Filming Philosophy: A Wittgensteinian Approach to the Tree Of Life

Louis HamweyInd. Study FA/11

Richard Allen

Filming Philosophy:A Wittgensteinian Approach to the Tree Of Life

For many scholars, Terrence Malick’s films have remained a

somewhat enigmatic subject. Mystery surrounds his themes as the

films navigate the between the fine line of the Hollywood epic

and the surreal art-house. Most of this ambiguity lies in the

actions of the filmmaker himself, or better yet, inactions.

Malick’s privacy has become as much of a pertinent feature of his

work as his aesthetics. He refuses to give interviews, host

questionnaires, or even attend openings for his films despite the

immense fan fare and anticipation displayed by cinephiles for his

works. Between his five films to date, nothing more exists that

is his own direct commentary on his works beyond two short

interviews he gave following the release of Badlands in 1975.

Consequently, scholars, always the ones intent to find meaning,

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explored different avenues of investigation, primarily by means

of his biographical background. This paper examines the way that

Malick’s biographical background has suggested a certain emphasis

on how his films are read especially in terms of Heiddegerian

philosophy. Though, this method of approach has yielded great

results in film theory, I propose that it is in fact limiting to

merely examine the director by means of a single philosopher.

That in Malick’s most recent film, Tree of Life is best understood

in terms of Wittgenstein’s model for philosophy, and when it is,

it becomes a work that not only adds to the incredible career of

Terrence Malick, but boosts him to the echelon of film

philosopher like no other of his films has before.

Again, his biography remains sparse and limited, but a key

fact has been the foundation for much of Malick criticism to

date. Malick’s foundation is in philosophy as he is known to

have been educated by some of the most elite contemporary

philosophers of our time. Attending Harvard and taught by

Stanley Cavell, as well as being a Rhodes Scholar whose proposed

dissertation focused on the concept of the world for Ludwig

Wittgenstein, Martin Heidegger, and Soren Kierkegaard, has all 2

guided critics toward this philosophical approach to his films.

And his publishing of a translation of Heidegger’s Essence of

Reasons in 1969 has further narrowed the attention to his works

relationship with Heideggerian philosophy and thus was born the

concept “Heideggerian Cinema”.

Terrence Malick and Hedeggerian Cinema

The term ‘Hedeggerian cinema’ was first coined in an article

by Marc Furstenau and Leslie MacAvoy, which sought to decipher

the opaqueness of Malick’s most expansive and ambiguous film to

date, The Thin Red Line (TTRL, 1998). His first film in 20 years,

TTRL retained many of the stylistic features of his first two,

but distant itself much further away from a conventional

narrative line and left the vast empty vistas of the American

landscape for the hanging vines and suffocating density of a

South Pacific rain forest. Voiceovers are still the most common

means of understanding the psychology of the characters, but

these characters, which are all hardened men of war in at least

their 20’s, speak of the metaphysical as opposed to the naive

ramblings of preteen girls unaware of their situation or their

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world. There was an obvious schism not only in time, but in

content making it difficult for critics to look at TTRL through

the same scope as Badlands and Days of Heaven. This is where

Malick’s biography became important and the connections between

the philosophy of Heidegger and the poetics of Malick had a

meeting point. Malick’s films had suddenly taken on the breadth

of both expressing philosophy and being philosophical.

The scope of this paper is not aimed at the delineation of

the works of Heidegger, but some reference to his work will

suffice. To put it briefly, Heidegger’s concerns lie in the idea

of ‘being’ and how our existence manifests itself in our world.

For Heidegger the questions surrounding our interpretation of the

world are inherently linked to our understanding of our selves

and how the self and world are inseparable. The metaphysical

extinct to which we can begin to create a hypothesis about our

interaction with nature is wholly based our subjective perception

of individuality. In this sense the world remains unchanged, it

is only our understanding of self that varies and causes the

ruptures in time and the world. In terms of art, Heidegger

approaches with a similar sense of subjectivity. Malick’s own 4

translation of Essence of Reasons reveals Heidegger’s thesis.

Heidegger contends that the world of art is active insomuch as

our understanding of its historical situation is always changing.

The terms that endear an artwork as being correctly

representative of a mood or social reality is only so in the

context of its situation in history. The ‘truth’ in art is

always relative to perception and its inherent relation to the

audience. The truth of standing in the Acropolis in 2011 is not

the same truth as it was in the era of Classical Greece. Truth

in art is dynamic insomuch as our understanding of the world is.

When this philosophical background is applied to Malick’s

films, there are suddenly connections to be made that illuminate

a much deeper meaning to his work beyond cinematic themes. Most

notably in TTRL is told through the dichotomy in the relationship

between the characters Witt and Welsh. Viewed in ignorance they

are seen as nothing more than adversaries in belief and purpose,

but in light of Heideggerian philosophy it becomes a struggle

between “Welsh’s nihilistic pyhsicalism… (and) Witt’s

metaphysical panpsychism” (Critchley) where Witt’s view of

himself has him wondering ‘Maybe all men got one big soul, that 5

everybody’s a part of—all faces are the same man, one big self’

and conversely Welsh declaring ‘Everything is a lie. Only one

thing a man can do, find something that’s his, make an island for

himself.’ The structure of these two men’s worlds is based on

their own subjective view of it. Malick allows their universe to

arise independently of his hand or that of the other characters.

