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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Trailer released for Malick's To The Wonder

Interesting, watching the trailer I convinced myself, that it's all Alexa (which was used on Knight of Cups, if I recall correctly), turns out it's R1MX and film. Every shot looks gorgeous.
 
Does anyone know what wides Malick tends to favor? Those look wider than 18s. 16mm? 14mm? 12mm? 10mm? I rarely shoot that wide, so curious what you all think and know.
 
Almost nothing on this film was shot over 24mm. Much of it was shot 18mm, and most of it was shot on film.
 
this is the ART..never liked anything more than 32mm.wide angle is closest feel to reality.watch cinematographer style doc and see how Roger Deakins reacts wide angle use.
@Tom Lowe
were you part of this or Tree of Life?
i know most famous R1 in the world #0031 was part of this movie.
 
Mark K. said:
If it's anything like Tree of Life or The New World, count me out. I burnt out my tolerance for video art back in my uni days.
Click to expand...

I burnt out my tolerance for all the recycled, uninspired crap that's out there. I like that Malick doesn't play it safe. I like that he pushes the medium. I wish more people did this.
 
I'll see it for sure.

I heard it got boos at some festivals, and the way Ben Affleck talks about it, it's way more pretentious than tree of life.

But, I have hope.
 
If it's anything like Tree of Life - count me in ten times, I love video art ;).
 
I'm a big fan of video art. Wouldn't be here without it... Mr Malick takes chances and makes beautiful imagery. What more could one ask for? When people step outside formulaic image making it should be celebrated.
 
Michael Millichamp said:
I'll see it for sure.

I heard it got boos at some festivals, and the way Ben Affleck talks about it, it's way more pretentious than tree of life.

But, I have hope.
Click to expand...

I personally loved Tree of Life. My wife and I walked out of the theatre buzzing. The world felt alive to us, new, fresh. Like our senses had been augmented. Every honk, car, and overhead chopper felt like it was a foot away from us. Few films have mad us feel that way. Requires lots of concentration, though. Cannot be watched at home where the temptation to take a bathroom break is overwhelming. You need to be glued to the seat.
 
What we have to keep in mind is there's a huge element at play in the creation of every feature film -and that's whether it has a market that will enable it to do more than simply recoup money for its investors.

Estimated budget of Tree Of Life was $32 Million and it grossed $62 Million, not including P&A and then associated distribution deductions every distributor in each territory would have expensed against said grosses. So it may have made a bit of money but certainly not enough to satisfy the investors. Were these the same investors from the New World who took a bath financially?

I like much of what Malick does but it would be nice if he had someone pushing him to remember paying audiences are the ones who will determine if he makes another film -at present it would appear his slate is full, and so I'm guessing he's not too worried...he gets to play. Awards and accolades are great but they don't necessarily translate into financial success (I know this first-hand, and I'm sure he does too).

Some may naturally argue interference means compromising artistic integrity, but I don't think any of the investors are paying Mr. Malick to be either self-indulgent or teach us about broader universal questions concerning life, mortality and the the human condition. And I don't believe he should be the only one doing so! In the broader filmmaking community we all have the responsibility to transcend and make the world a better place than when we first entered it -therein lies the rub between art and commerce, narrative feature film and action-packed blockbusters. Mr. Nolan is one who's managed to both of course and challenge audiences to expect more when it comes to their entertainment.
 
Jeremy Torrie said:
What we have to keep in mind is there's a huge element at play in the creation of every feature film -and that's whether it has a market that will enable it to do more than simply recoup money for its investors.

Estimated budget of Tree Of Life was $32 Million and it grossed $62 Million, not including P&A and then associated distribution deductions every distributor in each territory would have expensed against said grosses. So it may have made a bit of money but certainly not enough to satisfy the investors. Were these the same investors from the New World who took a bath financially?

I like much of what Malick does but it would be nice if he had someone pushing him to remember paying audiences are the ones who will determine if he makes another film -at present it would appear his slate is full, and so I'm guessing he's not too worried...he gets to play. Awards and accolades are great but they don't necessarily translate into financial success (I know this first-hand, and I'm sure he does too).

Some may naturally argue interference means compromising artistic integrity, but I don't think any of the investors are paying Mr. Malick to be either self-indulgent or teach us about broader universal questions concerning life, mortality and the the human condition. And I don't believe he should be the only one doing so! In the broader filmmaking community we all have the responsibility to transcend and make the world a better place than when we first entered it -therein lies the rub between art and commerce, narrative feature film and action-packed blockbusters. Mr. Nolan is one who's managed to both of course and challenge audiences to expect more when it comes to their entertainment.
Click to expand...

I don't think grossing nearly double the production budget is really that bad for an art film. Breaking even on New World isn't a "bath." Investors put money into Malick's films as much for the prestige as for the financial return. Furthermore, most films, even in the industry--except maybe comedies and low budget horror--in the $20 milllion to $80 million budget bracket lose money. The vast majority do and on average it's loss. But the industry can't function if it only makes tentpoles, which are generally profitable, so it operates under a model in which 5% of the films make 95% of the profits. But it works.

Most of Woody Allen's films lose money but he still works with the best actors and DPs and keeps getting his films made. If people were only looking for money they'd never invest in any films. With Directors like Malick and Woody Allen, you at least get prestige and festival trips for your dollar. Malick breaks even or better... and on top of that he consistently gets awards (or award consideration) at Cannes and academy award nominations. What producer doesn't want that?

Malick is also one of the greatest directors working. He has grown self-indulgent, however, as do many great directors.

Nolan, like Aronofksy, is a pretentious middlebrow hack. They both work with amazing casts and crews and are reasonably talented (Aronofsky far more so), but Aronofsky dresses up lurid near-pornography as "art" with great cinematography and art design and flashy direction and ZERO psychological depth in either character or form, and Nolan's movies are all dumb face-level cheap tricks with stupid, telegraphed twist endings and vague metatextual themes about cinema and character identification, but it's all SO shallow. He can't block action worth anything and he shoots everything else in lazy steadicam or plain shot/reverse without subtext. He works with amazing people and is obviously very smart, he's just a ridiculously overrated filmmaker. There's some dreadful short he made that's exactly the same as all his other movies, about a guy chasing a smaller version of himself and then a bigger one appears at the end--I don't know. But he sets up some kind of mystery, which keeps revealing itself through little external hints, and then solves it with a dumb twist and that's kind of his idea of cinema--a flashy cheap trick. Both are very talented, Aronofsky far more so, but to cite them as examples of reconciling commerce and art is stupid. They're just marketing cheap commercial junk as art, dressing it up as something it's not. Michael Bay and Paul Verhoeven are better, more interesting directors with similar tendencies and with no pretense. Seriously. Although Bay and Verhoeven also don't have the self-awareness and disconnect from the medium to ward of making very embarrassing films (Showgirls, Hollow Man, Pearl Harbor, Transformers 3).
 
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