The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick
lrb.co.uk76 points by mitchbob 16 days ago
76 points by mitchbob 16 days ago
I watched Tree of Life in the cinema. I was spellbound. It spoke directly to me, no mental processing of a story, I was tuned to this film. I didn't feel its time. As the film ended a girl behind me said to her friends 'this was the biggest piece of shit I have ever seen'. I understood her and it was a perfectly fine opinion. She didn't 'get it', but it didn't have to do with taste or intelligence or anything like this. She was just not able to receive it - as if it was a signal sent she could not process.
Our wedding rings have these words from the film engraved: 'unless you love, your life will flash by'. We married late - our kids were already almost at school. The love in the words is about the love of your family, just like in the film.
And why the Thin Red Line is perfect - just view the "Swing Scene" as a work of religious art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s40YpEsVkxk The inner monologue of Ben Chaplin's private Bell about what the role of love is when you encounter war, asking 'Who lit this flame in us' is a visual prayer.
(And yes, this is Miranda Otto, aka Eowyn)
I know what you mean, I had the same effect from the David Lynch Dune movie. I went in blind, had no idea what I was about to see other than that it was scifi.
Put it on and didn't even make it to a chair before I was spellbound. I stood for the whole movie, feeling as if ages had passed while I was rooted to the ground like a mountain watching seasons pass in stop motion.
I've watched it maybe 6 times since, nothing has quite recaptured that perfect first watch.
I love it too, I actually decided to never read the book because all the book readers I have talked to hated it.
Highly recommend the upscaled to 4k fan edit on YouTube. They splice in lost footage that was cut from Lynch’s initial edit.
The book is fine. I saw the movie before the book and there are some obvious changes but nothing so terrible that it ruins anything.
I think I loved everything about The Tree of Life except for the scenes with Sean Penn. Whatever mysterious antipathy the girl behind you in the cinema felt for the movie, I felt for Sean Penn. The kind and probably accurate interpretation is that actors are at the mercy of their directors and editors in movies like this, but his scenes don't feel like they're part of the same movie.
The Tree of Life was one of the only films I’ve ever considered walking out of, I hated every moment of it. I’m delighted to hear you were spellbound by it.
I actually walked out of it. I was not alone, several others did before me.
I saw it without knowing what it was about, it was a summer evening, I was alone and just decided to see a movie as I passed the theatre.
When I came home and learned it was the same director as the Thin Red Line, I was blown away. Same director of both the best and the worst movie I have seen.
That’s totally valid. I think the film either resonates deeply or not at all, and both responses are completely legitimate. I can absolutely see how it could feel pretentious drivel to some. I assume for me it directly evokes emotions of my childhood (catholic upbringing by a loving mother). I also really appreciate you being happy for me. That's true empathy.
Like the first line says, he is probably the least known famous director. That is, he is not an activist and not flashy, doesn't make a lot of movies, and the general public simply doesn't know about him. But all the other movie directors and famous actors know him and kind of idolize him.
When Thin Red Line came out in 1998 he hadn't done a movie since 1978 (Days of Heaven) and yet he snagged all the famous actors to play in it: Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel (though he wasn't as famous then), George Clooney, Jared Leto, Nick Nolte, John Travolta and others. It's like they were tripping over themselves to be in his film.
But I can't fault the general public for not knowing him either. His movies are more "artsy" so he is like like an American version of Andrey Tarkovsky -- you have to really be in the mood for his movies, like watching Stalker or Mirror by Tarkovsky.
If you haven't seen it, A Hidden Life has the most Tarkovsky feel to it for me. It felt very inspired by Mirror, specifically. I say that as a person who loves both films, too.
I can't believe the author of the article so blithely dismissed To The Wonder, Knight of Cups, and The New World. The New World is probably my favorite of all Malick's films so far.
Kind of like a "musician's musician"—ones whose names come up often in interviews with famous musicians, and often have covers of their songs by more-famous artists become very popular, but are largely out of the limelight, at least relative to their fame and influence in certain circles.
IIRC Travolta was a furious that his role was brutally cut to almost nothing after shooting a decent amount of footage, and at least a couple of well known actors were fully out of the final cut.
They were indeed tripping to be in the film, that's one thing I remember clearly, rumours of some actors begging to be in the movie for free.
They were falling over themselves to make *a* movie with him. Not so much *another* movie with him. I just happened to watch a video about that this morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqoQoN-Pb5I
> They were falling over themselves to make a movie with him. Not so much another movie with him. I just happened to watch a video about that this morning
I think one of the main points of the movie is there is no "lead actor". In that regard it's realistic as far as wars go -- there is no "Tom Hanks" character going to rescue a "Private Ryan" with magic plot armor surrounding him. As an aside, that movie was released the same year, so it makes for a great contrast.
Jim Caviezel's character (Witt) sort of became like a main character in the end but he still dies, surrounded and shot. Granted he sacrificed himself, which is notable, as well.
