Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878) was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses. He was one of the most prolific architects that Great Britain has produced, over 800 buildings being designed or altered by him.

Born in Gawcott, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, Scott was the son of a clergyman and grandson of the biblical commentator Thomas Scott. He studied architecture as a pupil of James Edmeston and, from 1832 to 1834, worked as an assistant to Henry Roberts. He also worked as an assistant for his friend Sampson Kempthorne.

In about 1835, Scott took on William Bonython Moffatt as his assistant and later (1838–1845) as partner. Over the next 10 years Scott and Moffatt designed over 40 workhouses. Scott also designed working-class housing for Akroydon, Halifax in 1859.

Meanwhile, he was inspired by Augustus Pugin to join the Gothic revival of the Victorian era, his first notable works in this style being the Martyrs' Memorial on St Giles', Oxford (1841) and the new St Giles' Church, Camberwell with its fine octagonal spire (1844). The choir stalls at Lancing College in Sussex, which Scott designed with Walter Tower, were among many examples of his work that incorporated green men. Later, Scott went beyond copying mediaeval English gothic for his Victorian Gothic or Gothic Revival buildings, and began to introduce features from other styles and European countries as evidenced in his Midland red-brick construction, the Midland Grand Hotel at London's St Pancras Station, from which approach Scott believed a new style might emerge.

Between 1864 and 1876, the Albert Memorial, designed by Scott, was constructed in Hyde Park. It was a commission on behalf of Queen Victoria in memory of her husband, Prince Albert.

Scott was awarded the RIBA's Royal Gold Medal in 1859. Knighted in 1872, he died in 1878 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
He married Caroline Oldrid of Boston in 1838. Two of his sons George Gilbert Scott, Jr. and John Oldrid Scott, and his grandson Giles Gilbert Scott, were also prominent architects. He was also related to the architect Elisabeth Scott. His youngest son was the botanist Dukinfield Henry Scott.

Local works:

Public buildings
Martyrs' Memorial, Oxford (1841–43)
Clifton Hampden Bridge, Oxfordshire (1867)
Extension Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford (1869–71)

Domestic buildings
Parsonage, Clifton Hampden, Oxfordshire (1843–46)
St Michael and All Angels Church, Leafield, Oxfordshire (1859-60)
Exeter College Chapel, Oxford

Cathedrals
Christ Church, Oxford east wall of choir (1870–72) & (1874–76)


Martyr's Memorial


Clifton Hampden Bridge


East end, Chapel, Exeter College, Oxford

Oxford’s hottest band Stornoway to headline charity gig Concert4Conservation at The Regal, Oxford, Saturday 3rd September 2011


Photo: Olli Steadman, Brian Briggs, Rob Steadman, Jon Ouin

Stornoway are to play a fundraising gig in support of Oxfordshire-based charities the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS), the Earth Trust and the RSPB. Concert4Conservation, a Truck Festival production, will take place on Saturday 3rd September 2011 at The Regal, Oxford - the band’s first gig on home turf since November 2010.

Brian Briggs, Stornoway’s lead singer said: “I’ve been passionate about wildlife conservation for longer than I've been passionate about making music. Concert4Conservation was the most obvious way for me to combine my interests and support three great conservation charities.”

Stornoway’s stunning debut album Beachcomber’s Windowsill entered the album charts at No. 14. Winners of the Best British Album of 2010 Xfm New Music Award, Stornoway were short-listed for Radio 1’s Sound of 2010 and their Shepherd’s Bush Empire show sold out two months in advance. This year they have already toured America, headlined at Somerset House and performed on Glastonbury Festival’s Pyramid Stage and at several other festivals including Isle of Wight and T in the Park.

Currently working on their follow-up album, Stornoway will perform brand new material, along with old favourites, at Concert4Conservation. Band members Brian Briggs, Jon Ouin and Ollie and Rob Steadman will be joined by trumpeter Adam Briggs and violinist Rahul Satija for the event.

Brian Briggs said: “We are currently in the process of arranging lots of new songs and hope to showcase a fair few of them at the gig. It will be our first in Oxford since last November and we want to give our local fans the chance to hear them first!”

The natural world has been a source of great inspiration for Stornoway.

Brian Briggs said: “Nearly all of my songs are set at least partly in the outdoors. Watching Birds is about my PhD on wildfowl conservation, We Are The Battery Human is about the importance of spending time in nature for our own sakes as well as for wildlife's.”

