{"id":1737,"date":"2020-12-15T21:47:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-15T21:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=1737"},"modified":"2020-12-15T21:47:17","modified_gmt":"2020-12-15T21:47:17","slug":"two-sides-of-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2020\/12\/15\/two-sides-of-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Sides of Paradise"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Two Sides of Paradise <\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A comparison of Baz Luhrmann\u2019s\u00a0The Great Gatsby<\/em>\u00a0and Terrence Malick’s\u00a0To the Wonder<\/em>\u00a0uncovers the deep relationship between love, creativity, and truth.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Jon Askonas<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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If one were to construct a spectrum of contemporary filmmakers, ranging from the minimalist to the fantastic, one would find Baz Luhrmann and Terrence Malick on very opposite ends of the spectrum. Where the former is loud, explosive, and flashy, the other is introspective, discreet, and nuanced to a fault. And yet, the two movies they have in theaters (The Great Gatsby <\/em>and To the Wonder<\/em>, respectively) revolve around the same dynamic tension. In some prior reverie, a man and a woman found themselves hopelessly, wondrously in love, and they now seek a return to that state. Both tell of a distinctly suburban sort of tragic love: without either the ties of community or place, these romances involve primarily their participants and their emotions, unimpeded by tradition, faith, obligation, or even family. And yet the paths these stories take\u2014and the morals they impart\u2014are as far apart as their directors\u2019 philosophies.<\/p>

What do you do when you\u2019ve been kicked out of the Garden of Eden? After all, isn\u2019t that what Gatsby<\/em> is ultimately about? Luhrmann\u2019s prescription for America\u2019s \u201cHelplessness Blues\u201d is the same as Gatsby\u2019s antidote for his own lost labor of love: a journey back into the Edenic past (symbolized by the ubiquitous green light). Both Luhrmann and Gatsby know that the actual<\/em> past is not up to snuff. Thus, they apply a layer of historical makeup\u2014grand narratives, glittering sets, and faux-antiquity. (Compare Gatsby\u2019s fictitious biography to the movie\u2019s extensive tie-ins with historic luxury brands.)<\/p>

Where the obsession Fitzgerald\u2019s Gatsby has with the past comes across as deluded, even pathetic, in Luhrmann\u2019s tale, the past is only a wink and a smile away. The film almost mocks Fitzgerald\u2019s skepticism towards the American Dream (symbolized by Gatsby\u2019s pursuit of Daisy); at one point, Gatsby chummily confides to the camera that of course<\/em> one can relive the past, old sport. Luhrmann revels in his ability to immerse viewers in his creation, a fantasy akin to Gatsby\u2019s elaborate ruse; even the malarial New York summer is glamorized by Luhrmann\u2019s cool camera.<\/p>

But what is the point of this aesthetic exercise? Luhrmann isn\u2019t exactly kind to the source material, treating it more like a sample on a Jay-Z rap track than a lamppost to truth in art. The scriptwriters systematically excise Fitzgerald\u2019s sneers at Gatsby, reframing him as a tragic Great Soul spurned by a fickle woman and blue-blood society. It seems as if, when the world (and the woman) fail to live up to Gatsby\u2019s illusion, it is the world\u2019s fault. Lurking beneath the shimmer of Luhrmann\u2019s film is a moral rewiring of the story. In Luhrmann\u2019s tale, Gatsby\u2019s tragedy is that he never quite managed to get the girl, and not that the entire endeavor was vainglorious and impossible.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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It is no accident that the filmmakers pushing the technological boundaries of cinema are also telling stories about dreams come to life and realities approaching heaven.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Now, the tension between these two interpretations is structural to the novel itself (after all, the book concludes with Carraway torn between the closure he yearns for and the endemic brokenness Gatsby\u2019s fable has revealed). But Luhrmann rewrites Fitzgerald\u2019s masterpiece by concealing the central truth of Gatsby<\/em>: that the Daisy presented to us is every bit as much a fiction as anything else in Gatsby\u2019s life. She is not the innocent, smitten na\u00eff Gatsby would have her be. By covering this over, by making Gatsby<\/em> about the failure of reality and not the failure of hope, Luhrmann wittingly adopts Gatsby\u2019s delusion. If only we stretch our horizons towards the distant past and utopic future, the sentiment goes, we will see that it is the glamour that is real, and our present-day troubles that are only illusions waiting to be dissolved by our hope and imagination. Luhrmann\u2019s directorial philosophy thus embodies the schizophrenic personality of modernism. It is on one hand extraordinarily cynical: in the end, everything about Gatsby<\/em> is designed to peddle tickets and goods and make its director a fortune. On the other hand, hidden beneath a protective veneer of cynicism is a sincere yearning for a narrative worthy of the human spirit. Discontented by our grey reality, we reach toward our mythic past and bright future. It is no accident that the filmmakers pushing the technological boundaries of cinema are also telling stories about dreams come to life and realities approaching heaven.<\/p>

Where The Great Gatsby <\/em>is over-polished and dazzling, To the Wonder<\/em> is minimal and inscrutable, as if Malick were pursuing the theoretical limits of leaving film on the editing-room floor. And yet, for the patient and forgiving, To the Wonder<\/em> is a rewarding meditation on divine love in a fallen world.<\/p>

In many ways, the film is the spiritual sequel to Malick\u2019s magnum opus, The Tree of Life<\/em>. Where The Tree of Life <\/em>lifts viewers into the heavens to glimpse the deep significance of human life through the eyes of a Creator who is constantly making Himself present in the world, To the Wonder<\/em> casts us back down into the world of everyday failings, where God is noticeably absent. Marriages fail, dreams die, faiths erode, and loves fade. We have decidedly left the Garden. The story (such as it is) emerges from the dynamic tension between Neil\u2019s (Ben Affleck) wavering romance with a Frenchwoman, Marina (Olga Kurylenko), and Father Quintana\u2019s struggle to love his parishioners. Neil and Marina fall in love in France in a rush of beauty and passion, beautifully filmed at Mont St. Michele (the titular wonder) by the masterful cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. Neil returns to his native Oklahoma; Marina follows with her young daughter Tatiana.<\/p>

