Hacker Cinema
Knight of Cups
2015 · Film · 118 min
Directed by Terrence Malick
Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. While successful in his career, his life feels empty. Haunted and confused, he finds temporary solace in the decadent Hollywood excess that defines his existence. Women provide a distraction to his daily pain, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.
1 positive2 negative1 neutralfrom 4 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
5 comments on Hacker News
Or dive at the deep end and watch Knight of Cups or A Hidden Life. You will either like it or not, frankly I don't think it matters what you'll see first, I love all of his movies even though I didn't understand Thin Red Line when I was 20. But Knight of Cups hit me hard when I was 36.
If you haven't seen it, A Hidden Life has the most Tarkovsky feel to it for me. It felt very inspired by Mirror, specifically. I say that as a person who loves both films, too.
I can't believe the author of the article so blithely dismissed To The Wonder, Knight of Cups, and The New World. The New World is probably my favorite of all Malick's films so far.
This is an interesting but problematic idea.
Firstly, I'm not certain of how the economics would play out: the "marvel or transformers nonsense" (and boy is it nonsense) tends to cost a lot of money to make, because they feature famous actors and they're end-to-end expensive CGI; arthouse films tend to be a lot cheaper because they feature less CGI, and sometimes the actors involved will work for less money because the films are more "worthy", or they like the director. More people watch the superhero drivel than the arthouse films, for sure, so perhaps it would all balance out, but it's unclear.
Secondly, while I broadly love Terrence Malick, if I'd paid £20 for "Knight of Cups" (which was dire), I would have to think very, very hard about parting with another £20 for his next film unless the notices were very good. I think you'd end up with a minuscule audience if you started marking up arthouse films in this way.
Unrelatedly, I have to admit that "Mank" sounds really boring and I'm not eager to watch it, even though I have a Netflix subscription and I've enjoyed many of Fincher's previous films (hell, I even liked "Alien 3").
More modern example, Bong Joon Ho apparently storyboards the entire film before shooting.
Parasite's storyboards: https://www.indiewire.com/2020/05/parasite-bong-joon-ho-storyboards-graphic-novel-1202232085/
On the flip side, Terence Malick gives you an index card with an aphorism and lets you improvise: https://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-lennon-terrence-malick-knight-of-cups-2016-2
Definitely give The Tree of Life another go, and watch Malick's older films too - they are wonderful. Avoid all of his most recent films unless you're feeling very, very meditative (I slept extremely peacefully through the last third of Knight of Cups, I will say).