Neither are objective in their monologues, but the world in which

they comment on surely is and Malick presents it as such.

Like Heidegger, Malick treats the world (at least the one he

films) with objectivity. His films are well known for their

depiction of the natural world. Images of plants and animals

tend to be the subject of shots and birds singing, water flowing,

and wind blowing will more often than not be the accompanying

soundtrack. The “beautiful indifference of nature,” as Critchley

calls it, has become a hallmark of the Malick film. The world

that surrounds his characters is always prevalent and often times

overwhelming. It becomes the centerpiece of many shots and

remains much larger than his characters or even their psychology.

However, in stark contrast to other filmmakers that employ the

qualities of nature in their work, such as Robert Redford’s 6

depiction of the Montana wilderness’ majesty in A River Runs Through

It (1992), the natural world remains objective and is filmed as

is rather than an active participant in the story. Cranes and

dollies may be used to scale a tree or navigate fields of grass,

but things that exist are left to appear simply as they are.

Malick films a world that is, not one that is extra ordinary and

never exclamated. Any such reaction is through the perception of

the viewer and the relation they have to the understanding of the

characters understanding of that world. Malick creates a world

which Heidegger would have understood; one that is passive and

meaning is only got through the subjective nature of the

characters.

The enlightenment into Heideggerian thought has also begun a

somewhat revisionist approach to Malick. His earlier films,

Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978), were both critical

successes at the time of their release, but more for their

cinematic value than philosophical input. However, since the

fascination with Heideggerian interpretation began, scholars have

gone back to reevaluate these early films in this new context and

the results provided further evidence to the connection between 7

the German philosopher and American filmmaker. Badlands was

originally approached by scholars as a modern day Bonnie and

Clyde; an outlaw couple on the run, but obsessed with the pulp

icons of 1950s America—an homage through dissention if you will.

The road flick with some crime and little bit of romance seemed

to cover film in terms of genre and theme; however this left the

subtleties of such a brilliant work untouched. The vast expanses

of emptiness that Kit and Holly navigated, seemingly making no

progress left many critics to jump straight to the issues

involved with identity and characters who always lived in

fictional reality in their minds, unaware of the totality of

their actions. Kit saw himself as a real James Dean and all

while she is assisting him in this murderous run, Holly remains

quaint in her voiceovers never revealing too much as “it would

not be proper” for a southern girl to do so, according to Malick

(Walker).

This all fits in with Malick’s own understanding of

Heidegger’s notion of the world: “The ‘world’…is not the

‘totality of things’ but that in terms which we understand them,

that which gives them measure and purpose and validity in our 8

schemes” (Heidegger). Kit and Holly do not understand the

context of their world as a whole, but can do so in terms of

identification, Kit with the fictional persona of ‘James Dean’

and Holly with her southern sensibilities of properness. Their

actions as rampaging murderers are nullified internally by their

inability to grasp at that reality and in turn identify with the

fictional one they created, thus their world is not whole.

Furthermore, the mise en scene of many scenes emphasizes the

world’s objectivity in spite of the characters: Holly’s father

painting a billboard, Kit standing with his gun slung over his

back as the sun sets in the distance, the two dancing in the

headlights to Nat King Cole. In each of these instances, the

characters are seen more as props interacting within the scene as

opposed to personalities that maintain the focus of the scene.

Their presence there is as meaningful to the landscape as their

absence; it is neither here nor there. It can also be seen in

his attention to detail and the aesthetics of his films.

Malick’s interpretation of the Pocahontas story in The New World

(2005) is wrought with inaccuracies, but the setting in which the

film takes place is incredibly detailed and researched. He goes 9

to great lengths to preserve the accuracy of the time in costume,

makeup, choreography, and even digitally coloring a real bird to

resemble an extinct one, the Carolina Parakeet (something that

only the most ardent of ornithologists would notice) to maintain

the world the settlers would have seen in the early 1600s. But

the story itself, the relationship between Smith and Pocahontas,

resembles little of the truth noted by historians. Malick has

recreated a world, but allowed the sensibilities of contemporary

thought, interpret it. The earth in which the characters in both

films are participating is in effect one of materiality, where

the landscape, the guns, the cars, costumes, and birds are the

material means that are used to create a work of art. It is only

through the artworks subjective interpretation that the art is

given a sense of ‘truth’ and ultimately ‘worlds’ itself into a

world.

However, this concept of ‘world’ can only be had when the

storyteller becomes a spectator, consciously separating

themselves from the narrative and reflecting on what they see,

thus the need for the voiceovers. This idea of removing oneself

from the narrative and reflecting on their world can be seen 10

through the naïve virtues of Malick’s two female leading

characters in both Badlands and Days of Heaven. In Badlands, Holly

has a moment of awareness when looking through her father’s

stereopticon:

“It hit me I was just this little girl, born in Texas whose father was asign painter who had only just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine and I thought: Where would I be this very moment if Kit had never met me? Or killed anybody? This very moment. If my mom had never met my dad. If she’d never died. And what’s the man I’ll marry gonna look like? What’s he doing right this minute? Is he thinkin’ about me now by some coincidence even though he doesn’t know me? Does itshow on his face?”

