Terrence Malick Film-By Film Thread

I know many of Malick's films and consider myself a fan -- much of the time.

That said, I finally played Criterion's recent Blu-ray Disc of BADLANDS, a film I really like and have seen a few times, most recently on DVD about ten years ago.

I thought the Blu-ray Disc looked fabulous but was surprised mono was the only audio option offered. But what really bothered me -- especially considering this is a Criterion project -- were two or three instances of weird film artifacting (if that's what my sister and I both noticed while watching) and a couple of scenes containing some really out-of-sync dialogue overdubbing. Since I haven't seen the film in a decade, I can't remember whether or not any of this garbage is on any previous version of BADLANDS, so I don't know if these things are inherent to the film itself or not.

Has anyone else noticed any of this stuff?

 

Excellent post. Before I saw The New World, I was already a big fan of Malick, and Wagner's Das Rheingold is one of my favorite orchestral scores, significant in my life and deeply important. The marriage of the two was akin to a profound religious experience. Only Vertigo in 70mm has come close for me.

 

My guess would be dialogue looped in later and that's just how it was in the original film, but an example or two of a scene would help so we could compare.

 

Love badlands. I was surprised to learn sheen was 32 when they filmed it, as he looks more like 21. I liked how malick's take on it wasnt one of action bang bang fast paced. It was slow, methodical, focused on their relationship and almost downplaying their crimes, which makes a bigger impact on what murderers they are, because they do them so non chalantly.

 

should we move on to Days of Heaven?

 

I'd just like to add that after reading the Sight and Sound article posted above I was interested to read more about the problems of shooting Badlands as I wasn't aware of any issues. I was stunned to learn about Roger George and the lawsuits that arose from the fire. I haven't read your book, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

I've always found it interesting that the notoriously camera-shy Mr. Malick appears in his first film out of necessity. In a film with so few characters, he has a fairly large part. For those that don't know, he plays the man who comes to the door at the rich man's house.

 

Since this when it came out in 1978.

 

I never saw this one in first run or in a theater at all, but I do recall seeing the multipage ad for the film in Rolling Stone magazine during its initial release. I'm aware it was offered in a 70mm version blown up from 35mm and it has always made me wonder if the impact it had on viewers was due to the intrinsic beauty of the images shown on a much bigger screen or some kind of magic in the conversion.

As it turns out I first saw this film on TV a few years later, commercial breaks and all. Paradoxically the film did not really suffer from the breaks, possibly due to the minimal plotting and the slower rhythm/pace, though the voice-overs by Linda Manz were a bit hard for me to make out at the time. I thought the lone mansion in the field very reminiscent of the mansion in George Stevens' Giant, though of course one looms over a great field of wheat and the other over a ranch plain, then an oilfield. Though I have the Criterion Blu-ray I have not yet revisited the film.

 

Saw this the first time a few years ago. It was one of those films I watch on the weekend after my wife and kids go to bed, but this time my wife stayed up with me through the whole thing, even though her tastes aren't really for slower older films. It's just such a beautifully shot movie with just enough plot to carry it and make it intersting. I've always wanted to go back and read just the narration because it just seems to float over everything just like the shots of that scenery, just this big impressionistic, patient, mood film that I thoroughly enjoy and never get bored in. I find it hard to explain why I like it, other than the mood and the shots of the fields and farm, the natural lighting out there, just hits me the right way

 

i bought that with a region-free blurry player.. and will see in Charlotte in March!

 

I think they're both influenced by the same hopper painting

 

as well as Christina's World...

 

My parents had that as a print in our home growing up, the kind that kinda looked like a painting, not just a poster. When they downsized a few years ago they threw it away, argh! I'd love to have it now.

 

As well as the Bates home in Psycho.

 

With Harper Lee's death today it got me thinking that her and Malick were a bit alike in their eschewing of celebrity and their long hiatuses between works. Neither Lee nor Malick were/are "recluses" in a real sense. By all accounts they lead normal lives in their communities. They just both wanted nothing to do with the whole media machine and promotion. I admire them both for it, actually.

 

Just watched Badlands again.
Great featurette Absence Of Malik with Martin Sheen.

 

Please!!!

 

Voyage of Time is set for an October IMAX release.

