The Hudson Review, Inc

Film Chronicle
Author(s): BROOKE ALLEN
Source: The Hudson Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (AUTUMN 2011), pp. 476-482
Published by: The Hudson Review, Inc
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41300702
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BROOKE ALLEN

Film

Chronicle

The fifth film in Terrence Malick' s FORTY-YEAR

TheTreeof
CAREER,
Life, finallyopened last summer,puttingan end to six yearsof specuI heard some
lation fromthe pro-and anti-Malickcamps. Predictably,
final
call
the
a
while
others
product masterpiece,
(including
people
some people whose judgment I deeply trust) insisted that it was the
most pretentiousmovie ever made. I suspected I would fall into the
lattercategory.I was wrong.
Look
Some directorshave createdmasterpiecesalmostinadvertently.
at ThePalm Beach Story
, NorthbyNorthwest
, SomeLike It Hot Sturges,
Hitchcock,and Wilderwere settingout to make the bestpossiblegenre
movies, but they cannot have imagined that these workswould be
considered toursdeforceof the art formmore than halfa centurylater.
Others,like Orson Welles,set out consciouslyto create a masterpiece
everytime theytook on a new project. Sometimes theirattemptsare
successful;more oftentheyare not. But the factcannot be avoided that
ifa directordoes attemptto make a masterpiecehe willhave to take a
great manyrisks,exposing him to ridicule and accusationsof pretension ifhis efforts
misfire.
Malick has taken plentyof such risksin The TreeofLife, a filmthat
aspires to nothingless than cosmic scale as it sets the unremarkable
doings of a middle-classfamilyin Waco, Texas, circa1950- Norman
of timeand space. Comparisons
Rockwellmaterial- againstthe infinity
to 2001: A SpaceOdyssey
are inevitable,and indeed in depictingthedawn
of time,complete withBig Bang, expanding nebulae, roilingvolcanic
matter,and spinningplanets, Malick sought guidance not only from
NASA scientistsand six special effectshouses but also fromKubrick's
own man Douglas Trumbull,who workedon The TreeofLifeas a visual
advisor.
The resultingfilmiceffectsare spectacular,but oddly enough they
are no more spectacularthanthe intimate,homelyscenes againstwhich
theyare placed. Most of The TreeofLife, in fact,was shot withina sixblock area of littleSmithville,Texas, in a neighborhoodclose to what
residentialWaco looked like sixtyyearsago and close, too, to the arcadian images buried in everyAmerican'schildhood fantasies.The wide
streets,all but emptyof traffic,
canopied withspreadingoaks and pecan
trees; the handsome, unpretentious wooden houses set well back
behind lawnsthat,in thosedays,wereneithermanicurednor overfertilized, and still unpolluted by power mowers and leaf blowers; the

