Terrence Malick and A-List Actors

I was asked if I could explain why a friend had difficulty maintaining his focus while watching Terrence Malick's A HIDDEN LIFE (2019). 

Two short videos about the pervasive irony in A HIDDEN LIFE can be found HERE.

Pam and I screened the Blu-ray of it tonight and I will proffer an answer, by first commenting about the movie in general, it's structure, and its moral premise.

• As with other Malick directed pictures, A HIDDEN LIFE (AHL) is driven by powerful visuals that if they don't directly and overwhelmingly evoke human emotion, they metaphor it with the purest example cinematic images of nature.  Movies, like all good stories, should command attention to the human condition through emotional portrayals. AHL succeeds in this endeavor where most other films fail. 
• Ironically, while AHL succeeds in a film's most important category (emotional connection with the audience) it fails at being commercial. Consequently, it will not be seen by nearly as many as a commercial picture that fails to connect emotionally. I cannot imagine thousands flocking to movie theaters to screen AHL, but every minute kept me riveted by his wide-angle portrayal of the fragile human condition.
• Why is it not commercial? (1) The straight ahead, non-clever, obvious from the start plot is revealed in slow motion. It goes exactly where you expect it to go. There are no surprises; no reveals that enlighten. It is exactly like the many shots of the strongly flowing river—there is no escape from its historic pull to destiny. (2) The protagonist (Franz) is a hero character with incredible inner strength and no weakness, as a protagonist character would exhibit. Successful movies, however, even with a strong hero will still arc a little. Franz is not even tempted. (3) Its nearly 3 hour length seems every bit that long, and even for Malick there are sequences that are much longer than they should be. It seems obsessive and repetitive.
• What is right with the movie: (1) The cinematography is masterful. (2) The structure follows mostly classical lines. (3) AHL shows and rarely does it tell. (4) The moral premise is true and consistent: Executing injustice and brutality leads to enslavement; but hidden goodness while quietly suffering injustice leads to freedom. [Of course "enlsavement" and "freedom" here are spiritual, not physical, which may be another reason the movie is not commercial. Commercial films metaphor the spiritual or psychological by first being physical.] (5) The movie well examples the closing moral theme on a George Eliot title card:

“..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

For any movie goer used to a fast-paced plot and surprises, reverses, and reveals on every page, AHL will put you to sleep and it will be hard to focus. AHL is a very spiritual and contemplative movie. While the photography is captivating and at times stunning, the story is very much internal, and requires a lot more thinking than the typically Hollywood fare.  The characters spend a great deal of time in prayer and self-examination. Such on-screen actions, however, fall far from the cheap, cringe-worthy, virtue signaling we would see in a cheesy Christian faith film. Why? Because in AHL their prayers and self-reflection is not answered in a blaze of glory or narrative reversal.  In fact, although AHL is very explicitly Christian and Catholic in many ways, it breaks the mold of a "faith film" in numerous, refreshing ways. One in particular is that in a Christian faith film when the main character consults with his pastor the pastor is always the good guy who pontificates a cheesy, sanctified, Bible perfect truism. In AHL the pastor sides with the Nazis. 

Why all the A-List Actors in a Non-Commercial Film?

AHL has no A-List Hollywood actors, but the acting is amazing to watch and reveals Terrence Malick's masterful touch at directing. Upon scanning through Malick's nine directed narrative features on IMDB that he had completed as of this posting -- and I know that IMDB is often derelict in being up to date -- it appears that everyone of the pictures failed to produce any significant earnings for the investors, and most bombed, at least in their theatrical outings, and I'm including THIN RED LINE in that claim. 

Why is it then that Terrence Malick can attach a host of A-list actors, when they have a pretty good idea that there will be no backend points coming their way? 

I have a theory, but it's an infant one since I am not a Terrence Malick aficionado. Perhaps I should be. I suspect it's because a Terrence Malick directed movie will be cinematically beautiful if not stunning, and A-listers want to be associated with anything that is beautiful if not stunning....the story and its structure being less important.

