The Heartbreaking Nature of Principle: An M/U Film Chat
Ali: FUCK I LOVE THOSE DRUMS!
Sorry
John: The Fox fanfare gets me stoked every time
Chris: I like the drums too
I have been waiting to see this for like six months
Ali: !
Zoë: Me too! I was trying to get the Wilton Town Hall Theatre guy to get it, but then, you know…
Leah: That’s too bad, Zoë:; this is totally a Dennis movie.
Ali: 100%
Chris: It so is
I know I've said this already but just to emphasize, this is my favorite director
Leah: That is the place I miss the most. I was there weekly many months.
Ali: When we're allowed to do stuff again, one of my first stops is the WTHT
Chris: I owe a debt to Dave on this one too, as with Seventh Seal…I got into Malick because he sent me a copy of Days of Heaven and I was stunned
Dave: Just like I was stunned when I first saw it, I was lucky enough to see it in a cinema
Leah: My kids are trying to build a scythe
This is what pandemic has done
Zoë: Days of Heaven is the first one I saw, too, but this was before Malick's second wave so I hadn't seen any of his newer ones until just a year or two ago
John: Should I just point out now that the lead actor, August Diehl, played Karl Marx? Or should I wait?
Or am I going to mention it often over the next three hours
Dave: LOTR. This is the Shire, and the big bad orcs are coming
John: “Karl would NEVER do that!”
Ali: Chicks dig motorcycles.
Chris: hahahaa in The Young Karl Marx?
Dave: Wait is that the guy from Inglourious Basterds
John: Yeah to both
Dave: I always thought he looked psychotic. Interesting choice
John: He’s fantastic in The Young Karl Marx btw.
Chris: I still need to see it
John: smh
It has Bob Dylan music in it!
Chris: lol you know I've been avoiding political media
but I didn't know there was Dylan music in it
John: It came out when you weren’t!
Chris: that's a selling point
we have a bell like that in our church!
I have pulled the rope
David: Anyone know what that lovely choral music was at the beginning?
Zoë: I was going to ask the same thing, David. Was it Handel?
Dave: I think you're right
Handel track called “Israel in Egypt”
Chris: wow nice ear - I wasn't sure
https://www.what-song.com/Movies/Soundtrack/103186/A-Hidden-Life
David: Don’t know — extremely good music all round.
Thanks for info!!
Chris: Malick has WONDERFUL taste in music
he pisses off composers a lot because he makes them write a whole score for his movies but usually scraps it in favor of existing classical (often baroque) music
scraps lots of it, I mean to say
some of it makes it in
Dave: It's impossible to write music for a Malick film, because of how much time he spends in editing. Would require constant rescoring
Chris: right, you can't actually score to the final picture
I love the world above the clouds
Zoë: Can you imagine having that view of that mountain just outside your door?
Leah: Yes
Dave: I have a friend who was living in Switzerland up until recently, the pictures that she sent were impossible to believe
David: Good movie choice, Chris.
Chris: Dave, do you know anything about Jörg Widmer, the cinematographer?
Dave: Frayed knot
Love that Google dictation
Chris: hahahaha me too
Dave: I just assumed it was Emmanuel Lubezki
Chris: yeah I just had to look to see - I did too
it's not dissimilar from what I'd expect out of Lubezki
Dave: Yeah.
You can only imagine how much footage Malick gets over his entire shoot.
Chris: right
Dave: Yeah I was nervous the second I heard Malick was tackling Nazis
Chris: "Men survive, but their life is gone"
Dave: That would be some tough material
Zoë: Resonant and relevant quote
John: You know what’s great? Not being spoon fed as an audience with expository dialogue.
Chris: yeah if you like that you will like all Malick movies hahaha
John: It always stands out. I appreciate a filmmaker not thinking the people watching are totally stupid.
Dave: It's the most perversely beautiful place in the world
Chris: just imagine that feeling though…that this is so pervasive that there's soldiers sent even to this insignificant remote mountain village
Dave: She reminds me of a young Glenda Jackson
John: I hate how beautiful churches can be
Chris: I love it
Dave: All I saw was opulence run amok
Ali: Oh, I love it
Dave: The room is gold
John: Nice to see some Catholic representation though.
