Terence Malick movies

L

LCHorn

100+ Posts
I just finished watching Badlands and have now seen his entire filmography. Aside from a general appreciation of technique, I don't think I "get" the appeal.

Does anyone understand why he is considered one of the great film makers?
 
I personally think a big part of it is how infrequently he makes a movie. I do consider Days of Heaven a great movie almost entirely because of the cinematography. Maybe that's more on Nestor Almendros than Malick...
 
I'll take a stab at the question.

In Badlands and Days of Heaven he conveys a great deal using purely cinematic techniques. In Badlands, the vast plains suggest an emptiness that the restless killer and his girlfriend try to fill with a crime spree. As interesting as Sheen is, he is as empty as the land he roams. It's a desolate portrait somehow conveyed with beauty and romance without romanticizing the vile actions.

Days of Heaven takes the same vast plains and makes them an emblem of plenty that, ironically, brings forth the moral emptiness of another greedy couple in love with each other and damaged from wandering want.

Both of those stories are held together by the excellence of the cinematography (hats off to the DP, but it's the director who places the camera and decides the frame), the pregnancy of quiet scenes and the unease of characters.

I was disappointed in The Thin Red Line when I saw it in the theater, but found it hard to turn off whenever I stumbled upon it on cable. I can't think of another movie that I've preferred to watch in parts rather than all at once, and I don't even know what to make of that revelation.

Malick is doing something with film that reflects his own worldviews and very particular way of storytelling. That some people don't like it is evidence of just how far he is willing to go out on a limb to attain his vision on film. Fortunately for him and those who like his films, there are enough fans inside and outside the industry to keep him going. He may not always succeed, but he is always interesting to some of us. (I don't think that people who don't like Malick are idiots. It's a taste thing.)

Another thing Malick has going for him in the industry is that he has done a lot of uncredited rewrite work on films even during the years he was not directing. He is an odd duck from what I have heard, for instance, taking calls only in phone booths so nobody would know exactly where in Texas he was.

My two cents.
 
You may not like his style, which always seeks to use nature and an approximation of its pacing, along with the ways that nature interacts with human events and timekeeping, but he has to be given credit for knowing how to create atmosphere and a strange sense of longing. All of his films intimate the ephemeral aspects of the human experience, the attempts to accomplish small schemes and grand on a canvas that washed us away on a relentless basis.

I think Badlands and Gates of Heaven are two spectacularly effective films. Thin Red Line and New World not so much, though the latter I have seen only in pieces.

He has been filming in and around Austin (Smithville, etc.). They built a friend of mine a shed, for which he was grateful and a little bit star struck ('I looked out my kitchen window and there was Brad Pitt in the alley next to my house.').
 
I haven't seen The Thin Red Line since it came out in the theatre, largely because I despised it on my first viewing. I know that there are at least several people on here who think it's a great movie, and maybe I should give it another shot.

I read and like The Thin Red LIne, and I thought it was fairly true to what I know about Guadalcanal historically. I thought that the movie was true neither to the book or historical accounts of the battle, and I had a lot of trouble with that. It's a personal issue I have with historical fiction, I guess.
 
I posted this about "The New World" and Malick after I enjoyed that movie as a rental.

The Link

Visually very beautiful; but very, very slow, although continually interspersed with moments of intense action and/or emotion.

Probably much as life actually was in the New World.

I think that length is one of the chosen ways that director/writer Terrence Malick conveys his message.

As, to varying degrees, do Robert Altman, Werner Hertzog and Stanley Kubrick.

Long tracking shots, lingering scenes without much dialog, several different shooting angles of the same sequence, closeups, long shots, shots wherein the focal area changes, shots looking up, shots looking down or underwater shots from below, they usually edit their films favoring visual thoroughness instead of mere plot movement.

They dig shots that convey ambience rather than pure action and they often often show developing situations rather than just moving toward conclusions.

I thought the movie was pretty good, but certainly not for those looking for excitement.

If you make it through "The New World" with enjoyment check out:

"Cabeza de Vaca"
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"Black Robe"
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"Aguirre: The Wrath of God"
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"Fitzcarraldo."
The Link

These are similar slow moving, historical portrayals of what now might be described as epic events.

IMHO, that's akin in some ways to what Ken Burns does for Lewis & Clark, baseball, the Civil War, Mark Twain and the Shakers.

But Burns always makes a concerted effort to move things along and he succeeds at keeping his stuff rolling.

He's all about thoroughness by copious documentation, covering everything at least briefly.

Malick is about thoroughness by creating a vibe and staying put right there to let us drink it all in.

Burns emphasizes the interplay of a group of related moments.

Malick emphasizes 'the moment."

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Movies often serve us as time machines.

And with time machines the danger or the inconvenience always comes from lack of control.

Too fast, too far, too long, too different......

DVDs are cool, because movie length, etc. becomes much more manageable when you're holding a pause/fast forward control.

You can conveniently visit the past holding a complete set of controlling buttons while ensconced in the comfort of your own home.

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I sometimes watch Terrence Malick movies like I watch NBA basketball, fast forwarding through the warmups, the commercials and the duller parts of the broadcast.

Or, if I'm watching live, I'll post on BBs and surf the internet while it's being played, only following the gameplay as it interests me.

My life's pace and scheduling and my attention span will only rarely accomodate an entire NBA game or a complete Terrence Malick movie, but I can and do enjoy either experience when I set the parameters (of watching) myself.

Along with adding English subtitles to catch the dialog in such as "Deadwood," I find these things valuable.

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In my opinion, "The New World" is an excellent film. I watched it recently on my new 55 inch HD Sony and could not take my eyes off of the screen.
 
Treu Romance is a top 5 movie for me. Not knowing it's connection to Badlands beforehand, I watched Badlands a few months ago and had an appreciation I wouldn't otherwise have had.

I'm a fan
 
"Its not an unfair question in the slightest. The central theme of two young lovers fleeing a murder to and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake is shared between the two. More superficially, the selection of Orff's music is recreated by Hans Zimmer in such a manner as to draw an immediate aural connection"

yep
 
though not as well known as other directors, his rarely-made films (basically, 5 in 35 years) are a special treat to those of us who like his writing and direction.

my ratings (out of 5*):

Badlands ****
Days of Heaven ****1/2
The Thin Red Line ****
The New World ***1/2
Tree of Life ...tbd

he paints pictures with the camera and tells stories in a calmer, slower moving way than 90% of today's helter skelter movie makers. I like that.
 
great director

Buckhorn nailed it in the earlier posts re: malick and nature....
 
1. You're probably right about the Saving Pvt Ryan thing. However, some people like me who read the book went in (not astonishingly) expecting a book adaptation. The Thin Red Line could have been called something else entirely.

2. You are probably right about people not having any experience with Malick movies before TTRL. I am one of these, for sure.

3. I felt cheated out of seeing a good book faithfully represented on film -- that's all.

4. I don't have a problem with using Guadalcanal as a metaphor for anything. I do have a problem with historical revisionism for the sake of creating that metaphor. I think with some study he could have done both. Since he didn't, I was left feeling like he wanted to get his message across and didn't really care whether he was faithful to the book (or the battle) in many ways.

5. 2001 is pure fiction, and good fiction at that.

But who knows. You might be right on about why many folks didn't like the movie. Like I said, perhaps I should give it another chance. I'm beginning to think I should see some other TM movies before I do, though, and posts like yours make me feel like doing so.
 
fyi, Malick is working on a parallel project to "Tree of Life." It's an IMAX film titled "Voyage of Time."
 
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