Malick's Tree of Life and Allen's Midnight in Paris compared

Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris

Malick's Tree of Life and Allen's Midnight in Paris: a Comparative Analysis

Two films that debuted at the 2011 Cannes Film Fest were Terrence Malick's long-awaited The Tree of Life and Woody Allen's nostalgic comedy Midnight in Paris. Malick's Tree of Life went on to win the Palme d'Or, and Allen's film screened out of competition. Yet both films (by American directors) employ the use of the fantastic -- Malick's by navigating the transcendental and the earthly through visions of cosmological grandeur and the simple day-to-day life of human existence in which characters experience joy, grief, innocence, guilt, love, hate, and redemption -- Allen's by sending his characters into an alternate reality in which they discover the limitations of fulfillment and satisfaction. This paper will compare and contrast the two films and show how each attempts to answer the problem of pain -- The Tree of Life by opening an avenue to the supernatural and Midnight in Paris by being true to nature.

Character

Malick's characters are not so much scripted as they are simply captured on film: much as he did with 1998's The Thin Red Line, Malick here brings together a host of actors and actresses, has them inhabit a small town in Texas for the duration of the shoot, and then unleashes his cameramen on them; filming even when his actors and actresses are unaware of being filmed; looking to capture that one moment of inspiration and impulse. His characters are defined by their internal thoughts, which so often resemble brief ejaculations or prayers to a divine entity or to a figure of the family. Sometimes the thoughts are posed as the kind of eternal questions with which Malick is preoccupied. Character is revealed thus, subtly and non-traditionally. One learns from Malick's characters no more than one would learn from his real-life neighbors: we see merely glimpses of a personality, shadows of a life; we hear only passing ponderings -- yet we are able to identify with his creations, with the mother who represents the good, the father who represents the false god, the children who represent all of us as we make our way through life, attempting to hold onto "the good that was given us" (Malick, The Thin Red Line). The characters are never named precisely -- formal identity is not necessary to the plot; in fact, little is: the film is a meditation -- food for thought -- scenes of illustrative beauty that are meant for reflection. Character is important only in so far as it guides our reflections -- much like Ignatius would have us remember the four last things: Heaven, Hell, death, judgment.

The characters of Midnight in Paris, however, are those of a more traditional comedy: they are developed to a point, they are named, they are full of quirks, longing, charm, and aggression. These are, essentially, the same characters played by Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. Nonetheless, Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams bring something of their own: Wilson displays a kind of innocence heretofore best shown by his brother Luke. McAdams effects the same kind of shallow, pretentiousness she put forth in Mean Girls. The match is imperfect -- and it is for just such a reason that the two fail to reconcile at the end of the film: Gil (played by Wilson), in fact, stays in Paris to pursue a relationship with a woman with whom he shares a common ideology. The emptiness inherent in the Republican tastes of his fiance, her parents, and her pedantic friend fail to compare with the simple, tasteful, elegant, and humble virtues of Parisian life and -- it might be added -- the interior life that goes along with it.

This interior life is what is at the heart of Terrence Malick's drama The Tree of Life. The title could refer to any of the multiple meanings that have been applied to the expression -- yet one cannot fail to observe the religious themes that consistently punctuate the film and the candidly spiritual nature of its narrative: it is, as Ebert calls it, "a prayer" (Ebert). Therefore, coupled with the imagery and the many symbolic tropes utilized in the film, the title may be said to refer to the Old Testament prefiguring of the Cross upon which Christ was crucified. Such a reference would make the most sense, since the film is very much a meditation upon death and atonement, and is filled with such liturgical hymns as the "Agnus Dei" and themes such as sin, self-sacrifice, redemption, and resurrection. In fact, the film opens with a quotation from the Book of Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" -- an implication that the mystery of suffering is like the mystery of creation -- it may not be solved but only expanded the more one looks into it. Nevertheless, as for explicit references to religion, the family upon whom Malick's film focuses is depicted as being Christian, and the mother espouses a kind of Christian doctrine ("There are two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace: nature is selfish and seeks only to fulfill its own wishes, but grace is selfless, humble, accepting of all things…") (Malick The Tree of Life), but the family's religion is never specifically identified. With a name like O'Brien it might be assumed they are a family of Irish Catholics. Nonetheless, prayers to Jesus Christ are never articulated; the characters pray throughout the film to the Lord and to one another.