[If you don't know, the only real requirement to attaching money to a project is attaching known names. So if Malick can attract a few names, the money will come.]

I also wonder if Malick the director is motivated more by poetic beauty and intrigued by philosophical contradictions and moral dilemmas evident in AHL (Malick taught philosophy for a while before launching his film career) and thus neglects the essentials of narrative that create a successful story structure and a catharsis necessary to produce word of mouth praise and provoke ticket sales. Some of his movies with huge stars attached have not even broken $1M at the domestic B.O.  (according to IMDB.)

Does anyone have a good answer to this question? Please comment.

The Chosen - A Few Notes on Structure

As many of you know I'm a Catholic Christian, although I was born and raised Evangelical-Protestant. Consequently, I've been exposed the the worse of Christian "faith" films over my life (my father had a bit part in a Ken Anderson film decades ago), and I personally know a few of today's current faith-based filmmakers.  Generally, I cannot stand to watch such "faith" films. They are sanitized and generally lacking in organic verisimilitude. I've walked out on more than a few, and often squirmed low into my seat. I put "faith" in quotes because the producers of most such films do not exercise any faith at all in their audience with their on-the-nose didactic dialogue and plots. 

There are exceptions. Long ago I loved Zeffirelli's TV series Jesus of Nazareth (1977) with Robert Powell, Anne Bancroft, Ernest Borgnine and James Farentino, Olivia Hussey, and Christopher Plummer.  (I should watch it again to see if I still like it.) And then there's the classic horror tale directed by Mel Gibson: The Passion of the Christ with Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci, and other great performers. And lately there's something much different that is very good 80% of the time, and that's Dallas Jenkins's The Chosen with Jonathan Roumie, Shahar Isaac, Para Patel, Elizabeth Tabish, and the fabulous Erick Avari. 

Last night we had guests over for dinner and after we retired to sit in front of the big video display and voice of the theater speakers, we opened up a BluRay disc of The Chosen (Pam bought a case for Christmas gifts) we watched Episode 1  - I Have Called You By Name.  During the episode I kept thinking back to some recent "faith" scripts I've read as part of my script consulting practice and why The Chosen works most of the time. 

The Chosen has garnered a strong following for a number of valid structural and storytelling theory reasons. Let me recount a few. (I'll avoid the things that make me squirm.)

• ALL of the main characters have serious character flaws. Such flaws allow us to identify with the characters because (subliminally) we know we are flawed. We can see ourselves bending rules, becoming legalistic, being paranoid, and having really bad things happen to us or those we know, and then responding selfishly. 

• Each of the characters in The Chosen has a physical goal they are trying (by hook or crook) to achieve. 

Nicodemus wants to return to anonymity.

Nicodemus's wife wants him to continue because it gives her social status.

Simon wants to pay his taxes without losing his boat and home.

Andrew wants to help Simon stay out of trouble by cheating at betting brawls.

Simon’s wife wants peace and romance, and for Simon to wash because he smells. 

Lilith/Mary Magdalene wants to end her life because of her shame.

Matthew wants power, isolation and riches.

Quintus wants to collect taxes for the fish caught on the Sabbath. 

• None of the characters have stated spiritual goals (this is good). Good characters have inner psychological or spiritual goals, but they should be portrayed non-verbally, not put into dialogue. Spiritual goals are akin to the moral values of the moral premise. But they are not physical goals, which is how we identify initially with characters. Our brains subliminally take the physical images and interpret them as metaphors for what's going on psychologically and spiritually. While The Chosen is a Christian story, we never see any of the characters praying, or reading the Bible (there wasn't one), or preaching…except Nicodemus, who, when he preaches, is NOT preaching the Gospel but pontificating like a typical flawed, legalistic Pharisee. 

