Term Paper on "Cannes Film Festival"

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Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris

Malick's Tree of Life and Allen's Midnight in Paris: a Comparative Analysis

Two films that debuted at the 2011 Cannes Film Fest were Terrence Malick's long-awaited The Tree of Life and Woody Allen's nostalgic comedy Midnight in Paris. Malick's Tree of Life went on to win the Palme d'Or, and Allen's film screened out of competition. Yet both films (by American directors) employ the use of the fantastic -- Malick's by navigating the transcendental and the earthly through visions of cosmological grandeur and the simple day-to-day life of human existence in which characters experience joy, grief, innocence, guilt, love, hate, and redemption -- Allen's by sending his characters into an alternate reality in which they discover the limitations of fulfillment and satisfaction. This paper will compare and contrast the two films and show how each attempts to answer the problem of pain -- The Tree of Life by opening an avenue to the supernatural and Midnight in Paris by being true to nature.

Character

Malick's characters are not so much scripted as they are simply captured on film: much as he did with 1998's The Thin Red Line, Malick here brings together a host of actors and actresses, has them inhabit a small town in Texas for the duration of the shoot, and then unleashes his cameramen on them; filming even when his actors and actresses are unaware of being filmed; looking to capture that one moment of inspiration and impulse. His characters are defined by their internal thoughts, which so often resemble brief ejaculations or prayers to a divine entity or to a figure of the family. Sometimes the thoughts are posed as the kind of eternal questions with which Malick is preoccupied. Character is revealed thus, subtly and non-traditionally. One learns from Malick's characters no more than one would learn from his real-life neighbors: we see merely glimpses of a personality, shadows of a life; we hear only passing ponderings -- yet we are able to identify with his creations, with the mother who represents the good, the father who represents the false god, the children who represent all of us as we make our way through life, attempting to hold onto "the good that was given us" (Malick, The Thin Red Line). The characters are never named precisely -- formal identity is not necessary to the plot; in fact, little is: the film is a meditation -- food for thought -- scenes of illustrative beauty that are meant for reflection. Character is important only in so far as it guides our reflections -- much like Ignatius would have us remember the four last things: Heaven, Hell, death, judgment.

The characters of Midnight in Paris, however, are those of a more traditional comedy: they are developed to a point, they are named, they are full of quirks, longing, charm, and aggression. These are, essentially, the same characters played by Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. Nonetheless, Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams bring something of their own: Wilson displays a kind of innocence heretofore best shown by his brother Luke. McAdams effects the same kind of shallow, pretentiousness she put forth in Mean Girls. The match is imperfect -- and it is for just such a reason that the two fail to reconcile at the end of the film: Gil (played by Wilson), in fact, stays in Paris to pursue a relationship with a woman with whom he shares a common ideology. The emptiness inherent in the Republican tastes of his fiance, her parents, and her pedantic friend fail to compare with the simple, tasteful, elegant, and humble virtues of Parisian life and -- it might be added -- the interior life that goes along with it.

This interior life is what is at the heart of Terrence Malick's drama The Tree of Life. The title could refer to any of the multiple meanings that have been applied to the expression -- yet one cannot fail to observe the religious themes that consistently punctuate the film and the candidly spiritual nature of its narrative: it is, as Ebert calls it, "a prayer" (Ebert). Therefore, coupled with the imagery and the many symbolic tropes utilized in the film, the title may be said to refer to the Old Testament prefiguring of the Cross upon which Christ was crucified. Such a reference would make the most sense, since the film is very much a meditation upon death and atonement, and is filled with such liturgical hymns as the "Agnus Dei" and themes such as sin, self-sacrifice, redemption, and resurrection. In fact, the film opens with a quotation from the Book of Job: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" -- an implication that the mystery of suffering is like the mystery of creation -- it may not be solved but only expanded the more one looks into it. Nevertheless, as for explicit references to religion, the family upon whom Malick's film focuses is depicted as being Christian, and the mother espouses a kind of Christian doctrine ("There are two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace: nature is selfish and seeks only to fulfill its own wishes, but grace is selfless, humble, accepting of all things…") (Malick The Tree of Life), but the family's religion is never specifically identified. With a name like O'Brien it might be assumed they are a family of Irish Catholics. Nonetheless, prayers to Jesus Christ are never articulated; the characters pray throughout the film to the Lord and to one another.

Still, The Tree of Life is certainly a spiritual film, and any discussion of it must be one in which the spiritual significance of its plot, characters, development, music, narration, and imagery is analyzed. The same cannot be said for Allen's Midnight in Paris. Allen himself admits that he holds no belief in religion -- therefore, it is not essential that one attempt to understand Midnight in Paris in the same way in which one should view Malick's Tree of Life. However, one might conclude that despite Allen's professed indifference towards religion his film has a kind of spirituality to it -- a spirituality that follows from the writer/director's own spirituality -- the kind of spirituality that is manifest in many works of the "magical realism" genre of the 20th century. The Tree of Life may also be considered to be of such a genre. To understand how each may be viewed in such a way, detailed examinations are necessary.

Magical Realism

Wendy Faris defines magical realism as the combination of "realism and the fantastic so that the marvelous seems to grow organically within the ordinary, blurring the distinction between them" (1). Such can be seen in both Malick's film and Allen's -- Malick's through channeling of the supernatural, Allen's through the involvement of the magical.

Allen's film attempts to balance the sentimental with sentiment. This is achieved through the journey of Gil Pender, whose invitation into the world of 1920s Paris allows him to find himself as both an author and a person. While the magical world that is opened to him charms and allures him, he ultimately realizes that he can be no more happy there than he can be in his own time -- that his mission is to be an artist and biographer of his own age (whatever that means and/or costs). His understanding, though painful at first, is rewarded with the breaking off of his engagement with a fiance who neither loves him nor shares his sensibility (but with whom he had stayed out of sentimental love). Pender plans to start up the life he has always wanted in Paris, and in the final scene of the film (at midnight) instead of waiting to be invited back into the world of the 1920s he strolls the bridge along Notre Dame cathedral, happily wistful. What looks like a somewhat melancholic ending (or beginning) is suddenly lightened by the appearance of a female merchant Pender has encountered earlier in the film. She shares his sentiments regarding early 20th century culture -- and the two walk off into the night assuring us of the possibility of establishing a relationship in the here and now that is based on common appreciation of the things that are of substance from the past. The shallow, pretentiousness of Republican living is rejected for the poetic (but realistic) vision of life that means something.

Allen's film is filled with references to the great names of the past, from T.S. Eliot to Pablo Picasso to Paul Gauguin and Gertrude Stein. However, the film downplays what might have been some truly comedic moments for a more magical thematic element. Wilson's Pender delivers some hilarious moments, but what one gleans from the experience, rather, is Allen's respect for all the personages of the bygone age. It is a film that is at once nostalgic and wary of nostalgia. As he does with almost… READ MORE

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