Song to Song

Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara on the set

 

Director Terrence Malick and Rooney Mara on the set

 

Director Terrence Malick and Natalie Portman on the set

 

Director Terrence Malick and Ryan Gosling on the set

 

Director Terrence Malick

 

SONG TO SONG            C              

USA  (129 mi)  2017  ‘Scope  d:  Terrence Malick                Official site

The woods had vanished; the earth was a waste of shadow.  No sound broke the silence of the wintry landscape.  No cock crowed; no smoke rose; no train moved.  A man without a self, I said.  A heavy body leaning on a gate.  A dead man.  With dispassionate despair, with entire disillusionment, I surveyed the dust dance; my life, my friends’ lives, and those fabulous presences, men with brooms, women writing, the willow tree by the river—clouds and phantoms made of dust too, of dust that changed, as clouds lose and gain and take gold or red and lose their summits and billow this way and that, mutable, vain.  I, carrying a notebook, making phrases, had recorded mere changes; a shadow.  I had been sedulous to take note of shadows.  How can I proceed now, I said, without a self, weightless and visionless, through a world weightless, without illusion?                       

—The Waves, by Virginia Woolf, 1931,  THE WAVES - Project Gutenberg Australia

Filmed back to back with Knight of Cups (2015), essentially the same film in a different context, arguably the least successful film over the course of his career, where, above all others, it has an air of pretension about it, showing no artistic growth, as it’s covering the exact same territory as his previous film, where too much of the same thing has dulled the senses in Malick films, continuing in a similar abstract, non-narrative stylization, where this is the only Malick film that actually felt painful to watch, as actors are constantly forced to spontaneously perform in front of the camera, to improvise and supposedly be interesting, yet it becomes excruciatingly painful to watch, as shooting without a script, it seems more like screen test shots, loose reflections of differing personalities captured before a camera, where they are playing out moods instead of developing characters.  Over the course of two hours, the professional limits of these actors are exposed, as their attempts at spontaneity become repetitive, where instead of a liberating experience, they feel more and more boxed in by their own human limitations, falling instead of flying, where it actually becomes uncomfortable to watch after a while, as they feebly resort to many of the same gestures and acting techniques over and over again.  While Malick continually resorts to a mosaic of impressionistic moments, finding beauty in the moment, where throughout the duration he is constantly changing the focus of attention, adding a stream-of-conscious narrative that is driven by fleeting images accompanied by haunting interior monologues that do form a more recognizable storyline, the truth is that our distanced unfamiliarity with the same characters and cinematic techniques do not grow or evolve over time, where this feels more like an exercise in futility, with viewers continually forced to beat their heads against a wall in protest.  Shot in Austin during the 2012 Austin City Limits Music Festival, there is a thread of indie music that plays throughout, along with cameos from rock icons Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, Johnny Rotten, and members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, where the normally reclusive director conducted a Q & A interview along with actor Michael Fassbender hosted by resident director Richard Linklater following a screening just a few weeks ago at the SXSW Film Festival, Michael Fassbender & Terrence Malick talk about "Song To Song" at the SXSW (Austin, Texas) (31:38), and while nothing earthshaking is revealed, it is one of the few public interviews Malick has ever granted.   

This would have to be considered the Malick “Museum period,” as the director, through ace cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki in their fifth consecutive collaboration since The New World (2005), continually shoots extravagant, museum-like dwellings with glass floor-to-ceiling windows, looking completely immaculate, like super luxury accommodations featured in Architectural Digest magazine, set in beautiful locations with elaborate outdoor fountains or in this case, elegant infinity pools overlooking Lake Travis or the Colorado River, which both converge in Austin, where nothing is ever out of place, resembling an intoxicating, dreamlike image of unlimited wealth, where this is as far from a working class environment as one could find, inhabited by the so-called beautiful people who control the industry.  But instead of a scathing satire on Los Angeles and the Hollywood movie industry, consumed in artifice and superficiality, this is described as an experimental romantic drama filled with music, originally entitled Weightless from the Virginia Woolf passage, yet despite the title and the outdoor rock music setting, the film is not really about the music festival, though as Malick put it, “You can’t live in Austin and escape the music,” serving only as a backdrop for a larger story about the fleeting connectivity of our lives, shown through a series of random moments, as one character (Rooney Mara) puts it, “living moment to moment, song to song, kiss to kiss,” which may explain why so many different songs and locations are used in the film, where what’s shown onscreen are only brief fragments of a much larger picture that remains unseen, that each viewer must imagine for themselves, where perhaps a common theme heard throughout is the Delta blues song, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” Elmore James - Rollin' and Tumblin' - YouTube (2:27). 

