The films of Terrence Malick
Hollywood's history of accommodating auteurs has been spotty, and many a genius director's film career has been dashed in the struggle between art and commerce. Among iconoclastic filmmakers, Terrence Malick is probably the most unusual case. His longevity vs. film output ratio is wide (his first five films spanned 38 years), and his reclusive personality (Malick interviews are even rarer than Malick movies) creates tremendous frustration for studio publicity departments and film journalists. Yet many of his movies are acknowledged masterpieces - meditations on themes of morality, empathy, the power and inscrutability of Nature, and - in "The Tree of Life" - the very essence of existence. (Pictured: Malick on the set of "Days of Heaven.")
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan
"Badlands"
Born in 1943 and raised in Texas, Malick graduated Harvard University summa cum laude and was a Rhodes scholar - his interest in philosophy culminating in a 1969 translation of a book by German philosopher Martin Heidegger. But after an unsatisfying try at teaching, and stints as a journalist for Life and The New Yorker, Malick attended the American Film Institute's first filmmaking class (alongside such students as David Lynch and Paul Schrader). After working as a script doctor (films included "Pocket Money" and an uncredited draft of "Dirty Harry"), he and producer Edward Pressman cobbled together $300,000 in financing to shoot Malick's original script, "Badlands" (1973), starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.
"Badlands"
Inspired by the true story of youthful murderers Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, "Badlands" is atypical of young-criminals-on-the-run sagas. Kit (Sheen), a fastidious garbage man who attracts a teenage girl, Holly (Spacek, in her first role), leads her on a spree of wanton murder. Kit kills Holly's father (Warren Oates) and several law enforcement officers, and teaches her the way of violence.
The murders are set against Holly's plaintive, eerily ambivalent voiceover narration. "We had our bad moments, like any couple. Kit accused me of only being along for the ride, while at times I wished he'd fall in the river and drown, so I could watch."
"Badlands"
When "Badlands" debuted at the New York Film Festival most critics responded to a bright new talent in Malick. The New York Times' Vincent Canby described "Badlands" as a "cool, sometimes brilliant, always ferociously American film." Warner Brothers picked it up for distribution. Malick won Best Director and Sheen Best Actor at the San Sebastian International Film Festival, and Spacek was nominated for a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer.
"Badlands"
In a 1975 interview about "Badlands," Malick told Beverly Walker writing for the British magazine Sight & Sound that he preferred Holly (and female characters in general) to Kit: "They're more open to things around them, more demonstrative. Kit, on the other hand, is a closed book, not a rare trait in people who have tasted more than their share of bitterness in life. The movies have kept up a myth that suffering makes you deep - it inclines you to say deep things, it builds character and is generally healthful; it teaches you lessons you never forget. People who've suffered go around in movies with long, thoughtful faces, as though everything had caved in just yesterday. It's not that way in real life, though, not always. Suffering can make you shallow and just the opposite of vulnerable - dense. It's had this kind of effect on Kit."
"Badlands"
Appearing at the 2007 Rome Film Festival - where he was to discuss Italian films rather than his own - Malick did open up a little about his own work. He revealed that his on-screen cameo in "Badlands" was the result of an actor not showing up to play his part. With no other options on the extremely-low budget film, Malick donned a Stetson and stepped in. He admitted a preference to remaining behind the camera.
"Days of Heaven"
"Days of Heaven" (1978) was a different breed from typical Hollywood period films. Though its luscious cinematography (blown up to 70mm) was epic, the film was shot with a sensibility similar to that of the French New Wave of the 1960s. This was no doubt helped by Malick hiring cinematographer Nestor Almendros, a favorite DP of Francois Truffaut's.
"Days of Heaven"
The story involves a young man and his lover (Richard Gere, Brooke Adams) who pretend to be brother and sister as they hide from the law. When the woman catches the eye of a wealthy, dying farmer (Sam Shepard), Gere's character convinces her into a marriage so they would stand to inherit his wealth.
"Days of Heaven"
Cinematographer Nestor Almendros eschewed any practical lighting for exteriors, and at Malick's urging shot much of the picture in "magic hour" - the period between the setting sun and encroaching darkness that provided a magical, golden glow to the landscapes, silhouettes and skies. When Almendros had to leave early because of a prior commitment to shoot Truffaut's "The Man Who Loved Women," veteran feature and documentary cinematographer Haskell Waxler ("One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest," "Bound for Glory") completed the shoot.
"Days of Heaven"
Handheld camerawork (using the new Panaglide camera, a form of Steadicam) gave a grounded immediacy to the pretty images. Pictured: Linda Manz and Jackie Shultis.
"Days of Heaven"
"Films are not about talk; it's about images and feelings and moments," Richard Gere said in a recent interview for the Criterion Collection. "It's not even about story in the end - you don't remember stories as much as you can remember a moment in a movie. It somehow cuts through everything else, it's like a dream image. So it ended up being a much more silent movie than the original script, which really was a very full, normal kind of script."
"Days of Heaven"
"Days of Heaven" casting director Barbara Claman called Linda Manz, who had never acted before, a natural. "She never went to classes, never studied. She was wonderful at being," Claman told People magazine in 1994.