This is not as much a revelatory moment as a moment of absence

for Holly. She is no longer participating in the narrative as

all these questions question the very function of the narrative

itself; or in other words Holly is asking what the film would

look like if Malick had given her a mother or had Kit not killed

her father. Linda, the young female lead in Days of Heaven also

has this instance of removal from the narrative when she is

watching the Charlie Chaplin film The Gold Rush (1925):

“Devil’s glad when people done bad. Then he just sends them to the snakehouse. He just sits there and laughs and watch while you’re sittin’ there all tied up and snakes are eatin’ your eyes out. They go down your throat and eat all your systems out…I think the devil was on the farm.”

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Linda’s voiceover is almost religious in connotation, but

nonetheless is a removal from her perception, or at least her

ability to narrate the story. In both instances these young

women are acting in response to their own world by the viewing of

another, Holly through seeing far off lands in her stereopticon

and Linda through a Chaplin film. The women are spectators,

removed from the narrative of what they are viewing allowing them

to ‘world’ their world. Here Malick has set up a parallel

between his characters and the audience. The voiceovers in his

films, whether it be that of Holly’s, Linda’s, Witt’s, or Smith’s

all are the “striving,” as Heidegger would call it, for something

beyond the terms of their world. It is a call of sorts for

making sense out of an inherently insensible world. Some

scholars have gone so far as to offer that it is in line with

Michel Chion’s notion of the semi-acousmetre which states “the

voice-over (or to use Chion’s word, acousmetre)…unmoors itself

from the body from which the voice emanates, and thus has more

widely vargated powers to either enhance, or disturb, our

epistemological mastery of the film’s visual track” (Rybin).

Either way a relation is made between the audience and the

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characters where Heidegger’s philosophical foundations of how we

‘world’ our world is done through the subjective notions of

removing oneself from such a world and reflecting back on it. It

is in the nature of cinema to have such an effect and

consequentially the very best films all do this in some way.

Malick’s background with Heidegger just naturally drew a line

from the philosophical concept to his works.

It is quite easy to see where film scholarship began to

create the idea of Heideggerian cinema, especially in relation to

Malick’s films. The motifs and themes of all five of his films

seem to fall perfectly in line with Heidegger’s philosophical

sensibilities. And even if Malick had never intended to make

films in the Heideggerian tradition, it is impossible to

consciously separate his educational and theoretical background

from his works. However, this approach leads to what Critchely

calls his second “hermeneutic banana skin” that any scholar can

slip on in their evaluation of Malick’s work. It is the

“extremely tempting (desire)…to read through his films to some

philosophical pre-text or meta-text” and ultimately not examine

the film as a text at all, but rather how well it exhibits 13

another philosopher’s idea (Crtichley). This pre-text can

eventually lead to a better understanding of a film, but in turn

limits the films own originality, by simply being a retelling of

another’s thought. Malick would no longer be the originator of

the thought, just the film.

I agree with Crtichley on this point, that a text read in

light of a pre-text is only an allusion to that pre-text and does

not operate as its own individual thought. However, I find his

third ‘banana skin’ a bit more contentious. Critchely states:

“To read from cinematic language to some philosophical metalanaguage is both the miss what is specific to the medium of film and usually to engage in some sort of cod-philosophy deliberately designed to intimidate the uninitiated. I think this move has to be avoided on philosophical grounds, indeed the very best Heideggerian grounds…A philosophical reading of a film should not be concerned with ideas abouta thing, but with the thing itself, the cinematic Sache…Malick’s art demands that we take seriously the idea that film is less an illustration of philosophical ideas and theories—let’s call that philoso-fugal reading-- and more a form of philosophizing, of reflection, reasoning and argument.” (Critchley)

Critchley is not alone in this belief that if film is to

philosophize it is meant to do so about the medium itself. As

far back as the very first ‘film philosophers’ in Arnheim,

Eisenstein, and Munsterberg all argued in terms of the medium,

not philosophical issues of being, justice, or ethics that

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concern many ‘conventional’ philosophers. But the arguments made

by these pioneers, though relevant, have to be understood in the

context in which they were written, mostly in defense of film as

an artistic medium. They are antiquated, as it is preposterous

now more than ever to argue that film is just a rendition of the

stage or visual example of a novel. Even Critchley’s argument

dates itself (and partly contradicts itself) by arguing that even

Heidegger would agree with him, but this is somewhat like

suggesting that cocaine is the best means for curing morphine

addictions and citing Freud as a source; it is only relevant in

terms of history, not contemporary belief. To analyze Malick’s

films in light of Hedeggerian philosophy is to look at Malick’s

biographical background, but also to ignore the entirety of his

biography. Malick, though most noted in the philosophical

community for his work on Heidegger was also a major investigator

of Ludwig Wittgenstein. For Malick (as well as his Harvard

professor Cavell) Wittgenstein is the most contemporary

philosopher he is publicly known to have studied. With this in

mind the argument of avoiding pre-text in analysis must come into

question as the philosophy of Wittgenstein is prominent in

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Malick’s films, not only as an example of Wittgenstein’s

philosophy, but rather his philosophy realized and developed

further by cinematic means—a fusion of film philosophy and film

as philosophy.