Stornoway will be supported by celebrated Oxford bands The Dreaming Spires and The Epstein. The Dreaming Spires, something of an Oxford supergroup, feature brothers Robin and Joe Bennett – also co-founders of Truck Festival - and Loz Colbert of Ride. As members of Goldrush and Danny & the Champions of the World, Robin and Joe have shared the stage with the likes of Elbow and Mercury Rev. The Dreaming Spires will feature as Steve Lamacq's Favourite New Band on 13th July on BBC 6Music; their debut single is out July 25th.

Robin Bennett of The Dreaming Spires and Truck Festival said: "I first met Brian from Stornoway when we were both trustees of a conservation charity so I'm pleased to join him for Concert4Conservation and to throw the weight of Truck Festival behind the event. I've always been passionate about the environment and many of my songs have covered environmental themes. I know the great work all three charities do so I'm hoping we sell out the concert and raise as much as we can. Ever since I saw the refurbished Regal I've wanted to play there, so I can't wait!"

The Epstein - Olly Wills, Jon Berry and Sebastian Reynolds – released their latest EP, I Held You Once, earlier this year prompting Music Week to highlight the band as ‘one to watch in 2011’. The EP is the band’s first studio release since their debut album. Their next EP Calling Out Your Name will be released on September 5th and the album will follow in January 2012.

Olly Wills, lead singer of The Epstein said: “I’ve always been interested in the environment and Concert4Conservation is not only an opportunity for us to play with a couple of other great bands at a lovely venue, but also gives us a chance to help spread the word on some important issues. It’s going to be a great gig - a full power set featuring lots of new songs. We hope to have a few guests joining us on the night too.”

The three charities were chosen by Stornoway and funds raised will make a real difference, benefiting local wildlife as well as threatened habitats and critically endangered species overseas.

Helen Buckland, UK Director of the Sumatran Orangutan Society said: “We were incredibly excited when Stornoway agreed to take part in Concert4Conservation and with such great support acts too, it will be a very special night. Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered and by helping them we also help countless other species sharing their habitat. The funds raised will make a huge difference to our work.”

Harry Barton, Chief Executive of the Earth Trust said: “Stornoway are a fantastic band and I’m thrilled that they are supporting these incredibly important causes. It’s the decisions we all take today that are shaping the future of our climate, beautiful habitats and important species that we want to save. Getting people to realise this, and helping them take action, is what drives us at the Earth Trust.”

Emma Droy, RSPB Public Affairs Manager said: “Our lives are richer because of wildlife and superb places to enjoy nature. This is the perfect way to have fun, hear some top bands and support conservation work helping all kinds of species, from the birds of Oxfordshire to the amazing orangutans and hornbills of Sumatra’s rainforests.”

For earlybird tickets (£12) and standard tickets (£15) visit http://www.seetickets.com, http://www.wegottickets.com/event/126540 and Truck Store, 101 Cowley Road. Tickets on the door £16. All proceeds to SOS, Earth Trust and RSPB.

Truck Festival takes place on July 22nd-24th at Hill Farm, Steventon. This year, as well as co-presenting Concert4Conservation, Truck Festival are offering to donate £5 for every Truck Festival ticket sold on July 12th and 13th via http://www.truckfestival.com to the Concert4Conservation fund.

For more information about Stornoway, visit their website and follow them on twitter

The Dreaming Spires: http://www.thedreamingspires.com
The Epstein: http://www.theepstein.com
The Sumatran Orangutan Society: http://www.orangutans-sos.org
RSPB: http://www.rspb.org.uk
The Earth Trust: http://www.earthtrust.org.uk
The Regal: http://www.the-regal.com

Img © Alissa J. Robinson

There are few cities quite so perfect for writers than Oxford, a city teeming with literary history. Indeed Oxford has long been known as “the city of dreaming spires”, a phrase coined by the poet Matthew Arnold to describe the seven spires which dominate the cityscape. As someone who writes (but cannot yet justifiably call themselves a writer) I have used Oxford as a backdrop to most of my writing, whether it be in my novel Veneer which appears as almost a character in its own right or is often a backdrop in my poetry. Having lived here for ten years I feel it is in my blood, in a way my home town never was, and it is a sense of belonging that I also experienced in Liverpool where I studied as an undergraduate. In many ways I feel as though the rivers of both cities – the Mersey and the Cherwell – run in my veins. As a medieval town it is steeped in history, but its the centuries old association as a university town which gives Oxford a particularly rich literary heritage (both oppressive and inspiring to the beginner) as many of the great writers studied or wrote here, often immortalising Oxford in their work. There is even an annual literary festival which takes place in the early spring and celebrates the best of classic and contemporary literature in the beautiful grounds of Christ Church Meadows. With its many libraries and world class English department, it is a haven for young writers.