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ALLEN 477
BROOKE
neighborhoodurchinswanderingin packs,lookingformischief.This is
the reimaginedWaco of Malick'schildhood,broughtback to lifebythe
director,his productiondesignerJackFisk,and the crackcinematographer Emmanuel "Chivo"Lubezki.
Then there is the O'Brien family,as picturesque as the place they
inhabit.The parentsare in theirwayas gender-definedas Leopold and
Molly Bloom: the father,played by Brad Pitt, is authoritarian and
demanding in the styleof his time and place, the mother (Jessica
and embracing.The three boys,Jack (Hunter
Chastain) all-forgiving
McCracken), R.L. (Laramie Eppler), and Steve (Tye Sheridan) are
"boys"in the classic Tom Sawyertradition,but theyare also sensitive,
sometimes painfullyso, and foreversearching, in the manner of all
youngpeople, forunderlyingmeaning in the scatteredand mysterious
clues lifehas presentedthemwithso far.
There is no plot to speak of, and no suspense- since the opening
scene, which takes place about ten years afterthe main part of the
action,showsa now-middle-agedMr. and Mrs. O'Brien receivingnews
of nineteen-year-old
R.L.'s death. Their search to findmeaning in this
cruel stroke of fate is mirroredin various intercutscenes from the
future,witha now fiftyish
Jack (Sean Penn) moving throughsterile,
Houston, wherehe appears to live
highlydesigned,twenty-first-century
a sterile,highly-designedlife. Lines of dialogue detached fromtheir
immediatecontextsand heard over seeminglyunconnected scenes of
action- a stylistic
choice Malickhas carriedto newheightsin thisfilmlink themes with images. Cinematographer Lubezki discusses the
technique in action: "So the actors are performingthe dialogue, but
Terryisn'tinterestedin dialogue. So they'retalking,and we're shooting
a reflectionor we're shootingthe wind or we're shootingthe frameof
the window,and then we finallypan to them when theyfinish the
dialogue." This is a fairenough descriptionof thefilm'slook, but itisn't
fairto say that Malick's not interestedin dialogue. Perhaps it's more
to saythathe's interestedin dialogue as speech ratherthanas a
truthful
constructedentity,for speech has a powerfulfunction in this overvisualmovie.
whelmingly
How does one findmeaningin tragedy?A chorusofvoices,in which
the gende one of Mrs. O'Brien predominates,evoke the Book ofJob.
"Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return
thither:the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;blessed be the
name of the Lord." It's the hardestlesson in the worldforall of us; it
alwayshas been. For thosewho believe in God, it mightbe harder;how
can a good and all-knowing
God allowevil,tragedy,
waste?We're back to
Leibniz and Voltaire.At one point Pitt,as Mr. O'Brien, wondersaloud
how he could have been firedfromhisjob. Afterall, he's nevermisseda
day of workand has been not onlyan exemplaryemployee but also a
good and God-fearingman who titheseveryweek.
The TreeofLifeis an intenselyreligiousmoviewitha strongreligious
statement.Malick's religionis clearlynot the conventionalChristianity
of the O'Briens, thoughhe offersno critiqueof thatcreed. There are as

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478 THEHUDSONREVIEW
manywaysto worshipthe ineffableas thereare human beingson earth,
and the O'Briens' way,bred deeplyinto them,is no worseand perhaps
no betterthananyother.Religiousritual,withitsmissionto endow each
partof lifewithmeaningand itsmandate to takeaccount of the infinite
even in our most mundane actions, is treatedwithrespect. One can
even interpretthefilm'sdramaticbirth-of-the-universe
scenes as a visual
reconciliationof the scientificand biblical accounts of creation. "The
earthwaswithoutform,and void; and darknesswas upon theface of the
waters."The scientifically
accurate scenes on screen do not reallydeny
this image. And heaven? "God said, Let there be a firmamentin the
midstof the waters,and let it divide the watersfromthe waters.And
God made thefirmament,
and dividedthewaterswhichwereunder the
firmament
fromthewaterswhichwere above the firmament:
and itwas
so. And God called the firmamentHeaven." AlexandreDesplat's use of
almostoperaticscoringunder the Big Bang and othercreationscenes,
again a la Kubrick,intensifiesthe aura of holiness,so thatlater in the
filmwhen the lovelyMrs. O'Brien throwsout one arm to the skyand
cries, "That's where God lives!,"it seems a natural progression.One
messageof TreeofLifeis thesame thatThorntonWilderwas tryingto get
acrossin Our Town
: the holinessand transcendentalperfectionof daily
life,just as it is lived. It takeslosing hisjob forMr. O'Brien to get the
message:he had been under the mistakenimpression(rememberJob!)
thathe had controlofhis own destinyand consequentlyspenttoo much
of his lifefocusingon work,duty,routine."I dishonoreditall and didn't
notice the glory."
Malick has infused this glory into the O'Brien familyand their
surroundingsthroughinnovativetechnicalworkand a willingnessto
throwconventionalnarrativeand camera work to the winds- not to
effect,as is too often the case, but in an earnest and very
show-offy
successful
effortto conveythefeelingof lifeas it is actuallylived.
largely
In shootingthe film,Malickdispensedwith"coverage"- the traditional
placement of cameras stationed in various parts of the location and
used to make thescene look "realistic."The free-floating
result,though,
is equallyrealistic,possiblyeven more trueto thewayone experiencesa
scene in real life, for both experience and memoryturn out to be
ratherthan linear,and timeand space are alwaysdestabifragmentary
lized. Malick's effortsto convey all this on film are respectable
experimentsin the traditionof Bergsonand Proust.
He is at his mostbrilliantat showingthe world throughthe eyes of
Jackas a toddler.He doesn't do it the easyway,byplacing the camera at
a child's-eyelevel, but shows us the sort of slender moments- swift
images blazed on the mind's eye- that comprise all of our early
childhood memories. Violent or frighteningscenes are particularly
intense:an old man havinga heartattackunder a tree is seen onlyfor
the briefestinstantas Jack'smotherrusheshim awayfromthe disturbing sight.Dialogue, here as elsewherein the movie,is unmoored from
itscontextas straysentencesmake an impressionon childrenwho don't
exacdyunderstandwhatis being said.