Well, I rolled and I tumbled, cried the whole night long
Well, I woke up this mornin’, didn’t know right from wrong

Featuring a cavalcade of stars, including Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Natalie Portman, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, and a strange appearance from Val Kilmer, where three women are Academy Award winners, the film doesn’t really have a story, and isn’t meant to, as there was never any guarantee any of the scenes would be used, with Malick filming them continuously, even when they weren’t acting, in keeping with his theme of spontaneity, with many not making the final cut, including Christian Bale, Benicio del Toro, Trevante Rhodes, Haley Bennett and others, including music groups Arcade Fire and Iron & Wine.  The film basically follows people on the periphery of the industry, Faye (Rooney Mara), herself a budding songwriter, seen early on having a JULES AND JIM (1962) style flirtatious relationship with two men, BV (Ryan Gosling), an up and coming songwriter and musician that she meets at a party, and Cook (Michael Fassbender), a wealthy record producer that is trying to sign him.  In Malick’s experimental phase, one never needs to buy into the religion or philosophy being discussed onscreen, as that’s all part of the transitional process “on becoming,” where artistically one delves under the surface to explore as much as they can to better understand the changing world around us, and who better than this director to help guide us through an inquisitive existential journey?  But that feeling of Malick euphoria or exhilaration is never achieved in this film, feeling more like masochistic indulgence, as one never believes in the actual romance, and any dialogue that does exist is simplistically awkward and trivial, as what’s missing are the essential ingredients of a healthy relationship.  While Faye is seduced by them both, a relative novice in the music industry, “I tell myself any experience is better than no experience.  I wanted to live. Sing my song,” this romantic interplay quickly moves from a free-wheeling innocence to one of more serious consequences, yet there’s no underlying credibility that it’s ever about love, as the emotional currency is money and power, as personified by Cook, who is something of a snake of a human being, who’s personal mantra becomes, “The world wants to be deceived,” where there’s not a shred of commitment or even relationship connectivity, as there’s never an extended conversation, the kind of thing relationships actually need to sustain themselves, instead it’s shown as a flurry of brief moments, like walking in on the tail end of a conversation, where much of the film is reduced to recognizable sound bites.  This simply can’t replace the real thing, so what we see is a cheap imitation, where the vacuous emotional distance between characters is more evident than ever, where the personal discomfort associated with watching the film actually feeds into this perception.     

Near the end of the film, like something you might find in a Jarmusch film, Faye reads aloud a passage from William Blake’s poem The Divine Image from Songs of Innocence and of Experience, 1789:

