# Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 14, 2011, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055 "2011-07-14T20:37:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/21 "2011-10-16T14:54:41Z")
Merged duplicate threads. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/22 "2011-10-16T16:43:30Z")
Dang; and I even did a search. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/23 "2011-10-16T16:49:19Z")
Being surprised that a Terrence Malick film is slow, plodding, and pseudo-philosophical is like being surprised that a Michael Bay film has 'splosions. And Sean Penn has been rather… indulgent lately, so it’s not out of the blue for him. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/24 "2011-10-16T19:54:43Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > Being surprised that a Terrence Malick film is slow, plodding, and pseudo-philosophical is like being surprised that a Michael Bay film has 'splosions. And Sean Penn has been rather… indulgent lately, so it’s not out of the blue for him. I don’t know as I’ve ever seen a Malick film before, but I hope not to be suckered into another one. Sean Penn can usually be relied upon to speak his mind, bless his cranky little heart. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/25 "2011-10-16T20:05:01Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Malick’s answer to Job’s constant questions seems to be “look, you can either say the universe sucks and it’s a dinosaur-eat-dinosaur world, or you can recognize I have a greater purpose here - grace - and accept what’s happening.” With Malick leaning toward grace, clearly. I don’t think there’s any message about ‘greater purpose’ in the film. ‘Accepting what’s happening,’ yes–but I take one of the main ideas of the film to be that the characters who do this do this _despite_ finding no greater purpose for any of the things that happen. Like I said: A tacked on happy ending. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/26 "2011-10-16T20:48:25Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I don’t think there’s any message about ‘greater purpose’ in the film. ‘Accepting what’s happening,’ yes–but I take one of the main ideas of the film to be that the characters who do this do this _despite_ finding no greater purpose for any of the things that happen. The part where they’re reunited at the end, in a scene of love mediated by grace, after Jessica Chastain has been praying throughout the movie, doesn’t suggest a greater purpose? It did to me. > [@](#): > > Like I said: A tacked on happy ending. The whole movie was tacked together! I’m not sure what else you’d be looking for in terms of an ending. But hey, wait for the 6-hour version…you might get it. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/27 "2011-10-16T21:53:58Z")
The Big Bang and dinosaur sequences pretty much lulled me to sleep. It would have been fine without them and certainly more coherent. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/28 "2011-10-16T22:53:43Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > The part where they’re reunited at the end, in a scene of love mediated by grace, after Jessica Chastain has been praying throughout the movie, doesn’t suggest a greater purpose? It did to me. The film itself, AFAICT, doesn’t suggest any “greater purpose.” Really, it seems to affirm the lack of any such thing through and through–and has the character accepting this very fact in the final redemption. It might be that an audience member can’t imagine accepting a negative situation without thinking a greater purposes is in the offing–so brings some of their own assumptions about the nature of love to the table. I don’t think the movie intentionally invites this, though. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/29 "2011-10-16T23:06:48Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > The film itself, AFAICT, doesn’t suggest any “greater purpose.” Really, it seems to affirm the lack of any such thing through and through–and has the character accepting this very fact in the final redemption. On the contrary. Malick starts the film with a quote from Job…generally, when someone starts a film with a quote, you should pay attention. Then partway through the film we get a sermon on, you guessed it, Job: > [@](#): > > Job imagined he might build his nest on high – that the integrity of his behavior would protect him against misfortune. And his friends thought, mistakenly, that the Lord could only have punished him because secretly he’d done something wrong. But, no, misfortune befalls the good as well. We can’t protect ourselves against it. We can’t protect our children. We can’t say to ourselves, even if I’m not happy, I’m going to make sure they are. We vanish as a cloud. We wither as the autumn grass, and like a tree are rooted up. > > Is there some fraud in the scheme of the universe? Is there nothing which is deathless? Nothing which does not pass away? We cannot stay where we are. We must journey forth. We must find that which is greater than fortune or fate. Nothing can bring us peace but that. > > Is the body of the wise man, or the just, exempt from any pain? From any disquietude, from the deformity that might blight its beauty, from the weakness that might destroy its health? **Do you trust in God?