{"id":162395,"date":"2025-11-30T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T14:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=162395"},"modified":"2025-11-29T09:35:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T14:35:54","slug":"terrence-malick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=162395","title":{"rendered":"“I have trouble working off things that are too preconceived, like storyboards.” — Terrence Malick"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n“When people express what is most important to them, it often comes out in cliches. That doesn’t make them laughable \u2014 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<\/big><\/p>\n

It’s his birthday today. <\/p>\n

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<\/i> is, of course, a classic. You can still feel its influence. Days of Heaven<\/i>, which came out a decade after Badlands<\/i>, 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<\/i> – 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<\/i>, so I felt so smart when she showed up in Days of Heaven<\/i> and I knew who she was. Her voiceover in Days of Heaven<\/i> is without peer, in the category of “voiceovers.”<\/p>\n

After Days of Heaven<\/i> 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. <\/p>\n

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\nThen, in 1998, came The Thin Red Line<\/i>. 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<\/i> 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. <\/p>\n

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\nSince Thin Red Line<\/i>, 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? <\/p>\n

Last year, I wrote about Malick’s most recent film A Hidden Life<\/i><\/a> for Film Comment<\/i>. 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<\/i> 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<\/i> seemed like a wholly different movie than the one I first saw. <\/p>\n

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\nI 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<\/i> 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<\/i>, Song to Song<\/i> … 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<\/i> in particular). <\/p>\n

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\nMalick’s next film is in post-production right now. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Haven’t written much on Malick. Here are the things I’ve written (along with the piece on A Hidden Life<\/i> for Film Comment<\/i>:<\/p>\n

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\nFor Criterion, I wrote about the use of “Love is Strange”<\/a> in Badlands<\/i>. This was a fun one. <\/p>\n

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\nI saw Tree of Life<\/i> at the 2011 New York Film Festival. It knocked me flat. I reviewed for Capital New York.<\/a> <\/p>\n

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\nAnd finally: Days of Heaven<\/i> played at Ebertfest, the first one I attended. Haskell Wexler was in attendance! I wrote about it for my site. <\/a><\/p>\n

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\nThank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n