Still, The Tree of Life is certainly a spiritual film, and any discussion of it must be one in which the spiritual significance of its plot, characters, development, music, narration, and imagery is analyzed. The same cannot be said for Allen's Midnight in Paris. Allen himself admits that he holds no belief in religion -- therefore, it is not essential that one attempt to understand Midnight in Paris in the same way in which one should view Malick's Tree of Life. However, one might conclude that despite Allen's professed indifference towards religion his film has a kind of spirituality to it -- a spirituality that follows from the writer/director's own spirituality -- the kind of spirituality that is manifest in many works of the "magical realism" genre of the 20th century. The Tree of Life may also be considered to be of such a genre. To understand how each may be viewed in such a way, detailed examinations are necessary.

Magical Realism

Wendy Faris defines magical realism as the combination of "realism and the fantastic so that the marvelous seems to grow organically within the ordinary, blurring the distinction between them" (1). Such can be seen in both Malick's film and Allen's -- Malick's through channeling of the supernatural, Allen's through the involvement of the magical.

Allen's film attempts to balance the sentimental with sentiment. This is achieved through the journey of Gil Pender, whose invitation into the world of 1920s Paris allows him to find himself as both an author and a person. While the magical world that is opened to him charms and allures him, he ultimately realizes that he can be no more happy there than he can be in his own time -- that his mission is to be an artist and biographer of his own age (whatever that means and/or costs). His understanding, though painful at first, is rewarded with the breaking off of his engagement with a fiance who neither loves him nor shares his sensibility (but with whom he had stayed out of sentimental love). Pender plans to start up the life he has always wanted in Paris, and in the final scene of the film (at midnight) instead of waiting to be invited back into the world of the 1920s he strolls the bridge along Notre Dame cathedral, happily wistful. What looks like a somewhat melancholic ending (or beginning) is suddenly lightened by the appearance of a female merchant Pender has encountered earlier in the film. She shares his sentiments regarding early 20th century culture -- and the two walk off into the night assuring us of the possibility of establishing a relationship in the here and now that is based on common appreciation of the things that are of substance from the past. The shallow, pretentiousness of Republican living is rejected for the poetic (but realistic) vision of life that means something.

Allen's film is filled with references to the great names of the past, from T.S. Eliot to Pablo Picasso to Paul Gauguin and Gertrude Stein. However, the film downplays what might have been some truly comedic moments for a more magical thematic element. Wilson's Pender delivers some hilarious moments, but what one gleans from the experience, rather, is Allen's respect for all the personages of the bygone age. It is a film that is at once nostalgic and wary of nostalgia. As he does with almost all of his films, Allen attempts to find some way out of the present circumstance -- and cannot. As he himself admits, "I have a very grim perspective. I do feel that it's a grim, painful, nightmarish meaningless existence, and the only way to be happy is if you tell yourself some lies. One must have some delusions to live" ("Cannes 2010: Woody Allen on Death -- 'I'm Strongly Against It'"). What Midnight in Paris is for him (and us), therefore, is a kind of distraction from the reality that at some point the final credits will roll.

Malick's Tree of Life, then, is a kind of answer to Allen's melancholy. It is, of course, a religious answer told through an impressionistic and indirect medium. Nonetheless, unlike Allen, Malick is willing to embrace the spiritual side of man and explore its meanings and possibilities. For Malick, life is a spiritual journey that can lead one either upwards to the good or downwards to the bad. Allen's film may also seem like such -- but the scope is not as great and the reach is not as magnificent. Allen's film comes up short of the cinematic gold if only because Allen himself has no use for the incorruptible crown. Malick, on the other hand, obviously does -- and it shows in every shot of Tree of Life -- the very title of which evokes St. Augustine's City of God: "The tree of life is the holy of holies, Christ," (546) and "On that day their nature was indeed changed for the worse and vitiated, and by their most just separation from the tree of life they were made subject to the necessity of bodily death" (The City of God against the Pagans 571), and "Man was furnished with food against hunger, with drink against thirst, and with the tree of life against the ravages of old age" (683).

