“When people express what is most important to them, it often comes out in cliches. That doesn’t make them laughable — it’s something tender about them. As though in struggling to reach what’s most personal about them they could only come up with what’s most public.” — Terrence Malick
It’s his birthday today.
I was “into” Malick before I ever knew about film critics or was one myself. Now that I’m deeply engrossed in that world, there is a little bit of a feeling that he’s “for” cinephiles, that he’s somehow esoteric, or “artsy” (too much), or whatever. I was into his first three films, all on my own, without any “official” permission – or even commentary from outside. His films appealed to me (and there were only two of them at the time I was “coming up”). Badlands is, of course, a classic. You can still feel its influence. Days of Heaven, which came out a decade after Badlands, was also a favorite, and I’ll never forget my first time seeing it. I was 16 or 17. And remember, I’m not seeing these in the movie theatre. I’m not that old. I’m renting them from a local video store (once we got a VCR, that is). Seeing Days of Heaven – or any Malick, for that matter – on a small screen is for sure not ideal. But you do what you have to do. Linda Manz was a part of my SOUL as a child, due to her role in the TV movie Orphan Train, so I felt so smart when she showed up in Days of Heaven and I knew who she was. Her voiceover in Days of Heaven is without peer, in the category of “voiceovers.”
After Days of Heaven came a twenty-year gap. If you had been hooked in by his unforgettable visuals and dreamy style – as I was – you never forgot him, he never left your radar, you wondered what he was up to, why he stopped making films.
Then, in 1998, came The Thin Red Line. And it was as though no time had passed. Or, time had passed, and he came back into focus, still with the same powers, except intensified, deeper, richer. What he had been moving towards with Linda Manz’s voiceover in Days of Heaven was now more than just a “device” – it became a stylistic fingerprint. That was 1998. It’s 20 years later again. And his films now are almost all voiceover. Or, voiceover dominates. And it’s not voiceover explaining what happened. It’s voiceover like a whispered prayer. Nobody uses voiceover like Malick.
Since Thin Red Line, he has made films more or less on a regular-ish schedule (in fact, increasing in frequency in the last 10 years). He has not slowed down. He has sped up. Some of his films have been scorned and/or dismissed. Dismissing an artist of his caliber is the height of laziness. Whether or not you “like” him is irrelevant. How do you place him? What is he actually DOING? What is he attempting to express?
Last year, I wrote about Malick’s most recent film A Hidden Life for Film Comment. In preparation, I watched all of his films (there aren’t that many), in chronological order. It was a wonderful experience, and it almost feels like they were meant to be watched that way. The films do bleed into one another, they all become part of the same whole, the meditative prayerful whole … and his style gets more and more extreme as he goes on. I disliked To the Wonder the first time I saw it (although I loved his visuals). Olga Kurylenko can’t act. Affleck seemed lost. McAdams just stood there in a field looking confused. I was bored. Watching it again, in the process of watching all his films … To the Wonder seemed like a wholly different movie than the one I first saw.
I stopped taking it literally. Instead I felt the themes Malick was working on. He’s more interested in themes than individual human beings anyway. So let go of the need for sharply delineated characters. They are few and far between in Malick. To the Wonder is really about looking for the meaning of life elsewhere, in Paris, the ex-pat experience, before returning home to Oklahoma, and discovering it right there at home. His themes are not all that complex or hard to understand. Other films followed. Knight of Cups, Song to Song … one looking at the culture of celebrity, of Hollywood, and the other a meditation on relationships in the context of a music festival in Austin, Malick’s home town. They’re beautiful films (Song to Song in particular).
Malick’s next film is in post-production right now.
No matter what: I am here for it. I am here for whatever he feels like doing. I will try to be open to it. No other filmmaker puts me in the state of mind Malick does. It’s almost like a discipline, a practice, like meditation. You must – or I must – almost forcefully put away my expectations, and submit to what Malick wants to show me. And this practice always reaps huge rewards.
Haven’t written much on Malick. Here are the things I’ve written (along with the piece on A Hidden Life for Film Comment:
For Criterion, I wrote about the use of “Love is Strange” in Badlands. This was a fun one.
I saw Tree of Life at the 2011 New York Film Festival. It knocked me flat. I reviewed for Capital New York.
And finally: Days of Heaven played at Ebertfest, the first one I attended. Haskell Wexler was in attendance! I wrote about it for my site.