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ALLEN 479
BROOKE

The narrativebecomes more linear and "realistic" as Jack ages

As a YoungMan), and
(ratherin the spiritofJoyce'sPortrait
oftheArtist
we hone in on whatis probablythe centralrelationshipof the film,that
between twelve-year-old
Jack and his father.Hunter McCracken, an
amateur like the other childrenin the movie,givesa performanceof
such emotional intensity(and humor,too) thathe almost overpowers
the film,but not quite. I can hardlybelieve thata timehas come when
we take Brad Pittseriouslyas a major actor,but it has in factcome to
yearsold now,Pittis no longer the prettyboy of
pass: approachingfifty
yore,and his portrayalof Mr.O'Brien is utterlyseriousand engaged.
Northeasternersof my acquaintance have
Some dyed-in-the-wool
seen Mr.O'Brien as a dictatorial,even abusivefather.I thinkthaton the
contrary,The TreeofLifeis to some extent Malick's love letter to his
wound man, to be sure,witha hot and
father.Mr. O'Brien is a tightly
sometimeseven violenttemper.He admitsto havingonce wantedto be
a serious musician (scenes of him playingthe piano and, occasionally,
the churchorgan carrya special level of emotion); it is impliedthatthe
frustrationof this ambition might have contributed to his habitual
tension.But he is a demonstratively
lovingfatherwho is clearlydoing
his best to givehis boysa good upbringingaccordingto the lightsof his
culture.They will address him as "Father"ratherthan "Dad" and say
'Yes sir"ratherthan'Yeah." Theywillsitat the dinnertable like civilized
human beings. They will not slam the screen door. (When Jack has
slammedit one timetoo many,his fatherordershim to "close thisdoor
times"- and the boy does it, though mutinously.)I myself
quietlyfifty
had Texan grandparentsand can remember countless scenes along
theselines. The adultsweren'tbeing egregiouslycontrolling;theywere
just tryingto pass on the rules of a polite, disciplinarian,hierarchical
society.
Inevitably,as Jack approaches adolescence, his once-automaticlove
and respectforhis fathercomes under question. The bossingrubs him
the wrongway;thereare bitterscenes. At one moment,simultaneously
and funny,
Jacksees his fatherlyingunder the car to fixthe
horrifying
a
jack is holding up the automobile.We see
undercarriage;only flimsy
the thoughtflashthroughJack'smind- how easyitwould be to send it
crashing down! Of course he does no such thing, though he prays
"Please God killhim."This is serious,and at the timehe means it; but
afterall, it is all adolescent ratherthan pathological.
One of the film'sgreatthemes,again withbiblical overtones,is that
- and thisis whatwins out over adolescent rebellion,
of reconciliation
parentaltemper,and suppressedrage.At theveryend of thefilmin one
of those surreal fantasyscenes that can so easily go wrong if treated
heavy-handedly:the middle-agedJack (Sean Penn) is led througha
doorframeinto a desert landscape where many people appear to be
wanderingaimlessly,stunned, a la NightoftheLivingDead. Here Jack
self,his littlebrothers,and his still-young
recognizeshis twelve-year-old
are
reunited.
Is thisMalick'sviewof the afterlife?
joyfully
parents.They
Or- and I thinkthisis more probable- is it his acknowledgementthat

