure) I can understand the complaints about them seeming like sentimental Hallmark bullshit. But within that proper context (as I see it) I find them surprising, unusual, and adding all kinds of unexpected paradox and complication to the films.

Maybe when I get this on Blu-ray I can write a post trying to make a substantial case for their value--especially since it's become increasingly common to dismiss them as bullshit outright.
domino harvey wrote:It would be great if Malick disciples could quit telling me I couldn't possibly like To the Wonder and hate Knight of Cups k thnx
Without agreeing to this paraphrase of my (?) comment, believe it or not I had people other than you in mind when I wrote it. I also don't think that Malick's post-TNW work is in any way uniform and that there are significant differences between each of the films. But if you have a post where you directly explain why To The Wonder works for you but the surrounding films don't, I haven't seen it before and can't find it now--but would be interested in hearing your comments along those lines.

To clarify my earlier comment. I know three people, aside from you, Dom, who single out To The Wonder as the best of Malick's films from the past six years. They have varying opinions about the other films which range from mild appreciation to indifference to hatred. My problem is, when I ask them why To The Wonder is a standout and what the other films lack, it seems to me at least that any of those arguments could just as well apply to any of the other films, whether in favor or against. And so that's why I made the comment about these things being down to what you had for breakfast on the morning of the viewing. That may sound dismissive, but as someone who has rewatched all of these films (save for this one) I think they are particularly sensitive to the precise subjective state of the viewer. To experience them at their best I have to know to some degree what I'm getting into and prepare myself for it. And they are all, without exception, better on rewatch than the first time.

(Incidentally, the only pattern I can find among those who single out To The Wonder as exceptional is that their MBTI is INTP which may well be scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel when looking for explanations.)
dom h wrote:I can’t fathom the suggestion that Malick should go Bresson and cast unknowns— the only reason anything works here is because of what casting name-brand actors in these roles means for audience interaction with and validation of what is fundamentally improv footage from everyone’s Austin vacation.
This film is an exception to my speculation that his recent work might well have fared better with unknowns.
Last edited by Foam on Mon Jul 10, 2017 3:39 am, edited 4 times in total.

User avatar
John Cope
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:40 pm
Location: where the simulacrum is true

Re: Song to Song (Terrence Malick, 2017)

#150 Post by John Cope » Mon Jul 10, 2017 12:37 am

Foam wrote:For all the folks complaining about the voice-overs, question: what is your model for interpreting them? Taken out of what I think the context is (an unusually orthodox if esoterically-tinged Christian value structure) I can understand the complaints about them seeming like sentimental Hallmark bullshit. But within that proper context (as I see it) I find them surprising, unusual, and adding all kinds of unexpected paradox and complication to the films.

Maybe when I get this on Blu-ray I can write a post trying to make a substantial case for their value since--especially since it's become increasingly common to dismiss them as bullshit outright.
Which is really sad. I should focus on this too; maybe write a full piece on it. Anyway, would definitely like to read your defense and, fwiw, I agree with all of the above but I would just add what I would assume to be self-evident, that the images are crucial to the VO and how it's implemented--self-evident perhaps but it sure doesn't get mentioned enough. Having said that, I'd love to read the actual scripts for these as they were presented to the actors (obviously there is way more to them and Malick simply draws from what is there--I especially remember an interview with Joel Kinnaman where he said that he recorded a huge long VO which is amusing as he's barely glimpsed in the final cut of Knight.

Post Reply