Listen now | Today’s movie is The Thin Red Line directed by Terrance Malick. It should be unsurprising to longtime listeners of Molly Movie Club that Anna likes this movie and Casey doesn’t. For Anna, the filmmaking was immersive and the contrast between natural beauty and the horrors of war was very effective. Casey hated the philosophical voiceovers and thought the story didn’t make much of an effort to support its own premise. We both agree that there’s a bit of confusion in some of the action directing (in a way that is very Nolan-esque).
Just got to this episode and want to say: I’m in team Anna 100%. This movie storytelling is entirely traditional, in the sense not everything is a sequence of events. It rather has a consistent mood and a feeling, and what you get out of it is in composition of everything rather that in storylines. But that’s why we love Terrence Malick, right?
I *feel* like these last few episodes after Christmas have been a lot more confrontational. Past disagreements were like more like "I see what you mean, but I saw it this other way instead" or "you care more about this and I care more about that (and that's okay)"; whereas it's been more like "I guess if you don't need the middle of the movie if you see it this way" or "you might be a sociopath if you see that way" and generally more confrontational vibes.
It's okay with me if it's okay with you, and I will totally get down to more 'heated' discussions if I think you're having fun instead of fighting, but I mention it just to check, and because I might also be totally mis-vibe-checking your vibes, so I want to check my vibe-check against your checked vibes.
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I wanted Casey to give a small example of what showing a motivation for the change of heart could've looked like. I haven't seen the movie, but I can see how the scene Anna describes can seem to satisfy the criteria Casey was complaining about.
There's a soldier dude who initially likes to pry people's teeth out, and later doesn't.
A pre-change-of-heart scene might show him gleefully prying people's teeth out like "mwahaha so good 😈". I can imagine a post-change-of-heart scene could be something like: someone asks "hey, where's all the teeth you had?" and he's like "I got rid of them long ago because that was so evil 😔". Then, if you describe a scene where he just got done prying some teeth out, and then is suddenly conscious of the evil of his action and regrets it, that seems like it would fit in the middle of the previous two and 'explain' the later scene.
But, his actions were just as evil the first time as the second time. What's missing is the motivation; what happened that caused him to change his perspective. A change of heart is an internal process, yes, but most often they are a result of our experiences; and even if you could change your mind like this by just sitting down and thinking about it, well, that doesn't make a good movie; you can't see this internal process. A good movie would show us the series of events that would elicit this change of heart on that character, so that we understand and follow this internal process on that character, empathize with it and even feel it ourselves.
For example, maybe these soldiers are trained to see these people as the Enemy, and implicitly therefore as sub-human or undeserving of sympathy, and that's why they're fine with doing this evil to them. But later (shown) this soldier has a conversation with one of them , or sees one of their children which remind him of his, or anything else that we understand as a humanizing moment; and then we understand what had changed when we see him regret his actions.
And it is not sufficient that I understand how *I* would regret prying somebody's teeth out myself, because while it is obvious to _me_ that taking someone's teeth is wrong, it was obviously not to them; we have started out with a different worldview. It would be unexpected for him to *spontaneously* change his mind, as it would be for myself.
Why did he change his mind? Why didn't he go on pulling teeth like some of the rest? Why him? Why then? That is what is missing*.
* According to Casey. I didn't watch the movie.
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I really want you to ever do an episode on any of the really popular Marvel movies. Casey has mentioned them as examples of the worst so many times that I really want to listen to him go to town on them. Or, if there's at least one you really like that would be really interesting too!
Just got to this episode and want to say: I’m in team Anna 100%. This movie storytelling is entirely traditional, in the sense not everything is a sequence of events. It rather has a consistent mood and a feeling, and what you get out of it is in composition of everything rather that in storylines. But that’s why we love Terrence Malick, right?
I love your podcast! ❤
I wish you had a TV Show Club podcast as well. 😅
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I *feel* like these last few episodes after Christmas have been a lot more confrontational. Past disagreements were like more like "I see what you mean, but I saw it this other way instead" or "you care more about this and I care more about that (and that's okay)"; whereas it's been more like "I guess if you don't need the middle of the movie if you see it this way" or "you might be a sociopath if you see that way" and generally more confrontational vibes.
It's okay with me if it's okay with you, and I will totally get down to more 'heated' discussions if I think you're having fun instead of fighting, but I mention it just to check, and because I might also be totally mis-vibe-checking your vibes, so I want to check my vibe-check against your checked vibes.
_____
I wanted Casey to give a small example of what showing a motivation for the change of heart could've looked like. I haven't seen the movie, but I can see how the scene Anna describes can seem to satisfy the criteria Casey was complaining about.
There's a soldier dude who initially likes to pry people's teeth out, and later doesn't.
A pre-change-of-heart scene might show him gleefully prying people's teeth out like "mwahaha so good 😈". I can imagine a post-change-of-heart scene could be something like: someone asks "hey, where's all the teeth you had?" and he's like "I got rid of them long ago because that was so evil 😔". Then, if you describe a scene where he just got done prying some teeth out, and then is suddenly conscious of the evil of his action and regrets it, that seems like it would fit in the middle of the previous two and 'explain' the later scene.
But, his actions were just as evil the first time as the second time. What's missing is the motivation; what happened that caused him to change his perspective. A change of heart is an internal process, yes, but most often they are a result of our experiences; and even if you could change your mind like this by just sitting down and thinking about it, well, that doesn't make a good movie; you can't see this internal process. A good movie would show us the series of events that would elicit this change of heart on that character, so that we understand and follow this internal process on that character, empathize with it and even feel it ourselves.
For example, maybe these soldiers are trained to see these people as the Enemy, and implicitly therefore as sub-human or undeserving of sympathy, and that's why they're fine with doing this evil to them. But later (shown) this soldier has a conversation with one of them , or sees one of their children which remind him of his, or anything else that we understand as a humanizing moment; and then we understand what had changed when we see him regret his actions.
And it is not sufficient that I understand how *I* would regret prying somebody's teeth out myself, because while it is obvious to _me_ that taking someone's teeth is wrong, it was obviously not to them; we have started out with a different worldview. It would be unexpected for him to *spontaneously* change his mind, as it would be for myself.
Why did he change his mind? Why didn't he go on pulling teeth like some of the rest? Why him? Why then? That is what is missing*.
* According to Casey. I didn't watch the movie.
_____
I really want you to ever do an episode on any of the really popular Marvel movies. Casey has mentioned them as examples of the worst so many times that I really want to listen to him go to town on them. Or, if there's at least one you really like that would be really interesting too!
_____
Cheers!