Dissociation of various cinematic attributes is a major and trademark phenomenon of Malick’s movies.He rarely provides the co-relation between the various “brilliant” visual frames.In other words his grand “visual style” easily overtakes his story sometimes.I have tried hard to understand the “whys” and the “hows” of many stuffs,especially in his earlier works but strangely it has eluded me.It is more easy to understand the “eccentricity” in Kubrick’s works than to comprehend the “un-explained” in Malick’s world.Note both directors are poles apart in their work and approach but they share a common theme-they believe in their own “sense” of the theme they playing with.Malick does not open up the whole theme,rather he just presents them in coherence with the core issue…Kubrick tends to leave it unexplained,or as we may say open for interpretations.Malick’s world has no cue,it is all about the “ambiguity” one can face in deciphering a few things in his movies.
Contrast Malick’s first feature “Badlands” to Hitchcock’s Rope.Set in entirely different world are they but they have a contrasting feature that is too apparent to be missed. Rope has “reasons” for murders.It tried to justify the murder ,although to fail at the end by pitching the metaphysical aspect of good or bad against the intellect of mankind.But Badlands does not provide any such “reasoning” or “debates” for the murders.The past is not explained,nor is there any effort.Such is Malick’s World where the philosophy is done away with[retaining only as much is imperative to the plot] but the charm of the core issue remains,primarily due to the visual treat it offers. Surprisingly,one can most of the time end up criticising this aspect of Malick’s Cinema,which is the only example of such a style of film making ever known probably.
Malick does not make a sincere effort to dwell in the “possibilities” of actions,in the “backdrop” of happenings..he “assumes” them or pleads us to “assume” them to be an effect of human infirmity.He takes the brain of human as a reservoir of countless possibilities and derives his scripts from them.Leaves us to ponder from which part of the reservoir has the script found an inception. Contrastingly,if “obscurity” be a term,then Kubrick too deals with it and in one of his movies “Eyes Wide Shut” and to a lesser extent in ” A Clockwork Orange”,he is in sync with Malick’s vision of leaving things unexplained.The only difference here is that Kubrick’s movies forces one to ponder over the various possibilities,Malick definitely tries to end the speculation by attributing the “unexplained” to the “human nature”.
When i saw The Thin Red Line,I was stunned.This was a radically different movie from Malick’s earlier works,especially “Days of Heaven”.In “Days of Heaven” there is the eternal tragedy against the backdrop of romance.How does Abby fall in love with the farmer? It is not explained–Malick takes it to be “that it can happen” and “why can’t it happen”? He questions our over-stress on reasoning and sometimes even mock it.He portrays reality from an alternate frame,where things are taken as they are,no explanations sought neither warranted. Days of Heaven does deal in the twists and turns in a relationship,but eventually it relies on the “luxuriance of imagery” to define the various ways the movie meanders.There is little of story but then the development of it is noteworthy.Days of Heaven also derives the “required philosophy” from the “pastures” where anything is possible,where life takes awkward turns without intimidating.Therein lies the beauty of “reality” in Malick’s world.The Thin Red line was far more complex and derived many thematic analogies from various greatest textbooks around us.I havn’t seen “The Tree of Life” still as a whole,so wont comment.
Contrast this with Kubrick’s world. He preaches,he advocates,he sends out messages.In “A Clockwork Orange” it is the question about the inherent or induced nature of virtue…In “Paths of Glory”,he reflects on the eternal purpose of war…In “The Shining”,he deals in the supernatural but not before elaborating the effect of isolation on human behaviour and finally in the “Eyes Wide Shut”,he remarks about the sexual undertones in the social structure and combines them with the human psychology. In all movies,Kubrick applies the theme with “justification”. Malick in his world,offers a feature and says–”I think it can happen this way,now behold it”. Kubrick says–” I offer you a feature,i have my own interpretation,you should infer your own”.
Thus with Kubrick you have a director who speaks through images,offers no explanation,takes the human being as an agent of committing any action possible thereby showing his believe on the instability of human mind.Thus without proclaiming his penchant for “psychological” thesis in his films,he ultimately delivers a treatise on them!!
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