But, Claman added, "there weren't a lot of jobs open for just being."
After Manz's debut in "Days of Heaven" and a small role in "The Wanderers," she co-starred with Dennis Hopper in "Out of the Blue" and Leif Garrett in "Longshot," before dropping off the radar. After marrying and raising three children, Manz reappeared in small roles in "Gummo" and David Fincher's "The Game."
"Days of Heaven"
Locusts rise up from the wheat fields. "Days of Heaven" was named Best Picture by the National Board of Review. In addition to winning an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Nestor Almendros, the film was also Oscar-nominated for Best Sound, Patricia Norris' costume design, and Ennio Morricone's score. Malick won Best Director from the New York Film Critics Circle and at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.
But following this critical acclaim - and a healthy stipend from Paramount to develop his next film - Malick virtually disappeared.
Planned Projects
Rumors circulated that the reclusive director - splitting his time between Austin and Paris - was developing scripts (including one involving dinosaurs and the origins of the Earth) but never getting them before the cameras, a condition Los Angeles magazine writer Joe Gillis dubbed "director's block." Malick worked on a Jerry Lee Lewis musical bio, which he never completed (and which was ultimately filmed by Jim McBride as "Great Balls of Fire"), and an adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel "Desert Rose." He also wrote a stage show - based on a Japanese film, "Sansho the Bailiff" - that never opened. Malick's refusal to grant any interviews only added to his aura of an artist rejecting the commerce of Hollywood - or a filmmaker who just couldn't decide what to do.
"The Thin Red Line"
After two decades, Malick returned to direct a film version of the James Jones novel "The Thin Red Line" (1998), about the Battle of Guadalcanal. Just as his previous films had turned genres on their ends, this World War II film rejected both the rah-rah heroism of Greatest Generation war movies and the cynicism of Vietnam-era battles. Instead, Malick delivered an introspective story of humans lost in a conflict larger than their understanding.
"The Thin Red Line"
The film featured a strong cast: Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, James Caviezel, Elias Koteas, John Cusack, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney, and - having missed out on the Richard Gere role in "Days of Heaven" - John Travolta.
"The Thin Red Line"
Malick places his characters on a precipice of awareness and memory, with flashbacks of women and family back home. There is also narration, but unlike in "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven," the sentiments expressed in voiceover are more questioning than declamatory, the speakers less sure of their purpose. Pictured: Miranda Otto.
"The Thin Red Line"
Malick does have his detractors, calling the filmmaker's long, artful images of grass, water and clouds, and recurring voiceovers, pretentious. [Overheard at a N.Y. screening of "Thin Red Line" was one young man's summation: "I thought movies were supposed to be entertaining."]
Nonetheless, his films' audacious style has passionate fans. "The Thin Red Line" earned seven Oscar nominations (including Best Picture), and Malick won Best Director from the New York Film Critics Circle.
"The Thin Red Line"
Director Terrence Malick on the set of "The Thin Red Line" (1998).
"The New World"
It was another seven years before another Malick film debuted. The Cliff Notes description of "The New World" (2005) was that it told the love story of English adventurer John Smith (Colin Ferrell, below) and Native American Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher).
"The New World"
The story it really told was of clashing cultures, the motivations behind exploration and conquest, and ultimately the tranquil stillness of a world undisturbed by the greed of man.
"The New World"
Colin Ferrell in Terrence Malick's "The New World" (2005).
"The New World"
Q'orianka Kilcher received the Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actress Award from the National Board of Review "The New World." Her later credits include "Princess Kaiulani," "Neverland," and the TV series "Sons of Anarchy."
"The New World"
Christopher Plummer, Q'orianka Kilcher and Christian Bale in Terrence Malick's "The New World" (2005).
"The New World"
Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki received an Academy Award nomination for his work on "The New World." (After nominations for "A Little Princess," "Sleepy Hollow," "Children of Men" and "The Tree of Life," Lubezki would win three Oscars in a row, for "Gravity," "Birdman" and "The Revenant.")
"The Tree of Life"
It was several more years before Malick's next feature was revealed: "The Tree of Life," a family drama spanning two generations - as well as the entire breadth of Earth's existence. Due to Malick's familiar reticence, information about the film (which starred Brad Pitt and Sean Penn) was sparse prior to its release, except for intriguing rumors about dinosaurs.
"The Tree of Life"
"The Tree of Life" - the bulk of which is set in 1950s Texas - is in some respects a conversation between its characters and God, or Nature, or the life force that is responsible for our existence. An extended sequence that spans the very origins of life on Earth - much of it shot in IMAX - was created by visual effects master Douglas Trumbull ("2001: A Space Odyssey").
"The Tree of Life"
But the core of "Tree of Life" focuses on the the dynamics of a Texas family headed by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, and how the conflicts between husband and wife, male and female, filter down to the children they shape - and how a family tragedy can alter and undermine those dynamics. The film is suspected of being at least partly autobiographical, but Malick and his colleagues do not expand on that.
