What is The Last Movie You Watched?

[Prospero]

Is the "Badlands" film you are referring to the 1973 movie with Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen, directed by Terrence Malick? I remember loving that film.

[broncofan]

Is the "Badlands" film you are referring to the 1973 movie with Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen, directed by Terrence Malick? I remember loving that film.

That's the one. It was recommended to me by someone who loved it. I did like it, but I just didn't get the narration by Sissy Spacek. I think the point was to let us know that she processes things in a child-like way and is highly influenced by her older, deranged boyfriend. But it was so constant and without variation that all it evoked in me was pity.

Anyhow, when I say slightly overrated I only say I think that because of its plaudits. Had I seen it without knowing anything about it I think I would have enjoyed it more.

[Prospero]

He used to be a terrific director. "Days Of Heaven" is a stunning film and "The Thin Red Line" was also a great war movie. His visual sense is pretty unerring. But his two most recent films have flipped into self indulgent and pretentious tosh.

[broncofan]

He used to be a terrific director. "Days Of Heaven" is a stunning film and "The Thin Red Line" was also a great war movie. His visual sense is pretty unerring. But his two most recent films have flipped into self indulgent and pretentious tosh.

It's funny. I was going to say the movie was visually impressive. I noticed it but I don't have a great aesthetic for that...and I don't always trust myself to give a good judgment on that basis. But many of the scenes were beautiful.

I enjoyed The Thin Red Line a lot, but have never seen Days of Heaven. That might be one to watch.

[Stavros]

Malick is what the French would call an Auteur, a film-maker with an individual, distinctive style -he is also one of the finest directors America has produced. Most of, if not all of his films, are informed by a (Christian) religious sensibility.

His first two films, Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (197 are about outsiders who rebel against the society into which they cannot fit, and lose. Both are bathed in the light of a late summer afternoon that has been so prevalent in Malick's films. Both have a narration by a young girl who acts as a morally detached observer of events over which they have no control. The apparent amorality or nihilism of Kit in Badlands is the central issue which enables him to kill; the scene at the end when he seems to relish being arrested speaks volumes for his narcissistic personality. Malick, famously camera shy these days, acts in Badlands but is not credited (he is the man who calls at the rich man's house when Kit is there).

The Thin Red Line (199 is a flawed attempt to deal with the issue of sacrifice in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War; at its centre are two soldiers who either decline to be part of the sacrifice/fighting -(Pvt Witt, played by Jim Caviezel)- or Captn Staros (played by the wonderful Canadian actor, Elias Koteas) who disobeys the orders of Lt-Col tall (Nick Nolte). Sean Penn takes the role of the detached observer, as interlocutor of the troops, but it is clear an enormous amount of footage was shot and spliced together which accounts for the disjointed conclusion where the George Clooney character suddenly appears for no apparent reason.

The New World (2005) is a version of real events surrounding the arrival in Pennsylvania in 1607 of English settlers, particularly John Smith (Colin Farrell), who first encounters Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher, I think she was 15 at the time they shot the film), and the tobacco farmer John Rolfe (Christian Bale) whom she married and who with him was presented at Court when they came to England. There are not many films about this period of American history and probably few as ravishing to look at. The early scene when Pocahontas first sees the English settlers is mesmerising while the people involved felt Malick had been fair with their history. Colin Farrell is not my 'cup of tea'. Although like The Thin Red Line the film suffers from too much footage being spliced into one film, I have seen this numerous times and always enjoyed it.

The Tree of Life (2011) may be Malick's masterpiece, it certainly compares well with Badlands. The film is a contrast between the life of nature and the life of grace and contains one of the few attempts in cinema to present the origins of life and Planet Earth, in the process exposing how dated and shallow the first part of Kubrick's 2001 has become (although it was always a shallow lie, as one would expect of this cinematic technician with limited intelligence). You cannot really empathise with this film if you do not at least understand the biblical references taken from Job, or the overall thrust which is to contrast people who accept life as it is, and those who attempt to change life on their own volition. A sensitive performance from Brad Pitt is enhanced by the superb acting of his young sons.

To The Wonder (2012) is an almost wordless essay on love and commitment. Its meaning lies in both the way in which Malick shoots the human body, and the way movement is used to unravel the concepts of love, fidelity and eternity which permeate the film, again, shot in late afternoon sunlight. I cannot pretend the film is appealing for a wide audience, but lovers of Malick's work will enjoy it. I certainly did.

Malick has three films in post-production, according to imdb.

[Prospero]

A good breakdown of Malick's films by Stavros, but I must disagree regarding the most recent film. I loathed To The Wonder. It didn't work at all and was tedious beyond measure. Almost as tedious as the films of Bela Tarr.

[Stavros]

Bela Tarr -one of Europe's finest and most challenging directors. I admit that I was disappointed with The Man from London, but Satantango, The Turin Horse, and Werckmeister Harmonies are masterpieces of precision. As was said in relation to his films and the work of Krasznahorkai on which they are based -'reality extended to the point of madness'.

I think you need to have a pure love of film to appreciate Malick, in which narrative alone is insufficient.

[Prospero]

Oh I have a pure love of film sure enough but you insisting that Tarr's films are masterpieces does not make them so Stavros. The Turin Horse is anything but precise. it maunders on emptily for what seemed like hours. "Realty extended to the point of madness". Oh I think that I can concur with that.

[Stavros]

Oh I have a pure love of film sure enough but you insisting that Tarr's films are masterpieces does not make them so Stavros. The Turin Horse is anything but precise. it maunders on emptily for what seemed like hours. "Realty extended to the point of madness". Oh I think that I can concur with that.

I agree, but I think Tarr's best films are masterpieces, and that matters to me. I think you are wrong about The Turin Horse because it is indeed precisely constructed -the film resembles a novel by Beckett but without Sam's occasional shards of humour and wit, but as the film is about the last week of time that is not surprising. But while the father and daughter appear to do the same things every day at the same time eating each day a boiled potato, in fact there are glaring or subtle differences within each day, and the director has shaped the film like a piece of music so that the final day drifts into an eternal, elegiac silence. Wind plays a key role in the film, as does light, and you won't find many films filmed with such a translucent sense of light, a crucial element in a film in which light dies for ever. I would not recommend it in the way one can recommend a film with a conventional structure where the scene changes every three minutes, but as someone who has made films you know what it means to set up a shot and how long a take should last. Tarr gets it exactly right, in the context of his films, and the effect is part of the magic of cinema which is why we watch films.

I don't know if you saw it, but today's Guardian has a fascinating set of clips of long takes from tv programmes -I don't know much about the West Wing, but the take in this selection is amazing. I also don't know enough about tv to know what the best long takes are. But in film, I suppose we could start with....Bela Tarr?

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-ra...ng-shots-on-tv

[fred41]

20 Feet from Stardom...on Netflix

Twenty Feet from Stardom (2013) - IMDb


Documentary on some of the better known backup singers through the times. Interviews with them and some of the people they worked with. With opinions offered on why some of them couldn't carry on solo careers and why some didn't want to. Well worth watching...even if only for the incredible vocal ability possessed by these singers (some of the stuff Lisa Fischer does with her voice honestly gives me chills...just wow...I had forgotten who she was...just bought one of her albums on itunes)
It will help reacquaint some of you with some favorite musical memories and perhaps have you listening to those songs differently.