You write about many things that I really struggle to understand or appreciate, let alone enjoy. These things include Tree Of Life, Melancholia, and pretty much all poetry (apart from Ogden Nash). But when I read you writing about such things, you make me want to try with them again. This, to me, is what truly great criticism – the only kind we need – is all about. It opens up your perspective. Even when I still can’t get to the end (poetry may always be a massive problem for me – why can’t they just talk normally argh) at least I’m now aware of what I’m missing.
You’re the best critic I’ve ever read. Far and away.
Russel – my goodness, thank you so much! You have put into words exactly what I want to do – AND how I feel about the writers I love. Like, okay I have no idea what this thing is or why it matters so much to this person, but now I am curious. I love it when a writer can do that for me, and I am so pleased and touched that my writing would do that for you.
“why can’t they just talk normally argh” lol Sometimes it does get to be a little too much!
I truly appreciate you taking the time to leave this comment. Thank you so much!
I’m so glad you were happy to read my comment. (And relieved, in case you were wondering who this philistine was littering up your site.) A lot of criticism seems to coldly pass judgment, the value of which I think is summed up precisely in the restaurant review at the end of Ratatouille (that bit always makes me cry). But your criticism is so sensitive and provides insight, without ever taking any crap. Logic tells me that should be a delicate balance, but you write like its a solid platform. It’s as if you can see more colours than most people, and reading your work improves my vision. Your website is an incredible resource for anyone who enjoys reading, writing and watching stuff. So it is I that should be thanking you. Thank you!
Russell – busy times, it took me a while to come back here.
// Logic tells me that should be a delicate balance, but you write like its a solid platform. //
What a cool observation and I so appreciate it.
Honestly, I don’t have to try to do this – it’s just kind of my way, with my friends, with everything – we just blab about our obsessions and introduce each other to cool stuff.
An interesting thing happened early on in my journey with this writing thing. I got a gig with a new streaming platform that also was going to have original content included. I was asked to write something about The Belle of Amherst (the filmed version of Julie Harris’ one-woman show). I know a lot about Emily Dickinson so I put my HEART into that thing. The editor came back and had completely re-written my piece, adding all kinds of words I would never use, wrenching it into a more … academic? or distant … tone of voice. I was horrified. and also too new at the gig to realize the problem was him and not me. I pushed back a little bit – and he made changes – but not enough. He really just could not deal with my … non-scholarly language, is the only way I could put it. He is a very nice person, but he was so used to reading things that had a certain tone that when confronted with my tone, he rejected it. i finally said to him – because I don’t give af – “I feel like there’s been some misunderstanding here – I don’t recognize this language. It’s totally cool if my style is not your site’s style – but if you want to put that piece up, you might as well just put your byline and not mine. I totally won’t be offended.” (And I wouldn’t.) This guy was mortified. He put my language back in and put it up – although there were still vestiges of his distant scholarly style.
Anyway. It was weird, because he asked me to write for them – so presumably he knew I didn’t write like his “cinephile” pals and was fine with that.
It was a good lesson. Sometimes it’s a challenge to not write like everybody else – people ignore you or sometimes condescend. But … you can only do your own thing. You can’t try to write like other people. Like … why even do that? The only thing you have to offer is your own way of putting things into words!
anyway, that’s a long ramble – mainly to say thank you so much for seeing what I’m doing and responding to it so strongly – it REALLY means a lot.
That’s a very nice exchange you had with Mr Prout. I agree wholly with him, other than his perspective on poetry. Poetry can be so powerful to me, such as the one in my head right now about the fingernails of the dead continuing to grow, haha. Not sure why that is reverberating in my brain.
I’ve never been able to connect with Malick. I’ve seen Badlands and Days of Heaven, seen The Thin Red Line, Tree of life and The New World. I didn’t hate any of them, but his art is mostly a flatline for me. The one I found most beautiful was The New World. His visuals are vividly rendered, yet the voice coming out of the screen is vague to me, most of all Tree of Life. That’s the film I connected least with, even though I was intrigued by the bold risks that were taken (and now, a moment with dinosaurs behaving dysfunctionally). Though I’ve only seen less than half of his films, I’m guessing that dino scene and its role in the film was a complete anomaly in his catalog. But most of all, it just made me scratch my head. What is your take on that scene?
I wrote about the dino scene in my review of Tree of Life which I linked to.
All of those cosmic scenes in Tree of Life were definitely an anomaly. To me, the dino scene is a classic Malick moment. I disagree with his “worldview” on an almost visceral level – this comes up for me constantly with Malick. New World had this worldview too. Malick believes in innocence. I don’t. I go into it in a little bit more depth in the Tree of Life review.
Doesn’t keep me from loving his films, but it’s definitely a barrier for many.