Most people I know are not big Malick fans. I may have only met one or two others, actually. There are few more polarizing figures among highly opinionated people (I know many) who like to hold forth about who is great and who is horrible. So there is always this preconceived floating contempt from the great shadowy other, in the darkened wings of my mind, whenever I contemplate Malick’s virtuosity and significance. Always this need to make caveats for my adoration of his films. But maybe that is part of what makes Malick’s work so intensely personal, for me, and powerful. Whenever I think about the beauteous nature of his films, I feel like an am being ATTACKED. The beauty in his films HURTS, and hurts even more because I feel like I understand it and love it, while most people I know and respect think of it as pretentious crap.
And it is pretentious, certainly, but it’s a pure pretension. It’s not pretending to do anything else but be pretentious. Not really telling a story, or documenting anything in any kind of particular way, or being overly political. That’s probably the thing most people don’t get. They think, what is he trying to do here? What is he trying to say with these reels of beautiful images and half-delirious murmuring? Why is my precious time being taken up by this?
I get that. I really do. I guess I’m easy, he has my number, and all that. He basically earned a lifetime pass from me after The Thin Red Line. I hadn’t seen his first two movies before that, I saw them subsequently, but with that one dang movie he became as seminal an influence on me as Lynch, Scorcese, Alan Moore, Dan Clowes. Absolutely the guy. I was 29 at the time (1999), living with my parents and in my second stint at Borders Books. I was definitely susceptible to adopting a guiding light of some kind, living that limited New Jersey life on the highways and in the bushes of suburbia. I guess that was a good time to get me on your side.
I am for sure looking forward to Knight of Cups. I can tell from the trailer it will be absolutely despised by most, which makes me happy. I saw To the Wonder (which I did not think was that great, but it was just like turning on the Malick spigot for a few hours, you know?) with a very small crowd at the Landmark Sunshine. I am thinking when Cups is finally released in the US, it will be more notable and anticipated, and the house will be larger when I see it. Maybe my wife will see it with me. I imagine though she won’t want to sit through it. I don’t know anyone who would besides me!
