How to Make a Tree of Life Trailer Even More Pretentious? Add French
I love Terrence Malick as much as the next guy, but come on: Can we just get The Tree of Life over with, already? Until the film premieres next month at Cannes (and opens shortly after in the U.S.), we're stuck struggling through a vortex of breathless hype and marketing that confounds at best and annoys at worst. Like if I have to see that baby's foot one more time... and now in French?
What's branded as a new Cannes trailer is making the rounds today, meaning we get all the brooding, pensive, ethereal, really really serious quick-cuts as before with a) a slightly more straightforward chronology and b) random French-language overdubs. Even before today I felt like I was being sold perfume, but this is just uncanny. And it kind of has me worried. Just saying.
Meanwhile, anyone care to translate?
[Rope of Silicon via Gordon and the Whale]
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Pretty sure the end voice-over says, breathlessement, "If you don't love, you should eat an éclair."
Ha ha! Good one.
I was thinking that I didn't mind at all not know what they were saying, because the pictures were so compelling. Isn't that the best part of Malick anyway?
Also, every time I see that picture of that little foot I think of that book, The Family of Man.
You don't have to see it again. Just don't watch it. And, obviously, you don't love Malick--you're a snarky 20 year old intern with sawdust for brains who views films on his phone. The French is... tough for you? Too foreign? Those French!--why don't they speak English? Stick to FOXnews: your people, loser. This looks brilliant.
Calling yourself 'S.T.', that's pretentious. You don't call Terence Malick pretentious you moron. Why don't you go work for TMZ? You'll fit right in.
Freakin' 'A' Jim! You said it my man. I think T.J. Hooker, or whatever his name is, is just trying to provoke a reaction and get some attention for his hacky 'reports'. Stephanie Zacharak must regret leaving Salon.com
Huh? Here I was thinking only Christopher Nolan garnered the snarky fanboys.
Why is everyone so angry?
Oh, man. Just wait. And I'm only upset about the _marketing_ right now. Imagine if I don't like the movie!
I think part of the reason people may be having a hard time dealing with this particular post is that the asshole who wrote it is the same asshole who thinks Jennifer's Body is underrated.
Jennifer's Body was rated correctly.
And yes, let's pour it on Malick. The movies need less reclusive geniuses, and more... demonic teen movies.
So by virtue (ahem) of you signing with my initials, can I now be attributed with having said something I never said because you said I said it? Did I just say that?
Anyway, I see what you did there.
The title cards say:
The film event from Terrence Malick
The most anticipated film of the year
Only a masterpiece could bring together Brad Pitt and Sean Penn
A wildly ambitious story
==
in the dialogue, Pitt says he just wants to make sure his kid was strong and his own boss
Chastain talks about love
(I love Chastain. thank you terry for choosing a redhead.)
twitter.com/treeoflifefilm
http://www.movieline.com/2009/09/in-theaters-jennifers-body.php
http://www.movieline.com/2011/04/what-classic-movies-did-the-critics-get-wrong.php#more
I'm confused... are you now playing a joke on readers by saying you didn't say Jennifer's Body wasn't underrated? Maybe you take qualms with the term "underrated," or you'd already forgotten the premise to your previous post yesterday about critically maligned works that were later celebrated? Which is it? You're confusing. You certainly can't sit there and post on your site that I was lying about your assertions when your assertions exist on your very site. rescind my initial judgment that you're an asshole being that you may actually be insane.
And for the record, I honestly do NOT see what you did there. Weirdo.
Of course I called _Jennifer's Body_ underrated, and I stand by the review. We can disagree; it doesn't make either of us wrong. I would hope this goes _without_ saying by either of us.
But I never said or even implied that "[t]he movies need less reclusive geniuses, and more... demonic teen movies." This post has nothing to do with any of that. It specifically addresses the marketing surrounding _Tree of Life_, which I think is vague and pretentious and relies too much on hype as opposed to any substantive idea of what this film actually _is_.
That doesn't mean I'm looking forward to it any less. It just means it's being treated no differently than any other quick-cut summer-movie hackwork. To my mind, Malick deserves better.
I am not so small a man that I can't admit I was wrong. I shouldn't have implied that you were disparaging Malick*. Point taken. I especially shouldn't have referred to you as an asshole, which is the worst kind of anonymous trollery. You're a very good writer, and while I don't always agree with your posts, I do enjoy your writing.
Now, then, to get back to your original post, I would ask this, and I ask this in all seriousness... how would you market the film? I think we excoriate the marketing departments of film for giving away too much in a trailer, and this trailer (and the film's website, and the first American trailer) resolutely avoids doing this while still engaging us with a handful of Malick's images. Which is all I really want, honestly, because I'd hate to have the film spoiled. Look, I am never one to defend marketing or marketers , but in this case, I think they are doing about as decent a job as could be expected of them.
And for the record, I think it is pretty clear from the images and from the website what the film "is": Sean Penn was raised by a "tyrant" of a father and a "saint" of a mother, which has created a dichotomous (had to look up the spelling) adult at war with its "Self," a concept which will be explored symbolically via some kind of catastrophic earthly event. Right? And how do you create a trailer for something like that. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what the trailer conveys to me. And does that sound pretentious? Do I sound pretentious?
*That said, I think the earlier post mentioning Jennifer's Body as misunderstood was still sticking in my craw, and I failed to read your post critically. I watched Jennifer's Body (rather, tried to watch, couldn't make it through) on the strength of your review. Alas, I will always hold you partially responsible for the hour or so I lost on that endeavor.
Have a happy day!
Youuu son of a bitchhhh!
Thanks very much for this. Your points are taken as well! I'm sorry for any distress, trauma, or frustration my endorsement of Jennifer's Body might have caused. We'll get through it!
As far as the marketing, I think the narrative is deducible enough, but what it's really missing is a sense of character. For something like this I'd go back to _A Serious Man_, which had one of the best trailers I've ever seen because it managed to corral dozens of unbound, decontextualized images under the rubric of one character -- Larry Gopnik -- and a summary of his crisis. And best of all, it did so with self-contained existing materials -- no voice-of-God narration, no title cards, no third-party hype. So you wound up with a explicitly clear sense of a) the Coens' impressionism, b) the character's plight and c) the overall tone of the film as a whole without clubbing viewers on the nose with "what the film's about." It was pretty much perfect.
If I were Fox and Malick? I honestly wouldn't change that much: Leave all the VFX shots and flashbacks/forwards you want, but just provide one character's perspective from the start. Probably Penn's, since he's the biggest wild-card in this current mix. Or Chastain's, if you think you've got the fanboy/art-house crowd locked up already and want to reach out to women. It doesn't need to be on the nose. But it does need to be a little more specific and a little less oblique. Right now I just feel like I'm being sold someone's hobby as opposed to a feature film.
Come on, Dad, not here.
Absolutely the most self-indulgent, self-absorbed, pretentious drivel I've ever seen. Sitting in freeway gridlock is more entertaining and more of a cultural experience than this "film". Never again...
Gotta agree with Russel Schmidt.
At least when I'm sitting in gridlock, I'm there because I want to get where I'm going.