There have been other war films with uncannily twinkly star studded cast lists.
The Longest Day (1962) claims Sean Conery, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, and Robert Mitchum amongst it's cast members.
A Bridge Too Far (1977) Includes Anthony Hopkins, Robert Redford, Sean Connery, James Caan, Gene Hackman, Ryan O'Neil and Lawrence Olivier amongst it's ensemble.
A Thin Red Line is notable for the number of high profile actors whose parts got whittled down to almost nothing in the editing room.
His movies may be "artsy" but he had a big influence on cinema. I watched Badlands for the first time a couple of years ago and I kept having to remind myself that it was made in 1973, not 1993 or 2003. It just seems like a film that's out of place in time, but that seems to be because it influenced later films.
> His movies may be "artsy" but he had a big influence on cinema
Of course, that's why all the movie directors and actors and people who are into film like him. But take a person off the street and put in front of a Malick movie and don't be surprised if they walk out. Someone in the sibling threads said that much.
But yeah, I watched The Thin Red Line in the cinema twice when it came out, but also acknowledge that I am probably in the minority.
The taste of the general public is not a good meter for the quality of literally anything. The ability of a artwork to grip a person is important, but what many people do not realize is that it can be at times nearly arbitrary who is impacted by a piece of art and who isn't.
Artsy films like that may not get the populus into the cinemas and entertain them in a bread and games way, but them not trying to do that is exactly the reason they have the ability to hit deeper (if you let them).
In his memoires the soviet director Andrey Tarkovsky describes and quotes from letters regular people wrote about his films, many of which have been deeply moved. Films that make Terrence Malick look like mainstream and can be a tough watch if you go into them with the wrong energy.
Yet I remember his film Stalker striking a chord within me I didn't even know existed and you can't say this of many films.
I saw it in the theatre and “what sort of animal is man?” has been one of my stock phrases ever since.
This book is particularly great about discussing the process of filmmaking, which in Malick's case often seems to involve a ton of experimentation through editing in order to shape a film after photography had finished.
(Some of this editing work notably led to major actors having their roles cut from films. Adrien Brody, for example, apparently believed that he was going to have the lead role in _The Thin Red Line_ but ended up entirely cut.)
For those interested, Richard Brody's book about Godard and Carrie Rickey's book about Agnes Varda are similarly detailed about the specifics of their filmmaking work!
Those interested may also really like this article about the cinematography of _Days of Heaven_: https://theasc.com/articles/photographing-days-of-heaven
> My work became "de-illuminating," that is, removing the false and conventional light.
I still remember seeing The Tree of Life in theaters. What an incredible experience that was.
Oh I remember that movie, very relaxing, put me right to sleep zzz
Ask your doctor if TikTok™ is right for you.
There's a wide range of attention spans between a 2-hour experimental film and TikTok.
I remember being so bored during this movie in the theater. My expectations of any plot whatsoever were unreasonably high.
I have to say that I'm jealous. I hope I get the same opportunity. His films are so moving to me. In the way that life itself moves.
Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line are simply the most beautiful films ever made.
I don't know if I would call The Thin Red Line "beautiful" but I think it's a great (anti-)war movie.
I wouldn't call it anti-war per se. It's a deeply spiritual movie, against the backdrop of war.
Seeing it in a packed theater with a bunch of teenagers on a Friday night ruined it for me the first time. They were expecting another “Saving Private Ryan” and got something totally different, so decided to entertain themselves through obnoxious behavior and mockery.
I think I would call it cinematographically beautiful, and parts of it were meant to be really be visually beautiful. But it all had to be contrasted with carnage, death, fear, and all the ugliness of war.
Malick's genius is his poetry. He is not a storyteller.
If you are able to grok cinema as a spiritual tone-poem then you dig him, otherwise you will hate him.
It’s fun to rewatch Days of Heaven once you’ve unlocked that each of the main characters is tied to a different element (earth, wind, fire, and water). That he could employ such a straightforward and have it all work so well is still astonishing to me. A nearly perfect film.
That article was so poorly written, I struggled to get through it, save for my interest in Malick. What a half baked analysis of Thin Red Line. There's just so much more going on in that movie than the author gives credit for.
>There is a new film in the works, The Way of the Wind, about the life of Christ. Géza Röhrig plays Jesus, Mark Rylance is Satan. It was shot in 2019. The word is that it will open at Cannes in May. But I’m not sure they said which year.
Sadly not this year either :(
Probably my most anticipated film of the decade, I loved all the Terrence Malick films I've seen so far.
The guy to go to if you want an awful boring movie
So, you've seen Days of Heaven, too?
(actually, I only lasted through the first 20 minutes)
While The Thin Red Line is fantastic, I share your dislike of Days of Heaven. Lauded as a masterpiece, when I finally watched it I couldn't understand how.
His secret to success was doing nothing for 20 years and letting idiots build him into a genius in the void of anything which would have demonstrated otherwise
I lasted through the film only because of the cinematography, the other parts are overrated.