** > > Job, too, was close to the Lord. Are your friends and children your security? There is no hiding place in all the world where trouble may not find you. No on knows when sorrow might visit his house, any more than Job did. > > **The very moment everything was taken away from Job, he knew it was the Lord who’d taken it away. He turned from the passing shows of time. He sought that which is eternal.** > > Does he alone see God’s hand who sees that He gives, or does not also the one see God’s hand who sees that He takes away? Does he alone see God who sees God turn His face towards him? Does not also he see God who sees God turn his back? Can that sermon, actually written by Malick, be any clearer? Malick sees this as an exercise in keeping faith, just like the Book of Job. > [@](#): > > It might be that an audience member can’t imagine accepting a negative situation without thinking a greater purposes is in the offing–so brings some of their own assumptions about the nature of love to the table. I don’t think the movie intentionally invites this, though. It might also be that an audience member annoyed with the film for some reason isn’t interested in doing the work to find whatever meaning Malick intended. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/30 "2011-10-17T03:11:21Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > On the contrary. Malick starts the film with a quote from Job…generally, when someone starts a film with a quote, you should pay attention. :rolleyes: Yeah thanks for that. I’m well fucking aware of the status of the Job story in the film. I’m claiming that the film intentionally subverts the (popular understanding of the) message of Job, while at the same time trying to keep on board what it sees as centrally important to that message. Note that “keeping faith” and having an attitude toward “that which is internal” is in no way the same thing as believing there is a “higher purpose” behind suffering. The film offers no such purpose. The film advocates (and there is a long tradition of advocacy for just exactly this message which I take Malick to be tapping into) “keeping faith in the eternal” _in spite_ of the purposelessness of suffering. > [@](#): > > It might also be that an audience member annoyed with the film for some reason isn’t interested in doing the work to find whatever meaning Malick intended. I don’t understand if you mean that audience member to represent me or someone else. Could you clarify? BTW it is not particularly radical to understand the book of Job to have precisely this message. Though the typical pious reading of it refers to higher purposes, the book itself makes no mention of such. The God of the book of Job is a bit more like a Cthulu style “Old One” than a force for good with a higher purpose. An inexplicable, hugely powerful force which refuses to explain itself and demands a positive dispositon without giving any reason one should have this disposition. ETA: Note that the book of Job itself has a tacked on happy ending! ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/31 "2011-10-17T03:22:58Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > :“internal” ^eternal ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/32 "2011-10-17T08:05:25Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I’m claiming that the film intentionally subverts the (popular understanding of the) message of Job, while at the same time trying to keep on board what it sees as centrally important to that message. > > Note that “keeping faith” and having an attitude toward “that which is external” is in no way the same thing as believing there is a “higher purpose” behind suffering. The film offers no such purpose. The film advocates (and there is a long tradition of advocacy for just exactly this message which I take Malick to be tapping into) “keeping faith in the eternal” _in spite_ of the purposelessness of suffering. > > … > > BTW it is not particularly radical to understand the book of Job to have precisely this message. Though the typical pious reading of it refers to higher purposes, the book itself makes no mention of such. The God of the book of Job is a bit more like a Cthulu style “Old One” than a force for good with a higher purpose. An inexplicable, hugely powerful force which refuses to explain itself and demands a positive dispositon without giving any reason one should have this disposition. All I’m getting from this is that you think the Book of Job is plopped down into the Old Testament without any context…and that the God of Job is completely separate from the God of the rest of the OT and NT. If that’s your reading, you’re denying centuries of exegesis and Malick’s right to tap into that same “non-radical” reading. Furthermore, you’re ignoring his tacked-on ending (in which they’re happily re-united in some place like heaven), or seeming to say that DESPITE that tacked-on ending there’s no meaning. It all seems very circular and argumentative to me, so either I’m not smart enough to get it, or, perhaps like Malick, I’m relying on a failed, but common reading of what the story of Job means in the context of the rest of the Bible. But given the Bible is one long argument that includes Job, I’m fine with that reading, and with Malick’s tacked-on (and to me not subversive) ending. ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/33 "2011-10-17T09:36:07Z")