Anyone coming to the city with an interest in literature will have the opportunity to experience some of the literary treats available in Oxford that are not always apparent to the uninitiated traveller. Take for instance the Eagle and the Child pub, located on St. Giles’. This pub was once host to the Inklings, a writers group in the 1930s consisting of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who would often debate ideas about religion and the importance of narrative and read aloud something they were currently working on. Most famously Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (1954) and Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) had their first airing here. There is a plaque in the pub which commemorates the debates that took place amongst the famous writers and indeed my friends and I were almost thrown out many years ago for debating too loudly during a pub quiz. Tolkien was an undergraduate at Exeter College, later becoming a fellow at Pembroke and then Merton where he held the title Merton Professor of English Language and Literature. He lived in 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford and it was in this house that he wrote The Hobbit (1937) and the first two volumes of Lord of the Rings and it can be easily located by its English Heritage blue plaque. His grave can be found in the nearby Wolvercote cemetery.

C.S. Lewis was an undergraduate at University College and later a fellow at Magdalen. He was very close to J.R.R. Tolkien, whose strong influence brought him back to Christianity in his thirties. His relationship with Joy Gresham, an American pen pal, was beautifully captured in Richard Attenborough’s film Shadowlands (1993) with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger and includes many scenes filmed in Oxford, such as the Tea Rooms in the Randolph Hotel, Christ Church Meadows, Magdalen College, the Duke Humfrey’s Library (Bodleian Library), Radcliffe Camera and the Sheldonian Theatre. He is buried in Holy Trinity Church, Headington. Charles Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, studied as an undergraduate in Christ Church and is perhaps the writer most commonly associated with Oxford. Surprisingly maths was his degree subject, in which he gained a first and took up a Mathematical Lectureship, though this position bored him and he returned to his first love – writing. He is of course most famous for his fantastical tale Alice in Wonderland (1865) and there is a shop on St Aldates dedicated to all things Alice across from the main gate of Christ Church Meadows. His inspiration for the book came from the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Lidell, whose daughter Alice had a profound effect on him. He often rowed with the children along the Thames through Port Meadow to Godstow. It is at the nearby Saxon Church, St. Margaret’s in Binsey, that a small treacle well inspired his story.

Two other famous alumni of Oxford who had a profound effect on literature are Evelyn Waugh and Oscar Wilde. Waugh was an undergraduate at Hertford College and his most famous Oxford novel, Brideshead Revisited (1945), is a book which still has an enormous influence on the romantic view of Oxford held by both students and those who have never visited the city. He used his experiences of being an undergraduate in Hertford to amusing effect in Brideshead, basing the character of Charles on himself and Sebastian on his extravagant friend Harold Acton, vividly recreating the wildly hedonistic lifestyle he led there. He also captured the unusually close friendships some male students experience at the University and also the sense of Oxford as an idyll in which people simply punt, wear boaters, and drink champagne (with a teddy bear in tow). The landmark television series in the eighties starring Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews, as well as the more recent film adaptation with Matthew Goode and Ben Whishaw, both feature Hertford and much of Oxford prominently and offer the tourist plenty of options. Oscar Wilde won a demyship to Magdalen College after an exceptional first at Trinity College, Dublin. It was at Magdalen when he began to cultivate the dress and persona he is famous for today and indeed his rooms in the college are the most coveted amongst the student body.

Thomas Hardy is an interesting case as he is famously linked to Oxford because of his novel Jude the Obscure (1895) but he never studied nor lived in Oxford. His rather bleak, autobiographical novel concerns a working-class lad, Jude Fawley, who manages to educate himself by learning Greek and Latin and moves to Christminster (based on Oxford) in an attempt to study Classics there. His class and lack of formal education thwart his attempts and he eventually gives up his dreams when he becomes involved with his married cousin, Sue Bridehead. The novel in some ways is drawn from Hardy’s own life, coming from a working class family himself and having to end his education at sixteen due to a lack of social or financial means for a university education, instead training as an architect before turning to writing as a profession. The famous description through Jude’s eyes of Oxford’s spires twinkling in the valley is perhaps one of the most romantic and yearning passages ever written and can be experienced from the hills of Hinksey and Wytham. Novelist Iris Murdoch read classics as an undergraduate at Somerville College, then a women-only college, and later became a fellow at St. Anne’s. She spent many of her latter years living in a house in Summertown with her husband, John Bayley, and her ashes were spread in the gardens at the Oxford Crematorium after a long battle with Alzheimers. A film biography, Iris (2001), featuring Kate Winslet and Judi Dench, features many scenes in Oxford such as Magpie Lane, Merton Street, and Summertown.