Imagery

Allen is able to employ some lovely imagery of Paris. But some of the best moments come when Pender steps back into time and we are given a glimpse of Paris in the early 20th century. We see Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso's portrait of her hanging above her throne -- a marvelous touch of staging. Gertrude Stein herself was a conundrum of sorts -- a critic of Picasso's harsh portraits of women, the portrait he paints of her is flattering and somewhat majestic. Paul Johnson's depiction of Picasso is somewhat analogous to a description of Allen himself: Johnson says of Picasso: he "was perhaps the most restless, experimental, and productive artist who ever lived. But everything had to be done at top speed. He was incapable of lavishing care, time, or sustained effort on a work of art" (250). At the point in his career in the film, Picasso could represent Stein quite well. The style is neither abstract nor entirely avant-garde: it is reflective, slightly off-kilter, but encompassing of the subject and her character. It is also indicative of the kind of film Allen is making -- one that is slightly eccentric -- more happily upbeat and romantic.

While in 1920s Paris, Gil meets the inspiration behind another Picasso portrait -- his mistress Adriana (played by Marion Cotillard). Gil is immediately taken by her beauty, and she by his innocence and naivete. Like him, however, she is longing to be part of a previous age: "Adriana doesn't know where she belongs. She is searching for her place,' says Cotillard. 'She admires artists because their world is wide and their imagination takes them to some marvelous places. She needs to dream'" (Nasson). The emphasis placed upon dreams as a distraction from reality is a typical Allen motif. Yet, it is a frustrating motif in lieu of Malick's insistence that religion and spirituality is no dream or illusion -- but a reality even higher than that which is presented on the natural level.

Allen's use of Paris in the rain helps bring to life the sense of romanticism that is inherent in Gil Pender -- which is what lures him on in search of this higher reality. Constantly being belittled for his desire to stroll about in the rain, Gil finally meets another person who does enjoy the rain as much as he does -- and happily that person is a female, which allows the film to end on a note of comic romance. Allen calls it dreaming -- but Malick refuses to label it so cynically. Malick, in fact, refuses to say anything publicly, preferring rather to let his work speak for itself.

Therefore, it is no surprise that Malick's use of imagery is more pronounced. As Justin Chang puts it, "The Tree of Life is nothing less than a hymn to the glory of creation, an exploratory, often mystifying 138-minute tone poem that will test any Malick non-fan's patience for whispery voiceover and flights of lyrical abstraction." The "flights of lyrical abstraction" are indeed numerous and overwhelming. The seemingly endless sequence detailing the splendor of the natural world is enough to have one slinking into his seat longing for the plot to re-continue: but such sequences are part of the plot in The Tree of Life -- and as painful as they may be to sit through, they are the substance of the film. And for some it is powerful substance. As Ryan Lambie says,

Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life has changed the way I look at everything. The flutter of birds' wings. Water flowing in a brook. The movement of grass on the breeze. This is due, in part, to Malick's personal brand of visual poetry, which brings a sense of awe to even mundane things. It's also due to the film's backside punishing length. While sitting there in the dark, watching this latest box of wonders Malick has so carefully prepared, I briefly began to wonder if I'd ever see the outside world again.

Malick's ability to hold viewers on the awesomeness of nature, its beauty, its sublimity, is part of his calling-card, and part of the reason he is so beloved by followers: as Lambie says, he transforms the way we view the world around us.

Malick's use of imagery helps reflect the world around us: modern, sterile, empty -- visualized perfectly in Sean Penn-played Adult Jack's surroundings. His work is a perfect environment of busy nothingness. The gloom cast in Penn's face is the morbidity into which he (and we) have descended. Malick's lens is able to refocus us, however, onto reality -- which begins in nature and climbs upward to the supernatural. But, of course, it is a climb that is only taken by those who wish to go. Wilson's Pender seems willing. But Allen's Midnight does not quite want to let him get there. As Gerald Mast intimates, Allen's perception of the world is one in which "good and evil…are neither rewarded nor punished appropriately" (526). What Allen is left with, therefore, is the desire to at least make a joke of it.

Plot

Fiona Shaw, who plays a character nameless except for that given in the credits, gives perhaps the most telling example of the way in which Malick constructs his plot:

"He rang me up and said, 'This is Terrence Malick, I'm doing a film and I wonder could you help me with it.' He said, 'I'd like you to write your own part.' I said, 'What?! ' and then I wrote this stuff based on the character he described. When we came to filming, he said, 'Where would you like to film these scenes?' & #8230;It was the most holistic experience."