The Philosophy of Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein’s career is generally divided into an early

period, marked by his publishing of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (TLP)

in 1921, and a latter period, marked by his publishing of

Philosophical Investigations (PI) in 1953. The latter period is not a

new investigation of beliefs, but rather criticisms of his

earlier ones, both having mostly to do with the concept of

language and how it affected the ability to philosophize.

Wittgenstein viewed the role of philosophy as being one of

negating the senseless (sinnlos) arguments of past philosophers,

not dogmatically instilling new doctrines. However, to negate

one must be able to argue by means of language which becomes the

common denominator for which philosophy can be discussed: “Most

questions and propositions of the philosopher result from the

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fact that we do not understand the logic of our language” (TLP

4.003). His latter work, though written in criticism of his

earlier, still retains many of the same ideas, but presented

differently, as he himself found TLP to be dogmatic in principal.

It was this realization that lead to Wittgenstein’s Philosophical

Investigations being a work which controversially refuted centuries

of philosophy that he felt had corrupted the practice by misusing

language and attempting to find meaning, before understanding the

meaning of their words. This sense of formalized language is

refutable as “there are countless kinds (of language): countless

different kinds of use of what we call ‘symbols’, ‘words’,

‘sentences’. And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given

once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as

we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and

get forgotten” (PI 23).

Meaning of words becomes a central hypothesis for

Wittgenstein and he works through how meaning is understood

through various “language-games,” activities that involve the

interaction of the reader as they work through the problem on

their own mind. This is in stark contrast to the maieutic form

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most philosophical texts take on; the idea of proposing a problem

and then working toward a solution. The reader thus becomes very

involved in the meaning of the work and is essential to its

purpose—one cannot be had without the other. This also keeps the

didactic nature that Wittgenstein thought plagued his early work

at bay. Because the reader is given a problem they must work

through, the philosopher is never the one revealing the ideas,

but simply guiding the reader toward them. For Wittgenstein

“Philosophy simply puts everything before us, nor deduces

anything.—Since everything lies open to view there is nothing to

explain…The work of the philosopher consists in assembling

reminders for a particular purpose” (PI 126-27). It is about

personal revelation as opposed to dogmatic criticism being

instilled into the reader-- a reworking of philosophical

language. Any issues in philosophy arise from a philosopher

entrapping a reader by means of language and should philosophy

become a critique of language, ultimately “philosophical problems

should completely disappear” (PI 133).

Wittgenstein’s departs from Heidegger in a rather overt way.

Heidegger, philosophizing during a radical period of change in

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the social and consequently philosophical landscape, is wrapped

up with concerns of the human condition. Artistically he would

be pronounced as a devout modernist critical of the nature in

which we are to understand ourselves and our existence. However,

his political ties (it is a still a debated topic of how much his

works contributed to Nazi beliefs and how much he was affiliated

with the party) often geared his writing toward a more

nationalistic breadth that lacked the view of sovereign

philosophy. Ultimately, Heidegger’s philosophy was in

recognition of the modernism movement, but lacked a clear split

from philosophy of the past—He argued philosophy. Wittgenstein

on the other hand is an early pioneer of the move toward

examination of the postmodern condition, one that examines

philosophical texts, not by disagreeing with their content, but

rather through structural analysis of the argument. Wittgenstein

is not philosophizing on an idea-- he is philosophizing on

philosophy itself and it is through this understanding that

Malick’s films begin to be understood as a philosophy.

But first, it must be understood what it means the term

‘film philosophy’.

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Film Philosophy

The subject of “film philosophy” has become a major point of

contention amongst film scholars. There are many respected names

on both sides of the aisle and consensus is more had through

personal opinion than validated fact. However, Paisley

Livingston has narrowed the argument of film philosophy down to

two broad points that have come to be the main points of

contention: A film that philosophizes is “(1) a conception of

which sorts of exclusive capacities of the cinematic medium (or art

form) are said to make a special contribution to philosophy and

(2) claims about the significance and independence of the latter

contribution” (Livingston). Essentially it becomes a discussion

that involves itself in two separate areas of understanding, one

concerned with the art (cinematic qualities) and one with theme

(philosophy). What Livingston and many other scholars fail to do

is rectify the two and establish theses on whether or not both

instances must occur for a film to philosophize. Is it enough

for a film to tell a story that can only be done by cinematic

means, or must it also have a subject that is philosophical in

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nature? Few would argue that Avatar (James Cameron, 2010) is a

philosophical wonder, but none could doubt its cinematic

capacity. On the other hand Livingston himself presents the idea

that a static audio-visual recording of a philosophy lecture is

not film philosophy either. In these two instances alone it is

quite apparent that for something to be considered for film to be

philosophy it must be able to express the concerns of a

philosophical thesis, but do so in a purely cinematic

application.

However, this broad and sweeping declaration may fall on

deft ears to scholars such as Murray Smith, Stephen Mulhall, and

Tom Wartenberg who all approach the notion of film philosophy

from a more narratively concerned angle. For them, a film can

philosophize, but does so through being treated as a typical

philosophical strategy—the thought experiment. According to

Wartenberg, a thought experiment asks a reader “to consider a

certain possibility that she might not have considered before, a

possibility that is often at odds with her established patterns

of belief and action. Once this possibility is entertained as a

real possibility, then the reader is confronted with the question

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of what justifies her customary belief rather than the

possibility put forward by the thought experiment” (Wartenberg).

