“Ambient” may have first started out as a word that described a style of music, but it has seemed to move on to other forms of art. This often happens. If an idea or expression can be expressed very well in music, which while infinitely complex, is a building block of many other forms of art such as film, it can most likely be very well expressed in other forms of art. This can easily be applied to film for example. As I sat in the bottom hallway of my vast school discussing Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life with a friend, he mentioned that he didn’t prefer Terrence Malick making “ambient films.” This is a fair criticism. As Malick has drifted from his more “grounded” filmmaking, many have been very questionable of the filmmaking trend that has taken over him, with my friend calling it “boring” and nonsensical. Yet, what is ambience and what can it can do for a film?
Ambience, as described in the dictionary, is a form of art (well music, but as described above I’m pretty sure that term can go anywhere) with, “...no persistent beat, used to create or enhance the mood or atmosphere.” This is an excellent description of the late stage work of Terrence Malick. He’s become defined by the floaty cinematography that he seems to harness from Emmanuel Lubezki’s id form. Defined by the classical music that he easily understands can carry a scene more than even his actors can. Defined by the soft, nurturing voiceover of his protagonists. All of these factors define the ambient nature of his filmmaking of late and they all provide sufficient examples to why some will absolutely hate this style, but to those that can reap the benefits, these factors can provide an ever entrancing experience. Ambience can be limiting as it can put a limit on the audience's understanding of the characters (and let’s face it sometimes it’s just annoying), but that’s not the question that should be asked of these films. The question should really be what can this ambience do to expand on film and how the limitations of ambient filmmaking can make a better film. Again, as I’ve written multiple times, filmmaking is ultimately the craft of creating emotion for the audience out of thin air and ambience can do that in a way that many other films cannot. It immediately breaks down the complications of creating effective montage and story because by the nature of ambience there is not much of a story, no real persistent beat, just mood and atmosphere. One of the most emotional things about film is that mood and atmosphere and by taking away the weight (though it can be very useful) than an intimately structured plot can put on a film you eliminate a filmic barrier that is put between the audience and the emotions of the film. Of course, in some ways a deliberation of plot can provide a more emotionally honed experience, but there’s a freedom to ambience. Consider the overwhelming amount of filmic information that is taken in over Malick’s second most recent film Knight of Cups. There is some slight semblance of structure, as the main character moves through multiple women, but there’s more to it than that. Ambience, by nature, is confusing because it lacks some structure. This is replaced with a raw sense of reality though. Something special about the unfiltered jumble of images and music and whisperings that Malick displays on screen is that you never feel like there could ever be an actual film crew there. There’s an unfiltered emotion to even the little touches because it never crosses the mind that these pictures are manufactured. This is simply the world, as it is, emotion as it is, in all it’s jumbled and bipolar form presented to us on screen. In Knight of Cups for example the ambience engages the audience in the noticing of tiny details and lines all mixing in the personification of the dreamscape/hellscape of Los Angeles brought to life with such fervor in that film. The fact that Malick is progressively getting more and more cryptic over time is fitting in this context. He’s attempting to get closer and closer to the idea of pure filtered emotion with The Tree of Life blending both emotional and strong narrative features tapering to just emotional by the end, To The Wonder moving into less of a narrative, Knight of Cups using just a semblance of structure, and Song to Song moving into even more explanation of characters through ambience. Yet, his films always seem to be getting more and more emotionally true. In Badlands or Days of Heaven (Both great) I feel the manipulation of emotions detached from the characters, as with most films. I feel the hilarity, the sorrow of the story, but in The Tree of Life, To the Wonder… etc, I feel the characters emotions run through me, not just the emotions that the film wants me to feel and in that you can find solace, anger, and happiness that you could never have dreamed of. With that, I wish to leave you with a description of the best transition in any Terrence Malick film. There is no easy way to track it down specifically in the screenplay, but the moment appears at the start of The Tree of Life. The very first scene. A large celestial body of orange appears on a screen. Whispers are sent out from a man. Whispers put out in the universe. The screen fades to black. Suddenly, “Funeral Canticle,” starts to play and a beautiful image of childish innocence explodes onto the screen, joyous in her ignorance of the ever expanding grief of life and the universe. The moment is serene and happy and the ambience captures the moment with startling clarity. As we see the girl contrasted with the ambient imagery of the celestial body, we don’t just see the incredible happiness of her ignorance. We feel every bit of it.
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AuthorStephen Tronicek. Archives
July 2017
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