annoying critical habit (preemptive edition)

I adore Terrence Malick.

I adore Terrence Malick.

I adore Terrence Malick.

So now that you know that, and have an appropriate context, I just want to do a little bit of preemptive arguing about The Tree of Life, which is not out yet and which I have not seen. One of the things Malick does consistently in his movies, and which the above trailer strongly suggests is present in Tree of Life, is to have various characters engage in voice over narration that does not focus directly on what happens onscreen, or even fit into the narrative of the movie. Often this narration speaks in unapologetically philosophical or symbolic terms, about some of the most broad and meaningful questions of human existence. Some find this maddening and trite. In combination with his gorgeous visuals, sense of scale, and almost unspeakable delicacy, I find it enchanting. Sorry to gush. Your own taste is your own taste.

However, while no one is obligated to feel any one way about Malick's films, I really am annoyed by a consistent tic in critical reviews of his work. A lot of times, film critics will take individual lines from the narration, totally deprive them of context, and remark at how moony or pretentious the words are. You can find this all over-- check Malick's Rotten Tomatoes-- but here's just one example from Charles Taylor:

Malick has seized on the interior monologues of Jones' characters and smothered the movie in the voice-over narration he used in "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven." And it's easy to see why. If everything is explained to us, Malick doesn't have to dramatize it, and thus nothing gets in the way of his presentation. "Only one thing a man can do," begins one of the movie's inscrutable ponderances. "Find something that's his. Make an island for himself."

After having encountered this trope several times, I find it infuriating. Of course the effect is lost when you totally deprive the words of the context that makes them work. It's true that taking any individual lines or shots of a movie and discussing them in a review is always, to a degree, denying context. But in this kind of reading, the presentation of Malick's lines is done so showily, and so meticulously designed to inspire ridicule, that it is simply critical malpractice. I find this to be exactly like going to a club, finding an individual dancer who is moving her body in a throng of others, and videotaping only her. No one could look anything less than silly so removed from the necessary context; no one but a fool would think that such an exercise has anything to do with the experience of the dance.

On a related note-- I will spend not one moment of my life worrying about whether I'm being pretentious. Not one solitary instant. That's not an argument that I'm not pretentious; I'm quite certain I am. But I am also certain that living the kind of life I need and want to live, where I can surround myself with the kind of beauty that I feel is necessary to endure the slow motion tragedy of living, means abandoning concerns about pretense. Others will have to adjudicate that. The events of my life have taught me that self-possession can steel you against a whole array of big tragedies and petty indignities. Meanwhile, all the time you spend sitting around your apartment, not being pretentious, is no defense against anything at all.