It is not only long dead authors who have strong associations with Oxford. There are also many contemporary writers who either live here, studied here, and/or have written about the city in some way or another. Ian McEwan, possibly the greatest living English author, lived for a long time in the very affluent Victorian suburbs of North Oxford before relocating to London. Indeed, many of his novels feature Oxford in some way, such as Enduring Love (1997) and On Chesil Beach (2007). Philip Pullman is still very much a resident in Oxford, living in the once bohemian and now gentrified residential area of Jericho. He read English at Exeter College, a course he not altogether enjoyed, and later became a fellow at Oxford Brookes supporting their MA in Creative Writing. Pullman’s His Dark Materials (1995 – 2000) all feature Oxford in some way – in Northern Lights (1995) the main protagonist Lyra lives in Jordan College (based on Exeter) and various recognisable parts of Oxford feature, such as the Jericho Boatyard. In The Subtle Knife (1997) the hole into another universe is found by a row of poplar trees found on the Banbury Road, and in The Amber Spyglass (2000) the science area behind the Pitt River’s museum and the University Parks feature prominently. Pullman also wrote a short book called Lyra’s Oxford (2003) which offers information about his fictional versions of the Fell Press (OUP’s headquarters on Walton Street), Oratory of St Barnabas the Chymist (St Barnabus Church) and the now demolished Eagle Ironworks (Lucy’s).

Alan Hollinghurst read English at Magdalen College and famously shared a house here with ex-Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. He also lectured for Somerville and Corpus Christi, as well as his old college before writing professionally. Although he lives in Hampstead Heath and writes mostly about London, he partly recreated his experiences as an undergraduate in the Booker Prize winning novel The Line of Beauty (2004). Although none of the action takes place in Oxford, the main protagonist is newly graduated along with his best friend, Toby, and in many ways the novel pays homage to Waugh’s Brideshead Revisted (1945) before moving into political scandal and the AIDS crisis. Another famous Oxford writer many people will be familiar with is Collin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse novels which all take place in and around Oxford. They were adapted into a very successful TV series featuring John Thaw and a spin-off called Lewis, both of which feature Oxford. There are of course many famous poets who lived and wrote here, mostly famously Matthew Arnold who was thought of as the Poet Laureate of Oxford, studying as an undergraduate at Balliol College and then being made a Fellow at Oriel. Percy Bysshe Shelley studied at University College, though it was said he only attended one lecture, instead choosing to read for sixteen hours a day. He was famously expelled after his essay The Necessity of Atheism (1811) came to the attention of the University administration.

Oxford has long been associated with J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series after the dining hall at Christ Church was used in the film adaptations as a substitute for the dining hall in Hogwarts, bringing in hundreds of thousands of tourists on a weekly basis. Readers of more factual works might be interested to know that T.E. Lawrence, popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, studied History at Jesus College and later wrote his best known book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922), during a seven-year research fellowship at All Souls. As a boy T.E. Lwarence lived in 2, Polstead Road in North Oxford which has since been commemorated with an English Heritage blue plague. Other writers who might be of interest include William Golding, who studied at Brasenose and wrote Lord of the Flies (1954), Graham Greene who studied at Balliol and is perhaps best known for his novels Brighton Rock (1938) and The Third Man (1949), both turned into very successful films, and lastly John Fowles, an undergraduate at New College who went onto write The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969). Oxford is a city in which literary allusions are around every corner and inspiration for future writers constantly on tap, whether that be from the beautiful surroundings, the glorious architecture, the constant stream of sub fusc-clad students, or just reading the many literary depictions on offer. It is a city that stays firmly both in the heart and the imagination.

by P.H. Davies

Supernormal = an artist led festival that will be taking place in Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, from the 19th to the 21st of August



SUPERNORMAL is a surprising new addition to the summer calendar, a spontaneous and experimental artist-led event perfectly located in the magical looking-glass world that is Braziers Park in Oxfordhire. Explore a spectacle of cult live music, performance, discussion and cutting edge contemporary art in the sprawling ramshackle grounds. No ordinary festival, Supernormal returns to the fundamental spirit of utopianism, imagination and adventure that is all too often lost in the financially-driven, artistically nondescript realm of the twenty-first century festival circuit.

