"One hell of a show."

Aside from the incredible Oscar winning performance of Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Thomas Anderson's, "There Will Be Blood" is a tour De force of creative talent and energy exhibited by some of today's most outstanding cinematic pros. Mr. Anderson's acidic screenplay crackles like an oil fire and Jonny Greenwood's (of Radiohead fame) original score, with it's Ligeti like tonal clusters and atonal flashing, is both electric and orchestral, both lush and terrifying. The contrast between the Post Modern musical sensibility against a turn of the Century backdrop leaves one ill at ease and off balance, as are most of the characters.

Robert Elswit ASC, who easily walked away with the 2007 Academy Award for cinematography has captured on film the dry, dusty grit of the California desert that one can almost taste, the blood red sunsets of big sky country, and the wide open western spaces of a time gone by.

This is a film that comes along once in many decades. It is one of those pictures that had me studying the closing credits, thinking to myself that here were the  great film makers of tomorrow. "Remember these names," I said to myself. Paul Dano brilliantly plays an understated fundamentalist preacher, who on the one hand seems to almost glow with gentle piety, yet one gets the feeling that he is as volatile as a stick of dynamite. His Sunday sermons are so full of of pent up rage against his empty and meaningless life that he might be carted off to an asylum at any moment. "One hell of a show," says Daniel Plainview, the "wildcat" oil man, played by Lewis, after one of Dano's insane healing rants. Plainview wants nothing more than to make enough money to escape all contact with humanity, a humanity that he holds in such bitter contempt that he has become sociopathically dangerous. His young, deaf son and his crew men seem to be the only sane and healthy characters of the bunch.

This film is loosely based on a rather obscure novel by Upton Sinclair called simply, "Oil." It is a study of ambition. It is a study of social interrelations. It is a study of industriousness and entrepreneurial will. It is a study of greed and lust for power. It is a study of madness.

Finishing School

Finishing School

Original soundtrack for a short film (video) of the same name which was the final project in a college movie making course I attended. The challenge was to sync the finished movie with the music as it was being written. I did not have the luxury of viewing the visuals as I composed so certian "events" were used as "anchors" in the score. I used a stopwatch to line up events and musical anchors.
The short can be seen at; http://www.youtube.com/user/grassothomas

The Struggle Between Nature And Grace

"Where were you when I founded the earth? While the morning stars sang in chorus and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"  JOB:38/4,7

   Thus begins the film, "The Tree of Life;" a journey into the microcosm of human family dynamics juxtaposed against the infinite macrocosm of Gods creation. A daunting task for any film director to tackle, yet Terrence Malick's almost 20 year project, from back when he was lecturing on philosophy at M.I.T., succeeds in painting the enigma of creation in all it's simple glory and in all it's grand complexity. Movie goers should expect to experience a visceral, audio and visual feast which has to be "felt," and not necessarily understood. The same is true with life.

   This Cannes Film Festival 2011 "Palme d'Or" winner comes with homework. One cannot simply watch it and go away entertained and satisfied, having enjoyed a soda and popcorn, ready for bed and a new day in the morning.  No... this is a film that gnaws at ones soul, gets under your skin and enters your subconscious. It's food for dreams and thought that might last a lifetime.

   Only one other work had such an impact on me as to keep me wondering about it all my life. It was the classic Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke collaboration, "2001: a space odyssey." Here is an un-feeling universe filled with cold machines that stimulate human evolution and perplexed creatures, animal as well as human, wonder about their place in the cosmos; a computer gone mad and an enigmatic yet benign extraterrestrial entity, so advanced as to be beyond any human understanding.

   Malick's view of life is less severe, warmer; yet it too contains it's dangers and it's enigmas. It is a universe filled with love, wonder and joy, but also evil and a
subtle melancholy similar to that of Job's in the Bible. It leads us to recognize that bad things DO happen to good people, and there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do is hold on to each other with love and trust in God's goodness. And if we stop loving... we've had it.

   "The nuns told us there are two paths in life. The way of nature and the way of grace. You've got to choose which path you will take." This opening line from Jessica Chastain's character gives the viewer a very large piece of this puzzling film. Images of nature and grace abound in it, and in real life as well, if one has eyes to see. Volcanic magma meets sea water in a burst of steam. A powerful animal dominates a weaker one, only to retreat as if to have some kind of primordial and instinctual emotion of compassion. A man who violently chastises his child, soon after enfolds him in a tender and loving embrace. A wife who, in self defense, attacks her husband is only to be restrained, dominated by raw nature. And yet the two end in an almost erotic position of unified love and forgiveness. We are all animals and subject to the hard edged laws of the natural world, yet grace seems to bring out our humanity. It gives us a soul and it can pull us back from the brink of brute force and absolute perdition if only we let it.

