1) I'm really stunned by the process of this film. I'm very happy that I learned the very experimental and "natural" extent of Malick's filmmaking on this project before going into it, because it really helped me understand the way that the product felt to watch. I feel like this process and its being so distant from Hollywood narrative film really informed the film; avoiding scripts and marks and Malick's writing the narration after looking at the footage feels a lot like reality/memory. We look back on our own lives and we see moments and passage of time but very few specifics or actual conversations. On top of that, we prescribe thought and emotion onto our pasts that are more informed by our current states than the realities of the situation. The film felt like the visualization of the memories of a relationship and the thoughts accompanying that reflection, rather than a realistic depiction of things as they objectively happened.
2) The film felt very long, and between that and it's feeling already a little schizophrenic, I don't think that the product was entirely successful or pleasant to watch. What surprised me about my viewing experience, though, was that I burst into tears for a lot of the scenes with Rachel McAdams. While watching that section of the film, not only was I so impressed by both McAdams' performance and her character's story/presence, but I found myself reflecting on what it means to love someone in a very real way...and then to not love them anymore. This section didn't provide any insight for me on that topic, but I thought about it and something about contemplating that truth through McAdams' character made me very emotional.
3) David Sterritt's reading discussed how Malick films ponder how filmmaking can be less of a recreation/representation and more of an organic product, and I know, after learning about the production, that this organic was striven for; but also felt it in the product and how, to me at least, it represented this inaccuracy of memory in a way that seems inherently in conflict with notions of representation that are expected in Hollywood cinema. Sterritt also discussed Malick's contemplation of the validity and "naturalness" of human emotion, and I think this is why I got emotional during the Rachel McAdams scene; we didn't judge (I don't think) Ben Affleck's character for falling in love with someone else, but saw it as a process that happened unexpectedly.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Week of 11/3 - Mother and Son
1) I loved the mildly-surreal formal innovations in Mother and Son. I noticed the painting on the glass immediately and found myself looking for its effect in every shot. The warping effect I liked less, in that I felt that the blurry vignette effect was much more tonally effective--almost felt like watching the film with your eyes welled up with tears--than the structural distortion, which for me didn't add much to the piece. The sound was also great; I remember while watching the scene near the end where the son is alone in the forest and thinking about how clear every step he took was, but there was no noise besides that, and thought that moment in many ways articulated the experience as it was taking place inside his head.
2) I had to pee really badly when I was watching this film, so focusing on the ways that it formally experimented kept me excited. One shouldn't have to feel the need to be excited or entertained while watching a film like this, but it kept me a little bit more still in my seat when I was really squirming. That being said, I didn't want to just get up and go: for one, I had completely lost perception of time while watching this film, and I didn't know if time was moving really quickly or really slowly but every time I thought about getting up and going I thought that perhaps it was almost the end and that I would miss it. Again, not that the entertainment or the plot structure was vitally important, but I ultimately wanted the full experience and opted to be uncomfortable and a little distracted rather than missing part of the "journey" the film takes you on.
3) I'm not totally sure, after reading Schrader's piece, that I could identify if a film was or was not connected with the transcendental; though I appreciate his philosophy on the essence that filmmaking can articulate in a very special way. When he discusses style, I feel that Mother and Son gives a very heartfelt and genuine illustration of the things that he said these films contemplate, such as the mystery of existence and questioning "conventional interpretations of reality." There was a lot of mystery in this film, but not in the way we usually think of mystery as something ominous or to be solved. Rather, it waded in this mystery of intense spiritual connection with another person, and how that can be "isolating" in a way that is difficult to think analytically about, difficult to reduce down to words like "good" or "bad." Navigating into these connections is kind of magical; the world can truly melt away into one landscape, one color palette, one dialect, etc. when you invest your self toward the wellbeing of someone else.
2) I had to pee really badly when I was watching this film, so focusing on the ways that it formally experimented kept me excited. One shouldn't have to feel the need to be excited or entertained while watching a film like this, but it kept me a little bit more still in my seat when I was really squirming. That being said, I didn't want to just get up and go: for one, I had completely lost perception of time while watching this film, and I didn't know if time was moving really quickly or really slowly but every time I thought about getting up and going I thought that perhaps it was almost the end and that I would miss it. Again, not that the entertainment or the plot structure was vitally important, but I ultimately wanted the full experience and opted to be uncomfortable and a little distracted rather than missing part of the "journey" the film takes you on.
3) I'm not totally sure, after reading Schrader's piece, that I could identify if a film was or was not connected with the transcendental; though I appreciate his philosophy on the essence that filmmaking can articulate in a very special way. When he discusses style, I feel that Mother and Son gives a very heartfelt and genuine illustration of the things that he said these films contemplate, such as the mystery of existence and questioning "conventional interpretations of reality." There was a lot of mystery in this film, but not in the way we usually think of mystery as something ominous or to be solved. Rather, it waded in this mystery of intense spiritual connection with another person, and how that can be "isolating" in a way that is difficult to think analytically about, difficult to reduce down to words like "good" or "bad." Navigating into these connections is kind of magical; the world can truly melt away into one landscape, one color palette, one dialect, etc. when you invest your self toward the wellbeing of someone else.
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