Chris: I think that's wood
John: We don’t get a fair shake
lol
Chris: yeah Malick is a big time Catholic
Ali: Haha
Zoë: Dave, that's interesting, in this context it seems to me certainly in contrast to the farm and the mountain, but not in a negative way. More like "this is the center of things happening" if that makes sense?
Dave: When I see gold I think of wealth money. it's a massive decadent church that really doesn't have anything to do with a spiritual connection to existence, which is especially felt by The humble farmer
Zoë: He's got bits of it in his house, though!
Dave: He was a corrupt gold Bishop
Bits of gold?
Well I'm just speculating here
Zoë: Bits of religious art/images that echo the decor of the church
Chris: I don't think the room was gold, I think that was wood
Dave: Looks pretty golden to me. There's some more gold
Chris: like there's gold in the altar there
Zoë: THAT's definitely gold, though
Chris: yeah
John: golden wood
Dave: Gold being definitively associated with the big church
John: wooden gold
Chris: but not the bishop's room
Dave: I don't know man I think The Bishop's room looked pretty gold
Kellie: Well I missed the first 30 minutes so I’ll probably say little to nothing in the chat but hi everyone
Chris: well now they're addressing the opulence
hahaha
John: You missed a lot of farming
There’s still 144 minutes to go!
Dave: every single character in a Malick film is openly ruminative
Ali: I think it's beautiful that people who lived very humble wood-toned lives were welcome in and exposed regularly to a place where they were surrounded with art of all sorts.
John: We should all ruminate more
Chris: agreed, with both of you
Kellie: Gah the Malick skies
Chris: that dude understands how to show a good sky
Ali: Truth
Zoë: Ali, that's what I was trying to get at when I said "the center of things going on," but you said it much more beautifully
Ali: Oh, you!
Chris: what a juxtaposition, that beautiful shot with the moon with Hitler yelling over it, like a spirit
Ali: An animal spitting in the dark.
John: “I am not your enemy…” - someone who is always your enemy
Chris: hahaha yeah
Dave: Malick movies have no traditional dialogue structure. It's always one person talking at length, usually some observer taking it in
I was just thinking about Ben Affleck and To the Wonder. He was essentially a silent protagonist
Zoë: I was just thinking "but is there voiceover in this one?" And then we get Franz's
Chris: yeah he said almost nothing
Dave: It just makes me think of the mind's eye, and how everything is broken into povs. Every Malick movie is about that constantly shifting POV
John: I forgot he had Ben Affleck in one of his movies
Dave: There is always a little eye floating around
John: I am a Ben Affleck apologist
Chris: so am I!
Dave: Yeah me too
Best Batman!
John: He actually was the bomb in Phantoms
Kellie: Except for when he messed up his life with Jen. Worst mistake
Dave: Bold statement
Chris: he will regret it
John: I’ll go further and say he is superior to Matt Damon
Ali: HEY NOW
Watch it
Chris: yeah I dunno
Dave: Orson Welles said that he met Hitler once and felt like the man had no presence whatsoever
Chris: I mean Matt Damon hasn't directed any movies I really love like Affleck has, I will say that
Dave: Matt Damon has that big water business
Chris: he has a water business?
John: Did Matt Damon direct and star in the same Best Picture winner?
Dave
F*** the Academy
Water.org or something
Chris: well that's nice of him
Dave: He's Matt Damon, after all
Chris: yeah he is nice
Dave: It's nice to see Malick tackling something this ambitious again
Maybe it's all the pastoral scenes, but this keeps reminding me of The New World.
Chris: yeah I mean despite my love for him I never loved Song of Songs or Knight of Cups, probably in large part because I didn't find them ambitious
they were like minor explorations
"Is this the death of the light?"
Zoë: Yeah me too, I think it's part the pastoral scenes and part because the audience knows where the big picture history goes, which is an added layer of sadness in both films I think
Chris: absolutely, well said
I like it that the priest and the bishop are actually playing the role of the tempters
Dave: God this going to be like Paths of Glory
Ali: That bit of acting was phenomenal. She loved him and hated him at the same time.
David: We’re going bed now — will get the rest tomorrow! G’night all!
Chris: ok let us know what you think!
good night! thanks for being here for the first half
John: “Half”
Zoë: Good night!
Chris: lol almost half
John: More like third
David: Totally fantastic movie, but so sad.
John: I’m not complaining. I love long movies.