In this sense, Wartenberg’s definition is in agreement with

Mulhall’s proclamation that “some big-budget, popular

entertainment films--movies—philosophize on just the same was a

traditional philosophical text” (Smith) in that both used the

concept of the thought experiment in explaining a certain type of

philosophy. Both of these statements have their draw backs and

both arguments could be dismantled with relative ease

(Wartenberg: What if the thought experiment does not go against

your beliefs? Is it still a philosophy if I agree with it? ;

Mulhall: All narratives are founded on some sort of philosophy.

Even if it is the representation of a philosophy, if it is a

dated and meaningless one, would you still suggest that we should

discuss it amongst other works of film philosophy?), however,

Smith provides a substantial point that allows both of their

theses to operate. Smith concludes that the “subordination of

the epistemic (philosophical) to the artistic (narrative) is

surely the main reason why narrative films based on philosophical

themes…will often compromise the ‘logic’ of the philosophical

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problem that they dramatize” (Smith). In short, it is the idea

of intent that deems whether a film is philosophical or not. All

films express philosophy in some regards, but it is the function

of the film that elucidates how that philosophy is to be

understood. A director such as Charlie Chaplin would make a film

with a philosophical understanding, but ultimately the

entertainment of the comedic aspects is what shines through and

defines his films. No one would say Chaplin is a philosopher

before he is a comedian.

Tree Of Life : The total Film Philosophy

There are many different competing theories that constitute

the notion of ‘film philosophy’. To write on them is not only an

arduous undertaking best left to a dense volume, but also would

only utilize the films of Terrence Malick as examples as opposed

to the central subject. The concepts mentioned above for the

most part capture the essence of film philosophy. However, there

is still much debate about what kind of films, if any, can fit

this model of critique. There are many factors that must be

taken into account when looking at a film through the idea of

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film philosophy: What is the meaning of the film, who is the

director, what philosophy is the film alluding to, what

aesthetics does the film employ, etc. It is the method of

analysis that has many different variables that can be

interchanged and manipulated to suit the critic. But there are

some films which seem to fit more in line with this pattern of

thought than others. Malick’s most recent work, Tree of Life

(2011), just reads as a philosophical text from the trailer

alone, but does it meet the standards that manifest it as not

philosophical in the since that many viewers are perplexed by its

message, but philosophical according to the guidelines of film

philosophy? This section will show how approaching Tree of Life

from a Wittgensteinian perspective fills the need for the film to

express a certain philosophical theme, as well as the cinematic

prerequisites necessary for film to philosophize. In essence

Malick’s film is not only enacting the philosophy of

Wittgenstein, but creating its own by adapting Wittgenstein’s

notion of what philosophy is.

Tree of life premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in

France to much anticipation and hype. The script written in the

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70’s has surely developed and changed over the decades, but as

per expectation, Malick was not in attendance to answer questions

on how. The release date itself had been pushed back numerous

times with rumors first circulating its premier in the late

summer of 2009, but ultimately the wait paid off with the film

taking the festivals top prize in 2011. It is Malick’s most CGI

heavy film to date, with nearly a fifteen minute long sequence

that is all animation, something that is interesting to note

considering the filmmakers hesitance in utilizing the digital in

the past. The film opened to much positive critical reception,

but a reception that lacked awareness of its message (a point I

will get to later) and a modest box office take. Unlike many

scholars who relate all of Malick’s most recent works to the date

of their articles publishing’s, I will avoid the entrapments of

speaking of Tree Of Life as some sort of epoch or culmination of his

career. On the contrary, the film is more distant and ambitious

than any other he has made. However, the film can be seen as a

moment when the epic that is the career of Terrence Malick makes

a point of transition from filmmaker to film philosopher.

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Tree of Life is an existential investigation into creation told

through the memory of Jack O’Brien (Sean Penn). The film opens

with a proverbial thesis of sorts, a passage from the bible:

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?...The

morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for

joy?” (Job 38:4,7). The book of Job, one of the most debated and

misunderstood passages in the bible-- one that examines ideas of

creation, faith, and cruelty and asks one of the most reflective

questions of being in the history of man: Why do bad things

happen to good people? This is the back drop on which the film

is set. As a grown adult, Jack reflects back on his childhood in

Waco, Texas during the mid to late 50s/early 60s and his

relationship with his mother and father. Early on in the film we

learn of a death in the O’Brien family, one of Jack’s siblings

has died which seems to act as the trigger to this memory as

Malick seamlessly moves between a middle class neighborhood of

mid century Waco to the glass abodes and sleek designs of modern

architecture in a major urban center. Malick puts Jack at the

center of a moral debate whether to choose to live a life in the

way of nature (his father) or grace (his mother).

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The monumental moment that makes this film distinct and

polarizing is a sequence that is void of characters all together.