While Neil works on some sort of environmental project (fracking is implied), Marina and Tatiana grow increasingly uneasy and restless in their new life. After Marina returns home, Neil consoles himself with a new love, which he abandons when, though not because, Marina returns. Throughout, Father Quintana (Javier Bardem) struggles through a crisis of faith in his new parish, where Marina and Neil occasionally attend Mass. The two stories act together as a meditation on human and divine love, culminating in a transcendent, if unsatisfying, encounter in which Father Quintana\u2019s pastoring of the couple opens them to deeper love.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Malick deals in neither one-off particulars nor universal ideals. Instead, he views his films as stories incarnating Truth, the particular transcending to the universal.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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To the Wonder<\/em>\u2019s quotidian story surrounds a rich mass of poetic detail, transforming the plot into a parable. While Father Quintana\u2019s meditations on love, commitment, and forgiveness anchor the film\u2019s purpose, Neil\u2019s fragile romances\u2014captured in Malick\u2019s trademark expressive imagery\u2014provide the parable\u2019s frame narrative. Intimacy, passion, sacrifice, affection, anger, and transgression play out in gestures and glances, forces of nature and human actions. To the Wonder<\/em> is lush with didactic allusion. Neil\u2019s work amongst those poisoned by pollution is juxtaposed with the ineffable unease Marina and Tatiana feel in their new world; suburban anomie is contrasted to the messy community of the Southern poor, and, most of all, Neil\u2019s rocky relationships stand condemned before Quintana\u2019s quiet service to his parish. To the Wonder<\/em> is in many ways a visionary meditation on Ephesians 5:25: \u201cHusbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.\u201d<\/p>

In many ways, Malick\u2019s reflections embody the catholic nature of masterful art. Malick deals in neither one-off particulars nor universal ideals. Instead, he views his films as stories incarnating Truth, the particular transcending to the universal. In The Four Loves<\/em>, C.S. Lewis describes lovers as enacting ageless roles, their nakedness the costumes of gods. Malick has something like that in mind here: Neil and Marina are Adam and Eve, enacting again the Original Sin, and all the unoriginal ones that followed. To the Wonder<\/em> is the best movie about marriage that I have seen in a long time, and a surprisingly conservative one at that.<\/p>

Most defenses of marriage against the dissolving effects of modernity have relied on argumentation. Malick makes no argument, instead showing what it is that lacks in modern romance. By the end of the movie, one recognizes the tension that Tatiana intuitively understands and that Marina unconsciously reacts against: without the firm commitment of marriage, Neil\u2019s love is like a spring that runs dry, leaving an empty riverbed (an image Father Quintana evokes in yet another homily). Father Quintana, flawed and passionless as he is, lifts up all those around him\u2014because he lives among them and has given his life for them. His love, even when he cannot feel it, comes from above and bears witness to Love Itself.<\/p>

But like Christ\u2019s parables, To the Wonder<\/em> will only baffle those who do not have ears to hear and eyes to see. For those who have little exposure to Malick\u2019s previous work, To the Wonder<\/em> may seem bizarre or experimental. Even those who enthusiastically embrace Malick\u2019s artistic project will find that this film pushes his oeuvre to its radical edge. The challenge is that Malick is using the same poetic language as The Tree of Life<\/em> in a film more narratively complex. While it seems that the plot can be derived from the film, Malick demands much of his audience. To make sense of things, one must interpret gestures, glances, sounds, signs of nature, and more into a story. Like a waltzing gentleman, Malick masterfully leads viewers to understand the plot, but some will nonetheless stumble. Malick\u2019s directorial choices are no pseudo-artistry. Rather, perhaps motivated by his study of Heidegger under Stanley Cavell, Malick is trying to train audiences weaned on Luhrmann and Michael Bay to pay careful attention to the wonder and significance of the everyday.<\/p>

The disparity between Luhrmann\u2019s lurid, hyperactive cinematography and Malick\u2019s patient, almost reverent, style is not incidental to the meaning of their films. Luhrmann sees the world through Gatsby\u2019s eyes, catching on the glamorous, the exotic, the coolly beautiful. Nothing is examined in close enough detail to chance revealing its unloveliness (or, where ugliness is expected, to accidentally uncover its glory). Luhrmann\u2019s direction is like Gatsby\u2019s love: superficial, sentimental, unrealistic, and ultimately inauthentic. In contrast, Malick\u2019s filmmaking resembles Father Quintana\u2019s love and Marina\u2019s passion. It journeys alongside its subjects, viewing them in all of their complexity. It uncovers beauty and ugliness, sin and redemption. Kind but not boastful, it rejoices in the wonder of its world. Malick\u2019s is the cinema of dwelling. This equivalence should perhaps not surprise us. Creation, both of a relationship and of a film, is an act of love, and the director cannot help but show us whether he loves the world in all its messy truth or merely embraces his own vision, his dreams of Eden.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Jon Askonas<\/strong> studied International Politics at Georgetown University\u2019s School of Foreign Service and will read for a Master of Philosophy in International Relations at Oxford University starting in the fall. He\u2019s spending this summer in Brooklyn studying hipsters in their natural habitat.<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A comparison of Baz Luhrmann\u2019s The Great Gatsby and Terrence Malick\u2019s To the Wonder uncovers the deep relationship between love, creativity, and 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