In Contention

Tag: The Tree of Life

  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 61 — Wrapping up Toronto, ‘Moneyball’ and Brad Pitt’s Oscar positioning, Roland Emmerich’s ‘Anonymous,’ ‘Rampart’ and turning out the lights

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    It’s a bittersweet time. Barring any set-backs, this is the last time you’ll see an episode of Oscar Talk…in this space. As revealed earlier this week, In Contention is moving over to HitFix, aiming for as early as Monday of next week. So this 61st installment of the podcast is all she wrote for these white walls, but the fun will continue at the new destination a week from today. But, for now, with Anne on her last day of Toronto coverage, there is plenty to cover. So let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Strong year for double-dippers

    We find ourselves right in the middle of the big Toronto press junket, er, film festival, where 200-plus films are landing, many of them as world premieres, and the landscape of this year’s Oscar race is really beginning to take shape.

    As I looked out at the various films in play this year, it suddenly occurred to me that, perhaps more than ever, there are a lot of double-dipping actors and actresses in the hunt. Not all of these performances are or will be awards bait necessarily, but there could still be cases for more than a few saddling up to dual nominations this year.

    At the top of that list would have to be Brad Pitt. After already giving what many believed to be his best performance to date in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” the paparazzi-hounded star found himself the recipient of a lot of great ink for his work in “Moneyball” when it screened in Toronto at the end of the week. Wisely, Fox Searchlight will be planning a supporting actor push for the actor in Malick’s film, which is both practical (given his clear lead in the other film), and organic (given that, at least in my opinion, he is supporting to Hunter McCracken’s lead in “The Tree of Life”).

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  • Jessica Chastain wins award in Venice — more to come?

    Nathaniel Rogers tipped me off today to the fact that Jessica Chastain has won her first (of many?) award of the season in Venice. The prize, presented by “W.E.” director Madonna, was the Gucci Award for Women in Film. And it’s a pretty good pick when you consider how prolific she is this year.

    Chastain is at the fest with two films — “Wilde Salome” and “Texas Killing Fields” — but of course she’s been seen in everything from “The Tree of Life” to “The Help” to “The Debt” this year, with Sundance and Cannes hit “Take Shelter” and Weinstein-pushed “Coriolanus” still to hit Toronto and open in theaters. Seven movies? A little difficult to argue with that, especially since she gives quality work across the board (though I haven’t seen the Venice films).

    It really would be a shame if she couldn’t get enough of a groundswell to nab an Oscar nod for something (I prefer her in “The Help”), but she’s assured any number of precursor honors for her body of work throughout the season.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 58 — Wrapping up the summer, fall festival preview, ‘Warrior’ and ‘50/50’

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    After months of sporadic special edition updates, we’re back to the weekly grind today. So check back here every Friday from here on out for our musings on the Oscar season, which is right around the corner with the start of the fall festival circuit. We go on for quite a while today. Let’s jump in and see what’s on the docket…

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Closing the book on summer 2011

    The summer movie season has come to an end, and what an interesting season it was.

    We saw three billion-dollar grossers for the first time ever in one year, let alone one three-month spread (thank you, 3D). We saw a bit of a glass ceiling for comic book movies, proving nothing is a sure thing in that game. We saw indie darlings with more stamina than the big dogs and we saw R-rated comedies find impressive footholds.

    But what does it mean in the spectrum of a film awards race, seeing as we have one knocking on our door in a bit more than a week’s time? Let’s consider.

    First and foremost, as reported here last year (and confirmed by Variety a few weeks ago), Warner Bros. Pictures is all set for a balls-to-the-wall Best Picture push for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.” With 10 digits in the bank and counting, and with a breathtaking critical pass, now is the time, and it’s a smart tactic. DVDs will be out right in the thick of the season, adding fuel to the fire. And it’ll be a nice counter to the other in-houses pushes, dramas like “Contagion,” “J. Edgar.,” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” (The studio could also go screenplay hunting for Dan Fogelman and “Crazy, Stupid, Love” if it wants.)

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  • Penn on Malick, part deux

    I originally posted this in the previous comment thread, but since the web seems to have latched onto this story, I think it’s worth highlighting more prominently. The media is determined to interpret Sean Penn’s fairly reasoned personal reservations about “The Tree of Life” as some kind of ego-driven attack — but before everyone starts taking sides in the Penn-Malick Celebrity Deathmatch, it’s worth reading the second half of his statement to Le Figaro, which doesn’t seem to have been translated by the English-speaking press. My rough translation below paints a rather more gracious picture:

    But it’s a film I recommend, as long as you go in without any preconceived ideas. It’s up to each person to find their own personal, emotional or spiritual connection to it. Those that do generally emerge very moved.