Chris: oh yeah you're right - we started at like 9:12 so yeah, more like third
Dave: Compare this to that joker movie. That movie looks so desperate for attention compared to this.
Chris: yeah this is understated to the extreme
Dave: I was thinking about word nominations in relation to this film, and how Joker was this massive critical darling
Award
John: Hey now.
Dave: Same year I think
John: Why so serious?
Dave: Well I don't know, it just occurred to me…
Chris: yeah was this even nominated for anything?
ooh St. Matthew Passion, YES
Dave: Now this song I know immediately
John: Dave, I was quoting Heath Ledger’s Joker lol
Dave: I know
Ali: There are no goodbyes like train goodbyes
John: As a train conductor I loathe them
Chris: HAHAHAHAHHA
John: And threaten to close the doors on people
Chris: does it happen often?
Dave: John likes his trains full. Otherwise he gets lonely
John: And when that doesn’t work I just close the doors on them
Chris: hahaahahhaaha
Dave: Treading dangerously close to Nazi humor here
John: (Kidding if the railroad overlords are reading)
Dave: 3-hour film about an execution. Thanks Chris:.
Chris: haha I am here to cheer everyone up
John: “Here’s how Franz Jägerstätter can still win”
Chris: hahahahhaa
the SKY
Ali: Aaaand I'm crying.
Chris: yeah this is deeply sad
Dave: God I swear I love a smoking priest
Chris: gotta watch the Pope Show, Dave…
Dave: Ha
Smoking means they have an itch
Or some part of the inside of them is on fire, hence their breathing smoke
John: He could’ve taken that officer that was slapping him around
Ali: Oh for sure
Chris: "Conscience makes cowards of us all" - interesting argument
Ali: Yeah, I don't buy it.
Dave: To answer your question, Chris: this film was in Cannes but didn't win anything, and was nominated for no Oscars
But among my cinephile peers, it only got the highest marks
Chris: well that's some bullshit. Granted it seems like there were lots of good films in 2019, but…nonetheless
Dave: Everybody knows about this film, too. Everybody knows about Malick, and his films are widely distributed
Chris: right, it's an odd snub
I can see ignoring Song and Knight but this is for Malick not just a return to an ambitious subject but a return to more conventional narrative
Dave: Yeah people are great
John: Lost the Palme D’or to…
Parasite
Chris: which I still haven't seen
John: It’s good but it’s not like this
Dave: Which also won Best Picture here
Chris: I haven't seen most of "the 2019 movies" to my shame
Dave: Still haven't seen it!
I'm sure it's great
John: You saw Irishman Chris, that’s all that matters
Ali: I need to see Parasite, too
Chris: I have seen The Irishman, Midsommar, and Knives Out
Dave: Chris, did you ever see Silence
Chris: no, the Scorcese priest Japan one?
Dave: Yeah
Chris: That's another one I need to see
Dave: I haven't seen it but it's supposed to be pretty good
John: I’m rewatching Knives Out tomorrow. Mina likes my Benoit Blanc impression
Chris: my dad liked it
Dave: Chris, another guy you would like a lot is Kenneth lonergan. Manchester-by-the-Sea, and a few years before that Margaret
I thought Knives Out was very middle of the road
Chris: ugh they won't accept her in the church
I had fun with Knives Out
Ali: I enjoyed it, but not as much as I thought I would
Chris: I need to watch Manchester-by-the-Sea…we started it once and something came up and never came back to it
Dave: it wasn't terrible, but I was just expecting more, it had kind of universal praise. When it ended I was expecting at least another 20 minutes
Ali: Same!
Dave: Lonergan has that poetic ruminative quality of Malick, but he is much more of a New Englander
Chris: yeah, which gets back to what I like about Affleck
Dave: Knives Out totally did not have that big final scene where Holmes stands before the entire cast and explains what happened!
The Holmesian breakdown
Chris: That is true, I agree
Dave: I was shocked. That's the climax of any mystery like this
Plus I had just fallen in love with a movie called The Last of Sheila, which was the best version of whodunit ever
Chris: haha Rian Johnson will never top Brick
The Last of Sheila, I will look into that one
John: That’s why I liked Knives Out
Dave: written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, the only movie they ever made. Based on murder mystery games they played with friends.
I think it's fucking amazing actually
Chris: wow Stephen Sondheim made a crime movie?? Is it a musical?
John: It’s also why I like The Irishman. Subvert then tropes and whatnot.