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480 THEHUDSONREVIEW
no matterhow bad familyrelationsget on the surface,somewherein
our mindsthereis a special place whereour love forone anotheris still
pure and untouched,our images of one anotherare stillyouthfuland
burnished,and wherewe see ourselves,and each other,at our verybest?
While I find the movie to be a masterpiece, it is not withoutits
problems,and ifI had to findfaultwithanymemberof the production
team,it would be withJacquelineWest,the costumedesigner- though
presumablyshe is onlyexecutingMalick'svision.I can remembervery
well what styleof clothes Texas businessmenof Mr. O'Brien's generationwore,and itwas nothinglike Pitt'ship, classicgetup. In factall his
costumes look much more SoHo than Waco, while Chastain's entire
wardrobeappears to have come out of an Anthropologiccatalogue- as
does the etherealChastainherself.And no one (thisis Texas afterall!)
ever seems to sweat. One understandsthat Malick was walkinga fine
line, tryingto combine the realismof a particularplace and timewitha
universaland perhaps ideal image. But he fails entirelyto reconcile
thesetwoimages,so thatfantasyoftenobscuresfeltreality.I would have
been happier to see Pittwithpens stickingout of his breastpocket,or
Chastainwiththe occasional sweatyarmpitsand runnymascara.
But ultimatelythese issuesare not too important.What is important
is thewayMalickhas expanded the capacitiesof the mediumin theway
thatonlythe best directorssucceed in doing. Pioneers of earlycinema
like Georges Melies and Rene Clair envisioneda long period of experimentationwithfilm'stechnicalpossibilities,but the adventof sound set
the medium onto a generallyrealistictrack.Malick has taken it a step
furtherawayfromthe vestigialprosceniumeffectby radicallyunmooring the visualpointofviewand dissociatingdialogue fromaction.Oddly
enough, thisis never confusing;we understandthe storyand its progressionjust as well as if it had been told in a more linear fashion.
Malick may in facthave come up witha more "realistic"depiction of
consciousnessthananyof his contemporaries.
If Malick has transcendedformulain The TreeofLife,Lee Tamahori,
withhis newfilmTheDevil'sDouble,has takenone of the oldestformulas
in cinema historyand rejuvenatedit in bold modernstyle.
Let's call it the Prisoner
ofZendaformula.Two men happen to bear an
uncommonresemblanceto one another.One of themfindshimselfin a
position of peril. The other one stands in for him and undergoes a
seriesof dramatic,sometimesswashbuckling,
adventuresin the guise of
his lookalike.
The most famousHollywoodexamples of thisformula,both based
on popular novels,are ThePrinceand thePauperand ThePrisoner
ofZenda,
both of which had theirbest versionsin 1937- ThePrisonerofZnda
featuring an unforgettableperformance by Ronald Colman. The
teaijerkending of the earlierA TaleofTwoCitieshad a similartheme,as
did the much later TheParentTrap.
Of course ThePrisoner
The Balkan kingdom
ofZendawas pure fantasy.

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ALLEN 481
BROOKE

of Ruritaniawas a figmentof its author's imagination,and so was its

dissipatedprince,so hungoverthata stand-inhad to takehis place at his
own coronation.No one could evermistakesuch goings-onforreal life.
Or could they?Would theybe wrong if theydid? Life has a way of
and in recentyears
sometimesbeing even more baroque than fantasy,
we have seen a real-lifeversionof Prince Rudolf,but farmore baneful
than that relativelyharmless character: the crown prince of Iraq,
Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday (killed in 2003 by U.S. troops).
There was also, we now discover,an Iraqi counterpartto Rudolfs valiant
stand-in.This was an armyofficernamed LatifYahia who,bearinga very
markedresemblanceto the maniacal Uday,was forciblydragooned into
serviceas his body double, takinghis place at eventsthatwere either
deemed too dangerous by the secret police or deemed too boring to
attendbyUday himself.
The firstthree-quartersof the film closely follows Latif's 1997
memoirI WasSaddam'sSon, writtenfromexile in Austria.Latifhad been
a schoolmateof Uday's,and when the need fora bodydouble arose, he
was the naturalchoice. His own opinion didn't come into it; when he
turneddown this "offeryou can't refuse,"he was throwninto solitary
confinementforsix months,tortured,and presentedwiththe prospect
of his entirefamilybeing wiped out. It was perfectlyclear to Latifthat
Uday would have no compunction in carryingout this threat,so he
signed on, fromthat moment entering the Hall of Mirrorsthat was
Saddam Hussein's court.
Uday was a psychopathin GrandGuignolmode, a dream role for a
technically skilled performer.Enter Dominic Cooper, the young
English actor whose star has been ascending since his breakthrough
role as the hottestand brashestof Alan Bennett'sHistoryBoys.Cooper
has proved himself a fine actor (An Education) who doesn't mind
hammingit up on occasion ( MammaMia!), and he musthave snapped
at the scenery-chomping
possibilitiesinherentin thisproject.For Latif
Yahia, at least as portrayedby Cooper, is a proud, self-controlled,
handsome man, verymuch in the Ronald Colman manner in fact
(Cooper sportsan artificialnose for the role, givinghim a romantic,
desertArab appearance). But withsome cosmeticdentures,a nose job,
and a dramaticchange in mannerLatifbecomes Uday- and Uday,with
his scruffybangs and protruding teeth, bears more than a passing
resemblance to JerryLewis. With practice Latiffindsit ever easier to
morph fromone characterto another,and watchingCooper perform
this feat- sometimes we're not always sure which character he is
actuallysupposed to be at the time- is as grimlyfascinatingas watching
Jekyllturninto Hyde.
IfCooper as Latifchannelsthe noble Ronald Colman, his Uday harks
unmistakablyback to Kiss ofDeath and Richard Widmark's famous
portrayalof TommyUdo, the psychopathicgangsterwith the flashy
clothes and the scary giggle. Uday giggles, too, as he brandishes
automatic rifles,rapes newlywedbrides, disports himselfwith drag