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

It must be said that Malick as a director doesn’t do romance well.  While DAYS OF HEAVEN (1978) is in a class by itself, with a scintillatingly radiant Brooke Adams and a ruggedly handsome, young Richard Gere providing the thrust of the love story, BADLANDS (1973), The New World (2005), and To the Wonder (2012) may be his next best romantic efforts and in each instance love quickly collapses, as it simply has no foundation.  The same might be said for Kubrick, by the way, as both men are simply too ponderous, where their expertise is in exploring the stratosphere of thought and personal perception, where they are much better in visualizing the transcendence of the universe and the emotional chasms between people.  As she did in Knight of Cups (2015), the introduction of Natalie Portman as Rhonda sends the film into a downward trajectory.  A working class kindergarten teacher earning extra money waitressing, Cook decides to plant his hooks into her, dazzling her with the opulence of his home, making her his pet project, devoting all his time and energy in a larger-than-life courtship, finally convincing her to marry him, where we see glimpses of Holly Hunter as her more grounded but financially struggling mother, seemingly less impressed with Cook’s dazzling showmanship, even after he buys her a new home, where it’s all an act, a charade, as he soon makes a mockery of the marriage.  Consumed by three-way sexual trysts, stringing his wife along for the ride, even including prostitutes, becoming a sleazy portrait of Sodom and Gomorrah, he shows no regard whatsoever for the demoralizing effect this has on his wife, thinking only of himself, while she feels humiliated and ashamed.  Cook pulls the same con act on BV, making behind-the-back maneuvers that undermine his legitimacy, as he’s a conniving liar who will openly deceive you to your face, never showing an ounce of remorse.  While there’s an interesting connection to struggling parents, Faye’s father (Brady Coleman), ostracized from his own family, basically encourages her not to make the same mistakes that he made, while BV’s mother (Linda Emond) speaks out of turn, causing irreparable damage to an existing affair he’s having with Amanda (Cate Blanchett).  In fact, everyone sleeps around, with Faye having a girl-on-girl fling with the French-accented Zoey, Bérénice Marlohe, a James Bond girl in SKYFALL (2012), while BV has unfinished business with a former girlfriend Lykke (Swedish singer and fashion model Lykke Li), where personal betrayal becomes routine.  While there are side trips to Mexico, with a few days shot in the Yucatán, mulling around outdoor street scenes including food vendors, revealing a stark poverty in the daily lives of locals, each seems so willing to throw away their youth in the prime of their lives, finding it gone in the blink of an eye.  A montage of small moments, there’s really no compelling character in the bunch, so when they run astray, like Icarus flying too closely to the sun, there’s no real sense of tragedy or a feeling like something important has been lost, as there was not much of a connection to begin with.   One has to say it — this is downright average, on par with the rest of the bad movies.      

Dazed and Confused

Director Richard Linklater (right) on the set of the film

 

DAZED AND CONFUSED             B+              
USA  (103 mi)  1993  d:  Richard Linklater

You know, the ‘68 Democratic convention was probably the most bitchin’ time I ever had in my life.  Hey guys, one more thing:  This summer, when you’re being inundated by all the American bicentennial Fourth of July brouhaha, don’t forget what you’re celebrating, and that’s the fact that a bunch of slave-owning aristocratic white males didn’t want to pay their taxes. 

—Ms. Stroud, teacher (Kim Krizan)

All I’m saying is that if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself. 

—Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London)

Linklater’s first successful film SLACKER (1991), an unconventional narrative made on a budget of just $23,000, along with Soderbergh’s earlier SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE (1989), made for just over $1 million dollars, helped usher in a new era of low budget, independent filmmaking of the 1990’s, opening the doors for other newcomers like Kevin Smith who was able to make CLERKS (1994) for $230,000, but also Quintin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) or Larry Clark’s KIDS (1995), altering the concept of what it costs to make good films.  A decade later Soderbergh had a similar effect by going digital, redefining the filmmaking process by significantly lowering the expenses, in effect, permanently altering the look of films today.  Much like his predecessor, DAZED AND CONFUSED represents another near plotless film that takes place in less than 24 hours on what is essentially the last day of high school on May 26, 1976, using a slew of undiscovered or non-professional actors on a free-wheeling, multi-layered expedition throughout the day and night looking for something to do.  Reflective of small town values in the heartland of Texas, kids will go to any extremes to avoid boredom, the common denominator in just about every kid’s life at this age, turning it into a hilarious road movie of sorts, using a potent, electrically charged rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack that to some may sound like heavy metal shitkicker music, Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, etc, bands that shortly afterwards went into a sharp decline from their decadent, drug-tinged road activities, where the excess was a prelude to punk, though War and Dr. John are the only featured bands that are not all-white, as there’s an absence of R & B or soul music that otherwise dominated the times in urban cities, like Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Earth, Wind, & Fire, or Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.  But that’s a whole other story, as the only black kid featured in the cast is Melvin (Jason O. Smith), a guy seen playing craps in the hallways that also plays football and hangs with a white crowd.   