   Although man is a creature fallen from grace, there can be eventual salvation and a resolution to all of his deepest desires and losses. Malick; director, writer and philosopher hints at the realization that there is a gentle and infinitely loving God and that He has given us a way out of our self inflicted torture. One thing Malick is not, is a pessimist.

   As the good provider that God is, the pathway back to the Tree of Life CAN be found, but one must actively seek to find it. Sean Penn's character, an architect finding himself imprisoned in the very steel and glass cathedrals that he builds in mans honor, broods and struggles with his own brute nature to find the way back into to the light of grace and the glory that belongs to God alone.

   Even though we have lost all sight of paradise through a single act of disobedience by ingesting the forbidden and poisonous fruit of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil," it can be found again. As soon as we ate from that deadly tree, our eyes were opened and we were suddenly deluded into believing the original and death dealing sin; that we could "know the mind of God." Worse yet, that we were little gods ourselves. And there lies the root of all of man's sufferings and evil inclinations. The biblical story of Lucifer clearly illustrates the point. Pride goes before the fall.

   Yet God's love, mercy and providence eventually allow us to see the truth that we are not gods after all. Jesus tried to tell us that. We do not have all the answers. We must leave all the big questions behind and simply trust that in God's hands all will be well and that good will eventually triumph over evil, not because of any of our actions, concepts or works, but only because of God's infinite love and unfailing mercy towards us and all of His precious creatures.

   If you're wondering how a movie could convey these deep philosophical truths and subtle questionings about the meaning of all things, I suggest you buy or rent it. But keep an open mind and an open heart. Your brain may not grasp it. But your soul might be refreshed.


INTERACTIVE WEB SITE FOR "THE TREE OF LIFE"    
http://www.twowaysthroughlife.com/

STUDENTS OF "THE LONDON SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY"
REACT TO "THE TREE OF LIFE"                                              
http://www.lst.ac.uk/hot-topics/the-tree-of-life

  

A Beautiful Minimal Minute

CARTER BURWELL

One of my favorite films is "Barton Fink,"

directed and written by Joel and Ethan Cohen. It's surreal, minimalist plot
and quirky yet gorgeous cinematography never fail to delight me
no matter how many times I see it.

Minimalism, as a modern movement, began with musical composition and fine art 

but has also made it's mark in many of the best films
of the last 40 years. The use of a minimalist score or plot can be used
to heighten tension, bring about an ethereal mood or,
as in the case of this Choen classic,

paint a surreal background that is so delicate 
it borders on the supernatural.

Right from the first few notes
of Carter Burwell's incredible score, the audience
becomes acutely aware that this will be like no other film experience.
The entire screen is filled with an image of ordinary wall paper.
The camera, very slowly zooms into the wall, 
accompanied by an agonizingly slow double bass pizzicato
in a 4 note descending minor scale.
The bass is soon joined by a solo violin line and then a 
slow staccato of 2/4 piano triads. When the full
orchestra enters, it quickly crescendos and we are stunned
by it's equally instantaneous diminuendo.

We're not in Kansas anymore.
In fact, it's as though we've left the planet altogether and entered
some kind of alternate universe where things are never as they seem,
and that wallpaper, covered in a repeating pattern of flames,
with a beautifully dark and mysterious treatment,
takes on an enormous importance that it would never have
in the real world. In this minimalistic, "anti-world," springing from the
imagination of these master artists, we seem to be sure
we will see that wallpaper again.

The scene is the opening credits.
It lasts for only 1 minute, yet is one of the most
excruciatingly beautiful, audio and visual
sensory experiences I have ever had.

Hans Zimmer's Inception Conception

   Whenever I see "Music by Hans Zimmer" in a film's credits, I always know that I'm in for a treat. His work on "The Thin Red Line," "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Night," not only hold their own as pure audio art but are so integrated with the visuals of these films as to become seamless extensions of their cinematic content.

   His collaboration with Christopher Nolan has produced films of dark and powerful beauty but "Inception" has another conceptual aspect to it's musical score that deserves comment.

   Here we experience a film with a complex and sometimes mind-boggling plot that involves flashbacks, flash forwards, dreams, dreams within dreams and even dreams within dreams within dreams. When I saw the film, once again I noticed the closely knit audio visual connection but when listening to the score by itself, I was struck by the simplicity and apparent lack of thematic material. It seemed to be in stark contrast to my recollection of the film which was so kinetic and "activity driven."

   The music seems to be static and reminiscent of some of the works of Arvo Part (Yet Zimmer seems to write with a sledge hammer as compared to Part's writing with a feather.)

   The juxtaposition between a film that seems to go everywhere and a soundtrack that goes nowhere was a brilliant concept that, although you might not think it, makes for another powerful and seamless work of cinematic art.