A fifteen minute digital renderence of what could only be

interpreted as Malick’s conception of creation or a God’s willing

of the universe. Set to the Gregorian chants of ethereality that

harkens back to something both ancient and mysterious, there is

the emergence of light amongst opaque nothingness—the heartbeat

of a creator perhaps. A coming together of particles to create a

galaxy, our galaxy. Vast solar clouds of subtle, but radiant

purple and red hues. Then the birth of the sun, the beginning of

life. Silence captures the soundtrack as we view from space

meteors hit a planet, our planet—how inconsequential this must

seem to the rest of the universe. The sound comes back, but it

is no longer the chants of mystery, but rather the violent sounds

of forming matter—molten lava, smoke bellowing from volcanoes,

the hardening of rock. Then-- life. Single celled beings

become, microbes. Microbes, become invertebrate. Invertebrate

become vertebrae. And vertebrae begin to think. In the

concluding scene of this sequence, a young dinosaur is laying on

a river bed unaware of an approaching Velociraptor. By the time

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the youngster notices the predator it is too late. As it stands

to run, the raptor places its large foot on the prey’s head. Now

in control of its prey the raptor seemingly contemplates killing

it. It raises its foot off the preys head and walks off sparing

the poor individual. It is the creation of mercy, or at the very

least free will—it is meeting point of nature and grace.

Jack grows throughout the film from an infant with his foot

held in his father’s hand imaging the possibilities of what could

be from such a tiny thing, to the growing lessons of learning to

share with a sibling, the accidental death of a friend, and the

sexual temptations of coming of age. Horse play, toy rocket

ships, throwing rocks through windows, stealing, playing catch,

learning to fight, shadow puppets, chores, church, and

manipulation are all situations that Malick presents Jack with

and each is handled in manners that reflect both the influences

of this nature and grace. What makes this film different than a

typical coming of age story is that, in typical Malick fashion,

we are not let into the psychology of Jack. We remain a distant

spectator not able to connect to the characters, but just observe

Jack and comment internally on his actions. There are moments of

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sympathy and others of incredulity that arise from the audience,

but neither is emotional, only reactionary.

The film ends in very much the same way it begins, in a time

and space that we do not wholly understand, but it is this

ambiguity that beings to liken itself toward Wittgenstein’s

philosophy. In conventional philosophy, the way an argument is

structured often takes a back seat to the content, but with

Wittgenstein’s postmodern deconstructionist approach, structure

is the central theme, as it is in Tree of Life. There are not many

instances where we are given a concrete time frame in which to

work. We make assumptions that the film takes place in the

50s/60s by the décor, but there is also a sequence of the mother

as a child (perhaps the 30s?) and we assume that it is

contemporary, but not positive that Sean Penn is in our year1.

Furthermore the film technically covers over a billion years of

history with the creation of the universe. Few films if any

literally tell the story of time. Overall it is unimportant to

have the details of the time line or the facts. We do not need

1 All of this is further complicated by the fact that the original screenplay was written in the 70s, which means that the world Penn lives in is not the one Malick could have originally envisioned.

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to know how the son died, or what the relation was to the boy who

drowned, or even the families name (we only know them as the

O’Brien’s by the credits, the name itself is never said in the

film), because this is all unimportant. What is important are

the tiny snippets of information we are given. Scenes that are

discontinuous and more like skits composed together to resemble

chronology. They are shown and left to be interpreted by the

audience.

Cavell makes the comment that “film shares with the other

great arts the proposal that everything matters—and you do not

know what everything means” (Klevan). It is important to

recognize everything, but to understand its meaning is another

matter that may not be wholly necessary. Wittgenstein argues

that “we must do away with all explanation and description alone

must take its place” (PI, 109). Tree of Life very much buys into

this belief of pure description. Nearly all scenes have some

sort of relevance to the one that proceeds it, but they are also

rarely in line with the overall narrative; developing the plot,

but also deconstructing it by lack of coherence. What this all

leads to is a more dynamic relationship between the filmmaker and

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the audience, where audience interpretation is the real source of

meaning. Wittgenstein was opposed to a didactic and ritualized

approach to philosophy—“Philosophy simply puts everything before

us, nor deduces anything.” Reading countless reviews by critics,

I saw a trend, mostly that there was no singular concept of what

this film was about. Anthony Lane wrote: “(The film’s) purposes

are clear: it is a grief-powered movie, triggered by the

revelation, near the start, that Jack's brother R.L. died at the

age of nineteen.” Michael Atkinson suggests:

“he (Malick) stays close enough to the boys [particularly Hunter McCracken as discontented Malick avatar Jack and Laramie Eppler as doomed, favoured middle son R.L., resembling Pitt to a startling degree]to nail this particular experience of boyhood to the wall for all time the endless lawns and wide streets, the spaces between houses and neighbourhoods where adults can't find you, the idle moments among friends in the woods thinking up something dangerous with which to fill up a summer afternoon.”

Both critics have diametrically opposed understandings of the

film. If you were to look at a hundred different reviews you

would probably get hundred different understandings. There is no

right or wrong answer to understanding this film. It is

constructed in a way that is meant to evoke a certain reaction

from independent viewers, thus the philosophy is in this ability

to evoke this sort of subjective understanding. The fact that

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both Lane and Atkinson decipher that R.L. is the son who died is

based on their own delineations of how the film was presented to

them. There is no direct evidence or referential statement that

led these two critics to make that judgment, but simply their own

understanding of the information put before them. Malick did not

say R.L. died, but just presented the scene and allowed the

audience to interpret it as they may—Wittgenstein’s philosophy in

action. A blog post examines a similar ambiguity:

“Even the opening narration of the film, which sounds embarrassingly earnest at first, is completely obscure: ‘Brother, mother, it was they that lead me to your door.’ That this sentence doesn’t mention the father who more or less dominates the film presents a problem: is he consciously being snubbed, or is he in fact the person being addressed? Or is it a He? Or are the brother and the mother the “you” being addressed—in which case, who are ‘they?’ And again, which brother? (Vishnevetsky)

This is Malick laying it all before us. Nothing is clear and

nothing is meant to be, it can only be said and shown. It is up

to us to make a distinction for us to have a realization, an

understanding. It is a ‘thought experiment’ a ‘language game’

that we are supposed to partake in, but the meaning is left to be

found in our own devices. Cavell believes “philosophy does not

speak first, but is responsive,” (Klevan) as is The Tree of Life.