Shot in Austin, Texas, the film is one of the few that actually provides a window into the way its residents live, especially those living on the economic margins feeling an apathy or cultural disconnectedness from mainstream society.  With a rich mix of characters, and choice dialogue, the film takes a rather absurdist glimpse into the social rituals of high school, especially the existing power dynamic that pits upper class seniors against lowly freshmen, two groups that in many other parts of the country simply ignore one another, as freshmen would never be worth the time of day to many seniors.  But here, seniors get a chance to prey on a weaker species, using an age-old hazing tradition to pounce on young freshmen, chasing them down in cars, singling them out for sadistic thrashings, attacking in organized groups, using wooden paddles to whack their backsides, where freshmen are expected to take their medicine as a rite of passage.   While the freshmen view it as an idiotic ritual, the seniors feel as if it’s their just rewards for finishing high school, as they’re finally liberated from spending untold numbers of hours in wretchedly boring classes with teachers they simply had no interest in, where most of the time it felt like drudgery.  On this final day of school many seniors aren’t even in the classrooms, yet they’re wandering the halls at will discussing what they’re going to do this summer.  Free of the 50’s nostalgia of AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973), the film uses a similar structure, bringing together a large gathering of kids in search of a party, spending most of the time following groups in cars or walking down the street, meeting at local hang-outs, like burger joints, drive-ins, pool halls, bars and liquor stores, all the while listening to blaring music coming out of the car radios.  While it reverts back to simpler times, the film could almost be described as an anthem to drunk driving, as it shows little regard for the hazards of driving while stoned or intoxicated, where this kind of behavior is deemed as just another one of the male rite of passages.  Most of the time, however, nothing is happening, with no plots, or even subplots, as instead they drive around aimlessly and congregate in small groups waiting for something to happen, where they’ll drink beer, smoke a joint, and hope they run into someone who can tell them where a party is. 

Opening with a slow-motion shot of an orange muscle car pulling into a high school parking lot to the sounds of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion - YouTube (4:40), the idea of cruising sets the film in motion, with Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” Alice Cooper - School's Out - YouTube (4:33) igniting a mad rush of freedom, leaving behind the empty hallways and lockers that are suddenly turned into dead zones.  With boy seniors spreading out in all directions searching for incoming freshmen to flog, we witness the particularly obnoxious and domineering behavior of the senior girls, none more authoritarian than Parker Posey as Darla, ordering the incoming freshmen girls to the ground in the school parking lot where they can be covered with ketchup, mustard, flour, and raw eggs, with some forced to propose to senior boys.  While it all unravels in a confusing and haphazard manner, with a host of characters continually entering and exiting the screen, two characters initially stand out, Randall “Pink” Floyd (Jason London), the star quarterback who will be back for another year, who basically plays football in order to get laid, ordered to sign a pledge prohibiting the use of alcohol or drugs over the summer, which all the other players apparently signed, but not Pink, so he continually gets berated by his football coach.  The other is a mirror version in the younger Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins), an 8th grade star pitcher who wonders with his friends what high school life will be like, dreaming of high school girls “putting out,” where he is singled out by the seniors for paddling after his sister tells the boys to go easy on him, where the worst of the offenders is Ben Affleck as O’Bannion, a pathetic figure of a dimwitted senior that had to repeat his senior year.  After they lay in wait for Mitch after a game, running him through the ringer, Pink gives him a ride afterwards, feeling sympathetic, inviting him to a party afterwards where one of his friend’s parents are expected to leave for a vacation.  But when a beer keg arrives before they leave, his parents grow overly suspicious, changing their plans, which seemingly alters the plans of every kid in town, as the party will have to be relocated.  Kids just drive around, cruising aimlessly, until finding out the new destination.  Reportedly one-sixth of the film’s budget was spent on acquiring the rights to the array of 70’s musical songs, where the word “man” is said 203 times in the film, while the word “fuck” is used 59 times.