    So, what we have have here is a statement of respectful artistic dissent from someone clearly still proud to have been involved with the picture. Not as much fun as a highbrow bitchfight, granted, but there it is. At ease, everyone.

    [Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures]

  • Sean Penn bitch-slaps ‘Tree of Life’

    It seems actor Sean Penn is still upset about the fact that so much of his performance in “The Tree of Life” was left on the cutting room floor. I guess he and Adrian Brody can drown their woes in a few down at the pub. Said the actor to French magazine Le Figaro:

    I didn’t at all find on the screen the emotion of the script, which is the most magnificent one that I’ve ever read. A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What’s more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly.

    The thing is, I don’t entirely disagree with him. The bookend nature of his role is the weaker element of the film, particularly the reprise at the end. But I do think the early stuff works because it’s a brilliant, human lead-in to the film’s central question: “Why hast thou forsaken me?” Penn asking the almighty “Where were you” when his character’s brother died leads to the film’s extended cosmos sequence, and that is key, something I dug into when I wrote about the film at length in May.

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  • FIPRESCI names ‘The Tree of Life’ film of the year

    Well, did anyone expect otherwise? FIPRESCI, the international association of film critics that routinely hands out its own award at film festivals, has named Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” the winner of its annual Grand Prix award — for the film voted the year’s finest in a poll of their 200-plus membership.

    (Before anyone protests that it’s a little early to be dishing out Film of the Year honors, the eligibility bracket is an autumn-to-autumn deal, scheduled to fit with a presentation at the San Sebastian Film Festival. A 2010 critics’ favorite like “The Social Network,” for example, would have been up for consideration this year.)

    A slight irony is that Malick’s film didn’t actually win FIPRESCI’s own award at May’s Cannes Film Festival — it was pipped to the post by Aki Kaurismäki’s still-unreleased “Le Havre.” The discrepancy, of course, can be explained by the difference between jury and mass voting patterns: the Cannes prize is determined by a select handful of members, while a collective membership vote is more likely to favor big-league critics’ darlings.

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  • Starting the prediction game

    Right, I stayed out of the Oscar prediction racket for a while — partly to give myself a vacation from any such thoughts after 2010’s long, wearying season, and partly because I found myself struggling to blindly sort a pile of late-year prestige titles that struck me from afar as a little lean.

    The latter problem hasn’t really resolved itself, but with the recent revelation of key autumn festival slates, a kind of faint shape to the season is starting to emerge — and with Kris already having kicked off the guesswork earlier this month, I thought I may as well draw up a list of pre-festival nomination predictions, a first draft ready to get substantially rewritten as the hits and misses of Venice, Telluride and Toronto emerge.

    As my predictions took shape, two films emerged dominant: one of them the big-name spectacle near the top of everyone’s list (Spielberg’s “War Horse,” of course), the other the foreign wild card that I’ve nurtured a strong hunch about ever since its breakfast-hour Cannes screening. Yes, the Weinstein-backed silent Hollywood homage “The Artist” looks nothing like a conventional Oscar juggernaut at first glance — but that could be its strength if a number of the more typically baity awards prospects lean toward the generic.

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  • Twigs off ‘The Tree of Life’

    After two internet-free weeks in the Italian countryside, I’m gradually sifting through recent film news and coming to the conclusion that I chose as good a fortnight as any to drop out of the world. (File “Cars 2” and “Transformers Trois” under Things That Can Wait; ditto the Oscar-motivated fang-sharpening of rival Glenn Close and Meryl Streep camps.)

    The fact that I returned home days after “The Tree of Life” finally hit UK theaters, prompting a fresh gust of ooh-ing, aah-ing and arguing, only enhanced my sense that Terrence Malick’s arthouse blockbuster is the only true movie event of the summer thus far, so forgive me for making it the subject of yet another post, but I thought it was worth drawing attention to two unrelated snippets on the film.

    Particularly welcome is this LA Times piece that delves into the film’s spectacular soundtrack — where Alexandre Desplat’s typically intelligent original contributions nonetheless take a back seat to the dense collage of interpolations of existing classical music that is customary for a Malick film.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 57 — SPECIAL EDITION! — Oscar’s rule change, prospects at the mid-way point, Spielberg hitting the zeitgeist, lead actress race already looking contentious

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    A month and a half since the last off-season podcast, we take the temperature one more time this summer, right at the year’s mid-way point. There have been some Academy rule changes and some news and notes in the interim, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • East-coasters on the theology of ‘The Tree of Life’

    Last week you’ll recall we covered the west coast leg of “Insights, Inspirations and Impact,” a philosophical and religious panel discussion of Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.” Fox Searchlight has made a few clips from the New York leg available and I thought I’d post those up for further digestion. So…SPOILERS.