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The examples above are instances of Tree of Life being

philosophical, but it is another matter of it actually doing

philosophy. The issues that surround film as philosophy are a

much more contentious matter. As I have already laid out, the

act of film doing philosophy are difficult in the sense that it

must both explore philosophical themes as well as do it in a

purely cinematic manner. In Heideggerian cinema the philosophy

is present, but it is highly debatable whether or not those are

conscripted only to the cinema or not. The very fact that it is

called ‘Heideggerian cinema’ points to Heidegger being the

originator. Only if Malick’s films add to or expand on

Heidegger’s ideas can the films become philosophical. This is

the central issue in the debate for film as philosophy: is it

possible for a film to enact its own philosophy and not simply be

a representation or critique of an already established belief?

Malick laying everything before us is adhering to Wittgenstein’s

notion of what philosophy is, not necessarily Malick’s own

independent thoughts. In the structure of conventional

philosophical argumentation, it is difficult for a film to do

this. In many instances a film will never be able to separate

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itself from a philosophy enough to distinguish itself as a

separate canon of thought. It generally falls back into being

representative. This is due to the nature of philosophy as a

didactic practice that establishes a theorem and impresses it on

the reader. When a film attempts to philosophize itself, the

film will follow the same didactic process and ultimately be too

reminiscent of a previously stated belief to be original

philosophy. However, this is an example of a film following

conventional standards of philosophy. Wittgenstein is by no

means conventional in his philosophical approach, as he sees not

the concepts of philosophy as being in question, but rather

attacks the whole notion of what philosophy is.

The main concern Wittgenstein has with philosophy is the

very nature of it—a dogmatic practice that construes language

into oblique and misguiding ways. Philosophy is the critique of

language and the understanding that good philosophy realizes its

shortcomings are found in the limitations of language. It

becomes matter of ‘I can only philosophize what I can say and

what my audience can understand. If I cannot express my

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philosophy in a language that the audience understands, then the

philosophy is lost’.

Cinematographer Emmanual Lubezki explains the process of

shooting with Terrence Malick:

“It's not a traditional set where Terry blocks a scene and we shoot the dialogue, shoot the blocking, just to give information or a plot point; it's almost the opposite. Terry blocks a scene - and then he destroys itand creates as much chaos as he can. We create chaos, and within that chaos, things that feel natural - feel real - start to happen. Those arethe moments we are trying to grasp. Whether it's a moment of joy or the first step of a kid, they are not things you can set up. You can only find them. That is the modus operandi of the shooting.” (Lubezki)

Though production notes do not typically infer a sort of

philosophy, it is helpful here to make sense of Malick’s

cinematic style. The ‘chaos’ Malick films is chaos in the sense

of conventional filmmaking, but is in fact really the minute

aspects of life that make life real. It is not improvised

moments from the actors that suggest self awareness, it is that

which cannot be scripted, improvised, or even expected: the

twitching of a child’s hand as they doze off to sleep, a toddler

staring defiantly at their mother ready to throw a toy, the

reaction of ice being placed down the boys shirts as they sleep

shocking them to consciousness. These are incomprehensible

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moments. Those which we all know too well, but cannot be

explained by means of writing, or painting, or any other art

form, without losing the subtly they display in the film. They

are never the subject and lack meaning to the narrative, but

concerning the philosophy of the film they are the main

indicators of its philosophical implications as they are wholly

cinematic.

Malick is often seen as incomparable to any other director.2

This sovereignty from relation to other directors has to do with

his cinematic techniques or cinematic language. It is something

that differs from any other contemporary or past director in that

it relies on itself to be the main source of meaning. The

narrative, themes, and character psychology are not what stand

out in a Malick text. A viewer comes away from his films in awe

with what they saw, not reflecting on what they learned or felt.

It is the language of Malick’s work that has made him such a

successful artist, his ability to reinvent the function of

cinematic language and express it in ways that give meaning.

2 Some liken him to Stanley Kubrick, but it is more in the sense that they areAmerican directors that film in more ‘European’ styles than Hollywood.

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Malick, like Wittgenstein, is concerned with language, and even

though it is cinematic as oppose to speech or writing, it is the

only way to express the philosophies he wishes to explore.

Take the ‘Creation Sequence’ for instance. The methodology

with which he expresses his understanding of creation can only be

accomplished and understood through this sequence. Something is

loss if the images become static or the soundtrack is removed.