For those that don't know, this is supposedly going to be an extended, more fleshed-out version of the "creation" sequence from The Tree of Life, with narration provided by Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. I forget which is which, but one of them does narration for a shorter version to be shown at science museum type places and the other does narration for a longer theatrical cut.

 

Rewatched Days of Heaven last night, Sam Shepard's passing made me want to revisit it. I'd read Roger Ebert's review where he points out something maybe obvious to others, but made the movie turn in a new light, in that it's the little sister telling the story, and what shots they show are all from her point of view. I previously thought of the movie as a film about the love triangle gone bad, the traditional point of view I guess, and that it felt impressionistic. But watching it through the sister's point of view, a lot of the scenes they show make more sense, they're things a woman looking back years later would remember. Also makes sense of the title too, for the sister, it was her good ol days. Wasn't the good ol days for the love triangle folks.

 

It appears Song To Song has not been issued on Blu-Ray in the UK, just DVD?

 

Is Voyage of Time ever gonna get a proper US release? The IMAX (Brad Pitt) version was out for a week or two like 90 minutes drive from me, but that was it. I don't think the Cate Blanchett-narrated version was ever shown in theaters here, and still no home video release of either in the States.

 

I've wondered the same thing. It was never shown near me. I've always hoped it would come back. I was never aware of Song To Song showing here either.

 

I first became aware of him in my mid teens via American Movie Classics airing of DAYS OF HEAVEN in its first letterbox presentation on television (early 90s). Later, in the lead up to the release of TTRL I read this fantastic Vanity Fair article about him that made me think back to this shadowy figure I had always heard about but had only made one film in my time on this earth and none 20 years since.

I think I knew more about the production (Robert Michael Geisler, John Roberdeau and later Grant Hill) woes of getting Malick back into the directors' chair prior to TTRL's release than really anyone should care to know but it prepared me for TTRL, nonetheless. I ultimately saw TTRL four times during its theatrical run and it remains one of my 5 or 10 favorite movies ever. I feel like it has so much to say about the human condition and why we allow ourselves to toil in conflict. And, necessary though it may have been, allowing us to view the "Great" war of WW2 through the a boomer Vietnam prism.

One of the last reviews Gene Siskel did was of Malick's film. As hard as it is to watch Gene this ill, he's absolutely right on the money.



(About 11 months later, Martin Scorsese would join Roger on the end of the decade show and he named TTRL as #2 on his list. His thoughts about his colleagues' film are particularly poignant):

Ebert & Scorsese Best of the 90s

After TTRL was released, I scoured the internet for the next puff of smoke about what Malick would do next. I recall him being attached to an adaptation of THE MOVIEGOER by Walter Percy and also an adaptation of IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM by David Rabe. Didn't think it would be another 7 years until his next feature but I guess I should've known better.

THE NEW WORLD is one of the prettiest films I've ever seen and it's one of the finer films of the 2000s. I'm happy I was able to see it in the theater. I don't think it's Malick's best. However, the opening 15-20 minutes of that movie is a like a painting. As Christopher Plummer would later say is like "17th Century photography", if that had existed. I think that's a perfect analogy.

THE TREE OF LIFE is not a perfect movie but it's easily the most ambitious movie I've probably ever seen, along with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I've only seen it once, during its theatrical run. For whatever reason I've never felt the desire to revisit it and I've gone back to Kubrick's film many, many times. I know TREE OF LIFE is a film that Malick wanted to make since the late 1970s. If I recall correctly, some of the aquatic research he (and Geisler/Roberdeau) did during the production of TTRL was later used for certain aspects of TREE OF LIFE. It's like the film he had been wanting to make all along, or so it would seem. Along the way though, he got coaxed back into film making to do the Jones novel because he found an angle he could work.

I've not seen anything since TREE OF LIFE and in a way that's on purpose. I have such great respect of him as a filmmaker that I don't want any of his recent offerings to tarnish that. Malick's work is always a bit polarizing but the last 3 or so films have been extraordinarily so. Maybe someday I'll catch up.

 

Hope I didn't kill the thread.

 

The last three, to me, are culminate, because they support a basic premise with a radical filmmaking vision rapidly declining in the current status of cinema.