NP - Terrence Malick SUCKS!

[Mark Kohut]

Speaking of a Christian-themed movie, I guess:
#PopeFrancis <https://twitter.com/hashtag/PopeFrancis?src=hash> will meet
tomorrow with director Martin Scorsese, who is in Rome to screen his new
film "Silence" for a group of Jesuits.

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 9:38 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> The pose is belied by the lack of delivery beyond pretty pictures and in
> implied potent potential deep answer to an overwhelming sense of
> discontent, imbalance.  The answer is always elusive sweet fluff hinting at
> potential fulfillment.  It really is Christian in some sense.
>
>
> On Monday, November 28, 2016, Danny Weltman <danny.weltman at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I guess I'm sort of interested in which features of Malick make his
>> movies seem like things that are "posing as depth." What makes it a pose,
>> and what's the depth his stuff is posing as?
>>
>> Also, perhaps it's my inability to really understand Kierkegaard,
>> Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, but I've always had a lot of trouble imagining
>> that I know enough about depth (if that's the sort of depth we're talking
>> about) to tell when a movie's just posing at it vs. when a movie's actually
>> there. I'm happy to just ignore the pose and take it for what I can get out
>> of it, regardless of what it (ostensibly?) wants me to get out of it. But
>> maybe if I knew more about these guys I'd be mad at the movie fucking them
>> up just like movies that take on topics I'm more familiar with make me
>> unhappy when they fuck that stuff up.
>>
>> Or perhaps Malick's movies aren't informed by his philosophical forays at
>> all, in which case I'm back at my first question, which is curiosity about
>> what the "depth" is that we're talking about.
>>
>> Danny
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 5:10 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> It's funny, but seemingly true, that people either love or hate Malick's
>>> films.  I hate them. I would probably find his company maddeningly smug and
>>> purposefully obscure, projecting a sense of deep meaning in every sigh.  It
>>> seems a formula, a facade, posing as depth.  I guess that is the definition
>>> of "pretension."
>>>
>>> David Morris
>>>
>>>
>>> On Monday, November 28, 2016, Danny Weltman <danny.weltman at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> "(I think his thesis at college ... Yale? ... Harvard? ... was on a
>>>> Christian theme ... sorry to be vague.)"
>>>>
>>>> I have not read the thesis, but Wikipedia says: "After a disagreement
>>>> with his tutor, Gilbert Ryle, over his thesis on the concept of world in
>>>> Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, Malick left Oxford without a
>>>> degree. In 1969, Northwestern University Press published Malick's
>>>> translation of Heidegger's Vom Wesen des Grundes as The Essence of Reasons."
>>>>
>>>> I am going to go out on a limb and say that Malick has a bit more going
>>>> on with his philosophy than it being "basically Christian," at least
>>>> insofar as that label would be derogatory enough to make the influence of
>>>> the philosophy a "derailing" one as opposed to a guiding one or some other
>>>> neutral or perhaps praiseworthy adjective. I can say that one need not be
>>>> Christian in the last to find his stuff extremely compelling, as I do. It
>>>> perhaps helps that 99% of the time, when someone uses "pretentious" as a
>>>> derogatory term, it marks something I'm liable to enjoy. I'm lacking the
>>>> organ that generates bile when exposed to ostensibly pretentious stuff,
>>>> somehow.
>>>>
>>>> Danny
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 7:32 PM, Douglas Holm <dkholm at mac.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> His first two films, Badlands and Days of Heaven, were extraordinary
>>>>> in telling a tale visually instead of through dialogue.  After a long gap,
>>>>> he returned, but his basically Christian philosophy, which seems to go
>>>>> unnoticed, has derailed his recent films.  (I think his thesis at college
>>>>> ... Yale? ... Harvard? ... was on a Christian theme ... sorry to be
>>>>> vague.). Al they all seem the same .... ladies in summer dresses twirling
>>>>> in meadows as an emotional high point.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Nov 27, 2016, at 6:30 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> All of them!  The only one I could stomach was "What Dreams May Come."
>>>>>   But even that is pretentious beyond belief.  WHY do people like his shit?
>>>>>
>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sunday, November 27, 2016, Douglas Holm <dkholm at mac.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Which one?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > On Nov 27, 2016, at 6:10 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > I HATE his shit!!!! How did he ever get it funded?
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > David Morris
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
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