Flashing back to movies while in nature...
Monday, June 8, 2020 at 5:02PM 
by Nathaniel R
Apologies for the book-end birthday posts but we'll be back to movies in a hot second. Just back from the self-care birthday trip. Spent the weekend trying to enjoy quiet nature. Activities were as varied as laying in the grass, walking through the woods, and sitting on a beach with face mask on but shoes off. SUCH RANGE! (That image to the left was taken in Woodstock, New York. Nothing was open though we did manage an incredible take-out breakfast to eat outdoors thanks to The Mud Club. Ohmygod the deliciousness)
On the way back to NYC this morning we visited the spectacular grounds of the Vanderbilt Mansion. Twas so lush and moneyed, I flashed back alternately to every establishing shot of Downton Abbey and the party sequence in Baz Lurhmann's The Great Gatsby though no anachronistic music was booming to conjure the second...
We also went to a nature preserve with an old Lighthouse (images of Robert Pattinson masturbating came to mind -- I'm only human), walked on the longest pedestrian bridge, and stopped to see a couple of plaques for Sojourner Truth. The latter felt appropriate given the Black Lives Matter protests that are captivating the entire world. How does Sojourner not have a biopic yet? Oh right, Hollywood's biopic fixation is almost entirely of the 'Great White Man' variety (biopics about women, let alone black women, are much much much much much much scarcer).
Dear readers, I try not to think about the movies 24/7 but I often fail. Obviously Terence Malick came to mind several times while watching the wind create eternal ripples on fields of grass. Less obviously but quite emphatically whilst staring at the rocky marshy shores of that meadow preserve, The Piano lept to mind; mud, water, elemental amounts of feeling. What movies make you think of nature? Or, rather, when does nature make you think of the movies?
Reader Comments (17)
I do like a bushwalk (haven't been for a while, though) and often think of WILD when out in nature.
Travis -- ooh, yes. good one. I think that movie gets into the headspace of long walks really well.
Nature = Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Hello Handsome! That’s a great pic Nathaniel.
Hmm.... Lars von Trier’s Antichrist......?
Owen -- OMG. haha. i'm so sorry. are you also freaked out by nature then?
Julian - thanks
Cal -- oooh. correct. at least in particular forms of nature. I still regularly see "images" from both UNCLE BOONMEE and TROPICAL MALADY pop up for no apparent reason in me brain.
Under the Tuscan Sun is my fav outdoorsy-ish movie. Which is more beautiful though, Tuscany or Diane Lane? 😉
It's a cliche, but any open field or instance of wind blowing through trees/grass makes me think of Malick. I also think about Joe Wright's films: the muddied dresses in Pride & Prejudice, the lush greens in Atonement, and the fields in Anna Karenina.
I visits to the beach are rare, despite being from Miami, but Stranger by the Lake makes me think of scorching summer days and hazy nights out. And there's also something deeply elemental (and spiritual) about Daughters of the Dust and Eve's Bayou. Both films make me think about times when I was young, playing outside with my cousins/friends, climbing trees and not caring at all about how dirty we got.
I'd like to clarify that my "scorching summer days and hazy nights out" were weather related and nowhere near as exciting as anything in Stranger by the Lake lol
(Sorry for the typo in the beginning of that sentence!)
I remember seeing the Palme d'Or winning documentary The Silent World (1956) which introduced most audiences to underwater cinematography in color. Directed by Jacques Cousteau and a very young Louis Malle, the film astonished me. I just didn't imagine that those images were what existed under the surface of the ocean. Later condemned by environmentalists, the film did prompt Jacques Cousteau to take up the mantel of ocean preservation after he was educated by activists.
I always think of the scenes at the Petit Trianon in Sofia Coppola's 'Marie Antoinette.'
dawn outdoors makes me think of vanessa redgrave walking through the grass in the opening scene of Howard's End. when i first read the book (after the film, i know i know) i was astounded at how perfect the creation of that scene had been.
and you can blame my autocorrect for erroneously putting the apostrophe in Howards
The Tree of Life, of course. Picnic at Hanging Rock for its arid landscapes. Bright Star too. Moonlight as well for its palpable Floridian summer.
Muir Woods..."Vertigo"
You named my two faves - The Tree of Life and The Piano.
Years ago, I even ordered that Piano t-shirt (you gave Nick I think) after seeing it on here.
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