I generally like slow paced art films, but I have a hard time appreciating Malick. I remember liking _Badlands_ when I saw it a decade ago, but I couldn’t even finish _The Thin Red Line_ or _The New World_. I can’t believe I payed money to see this, Malick should be paying me! ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/34 "2011-10-17T10:40:01Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > All I’m getting from this is Heheh, sure it is buddy. Anyway, a careful viewing of the film will show that Malick’s references to Job involve the “radical” reading I mentioned (which isn’t that radical but rather has a long tradition behind it) and that he is rejecting (or at least, not relying on) the popular reading. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2011, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/35 "2011-10-17T13:44:04Z")
> [@gladtobeblazed](#): > > I generally like slow paced art films, but I have a hard time appreciating Malick. I remember liking _Badlands_ when I saw it a decade ago, but I couldn’t even finish _The Thin Red Line_ or _The New World_. I can’t believe I payed money to see this, Malick should be paying me! The Thin Red Line was watchable. I actually enjoyed it and saw it three or four times. Likewise I could watch Enter The Void (not a Malick film, but long and esoteric) in a single sitting, though I doubt I’ll ever watch it again. But I closed my eyes and tried to sleep through the last half of The Tree of Life. I guess my greatest criticism is that I don’t feel that this film effected me in any way other than it bored me. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/36 "2011-10-26T13:56:42Z")
I watched this one last night. Well, I almost watched it. I fell asleep in the last 10 minutes or so. Could someone fill me in on how it ends? Which kid died and which one is Sean Penn’s character? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/37 "2011-10-26T15:45:18Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > I watched this one last night. Well, I almost watched it. I fell asleep in the last 10 minutes or so. Could someone fill me in on how it ends? Which kid died and which one is Sean Penn’s character? Thanks. Sorry I only have vague recollections because I was, like you, getting sleepy myself. But I can tell you the following as absolute fact. In the last ten minutes: Everyone ends up at the beach. Sean Penn is there. So are Gidget and Elvis. Sean walks through a door and then a clambake happens. But instead of clams, they were baking feet. Someone ascended into light, and Gidget floated through the air like my favorite nun. Then someone coughed loudly and there were bright lights and the credits rolled. ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/38 "2011-10-26T15:47:38Z")
Thanks. I guess it was a little silly of me to think I’d understand the ending anymore than I understood anything that happened before. ---
**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/39 "2011-12-07T01:03:55Z")
Just saw this last night. My summation - pretty to watch, boring as hell. It is also a lock for a Best Picture nomination (and I would wager, victory, due to a weak field) because it is the kind of movie the academy will feel smart for liking - witness Robert De Niro’s comments about why it won the Palm d’Or at Cannes: > [@Robert De Niro](#): > > It had the size, the importance, the intention, whatever you want to call it, that seemed to fit the prize. Personally, I would also want to call it “an enjoyable movie to watch” to fit the prize, but that’s how things go in this field. > [@Isamu](#): > > Likewise I could watch Enter The Void (not a Malick film, but long and esoteric) in a single sitting, though I doubt I’ll ever watch it again. I was thinking a lot about Enter the Void while I watched this movie - I just saw that a couple months ago. You are right in that they are both long, meandering, and deliberately opaque, but I was mesmerized by Void, and was just plain bored by Tree. ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055/40 "2011-12-07T04:09:27Z")
This movie hit me the same way that Don Hertfeldt’s\* The Meaning of Life\* did. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/terrence-malicks-tree-of-life/589055.md?page=3)