SUPERNORMAL continues a Braziers Park tradition of countercultural activity that dates back to the Second World War-the event takes place in the grounds of the 17th century mansion that is home to Britain's oldest secular community, as well as the Braziers Park School Of Integrative Social Research. As well as being the childhood home of Iain Fleming and Marianne Faithfull, the likes of Alexander Trocchi, R.D.Laing and John Latham have all contributed to the revolutionary Braziers spirit.

This year's SUPERNORMAL welcomes a host of guest curators, including Rocket Recordings, Heidi Heelz (Dice Club), and Matilda Strang (visual arts curator) who have assembled a fresh, diverse and sparkling array of cult musical attractions and curiosities, from the legendary psychedelic transgressions of Skullflower, paragons of ethereal experimentation Cindytalk, glam visionaries David Devant & his Spirit Wife and the last ever show by improv iconoclasts The A Band, to new talent like Gnod, Flats, Toy, Teeth Of The Sea, Gum Takes Tooth, Rose Elinor Dougall, and Maria And The Mirrors. Meanwhile, everything from an Anat-Ben David (Chicks On Speed) collaboration with Dirty Electronics to a Sing-A-Long-A-Wicker-Man event, from a 36-hour continuous musical perfomance from Hakarl and friends to a performative lecture entitled Post-Colonial Cannibal will be taking place amidst the verdant English countryside.

SUPERNORMAL is an intimate event for an exclusive audience of five hundred, allowing the exploration of the site and out-buildings where a whole range of events will take place. Not run for profit, it is organised and curated by a small network of artists and musicians who share the aims and ethos of this truly alternative event, and takes place on an eco-site with fresh running water, eco toilets and hot outdoor showers with a wooded camping area.


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For more information visit http://supernormalfestival.org.uk/

OXFORD is to trial its own “Boris Bikes” cycle hire scheme in the hope it will be rolled out in a city-wide scheme.

Visitors to Thornhill Park and Ride will be able to park up and hire a bicycle under the plans, which mirror a scheme introduced by Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

Oxfordshire County Council chiefs say the trial will go to the city’s four other park and rides if successful.

It is part of a Government cash boost that has also given the green light to a 500 space expansion of 850-space London Road park and ride for 2013.

Two new buses will also connect it to John Radcliffe and surrounding hospital sites and the city centre. It currently only stops at the Churchill and Nuffield hospitals.

And a new bus lane will also be installed along the London Road to the “hamburger” roundabout that connects the road to the northern and eastern by-pass.

The £3.5m plans were last night hailed as a key move towards cutting congestion and street parking, particularly among Oxford Brookes University and hospital workers.

Rodney Rose, cabinet member for transport at Oxfordshire County Council, said of the bike scheme: “It will be so much quicker for workers to get to work that way and relieve congestion for everybody else.”

He said it was too early to give prices for the scheme and how it would work in practice.

Bikes would be hired from Thornhill and returned there or at drop off points in the city, he said.

Mr Rose said of the long-mooted extension, on which work will start early next year: “It will make a big big difference.”

The news was welcomed by Delbrush Avenue resident Sue Barton, who said park and ride users often leave their cars across her drive and on grass verges.

She said: “If it has the desired affect then I will welcome it with open arms. The idea of supplying bikes is absolutely brilliant.”

Yet she said county plans to charge to park - yet to be agreed - could still hit residents. The £1-a-day charge was scrapped in 2008.

She said: “If they do that then people will start parking in residential streets.”

James Styring, spokesman for cycling campaign group Cyclox, said the cash could be better spent on other cycle schemes such as two-way lanes under Botley bridge.

He said: “To really work, it would need to be rolled out across the whole city.

“We wouldn’t want the scheme to fail if it wasn’t ambitious enough in scale.”

Brookes spokesman Edward Reed said: “We support initiatives which encourage sustainable transport and that aim to reduce peoples' reliance on cars.”

Oxford Bus Company managing director Philip Kirk said he was “delighted” with the news for the “extremely popular” park and ride.

He said: “The extra spaces will help keep more cars out of the centre of Oxford.”

The council has been given £5m, of which £1.8m will go on the extra spaces, £500,000 on the bus lane and £1.2m on the new buses.

The rest of the spaces cash will come from contributions from developers given as a condition of planning permission and council funds. Precise figures were not available.