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482 THEHUDSONREVIEW
queens, shootsfriendswho get in hisway,and picksup schoolgirlsin his
car onlyto discardtheirdefloweredcorpsesa fewhourslater.It is a tour
deforceof over-the-top
acting on Cooper's part,and I mean that as a
compliment:I haven't seen anythingquite like it since JeremyIrons'
in Dead Ringers
.
astonishingperformanceas identicaltwingynecologists
all
be
weirder
was
based
on
a
true
can
after
too,
(That,
story
anything
than reality?)
There is a funhousefeel to lifein Saddam's court,where nothingis
quite what it seems. For one thing,Uday is not the only one with a
surgicallyenhanced body double. There is a brilliantscene in which
Saddam greetsUday- or at leastthatis whatwe thinkwe have seen until
the true identityof both men is suddenlycalled into question. Was it
Saddam, or his double? Uday,or his? If it was Saddam, did he realize
that his son was not his son? (Philip Quast is excellent in the role of
Saddam, bytheway,as is Raad Rawias a sad eminence
griseof the regime,
as trapped in its clutches as Latif himself.) And what about Serap
(Ludivine Sagnier), the Beirutcutie Uday has designatedas his special
squeeze, and who subsequentlyattachesherselfto the definitelymore
appealing Latif?Is she withLatif- or is she Uday's spy?
One of the film'shigh points is its re-creationof the outrageous
interiorsof Saddam's palaces, particularlyUday's suites therein.Here
special mention should be made of the finejob done by production
designer Paul Kirbyand set decorator Caroline Smith: like so many
dictators,Hussein pereetfilstooktheirdesigncues fromLas Vegas,using
real gold insteadoffake.The revelation,so soon afterthe release of the
film,of theequallygrandioseinteriordecorationof thevariousQaddafi
palazzi in Libya had me turningto PeterYork'sfabulous book on the
, which
subject,DictatorStyle:Lifestyles
oftheWorld'sMostColorful
Despots
includes interiorphotographsof the homes of tyrantsfromHitler to
Ceaugescu to Mobutu.Yorkis able to make certaingeneralizationsthat
the photographs certainlybear out: dictatordecor, he writes,is not
about beautyor even about personal taste,but about intimidationpure
and simple: these people are in the businessof impressingunderlings,
and ifit takesmassiveamountsof gold and blingto do so, thenso be it.
The same applies to the countless objects celebrating the dictator
(busts,portraits,
etc.) and withtheinevitablestatuesofpanthers,eagles,
and
various
otherpredatoryanimals.Kirbyand Smithhave done
tigers,
a stellarjob at re-creating
thesemountainsof kitsch.
In the end Tamahori and his screenwriter
Michael Thomas diverge
fromthe truthof LatifYahia's narrativein favorof an old-fashioned
Hollywood ending, but perhaps thatwas inevitable;theyare working
more
withinthe Prisoner
ofZendaformula,afterall, and itis dramatically
forLatifto wreakhis own vengeance on Uday than to have
satisfactory
to flee ignominiouslyto Europe. If the filmmakershad stuckcloser to
reality,TheDevil'sDoublemighthave lostitsswashbuckling
vigor- might
even have bucked the formulaaltogether.And thatwould reallyhave
been a shame.

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