The reclusive film director Terrence Malick has to date, only directed a small number of films. His twenty year hiatus between directing Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998), may provide the explanation for such a sparse back catalogue. Malick’s refusal to talk with the media, has led to hearsay, as to how he occupied his time during the hiatus. Malick’s directing debut Badlands (1973) is a collection of concepts, all carefully moulded together to create one iconic piece of film. This process draws in and also alienates the audience. Malick’s style is positively noted by critics to be influenced by European philosophy. This is clearly due to Malick’s study of philosophy at Harvard and Magdalen College Oxford. There is no given …show more content…
The reference to a Western is by no means farfetched with the dusty panoramic landscape shots and the dusty roads and fields, there is even reference from Kit that maybe he’ll become a cowboy and there is also the reckless shooting, both associated with the western genre. King writes:
Although the period of this film is recent, it works in an established “outlaw” mode made familiar by Arthur Penn and Sam Peckinpah, and the characterization of Kit partly relies on his gunslinger morality, or lack of morality, derived from grade-B westerns. Badlands Shoots First (2010)
As soon as Kit is finally captured by the police and paraded around the airport hangar like a sacred gem, he realises that he has found his place in the world, a difficult task in this tough and usually unforgiving landscape. Holly also mentions in her final voice-over that she has finally settled down, with the son of her lawyer, a life which may have presented itself to her, had she not gone on her adventure to the Badlands of Montana with Kit, all these elements have the makings of a coming of age drama
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[Online] Available at http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0206/sterritt_malick.htm (Accessed: 19/12/2010)
Websites
BFI Sight and Sound (1998) Popcorn Patter. Available at: http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/324/324778p1.html (Accessed 19/12/2010)
IGN UK Edition (2002) Featured Filmmaker: Terrence Malick. Available at http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/324/324778p1.html (Accessed 19/12/2010)
Malick on Badlands, Interviewing Terry Malick. Available at http://www.eskimo.com/~toates/malick/art6.html (Accessed 19/12/2010)
Terrence Malick’s Badklands (1973): Doing His Best James Dean. Available at: http://panicon4july.blogspot.com/2010/01/doing-his-best-james-dean-terrence.html (Accessed 19/12/2010)
Film reference: Badlands. Available at http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Aw-Be/Badlands.html (Accessed 19/12/2010)
Films
Absence of Malick (2003) Dir. David Gregory [DVD]. USA: Warner Home Video.
Badlands (1973) Dir. Terrence Malick [DVD]. California: Warner Home Video.
Books
Elizabeth Weis, John Belton (1985) Theory and Practice Film Sound, New York: Columbia University Press, pp 346.
Hannah Patterson (2007) The cinema of Terrence Malick: poetic visions of America, London: Wallflower Press, pp
During the Talladega 500, Cal Naughton Jr., Ricky Bobby's former best friend, pulled ahead of Ricky, allowing him to slingshot around his car and pass Jean Girard. Though Cal and Girard were teammates at Dennit Racing, Cal disregarded this and jeopardized his team's success to aid Ricky in the movie Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. This moment was crucial to Ricky, he having fallen from grace, going from NASCAR's top driver to being let go by Dennit Racing. The love Cal exhibited was a selfless form of love that was centered entirely around Ricky's happiness, not his own. Because of this selflessness, Cal compromised his own agenda, winning for Dennit, and disregarded personal consequence in hopes that Ricky would win the race. If you truly love someone as Cal loved Ricky, you must sometimes compromise your own interests for their benefit.
Petrie, Dennis and Boggs, Joseph. The Art of Watching Films. New York: McGraw Hill, 2012.
A cinematic experience offers a false projection of the world that people have the desire to indulge in. In Guy Vanderhaeghe’s novel, The Englishman’s Boy, the portrayal of the film as a whole is consistent with Chance’s vision to rewrite the story of the Cypress Hills Massacre of 1873 as a mythic history of the settling of the American west. Film has the power to access an aspect of reality somehow absent in other media. One could argue that film brainwashes people and alters reality when it is both projected and screened. Vanderhaeghe’s narrative oscillation and use of common literary techniques often foreshadow his film (Besieged) in many ways.
Danks, Adrian. "Death Comes as an End: Temporality, Domesticity and Photography in Terrence Malick’s Badlands." Senses of Cinema RSS. July 2000. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .
Karlin, Fred, and Rayburn Wright. On the Track a Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
Friedman, L., Desser, D., Kozloff, S., Nichimson, M., & Prince, S. (2014). An introduction to film genres. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.
The reason I chose Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese to discuss in this paper is that I think they are among the directors whose styles and aesthetics match my perception of how I want to portray stories in my movies. The
After years of repeated thematic motifs and unchanging, stereotypical characters, films within a genre often lose their vitality. The conventions become predictable and the underlying myth becomes boring and banal. The innovative director will seek to revitalize a popular myth through a "generic transformation" (Cawelti 520). This essay shall demonstrate how Quentin Tarantino borrows a traditional myth from the gangster genre, subverts it and subsequently installs a new, unorthodox myth in its place. The end result is a new type of film that reaches beyond the established confines of the gangster genre.
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
Stanley, Robert H. The Movie Idiom: Film as a Popular Art Form. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc. 2011. Print
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2012). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..
*Hunt for the Wilderpeople* builds on Waititi 's drama/comedy combination and further cements his auteur status. *Wilderpeople* is about an orphan boy who moves from one foster family to another, generally being a delinquent. This causes him to earn the title of "a real bad egg". The majority of the film takes place as Ricky Baker is on the run through the vast forest. While structurally different than *Boy*, both films deal with coming-of-age, parents, and loneliness. Unlike *Boy*, *Wilderpeople* is divided up into ten chapters and an epilogue. Despite this, *Boy* is the more episodic film. Since *Wilderpeople* relies more on a causal narrative, it seems more like a standard Hollywood film at first. But Waititi finds a way to make it his own.
Dances with Wolves This Film “Dances with Wolves,” is a standout amongst the most important films to ever leave Hollywood. It is about identity, the film shows the Native American society into the collective usual America. The screenplay advances a more noteworthy understanding, acknowledgement, and sensitivity for the Lakota society. The residents of the Lakota and the domestic obligations of their tribal life are made open through this movie.
Thinking Sound. (2011). Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola Talks about the Evolution of Movie Sound. [Online]. Available from YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-fNpE9vQJw [Accessed 05 February 2012]
I will analyze Lars Von Trier “Manderlay” with regards to the following five factors: setting, props, characterization, theme and genre. Trier create the movie “Manderlay” and several more to generates the idea of American greed, racism, and the misuse of power. To whom he thought that American was unrecognizable to any American was irrelevant. Even though, most Hollywood movies deny their entertainment as a pretend act. Presenting imaginary worlds was a way that showed unrealistic sense of reality but came off as if they were real. The movie itself was fiercely venomous. It held a strong conception about our society and expressed them in a symbolic representation provoking change in a usage of humor, irony, and exaggeration.