How Terrence Malick's Style Developed
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- Опубликовано: 30 июл 2024
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Terrence Malick's debut film Badlands, seems very different on the surface from his more recent work. But if we look closely we can see how the seeds that grew into what now defines a Terrence Malick film, were planted at the very beginning.
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I worked on DAYS OF HEAVEN when I was just out of high school and became lifelong friends with the film's Oscar-winning cinematographer, Nestor Almendros.
It was an amazing experience - but Terry's need for discovery on the fly was enormously frustrating to everyone involved, including the producer who had to remortgage his home to finish the film, and editor Billy Webber who spent over a year trying to help him find what he wanted to say. A true artist, yes, but when a director doesn't 'know what he wants til he sees it', the experience of making movies like this is excruciating.
Do you think he is hard to work with? You not the only person ive heard have issues with malick
Christopher Plummer talked about how frustrating The New World was to work on and said he's brilliant but needs to get himself a writer. Then we can't forget to mention Adrien Brody being completely cut out of Thin Read Line and then not finding out until he was at the premiere. I even think George Clooney was supposed to have a much much bigger role in Thing Red Line than the 5 min at the very end, and like Brody wasn't even aware of how much was cut til he saw the film. I think I remember him saying he's glad he was cut out of most of it because he doesn't seem to care for the movie much.
I don't remember who mentioned this but there were times in some movies where he would completely stop a scene so they could go film birds washing themselves or bugs crawling around instead. I've never heard anyone attack his character, so as far as I can tell he's a very nice person but he can be all over the place when it comes to work.
He's definitely one of my favorite film makers of all time, but I do think all of his films following Tree of Life have completely lost focus. I didn't even know what the main characters job was in Knight of Cups until I looked it up afterwards.
@@KillerLettuce Maybe their job isn't so important as is their journey through life?
@@KillerLettuce Sounds like Malick. A pretentious, boring and self centered person.
Gaits Maria Legae a late response! Yes he is hard to work with, but he is a true artist. The only way to determine if his style of working it’s worthwhile is in how you assess the end product. Call Art by its nature is subjective (Subjectivity is the very nature of art] But it’s unquestionable that Terry is challenging to work with regardless of his intent.
I remembered how I felt during and after watching The Tree of Life. It was my first movie I watch from Malick's. It changed how I see cinema right now... totally love his works!
It's amazing!
And this one, I surmise, although that other one is more conventional overall, might have had a strong influence on "Ad Astra" (whose narrative structure and journey mood are very much "Apocalypse Now", but whose medidative aesthetic and thematic core are very much "The Tree of Life").
It is so nice for me to see that there is still an interest in slow-paced, open-to-interpretation narratives.
Malick is truly one of the most inspiring, if not outright brilliant directors of the last half century.
Simply the best, like that singer of nutbush, tennessee used to say.
Without a doubt-and if I may add: highly underrated in his most recent films. Knight of Cups is a masterpiece, for instance. All of his directorial work is beyond brilliant.
@@VictorHugo-zj5mh I'm glad someone likes Knight of Cups, completely underrated!!
Thin Red Line is an experience. Malick understands the human condition on a deeper level than most people understand themselves.
Malick made me get into cinema. I'm aware of the post haitus change in style, and I love it. And no one else feels the same way and no one even talks about him. Knight of cups did things to me, I can't even put it into words. I can watch his movies forever.
Have you tried Tarkovsky? His approach features some parallels to Malick's.
I have to disagree that Lubezki was influential is this modern Malick style, as Malick introduced that free floating wide-angle cinematography in The Thin Red Line. If anything Lubezki owes a great deal to Malick. Before they worked together on The New World, Lubezki's cinematography was vastly different; see Great Expectations for example.
yes i agree, i noticed by malick style of wide angle for the first time in the thin red line, it was very great! cinematography for war movie at that time.
Actually Lubezki was already shooting this way with his long time collaborator Alfonso Cuaron. Case in point would be 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' shot in 2001 4 years before New World in 2005. Cuaron talks about this aesthetic in an interview. Not saying that it was further enhanced by Malick but definitely not becuse of Malick.
See children of men and maybe you’ll change your mind about who influenced whom
you should watch more films blud
These are the most beautiful and inexplicably moving movies ive ever seen. I cannot put it into words but i am moved to tears by nearly every scene in The Thin Red Line. For me the most moving director out there.
Nick Nolte was brilliant in this incredible movie
The Thin Red Line is pure poetry of the most rarified kind. I too am moved to tears by it all.
I believe "internal landscape" (as the producer of this video essay so nicely put it) is really the key term in understanding Malick's cinematic language: His films don't move you by commanding the direction of your visual perception to a barrage of new information, they move you by inviting you to share a visual mood while letting your perception stray to connect over any details already familiar to the individual spectator and thus to let your own internal landscape come to the forefront, to compare the overall structures of our respective internal maps rather than struggle for which directions to follow next. His style is lyrical rather than epic.