Chris: that's definitely what I liked about The Irishman
Zoë: I'm pretty sure that was stinging nettle that guy was caressing, just happy to hold something green
Chris: and they took it away
Ali: Oh God
Zoë: I barely brushed my had on some the other day and got a welt (the pain doesn't last long, but it really hurts)
Ali: I have had my fair share of nettle stings. It is a special kind of hurt
Leah: The stoicism of his letters home is killing me here.
Chris: wow, POV on the beating
yeah for real, Leah
John: Why don’t all wells come with ladders?
Chris: haha I was thinking that
John: That would solve a lot of problems commonly associated with wells.
Dave: An excellent idea, John
Much simpler than breeding humans with 30 ft long legs
Chris: these townspeople are brutal
Ali: I hate them
John: Townsfolk are always like that during a world war
Dave: You guys should watch Dogville…
Chris, you should definitely watch Dogville
Zoë: oh god
Dave: DEF
Zoë: Yeah, speaking of brutal townspeople
Dave: A slightly more cynical take than Malick on human goodness
Kellie: I’ve seen it
Chris: yeah that looks very interesting, more Lars von Trier eh
Dave: It might be his best movie
I mean I think it is
It's so easy to imagine Tomi Lahren sitting across from this guy as a Nazi. Unable to comprehend conscientious objection
Ali: I loved Melancholia
Dave: Yeah I was just thinking that could also potentially be his best
Chris: I enjoyed Melancholia!
that stuck with me awhile
John: Tomi just wants to REOPEN, ok?
Zoë: That's the big one of his I haven't seen. It's always kinda painful to watch von Trier
Dave: Yeah, that's part of why I haven't seen his recent one
Chris: It's the only one I've seen
Dave: He's provocative, but if you're prepared for that goin in…
Oh Chris, there are a number of his films you'd like
Ali:
I've seen most of his stuff
Dave: Ali, Chris would like a number of Lars' films, wouldn’t he?
Ali: Haha, I think it would depend entirely on the film… And also on the definition of 'like.'
Dave: I think Chris would like Breaking the Waves very much. Probably Dancer in the Dark as well
Ali:
Oh I those two absolutely
Dave: And I think he'd like Dogville a lot
Ali: I haven't seen Dancer in The Dark since college… I need to rewatch.
John: Can’t start a fire without a spark
Dave: Chris, Dancer in the Dark is the Björk musical, incidentally also a rumination on an execution
Ali: It was pretty soul crushing
Dave: I think it won the Cannes Film Festival in the year 2000
Zoë: Nothing says Chris like "Bjork musical" hahahaha
Chris: that's definitely a thought I just had
Dave Well I think nothing says Chris like The Departed
Ali: I have a really squishy place in my heart for Bjork.
Dave: She had a really hard time making that
Apparently von Trier terrorized her
To get to the crazy emotional pitch she needed to get to
Ali: I heard that, too
Dave: von Trier, the provocateur
Chris: lol I just did something to turn my camera on but I don't know what it was
Dave: Getting that kind of recognition at cannes must have been nice though considering how much she paid for it (can't believe I'm saying that about an award)
in fact she might have won best actress as well. I know that von Trier actually has a lot of wins for his actors. Kirsten Dunst won best actress for Melancholia
Nicole Kidman is unbelievably good in Dogville
He gets really great shit out of his actors
Excuse me group, I've had a little bit of coffee and I'm not entirely engrossed in the film
Chris: "we need a successful saint!"
Ali: God bless oblivious Nature.
John: Every Nazi movie reassures me I would have never wanted to be Ali:ve then or there.
Chris: yes they ALL really hammer that point home
John: Oh yeah, you’re definitely getting a fair trial in a courtroom adorned with no less than 6 nazi flags
Chris: this is like the story of Job in the Bible
Interestingly, The Tree of Life (Malick's best, if you ask me) starts with a quote from the book of Job, although the story that proceeds has absolutely nothing to do with the story like this one does
John: That’s the guy that plays Hitler in all the youtube videos
Bruno Ganz
Chris: oh the meme videos?
John: Yea
Chris: like the one that has the Cutrone version?
John: Haha yes
Chris: hahaha I would not have made that connection
he sits in his chair, as if to feel just for a moment what it's like to be in that position
I think I would have taken that last offer
Dave: Yeah I mean it's really unfortunate to be corrupted, but everybody is corrupted at some point at least a little, you're really going to die for it?