The notable pothead is Rory Cochrane as Ron Slater, an easygoing, likable guy who is lit up throughout the film, who is willing to do just about anything so long as weed is present, who goes on a few crazed philosophical tangents, while a Woodward and Bernstein duo of intellectuals, Adam Goldberg as Mike and Anthony Rapp as Tony, over-analyze just about everything, usually accompanied by the redhead Cynthia (Marissa Ribisi, married a decade later to American musician Beck), who inquisitively asks, “Which one of you had the theory about how president Ford’s old football head injuries is affecting the economy?”  After deciding on the need for more alcohol, while swigging beer in the backseat, Mike decides he doesn’t want to go to law school anymore, coming up with one of the memorable lines of the film when he confesses abruptly, “I wanna dance!”  Matthew McConaughey as Wooderson is the older master of ceremonies, the ultimate party animal who coined the phrase “all right, all right, all right” in this film, a phrase he has used throughout his career, even at the Academy Awards, making it sound downright sleazy, a guy who trolls high school years after he’s done with it still searching for young girls, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man.  I get older, they stay the same age.”  Standing in front of the Emporium, a local pool hall and arcade for teenagers that is a central meeting point, kids simply coalesce while drinking beer and listening to music, including Mitch, who is welcomed by an older crowd, drinking beer and smoking marijuana for the first time, where they go on a drunken neighborhood spree destroying mailboxes.  To the sounds of Nazareth - Love Hurts - YouTube (3:36), there are also inevitable boy/girl link-ups, where Mitch gravitates to a sophomore girl Julie (Catherine Morris), Tony becomes linked with an attractive incoming freshman girl Sabrina  (Christin Hinojosa), seen earlier getting humiliated by Darla, while Wooderson has a thing for redheads, exchanging phone numbers with none other than Cynthia, much to the surprise of Woodward and Bernstein, as she’s the smartest and most literate girl around.  Running into his middle school friends at the Emporium afterwards, they come up with a plan to get revenge on O’Bannion, subjecting him to his own paint smear, dumping a can of paint all over him, leaving him not only surprised, but embarrassed and utterly humiliated.  It’s the type of prank that perfectly mirrors the same type of adolescent humor found in AMERICAN GRAFITTI. 

Once the Emporium closes, the mythical keg party finally materializes on the outskirts of town outdoors in a park area under a Moon Tower, which, of course, kids climb up for a sense of daring adventure.  With a feeling of reckless abandon, heightened by a clever musical soundtrack that includes the funky swamp music of Dr. John, Dr. John - Right Place Wrong Time - YouTube (2:54), kids finally have something to celebrate with an anything goes kind of beer bust, where drugs of all nature instantly appear, as kids literally spill onto the screen into a stream-of-conscious mosaic of drug chatter and drunken machismo, where sloppy drunks inadvertently fall to the ground in hysterics and psychedelic flower children sing spacey songs, like Milla Jovovich as Michelle plunking her acoustic guitar while gazing at the stars singing “The Alien Song,” MILLA JOVOVICH-"The Alien Song (For Those Who Listen)" LIVE ... YouTube (4:27).  While the party sequence is broken down into several haphazard moments, Cynthia spouts philosophic about her every other decade theory, “The fifties were boring.  The sixties rocked.  And the seventies—oh my God, they obviously suck.  Come on!  Maybe the eighties will be radical,” Mitch Kramer is seen wandering aimlessly through the crowd, eventually hooking up with Julie, before being called a little Casanova by the seniors, actually a bit envious at the little man’s smooth prowess with the ladies.  The two are seen making out under the stars later that night, while Mike (“I feel like I’m being stalked by a Nazi.”) goes all ape-shit over an obnoxious taunt, deciding he’s Mike Tyson for an instant, getting in a single punch before being pummeled by a drunken redneck.  Once the beer runs out, Tony drives Sabrina home, giving her a sweet kiss good night, while Pink and the football gang decides to relive old times smoking a joint on the 50-yard line.  Of course, they are interrupted by security, handed over to the coach, who berates Pink for hanging out with a bunch of losers, reminding him of his priorities to the team.  Pink gracefully exits back to his comrades in crime, crumples up the pledge and tells the coach he might play football next year, but his top priority of the summer is actually getting Aerosmith tickets with his loser friends.  With the dawn already upon them, Mitch returns home only to find his mother still waiting up for him, but despite the smell of alcohol she decides to be lenient this time as he falls into his bed, with thoughts of everything that happened still swirling around his head, putting on headphones playing Slow Ride- Foghat (Full Version) - YouTube (8:16), while the football gang of stoners decide to head up the road and buy the Aerosmith tickets while they can, where their future is an open book of blank as yet unwritten pages.