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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