Knight of Cups
A quest.
Knight of Cups (2015)
Production
Revenue
$566 006
Director
Scenario
Composer
Hanan Townshend
Producer
Sarah Green
Actors
Christian Bale
Rick
Cate Blanchett
Nancy
Natalie Portman
Elizabeth
Brian Dennehy
Joseph
Antonio Banderas
Tonio
Freida Pinto
Helen
Wes Bentley
Barry
Isabel Lucas
Isabel
Short description
Rick is a successful screenwriter living in Los Angeles, but his professional achievements have not brought him fulfilment. Adrift and searching for meaning, he drifts through Hollywood parties and along the Pacific coast, reflecting on his father and on the women who have shaped his life, among them his ex-wife Nancy and Elizabeth, who is married to another man. A story his father read to him in childhood, about a prince sent to Egypt to find a pearl who forgets his quest after drinking from a cup, frames his efforts to break out of his melancholy and find his way.
Terrence Malick directed and wrote the film, the seventh in the feature career that runs from Badlands in 1973 through Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World, The Tree of Life and To the Wonder, and continues with Song to Song and A Hidden Life. Christian Bale plays Rick, with Cate Blanchett as Nancy, Natalie Portman as Elizabeth, Brian Dennehy as his father Joseph, Antonio Banderas as Tonio and Freida Pinto as Helen. Sarah Green, Ken Kao and Nicolas Gonda produced. The film runs 118 minutes and was made in the United States and Germany; on TMDB it holds a rating of 5.7 from roughly 740 votes, a modest figure for a work by a director of Malick's standing.
What's left behind the scenes
- Most of the events discussed in the film take place in Los Angeles, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada; however, several scenes were filmed outside the US. The Las Vegas episodes include several street shots filmed in Berlin, the capital of Germany. In one shot, for example, the glass dome of the Reichstag building in Berlin is clearly visible. In another shot, a typical Berlin city train is visible.
- Christian Bale's character appears in almost every scene of the film, yet speaks very rarely, as nearly all of his lines are delivered by the narrator. Occasionally his character does speak, but his words are drowned out by the background music. Bale's character speaks and is actually present on screen in only a couple of episodes.
- As composer Hanan Towshend explained, in the case of the film 'Knight of Cups,' the music was more of an embodiment of the character played by Christian Bale and his attempts to find a purpose in life.
- Due to Terrence Malick's habit of constantly reworking his own films, some excerpts featured in the trailers released before the premiere were either excluded from the final cut or included in a significantly altered form.
- Some of the burn patients cared for by Nancy, played by Cate Blanchett, were actual patients from a hospital's burn unit.
- The lines at the beginning of the film are taken from 'The Pilgrim's Progress' (1678, 1684) by the writer and Baptist preacher John Bunyan (1628-1688). It is the story of a man named Christian's journey through the fall, suffering, and death toward the 'Celestial City,' or Paradise.
- Christian Bale began filming 'Knight of Cups' two days after finishing production on Scott Cooper's crime thriller 'Out of the Furnace' (2013).
- As Christian Bale later recounted, there was a completely carefree atmosphere on set. Everyone adhered to the principle of "let's try this and see what happens," and this approach often worked.
- The film didn't have a script as such, but director Terrence Malick wrote long, multi-page dialogues and then asked the actors on set to deliver the part of their dialogue that they liked best. The lead actor, Christian Bale, had no lines at all. He had to sneak peeks at his co-stars' dialogues to understand what to expect in any given episode. For the character played by Joel Kinnaman, Terrence Malick wrote a 17-page monologue.
- When the Knight of Cups appears in the upright position in tarot cards, it signifies change and new joys, especially of a romantic nature. The Knight of Cups marks new ideas, opportunities, and proposals. This is a refined, subtle person who, however, quickly becomes bored; he needs constant stimulation. He is intelligent, friendly, and principled. He is a dreamer who is easily persuaded or discouraged. If the card appears upside down, it signifies insincerity and irresponsible carelessness, deception, false promises, and fraud. This is a person who does not always understand where the truth ends and the lie begins.
- At the start of filming, Christian Bale thought Teresa Palmer was a stripper. It was only about a week later that he saw a billboard with her portrait and realized she was an actress.
- Christian Bale and Natalie Portman stated that they spent more time dubbing the film than they did on set in front of the cameras.
- The film was shot without a script. All of its scenes were pure improvisation.
- Terrence Malik kept his promise to cast Christian Bale in a leading role. Originally, Bale was intended to star in Malik's previous film, "To the Wonder" (2012), but the actor was busy filming his final Batman movie, "The Dark Knight Rises" (Christopher Nolan, 2012). Consequently, the role of Neil in "To the Wonder" was played by Ben Affleck, who succeeded Bale as Batman.
- In one of the episodes, an advertisement for Marc Webb's film "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012) can be seen on the bus. This serves as proof that the film "Knight of Cups" was shot in the summer of 2012, although it was not released in American theaters until 2016. Dane DeHaan, who appears briefly in the film as the fortune teller's son, starred in the superhero action movie "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (Marc Webb, 2014).
- Rooney Mara was cast in the lead role, but the actress soon left the project.
- The drawing by Dionysius Andreas Freyer (1649-1728) depicted on the film's poster was printed on the cover of the famous work "The Tree of Life" (1932) by Israel Regardie (1907-1985), an English researcher of occultism and a student of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947).
- The film's post-production period lasted two years.
- During filming, Terrence Malick several times used a trick that he called "torpedoing." He would unexpectedly send actors who were not involved in the scene onto the set and film the reactions of the actors who were currently performing for the camera.
- Christian Bale didn't have to learn any lines. Director Terrence Malick simply gave him a broad outline of the character he was to play.
- Lead actor Christian Bale claims that director Terrence Malick didn't even tell the actors what the movie was about. He later admitted that at the start of each filming day, he had no idea what would happen to his character.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
