Pattern Recognition: Why Some Viewers Can’t Connect With ‘Difficult’ Art Movies

“Moviegoers fed a strict Hollywood diet may find themselves squirming through, say, a film by the Hungarian director Bela Tarr less because of the subtitles than because of the long takes during which little is explained. The same may hold true for those who watch The Tree of Life and want Terrence Malick to connect the dots overtly among his characters, the dinosaurs and the trippy space images.”