A writer indulging in all that Los Angeles and Las Vegas have to offer, undertakes a search for love and self via a series of adventures with six different women.
Plot
Rick is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles, California. He is successful in his career, but his life feels empty. Haunted by the death of one brother and the dire circumstances of the other, he finds temporary solace in Hollywood excess. Women provide a distraction from the daily pain he endures, and every encounter brings him closer to finding his place in the world.
The film is divided into eight chapters (each named after a tarot card, except the final chapter, “Freedom”), plus a prologue, each loosely based around the central character’s relationship with somebody in his life:
I. The Moon – Della, a rebellious young woman.
II. The Hanged Man – His brother Barry and father Joseph.
III. The Hermit – Tonio, an amoral playboy.
IV. Judgment – His physician ex-wife Nancy.
V. The Tower – Helen, a serene model.
VI. The High Priestess – Karen, a spirited, playful stripper.
VII. Death – Elizabeth, a married woman with whom he has a relationship and who becomes pregnant with a child that may be his.
VIII. Freedom – Isabel, an innocent who helps him see a way forward.
Related Photos
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Related Videos
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A deleted scene featuring Isabel from “Knight of Cups” (2015) -
“Once there was a young prince whose father, the king of the East, sent him down into Egypt to find a pearl. But when the prince arrived, the people poured him a cup. Drinking it, he forgot he was the son of a king, forgot about the pearl and fell into a deep sleep. Rick’s (Christian Bale) father used to read this story to him as a boy. The road to the East stretches out before him. Will he set forth?”
Trivia
- Although there was a script reported to be between 400 and 600 pages long, all of the scenes were improvised.
- Christian Bale had no lines to learn and writer and director Terrence Malick only gave him the character description.
- During filming, writer and director Terrence Malick would use a technique he called “torpedoing”, where he would unexpectedly send people into the scene to get a reaction from the actors and actresses who were performing.
- According to Christian Bale, Terrence Malick didn’t tell the actors and actresses what the movie was about.
- Isabel did her scenes with Teresa Palmer and Christian Bale.
- According to Christian Bale, there was a lot of “let’s see what happens” approach during shooting, which allowed “a lot of happy accidents”.
- While the movie is set in Los Angeles, California, and Las Vegas, Nevada, there are at least some shots from locations outside the U.S. For example, in the Las Vegas sequence there are a few shots of modern architecture in Berlin, Germany. These images are integrated in such a way that it seems as if those locations were shot in Las Vegas, but they are not. The unique large glass dome at the top of the Reichstag in Berlin is clearly identifiable in one shot. In another shot, you can see a typical Berlin S-Bahn train drive away. This footage was probably shot by Terrence Malick on one of his reported trips to the Berlin International Film Festival, or by a second unit. There are probably more shots from around the world organically integrated into the footage shot in the U.S.
