Remembering: “Knight of Cups”
Depression: an idea, motif and theme, orchestrated within visual exuberance of one distraught Los Angeles screenwriter, who, after experiencing the death of his brother, undergoes a series of hypnotic, neo-surrealist misadventures in-attempt to reconcile the man he’s become with the one he’s lost.
At first glance, I believe Terrence Malick (writer/director of New American classics Badlands, Days of Heaven) purposefully engages the viewer into the excess-superficiality of the Hollywood industrial-complex in order to provoke a sense of un-belonging, un-relatability, the aura/state of being in a world of non-answers. His hand, the way he captures this world I believe, is compassionate, unglorified to the extent that, “Rick” (competently played by Christian Bale) is – in a way – a personification and indictment of himself, the filmmaker’s avatar, revealing his excursions into the vast, sweeping morass of 21st century hedonism hand-in-hand with nihilism. To my inference, Rick represents Malick, and the death of his brother can be interpreted as a literal loss in his life or symbolic, a metaphor to explore his disenchantment with the status quo, however, Malick captures the tragedy about this world in a humanistic lens: every player, every false-truth, half-lie, dancer, actress, mogul to bumbling middleman, is of their rawest, lost souls attempting to circumvent the horror of which they’re thrust, even when depicted farcical, duplicitous with multiple meanings, though never quite implied to be “blamed” for their quarrels, misrepresentations, etc. No, Knight of Cups is an exploration of the machine through the eyes of a man who “should” be happy with the world at his fingers, and yet, the world around him (one which he’s worked hard to prop up) is falling apart, or rather, the veil over his eyes.
Christian Bale as “Rick” and Imogen Poots as “Della”
I’m still not sure what Malick was attempting to say on the misfortune of women in said-industry, who are simultaneously depicted as objectified escapes for oligarchic film men, yet are employed by the narrative as a way of expounding the filmmaker’s heady messages about consciousness, realities and love. My first reaction was skepticism upon getting caught up in the flurry of gallivanting imagery, jump-cuts, meandering expose, though I later was surprised at what the film revealed itself to be: a 2-hour somber meditation of fulfillment, entertainment culture, excessive materialism, (in my opinion) environmentalism, and the consequences of love. Rick, who is seen undergoing artistic ennui and malaise, wanders from different montages of his life, split-second amalgamations of different times, and while some may react to this style of story-telling as overly-indulgent and/or pretentious, I found it beneficial to the film’s greater ethos.
“You think when you reach a certain age things will start making sense, and you find out that you are just as lost as you were before. I suppose that’s what damnation is. The pieces of your life never to come together, just splashed out there.” - Knight of Cups (2015)
I believe, the quote delivered by Rick’s father, serves as the film’s thesis, encapsulating the main ideas through: that everyone is just as lost, desperate to find fulfillment as everybody else, and no matter what our genres of thought, styles of life, who we surround ourselves with, there will always be a greater, profound fear of the unknown within us that perhaps, nobody can provide sufficient escape from.
Christian Bale as “Rick” and Kate Blanchett as “Nancy”
The film’s usage of such an unrelatable lifestyle – i.e. Rick’s multi-million dollar, endless pursuits of doing whatever – warrants the exploration of its mantras. Suppose we had anything we ever could want, but found ourselves still empty, wanting, everything around we thought profound stricken hollow, what would we do? For this film, the protagonist dives deeper into a self-perpetuating volley of creature comforts, attempting to narcotize, pacify his inner dis-ease, yet, nothing works. Along the way, we come to see Rick is a “womanizer,” someone who seeks to escape himself through the objectification of women as means of sparking his “passion” for life, yet, his sins follow him, ultimately placing him at the behest of his consequences. “Nancy,” played powerful by Kate Blanchett, is revealed as the only person capable of withstanding Rick’s abuse, which even her undying love and commitment fails to satisfy him. Rick is depicted somewhat relatable yet, an unlikeable protagonist, and in this way, I think the film’s subject matter succeeds in delivering an earnest depiction of a very imperfect, fallible man, grasping at whatever he can to make sense of what he has failed to realize.
In many ways, this film is reminiscent of Godard’s Vivre Sa Savi (‘Her life to Live’), with title cards intercut between chapters to contextuate each focal characterization, and both films heavily rely on improvisation by the actors, a “let’s see how it goes,” shoot-by-the-hip feel. “Freedom,” the film’s last chapter, shows the main protagonist’s escape from a lifestyle that once satisfied him. In a meta-narrative way, this could be Terrence Malick’s way of saying goodbye to an industry he un-cares, or to film conventions, or to modernity and city-life itself, amongst other things. While I wouldn’t recommend this to people looking to get into his films, I believe if you are open to non-traditional storytelling, have ever experienced deep depression or intense grief, then this movie might be cathartic for you. I still have mixed feelings about this movie and the ways in which it depicts lurid interpretations of sex and love on a pendulum, a ticking clock of mortality and unknowing, but...nevertheless, I was affected.
Knight of Cups is an encapsulation of memes, imagery, mnemonic associations of our memory banks, to how we construct meaning through the rush of stimulation in our lives, the exploration of how we don’t know as much as we think (or espouse), and at the end of the day, these endless film spools of our life experiences – oozing with sentimentality, perfection and flaws, indulgences and connectivity – amount to, well…I don’t think we’re supposed to know. It all feels important, yet, we don’t know why, and if you’ve ever felt sondering or “what-does-it-all-mean?” moments, then, this film might speak to that part of your brain.
“What am I missing and...why?” It’s the final chapter, “Freedom,” which reveals the life Rick has constructed is a lie, that he himself is too, and furthermore, everything he knows is obfuscation. In one moving and unique shot of the moon, he confesses he’s spent the last 30 years not living life, and even though externally he’s hit every metric, marker of success, deep down he’s an empty person who won’t communicate. Tarot, a persuasive tool used throughout the film and “reading” of the plot, is prophetic as it is esoteric: we all may be somehow, one loss away from existential decay, and what imagery surrounding us confounding as it’s beautiful, horrific, and nobody, nothing, will give us the one-answer we’re looking for.