"The Tree of Life"
Malick shot the film in Texas in an unusually free-flowing style. Actors spoke of Malick directing the camera away from them while they spoke dialogue, to capture scenery or lighting that appealed to him. Sometimes serendipity - the alighting on Jessica's Chastain's hand of a butterfly - was more key to informing the story than anything written in the script.
"The Tree of Life"
Filming "The Tree of Life" (2011).
Cannes Film Festival
Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt arrive at "The Tree of Life" premiere, at the 64th Cannes Film Festival, May 16, 2011. The film won the festival's highest award.
Terrence Malick earned an Oscar nomination in January 2012 for directing "The Tree of Life." The film was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Cinematography.
More on "The Tree of Life":
Photo: Oscars 2012 - "The Tree of Life"
Photos: "The Tree of Life" at Cannes
"To The Wonder"
Terrence Malick's next film was "To the Wonder," a romantic drama set in France and Oklahoma, starring Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams (pictured), Olga Kurylenko and Javier Bardem. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2012, and was released in the U.S. in April 2013.
"To The Wonder"
Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko in "To the Wonder."
In what was the last published review of the Chicago Sun-Times critic, Roger Ebert wrote of "To the Wonder": "A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear. Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision. ...
"There will be many who find 'To the Wonder' elusive and too effervescent. They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need."
"Knight of Cups"
In "Knight of Cups," which premiered at the 2015 Berlin Film Festival, Christian Bale plays a screenwriter living a dissolute existence in Los Angeles. The film costars Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman and Brian Dennehy.
As in "In the Wonder," Malick eschews a straight-forward plot and dialogue in "Knight of Cups." (Actors were often not given dialogue, and were forced to improvise scenes.) There are voiceovers and snippets of conversations overheard, which suggest the tensions in relationships between lovers, siblings, or a father and his sons.
"Knight of Cups"
Named for a tarot card figure, "Knight of Cups" follows Bale's screenwriter as he wanders through an opulent landscape searching for purpose among a retinue of lovers and a fractured family. The film, loosely inspired by "The Pilgrim's Progress," is divided into chapters signifying figures from the tarot.
Hollywood and Las Vegas are seen as marvels of architectural precision, dazzling light and cool textures, but the mysteries of nature (as when an earthquake and its aftershocks upend Bale and his neighbors) can still assert their power.
"Knight of Cups"
Shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, the film creates mood through light, painting a city in which hedonism is rampant, and emotional connections are tenuous, if possible at all.
"Knight of Cups"
Its most striking images are playful (an underwater shot of a dog chasing a ball in a pool), or allude to the artifice of contemporary culture.
As with "The Tree of Life," critics were divided on "Knight of Cups," either marveling at or dismissing its experimental nature.
"Voyage of Time."
A scene from the Terrence Malick nature documentary "Voyage of Time," which explores the origins of life in the universe, with visual effects that recall "The Tree of Life."
Malick prepared two versions of the film - one, shorter with narration by Brad Pitt aimed at younger audiences, released in Fall 2016 in IMAX format; and a longer, standard release, narrated more philosophically by Cate Blanchett.
Filming "Weightless"
In 2011 YouTuber Michael Brown captured cellphone video of Terrence Malick (right) directing Haley Bennett (center) and Christian Bale at the Austin City Limits Festival.
The music-tinged romantic drama - now titled "Song to Song," starring Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman, and without Bale or Bennett - was the opening feature of the SXSW Film Festival in March 2017, six years later.
"Song to Song"
In "Song to Song," Rooney Mara is part of a romantic triangle between songwriter Ryan Gosling and music producer Michael Fassbender. The fleetingly-edited film contains moments of intimacy and yearning, like fragments of memory. With the camera's point of view frequently shifting from participant to observer, it is hard to discern whose memory is being evoked.
"Song to Song"
Natalie Portman and Michael Fassbender in "Song to Song." Like "Knight of Cups," the movie was beautifully shot by Emmanuel Lubezki, with its visual style and moods reminiscent of Italian auteur Michelangelo Antonioni.
At a rare public appearance at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University in 2016, Malick discussed the allure of digital moviemaking, which grants both tremendous freedom and an unwieldy amount of footage to edit. He also spoke about the disadvantages of improvisational filming, saying he had "repented" and was going back to working with more conventionally-prepared screenplays. As reported by the magazine Little White Lies, Malick said, "It actually makes it easier to improvise when you have rails underneath you."
"A Hidden Life"
Malick returned to a more straightforward mode of narrative with his World War II drama "A Hidden Life," a story about faith which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. Based on a true story, the film describes the moral test facing Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter (August Diehl), who refuses to fight for the Nazi cause when the Germans annex his country.
The film met with near-universal praise, and was a considered a strong contender for the forthcoming awards season.
"The Tree of Life"
For more info:
"Song to Song" (Broad Green Pictures)
"Voyage of Time" (IMAX)
"Knight of Cups" (Broad Green Pictures)
"To the Wonder" (Magnolia Pictures)
"The Tree of Life" (Fox Searchlight)
"The New World" (Criterion Collection)
"The Thin Red Line" (Criterion Collection)
"Days of Heaven" (Criterion Collection)
"Badlands" (Criterion Collection)
By CBSNews.com senior producer David Morgan