The remaining £1.5m will go on the cycle scheme and other projects such as promotion of its car sharing scheme.

* Yesterday’s Oxford Mail reported a new cycle lane would be installed on London Road. This will in fact be a bus lane.

The article was based on incorrect information provided by the county council.

By Oliver Evans for The Oxford Times

"The Tree of Life" introduces a character pondering the meaning of existence as he searches for the answers to the universe's most perplexing questions. Undeniably impressive, it's a film that will have viewers posing questions as well, just not the ones its director may have intended.

For what Terrence Malick's complex, extraordinarily ambitious and years-in-the-making new feature unintentionally does is makes people ask what they want out of cinema. Are you looking for serious philosophizing, fluid filmmaking and stunning images? Or are satisfying drama and deep emotional connection what draws you in? Ideally you would have both, but that is not the case here.

"Tree of Life," which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, turns out to have the defects of its considerable virtues. Written and directed by Malick, it's a kind of ultimate American art film, a prolonged meditation on significant issues that is light on conventional narration and dialogue and heavy on voice-over appeals to a higher power. The story opens with a confrontational quote from the Book of Job ("Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth?") and is frequently punctuated by lines like "Who are we to you?" and "Always you are calling me."

This colloquy has the advantage of being accompanied by a carefully selected, largely choral soundtrack (snatches of Bach, Couperin, Mozart, Mahler, Smetana, Gorecki, Respighi, Holst and others) and images of extraordinary beauty luminously photographed by the four-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. "Tree of Life" is rife with surpassing visuals, whether it be natural phenomena like fiery volcanoes and raging waters or cosmological shots worked on in collaboration with effects supervisor Dan Glass and consultant Douglas Trumbull.

But the truth is, unless someone tells you that you are watching, for instance, what is supposed to be the formation of the universe or the day in the distant future when the sun becomes a white dwarf, there is no way to know exactly what you are seeing. It is, unfortunately, characteristic of this meditative and elliptical film that it is simply not possible for rank-and-file viewers to know as much about it as Malick does. It's hard to think of another film made on this scale that is as private and personal as "Tree of Life" feels.

If this is true of the film's astral projections, it is equally so when it comes to its dramatic sections. These star Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain as parents to three preteen boys in Waco, Texas, in the 1950s. The oldest, Jack, grows up to be an architect (played by Sean Penn) who appears surprisingly briefly and always in the context of struggling with God, his parents and the death of his brother R.L., an event that starts the film's drama.

Even if you don't know that Malick grew up in Texas, it is difficult not to watch these sections, shot in the Austin suburb of Smithville, without feeling that this is in part a memory piece. The filmmaker seems to see and feel things in these images and situations (for instance, the shaved back of one brother's head) that we do not.

The voice-over that sets the tone for the family story deals with the notion that there are "two ways through life, the way of nature and the way of grace," the former represented by Jack's father, the latter by his mother. "Nature is willful, it only wants to please itself, to have its own way." Grace, on the other hand, "is smiling through all things," believing "the only way to be happy is to love." It concludes with a melancholic, "Father, mother, always you wrestle inside me."

Though it took the production a year of looking at more than 10,000 boys before selecting the three non-professionals (Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler and Tye Sheridan) to play the brothers, the heavy lifting in this section is done by Pitt and Chastain.

Pitt, in one of his most effective performances, plays the father as a bull-necked disciplinarian who believes "it takes fierce will to get ahead in this world." He is a frustrated, aggrieved man who loves his family but sometimes allows his powerful temper to get the best of him. For her part, Chastain, a lovely and gifted young actress, beautifully handles what is an almost wordless portrayal of nurturing love.

While "Tree of Life" is observational in tone and doesn't have a plot in a conventional sense, much of what story it has features the three rambunctious boys, especially Jack, fighting against their authoritarian dad. Though heartfelt and well-acted - and with impeccable production design by Jack Fisk - this is quite a familiar story ("East of Eden" comes immediately to mind), and the director's opaque, distancing style almost ensures that it will be less involving than it wants to be.

Malick's intention is to use style and skill to imbue the ordinary with significance, to elevate this small-scale, single-family drama by interweaving it with cosmic preoccupations and the older Jack's soul-searching. While Malick's great ability holds us for a time, it is finally not enough to compensate for a lack of dramatic involvement - those eschatological quandaries tend to overwhelm the story.

"The Tree of Life," its enormous advantages notwithstanding, ends up a film that demands to be admired but cannot be easily embraced.

By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic

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