There is no other way to describe billions of years of history in

fifteen minutes than through this form of language. Critics have

tried to describe the scene and all have done so to a degree

which does it no justice (myself included) as it is simply

indescribable, not because of the lack of skill on the part of

the critic, but merely due to the limitations of the written

language—the philosophy that Malick has created can only be told

through the language of the cinema. This can be seen when we

look at Malick’s own screenplay in his description of this scene:

“We begin in the chaos of nothingness out of which space and time arose—in a realm beyond our power to imagine, without for or coherence, void of here and now. Suddenly, like joy replacing sadness and brooding, light breaks forth, and the universe is born.”

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He makes no attempts to describe what is “beyond our power to

imagine,” he simply allows that which cannot be said, to be

cinematically shown. Furthermore, Malick delves deeper into

Wittgenstein’s philosophy by recognizing the limitations of

cinematic language itself. A central theme in Tree of Life has to

do with the notion of creation. Whether it is in the Judeo-

Christian sense, or scientific theory of the big bang, there is

an obvious emphasis to attempt to express an idea of creationism

in one form or another. Though Malick creates a depiction of the

creation of the universe, he does not fiddle with the actual

concept of creation itself. Perhaps in recognition of the limits

of cinematic language he turns to the light artist Thomas

Wilfred's work “Opus 161” to explain it for him. The work is an

example of creationism by its complex array of mirrors and lamps

that move in a manner that the resulting translucent image does

not repeat itself over a span of one year, three hundred fifteen

days, and twelve hours (Zinman). This fiery red mysticism

appears throughout the film, seemingly coming at moments of

impasse in the narrative, acting almost as a chapter end and the

recognition of a new movement in the film. It is not the final

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word on the idea of creation, but it was a more impactful form of

expressing Malick’s philosophy of the subject than through

cinematic means.

Tree of Life is a total craft of film philosophy, providing

examples and instances that seem to fit any single interpretation

of how a film can be philosophical while philosophizing by its

self. Under Wittgenstein’s rules of philosophy, the analysis of

language, Malick pulls the audience into his film by laying

foundations for thought, but never expressing his own. By doing

this he is also creating a new language, a cinematic language

that is able to evoke a certain philosophy by means of simply

examining means of expression. I will not go as far and be trite

as calling it ‘Wittgensteinian cinema,’ but there is never the

less an inherent prospect that any film which applies the beliefs

of the philosopher will inherently become philosophical, as it

expresses new beliefs in a purely cinematic mode—the very essence

of film philosophy.

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Works Cited

Atkinson, Michael. "The Tree Of Life." Sight and Sound 21.8 (2011):79. Film and Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.

Critchley, Simon. "Calm: On Terrence Malick's 'The Thin Red Line'" Film as Philosophy: Essays in Cinema after Wittgenstein and Cavell. Ed. Rupert J. Read and Jerry Goodenough. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 133-48. Print.

Furstenau, Marc, and Leslie MacAvoy. "Terrence Malick's Heideggerian Cinema: War and the Question of Being in 'The Thin Red Line'" The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic Visions of America. Ed. HannahPatterson. London: Wallflower, 2003. 179-90. Print.

Heidegger, Martin. The Essence of Reasons. Trans. Terrence Malick. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1969. Print.

Klevan, Andrew. "What Becomes of Thinking on Film? (Stanley Cavell in Converstation with Andrew Klevan)." Film as Philosophy: Essays in Cinema after Wittgenstein and Cavell. By Rupert J. Read and Jerry Goodenough. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 167-209. Print.

Livingston, Paisley. "Theses on Cinema as Philosophy." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64.1 (2006): 11-18. JSTOR. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

Lubezki, Emmanuel. "The Light Fantastic." Sight and Sound 21.7 (2011): 22-23. Film and Television Literature Index with Full Text. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.

Michaels, Lloyd. Terrence Malick. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2009. Print.

Mottram, Ron. "All Things Shining: The Struggle for Wholeness, Redemption and Transcendence in Films of Terrence Malick." The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic Visions of America. Ed. Hannah Patterson. London: Wallflower, 2007. 14-26. Print.

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Rhym, John. "The Paradigmatic Shift in the Critical Reception of Terrence Malick's Badlands and the Emergence of a Heideggerian Cinema." Quarterly Review of Film and Video 27 (2010): 255-66. Routledge. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

Rybin, Steven. "Voicing Meaning: On Terrence Malick's Characters." Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy. Ed. Thomas D. Tucker and Stuart Kendall. New York: Continuum, 2011. 13-39. Print.

Sinnerbrink, Robert. "A Heideggerian Cinema? : On Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line." Film-philosophy 10.3 (2006): 26-37. Web. <http://www.film-philosophy.com/2006v10n3/sinnerbrink.pdf>.

Smith, Murray. "Film Art, Argument, and Ambiguity." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64.1 (2006): 33-42. JSTOR. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

Sterritt, David. "Film, Philosophy, and Terrence Malick's 'The New World'" The Chronicle Review 52.18 (2006). LexisNexis Academic. Web. 10 Nov. 2011.

Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy. ""The Tree of Life": A Malickiad." MUBI. 26 May 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2011. <http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/the-tree-of-life-a-malickiad>.

Walker, Beverly. "Interview By Beverly Walker in 'Sight and Sound'" 1975. Terrence Malick. Ed. Lloyd Michaels. Urbana: Ill., 2009. 102-05. Print.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1989. Print.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Project Gutenberg,2010. PDF.

Zinman, Gregory. "Lumia." The New Yorker 27 July 2011: 25-26. Print.

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