Shaw expects her part to be cut drastically, but she doesn't know or seem to care: "I think he shoots about 35 films and makes the one that he wants, but he kind of knows all along. What he's looking for is the accident: he wants the accidents to happen. I suspect he throws out a lot of magnificent work…I originally spoke more than any other character and I have no doubt I'm in it for two seconds, but I hope it'll be the best of the two seconds that served him. He's like a Renaissance painter." (Labrecque)

Rumors of the extensive amount of footage Malick likewise shot for The Thin Red Line abound. The number of A-list actors cut from the film is astounding. Nonetheless, actors and actresses jump at the chance to work with him -- despite his unconventional methods. Malick's crafting of a film is utterly unique, and reminds one of the days of Orson Welles when the latter would travel with his cameraman, tell him to shoot certain things, and all the while be piecing his movie together in his head -- whether it would later be made or no.

Allen's plots, however, are formed in a different manner: he simply types them out. With nearly ten times as many films under his belt as Malick, Allen's work is impressive in another way: he seemingly never stops. Nonetheless, actors and actresses likewise jump at the chance to work with him. Despite the differences in vision and narrative, both directors are well-respected and beloved.

Motif and Non-Diagetics

Malick, of course, makes for more use of non-diagetics than Allen. His work is essentially made of them. From the shots of sunflowers to the trees that stand tall climbing towards Heaven, to the wind in the grass, to the shadows on the ground, Malick emphasizes certain aspects of human nature through signs and symbols found all around us. Allen's style is far more clinical and straight-forward: he does not waste time attempting to say impressionistically what he can say straight-forward through narrative and plot. Malick, however, proposes to the viewer that he forget about traditional narrative and let himself be told a story through pictures -- much as a child might learn a story through the pictures of a book (the words to which are read by an adult). The limited use of dialogue and language at all is a sign that Malick wants to use visuals to express his vision.

But Malick also makes use of various motifs. The image of grace as seen pouring through the mother is an obvious and recurring one. The image of sin, shame, and guilt as seen in the scowl and frowning faces of the guilty is another. The image of the child covered by the curtain as though by his own death shroud -- another symbol of the numerous death references. And the motif of the characters' smallness in comparison to the supernatural is played out through the use of handheld cameras that capture the sense of childhood wonder for the created world, making it easier for the audience to appreciate the simplicity and forthrightness with which the characters offer up their prayers.

Reactions

Of course, such cinema is not for everyone, as Nathaniel Rogers shows with his collection of tweets from filmgoers:

"Some of that was very moving... But most of it was very boring."

Wife: I couldn't wait for that to be over.

Husband: It was...long.

Wife: It was a DAY long. I couldn't take one more symbol, metaphor or paradox.

Woody Allen look-a-like to his wife: So tell me what that was all about?

Old Lady Yelling: CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT THAT WAS ABOUT?

"Its not as smart as it thinks it is."

"There's no acting!"

"Are we in the right film?"

"Are those sunflowers?"

[during last ten minutes] "Is that SEAN PENN?!"

Rogers' obvious enthusiasm in collecting the shrill sound-offs indicates his own amusement in gauging the level of perplexity that Malick foists on the uninitiated. Regardless, the film went on to take top honors at the Cannes Film Fest, which shows that some people somewhere appreciate what the director is up to.

The reception of Allen's film has been less mixed, with most celebrating it as one of his best works in years. This could be simply because it has two stars who have worked together before and shown excellent chemistry, or it could be because it plays almost as a light-hearted, comical, easier-to-digest version of the weighty Tree of Life. Or it could be the fact that the times are ripe for romance and magic:

From its hugely successful opening weekend on May 20 to the rave review it's been getting across the board ever since, the indie crowd-pleaser Midnight in Paris is…Woody's most financially successful movie since 1986's Hannah and Her Sisters which earned $40.1M domestically. And if things keep up this way, word on the street is that Paris might just beat that record by next Tuesday, not only making it Woody's most financially successful movie of all-time, but Sony Pictures Classics' most financially successful movie after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. (Redmond)

Whatever the reason, critics and audiences have come away from Midnight in Paris without as much head-scratching -- but also without the kind of substance for future meditation and reflection that is afforded one in Malick's Tree of Life.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Malick's Tree of Life and Allen's Midnight in Paris are two films that debuted to rave reviews at the 2011 Cannes Film Fest. However, the bigger crowd pleaser appears to be Allen's, while Malick's film is one that has many viewers puzzled by its otherworldly symbolism and heavy use of tropes. Both films, however, highlight the natural desire for a higher reality. Malick attempts to convey that reality through the spiritual life. Allen attempts to show that no such higher reality exists but that the best one can do is at least make believe. The make believe works for most people. But for the truly earnest -- Malick may have a better key.