Week of 11/10 - To the Wonder

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.