• Another aspect of at least the first episode, is that the scene structure is much like a Seinfeld episode. The producers have managed perhaps six subplots interwoven, each seemingly unrelated to the others, but with each scene ending in disaster or disappointment, which serves not only for a dramatic roller-coaster, but drives the narrative forward like the 7th chord of the musical composition that demands resolution. 

• The subplots all deal with everyday issues that the 21st century audience can identify with: money, romance, competition, power and politics. The script is only secondarily concerned with spiritual issues, and only in a Pharisaical way are spiritual themes mentioned explicitly.  For the main characters, nothing is easy. At stake are fist fights, fraud, insanity, political power, abuse, etc.

• And the best structural aspect of The Chosen is this: The stories are NOT ABOUT JESUS. That is JESUS IS NOT THE PROTAGONIST. If anything he's the antagonist. Finally, someone got this right. The series is about the flawed CHOSEN. Remember that.

This is all viscerally accentuated by great art direction, props, costumes, sets, direction, casting, and cinematography, which are not script issues but are interpretation of the script and the way the script acknowledges the verisimilitude organically in the story. 

The story we see on the screen is best when it becomes a physical-secular metaphor for the deeper spiritual issues which are handled only in a subliminal way. 

The Philosophical Basis of How Stories Connect with Audiences

"It sort of makes you stop and think, doesn't it?"

Rule No. 1: Audiences connect best with characters when you tell a story that the audience believes is universal, logical, and organic. 

• Universal means the story centers on a universal values that the audience believes are universally true...that means what is right vs. what is wrong.  In 90 minutes you can't change the audience's moral values more than a smidgen, so you better start and end where the audience generally is. You can nudge people, but you can't convert them. If you want to convert people produce a documentary and present the most biased interviews and visuals you can find. But don't figure you can figure which way the conversion will flop. A pro-Trump doc may just turn people against him, as Dinesh D'Souza has probably discovered, and a anti-Trump doc may create more Republican voters...as Michael Moore has discovered. 

• Logical means the story's cause and effect elements are logically consistent with Natural Law. Now, there are two kinds of natural laws. There is physical kind, e.g. gravity, momentum, inertia, etc.; and there are psychological kind, e.g. guilt, generosity, lust, envy, etc.   You violate one and there will be natural consequences to answer to. 

• Organic means the filmmaker's ability to surreptitiously foreshadow events... while still being universal and logical.  

Rule No. 2: Every one of the universal, logical and organic elements consistently conforms to a single Moral Premise Statement:

[some moral vice] leads to [some physical detriment], but

[some moral virtue] leads to [some physical betterment].

To expand: The vice and the virtue in the statement need to be universal values that most everyone in a general audience will understand at some level, e.g. greed vs. generosity, selfishness vs selflessness, arrogance vs. humility, etc.

The detriments and betterments are logically the natural consequences of the vice or virtue. Greed leads to isolation, generosity leads to friendship. In the political arena, arrogance (both Trump and the Acosta) leads to distrust, but humility (Jordan Peterson) leads to respect. 

This is one of my Big Problems — s.w.

Rule No. 3: Avoid parochial content and jargon...unless your audience is parochial and expects you to use jargon. For instance, Christian faith films often lapse into trite visuals, scenes, and jargon, the meaning of which is obscured to the non-believer. Someone asked Jordan Peterson once, "Are you a believer?" Peterson's logical response was, "I believe a lot of things." 

Rule No. 4: Tell the Truth.

Seems simple, but here's what it means.

When you set up a conflict between a flawed character and a universal vice and universal virtue, remember these three things:

1. Things Don't Happen by Accident. Either nature delivers, or your character is motivated by some value. 
2. The Universe is run by the Eternal Purposes of God. Generally, that means Natural Law is benevolent toward humans, unless humans ignore what is benevolently given them.
3. Novel and unexpected events (e.g. a miracle) occur to accomplish the universe's larger purpose. In such an event, it may appear that Natural Law is violated, but to the clever writer the event is always natural.