I don't know if I can watch this
Ali: My stomach hurts
Chris: that was really hard
Zoë: yeah
Dave: Maybe it didn't win any awards because now is not the historical moment for escapism involving dying under a Nazi occupation
I'm only half watching, just can't do it
Chris: that scene was like getting hit by a train
Kellie: Same as Dave
John: I guess I don’t see all films as escapism
You don’t really watch a film like this to escape but to be reminded
Dave: It's escapism in the sense that you are taking a break from other events in your life
I always say that Malick films are like going to church
Chris: yeah. they're more like life events themselves than a break from them
I don't think you can ever truly passively watch a Malick film
Dave: Yeah, I agree
Chris: it's not a thing you witness but a thing that HAPPENS to you
Dave: Well I'm passably watching it, not emotionally involved
John: A lot of people hate escapism now anyways.
Chris: yeah but you gotta half watch it to do that
John: I might’ve written about that once
Chris: I think you did
John: I was told I shouldn’t be watching movies in the age of Trump or something ridiculous like that
Chris: oh Jesus Christ
John: I couldn’t imagine writing a letter like this.
I cried listening to Cyndi Lauper earlier
The letter would be soaked.
Ali: What song?
John: “Time After Time”
Ali: I knew it.
God, the fucking Nazis.
Sign here, make it official!
Dave:
Leah: All of this is why I get really testy when people throw around the term “nazi” like they know what it was like then.
Chris: agreed
Leah: Not saying there aren’t actually nazis today, but be careful with that word.
Ali: Oh my God that kiss was so beautiful
Zoë: That tiny kiss has me crying
Ali: So hard
John: Godwin’s Law is unavoidable
"as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1"
Ali: I KNEW the motorcycle was going to come back into it
John: Of course the Nazi’s co-opted the guillotine
Chris: not a lot of sun-through-leaves in this one - Malick does that a lot - but we just got a moment of sun through grass
Dave: Yeah but they were mostly in wide open areas with no canopy
And then lots of indoors
Chris: yep above the clouds
Zoë: Not a lot of trees up there above the clouds
Chris: we did get a lot of DIRECT sun shots (with a star filter) which is unusual for Malick I feel like
Dave: I'm not religious but I've always felt that if I were to be, I would worship the sun. It is The giver of all life
Chris: well I think that's part of why Malick plays with the sun in his conversations about the divine
Dave: I agree
She outright says it in Tree of Life, That's where God lives
Chris:: yeah
well
shit guys
That was really difficult but I think absolutely magnificent
Ali: Yes.
Chris: I am deeply impacted
Zoë: That last George Eliot quote gave me chills
Ali: Me too.
Leah: Same, Zoë
Chris: yeah me too, I had to jump forward because the tv is not that big and the text is small
holy shit were those letters REAL
Ali: WHAT
Chris: I don't know if you're watching the credits but there was something like "Excerpts from the letters were taken from [something something in german]"
Zoë: oh wow, FRANZ was real
Ali: Uuuhhhooouggggghh I was really hoping the letters were not real
Chris: oh yeah the whole story was real
but yes it seems like the letters as presented here were at least in part real
holy shit man
Zoë: I did not realize that. I don't usually stay away from spoilers but I didn't read much about this beforehand.
Ali: I knew the story was real, but I was hoping the letters were from the director's imagination.
John: His feast day was actually on the 21st of May
Leah: “Portions of the letters between franz and fani jagerstatter are taken from Franz Jaggerstatter: Letters and writings from prison “
So there are MORE
Chris: yeah
Leah: I need to read these
Ali: Oh God
I feel physically ill.
Dave: Why I tapped out!
I'm awfully susceptible
Kellie: Well I tuned in and out… I have to be in the right mind set to have my emotions assaulted
Ali: It's been a while since I've been this affected by a movie.
Dave: That's Malick. Knew what I was getting into.
Chris: Nah but Dave I have to say
Dave: Every time he makes a movie I generally consider it one of the best of the year
Chris: No other Malick is DIFFICULT like this
Dave: Ha..
Chris: Like by the end it was actually hard to watch it was so overwhelmingly intense
Dave: Well I'm sure that's true
Chris: He does almost always blow me away but that was like being STRUCK