    First you’ll hear from David Silverman, president of American Atheists (and a perspective I was bummed we didn’t get in Los Angeles). He takes umbrage with what he perceives as a “Christian ending” (deeming the setting “heaven,” as many have, which I don’t think is so cut and dry). He also makes the mistake of thinking a Job analogy is inherently religious. I would call it inherently human. (A Buddhist later offered the counter-point that he didn’t view the film as wholly Christian given its depiction of evolution.)

    Second you’ll hear from George Lavoo of The School of Visual Arts, who makes the shrewd point that, in the landscape of filmmaking engineered toward a very specific reaction, “The Tree of Life” is the rare film that eschews manipulation.

    Check out both clips after the jump.

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  • ‘Tree of Life’ contest winner!

    Thanks to everyone for participating in last week’s contest to win an official poster for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.” It was the usual healthy crop of possibilities, but I was most taken by Jackson’s sweet, streamlined entry, which wonderfully captures the director’s work, I think:

    Characters dissolve
    In the majestic landscape
    Of human nature

    So Jackson, if you’re reading, send me a line at ktapley@incontention.com and we’ll get you your prize.

  • No refunds

    Passed along via Twitter by Christopher Misch (originally posted by a guy named Joe Meyers) snapped at the Avon Theatre in Stamford, CT:

  • Discussing the theology of ‘The Tree of Life’

    Fox Searchlight is really outdoing itself on “The Tree of Life.” When the studio picked up the title last year, I knew it was in caring hands. But I never really expected such pristine handling every step of the way.

    Tonight Searchlight held bi-coastal panel discussions with religious and non-religious leaders to discuss differing perspectives and interpretations of the theological themes within the film. “Insights, Inspirations & Impact” was the name of the program, and I was on hand for the Landmark Theatre discussion in West L.A. this evening.

    The panelists included Sister Rose Pacatte of the Pauline Center for Media Studies, Dr. Robert K. Johnston of the Fuller Theological Seminary and author of “Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue”; Rabbi David Wolpe of the Sinai Temple (a bit of a celebrity in his own right); Scott Young, executive director of the University Religious Conference at UCLA; Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs at the Islamic Center for Southern California; and Jim Hosney, Professor of Literature at the American Film Institute. The panel was moderated by spiritual author Erwin Raphael McManus.

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  • CONTEST: Win a ‘Tree of Life’ poster

    I’ve had this poster for Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” sitting in a tube in the office for weeks now. Since I don’t really have space for it on the wall, and seeing as it’s a bit fresh given the on-going roll-out of the film in theaters, I thought I’d offer it up in a new contest.

    “Tone poem” is a term often used to describe Malick’s work, so I thought we’d go with another haiku contest (as always, courtesy of Sasha Stone at Awards Daily who does them often). So offer up your best Malick-themed haiku (5, 7, 5 syllables, remember) and the cream of the crop wins. You can do something built around his work or around the film itself, up to you.

    Let’s give this, oh, until the end of the week. So midnight (PT) Friday is the cut-off. Ready, set, GO!

    [Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures]

  • Nolan and Fincher on the impression left by Malick

    Those are three heavyweight names to stuff into one headline, but thanks to some shrewd marketing on the part of Fox Searchlight Pictures, it’s a reality.

    Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” continues to roll out in its platform release, landing in a boatload of new cities this weekend. As the film prepares to go wider, the studio has tapped the thoughts of filmmakers Christopher Nolan and David Fincher to get their perspective on the famed auteur.

    “His work is immediately recognizable, but it’s very tough to put your finger on why that is,” Nolan says in a new featurette launched at Apple. “The technique is not immediately obvious.”

    Fincher, meanwhile, notes that “with Malick, you’re seeing something that was thought about and meditated over. You’re seeing someone who’s making choices that are specifically designed to evoke a feeling.”

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  • Malick goes deeper underground

    First up, some good news for our British readers: the distribution wrangles surrounding “The Tree of Life” have been resolved, and Fox Searchlight will bring the film to UK screens on July 8. Not much longer until you can join the conversation.

    Given Terrence Malick’s usual work rate, it feels almost perverse to begin talking about his next film while his current one is still in theaters, but that’s precisely what his new go-to cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki does in a fascinating Sight & Sound interview.

    So far we know little about the untitled work, already in post-production, beyond its all-star cast of Ben Affleck, Javier Bardem, Jessica Chastain and Rachels Weisz and McAdams, but Lubezki reveals this much: if you thought “The Tree of Life” was esoteric, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

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