Insidious ‘Knight’
Terrence Malick’s
latest relies on sinister
objectification
By JACOB RICH
Senior Arts Editor
There was an alternate cover
to Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo
that was shared on social media,
but never used. On it, the wed-
ding photo of the smiling Afri-
can-American family used in the
official cover is juxtaposed with
a photo of a mostly nude white
girl with a huge ass, accompanied
by the caption “WHICH / ONE”
repeated in large text in proxim-
ity to the two photos. This binary
moral quandary — traditional
family values vs. booty — is the
extent of the thematic depth of
“Knight of Cups,” an overlong,
pseudo-ponder-
ous essay writ-
ten and directed
by
Terrence
Malick.
Here
we
have
a
two-
hour film one
can understand
immediately
and
entirely
by
watching
its two-minute
trailer. Christian Bale (“The Dark
Knight”) plays Rick, a successful
but depressed Hollywood screen-
writer who combats his internal
struggle to find existential pur-
pose by living a life of sex with
rich, beautiful women.
An ensemble cast of Holly-
wood’s most gorgeous, talented
actresses (Cate Blanchett, “The
Tree of Life,” Natalie Portman,
“Black Swan,” et al.) accompa-
nies Bale as his six lovers — less
characters, more representatives
of different aesthetics of hetero-
sexual male desire. The film’s
emotional narrative calls for these
women to be superficial presences
in Rick’s life — a commentary on
Hollywood sexual culture, to be
sure. But none are given enough
screen time to feel even realisti-
cally unlikable.
While the film itself is aware
of its treatment of these women
as sexual objects for Rick to feed
upon, I’m not so sure the film is
aware of its deeper, more sinister
objectification of women as means
to an end. Women are portrayed as
experience points on a chivalrous
male’s journey to enlightenment
in a role-playing game, emotional
chalices for the “Knight of Cups”
to sip and discard.
It is immediately evident that
this central narrative is meant
to reflect the life of its writer/
director. And while I have no
doubt other ultra-wealthy, aging
straight white men will have little
trouble connecting with our wan-
dering spider monkey of a pro-
tagonist, the narrative of “Knight
of Cups” is inherently disad-
vantaged as an effective drama
because a vast majority of the
population won’t be able to relate
to it. Many narratives in popular
film concern the upper class, but
this one in particular has an elit-
ist exclusivity inherent to its cen-
tral struggle.
Rick’s struggle is visualized
with
dumbfounding
simplic-
ity. There are several sequenc-
es
where
Rick
just
stands
longingly over beautiful natural
vistas, silent, pondering some-
thing. These laughable moments
call to mind a high school film
student considering which shoot-
ing locations in his hometown
are the “deepest.” His interac-
tions with women are juxta-
posed with interactions with his
family (Wes Bentley, “American
Beauty,” Brian Dennehy, “Romeo
+ Juliet”), whom we learn little
about besides that they’re angry
and petty.
The film also utilizes a recur-
ring theme of “ugly Americans”
seeping into the lifestyle of the
wealthy. The use of images of
unattractive and deformed peo-
ple portraying the L.A. unfortu-
nate (homeless people, robbers,
etc.) is troublingly incoherent at
best and disgustingly classist at
worst. A certain shot of a crouch-
ing Christian Bale pondering next
to a sleeping homeless woman
like a paleontologist poring over
a dig site was so insulting to my
intelligence I considered leaving
the theater. Is this supposed to be
interesting? Is this supposed to
be saying something meaningful
about class? Or is this just Malick
being
hateful
towards
Black
homeless people? The film is so
compositionally muddled I could
not tell you which is the case.
There are two things that save
“Knight of Cups” from being a
complete waste of time. Anto-
nio Banderas (“Desperado”) is
admittedly entertaining in his
very brief appearance as Tonio, a
suave Hollywood playboy — the
only character in the film I would
want to spend any time with.
And Emmanuel Lubezki, coming
off of an Oscars hat trick in the
cinematography category, merci-
fully delivers images composed
so engagingly that when the film’s
structure, themes, acting and
editing fail to execute on ideas
remotely worth giving thought
to, at least the pictures are fun to
look at.
FILM REVIEW
D-
Knight
of Cups
State Theatre
Broad Green
Pictures
6A — Monday, April 4, 2016
Arts
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