"In Badlands Malick showed an immediate competence and grasp of more conventional filnmaking. His Career since then has become progressively more experimental."
This comment is super on point.
What surprised me the most about Badlands when I first saw it was just how much Malick understood how to make drama out of a simple premise. He understood all the basics of cinema in his first feature film. Is almost as if he was born a complete filmmaker with that first film, and then slowly transcended what other directors have to work a lifetime to achieve, which was, well, Badlands.
That's why he's a genious. He's somehow light years ahead of his counterparts. And we can see that because he was already a great filmmaker on his debut.
Great video, btw :)
Thank you. I really enjoyed this one. I like Malick's style, and was glad to hear your views and analysis. I think the strongest point for me is the voiceover which is used in a way to enhance the subjective experience and allows the viewer to go deeper into the character's heart /not only mind/. I encourage you to do more of these series. I would love to watch such series about Tarkovsky, Aronofsky, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and of course Wes, which you have already done...
I really like Tarkovski whose long, pensive, sometimes close-up, sometimes wide-angle, perspective-wise sometimes seemingly unfocussed, non-symmetrical, open-to-interpretation shots - to me - seem like a stepping stone towards Malick's even more disorientating, free-floating, border-blurring, ethereal stream-of-consciousness style.
Emancipation from character-centered plot, trying to establish a more direct and intimate connection with the audience (besides what's already dictated by the narrative's POV) seems to be the common thread here, which Malick might have taken to a new extreme.
On the other hand I sometimes can also find pleasure in the opposite side of the spectrum:
Aronofski's clinging to a motif-oriented narrative thread, focus-centric, hard-cut, plot-driven, precisely illuminated, strictly rhythmical, syntactically clear approach to film-making.
It's rare to find people who are also willing to immerse themselves in both kinds of cinematic experience - and always nice to notice that I am not completely alone in straddling these aesthetic choices.
Personally I tend to lean towards the meditative and pensive, slow-burning side of things rather than the fast-paced, focus-commanding theme-park-ride experience - most of the time.
But it depends a lot on my current mood.
You could say his style is a mix of documentary and kind of vlogging because the character is always the focus of the camera
Wow. So powerful to see SO much wonderful work. In sequence. Thanks so much for the care -and the cutting. Terrific writing, too. Keep up the good work. Please.
This is a great breakdown. I'm a big Malick fan and have seen everything he's done, but it was interesting how you analyzed his work. Some new things I hadn't thought about. Love this, keep em coming!
Wow this video is great, Malick is my favourite director of all time but i could never put into words why other than the cinematography and camera work, you explained it greatly, good work!
your channel is just pure content. so so good with the analysis of these masters! Please do more!
Succinct, reflective and sagacious...
bravo!
Thank you!
As always very well done and entertaining, thank you. Hope one day you do a video about Werner Herzog.
This is an amazingly insightful series. Makes me appreciate the work even more.
Really enjoy your content dude. Thanks for the hard work in this videos.
Thank you!
This is such a good channel. Thank you for making it happen! :D
Thanks for watching!
Thank you for help sponsoring the streaming app mubi I've only seen one other RUclips channel sponsor them and everything on his channel is absolute freaking gold I could watch his videos over and over and over again never get sick of it if you ever want to find a good channel that has great content just like yours check out lsoo like stories of old watching his stuff has changed the way I think about life and perception
thanks for your really good analysis. He shows around characters without telling what exact locations. Badlands is fav of his works
Thank you for watching. Badlands is truly amazing.
Amazing video! I've also watched your PTA one. I will sign up to Mubi with your offer as soon as I've sorted out my finances!!
Great work. When I was watching Badlands for the first time this weekend I immediately thought of Wes Anderson while the characters were setting up and living in the tree house.
Thank you for this great video!
great essay, very well done ! keep it up
Malick is one of the underrated directors of our time ~
You gave like stories of old at shout out I love it this other channel just like yours needs to be spread throughout the world
I took a lot out of a few of your words here: "internal landscape"; voiceover more important for characterization than driving the plot; plot as merely an accessory to the characters' journey; natural lighting focussing on (day/night) transitions. All of this makes his movies feel dreamlike!
Well done, thank you for sharing
Interesting that the only historical filmaker referenced was Eisenstein, when many french filmakers
had similar styles to Malick. Robbe-Grillet , Resnais, Truffaut, also Durer, had an interest in close observation
of everyday life, actors in action, editing being the third and co-equal part of filmaking.
Terrence Malick is not just my favourite artist...I mean...director. He is "another thing"; he has a different way of understanding/interpreting the cinema.
New World, Tree of Life, To the wonder, Song to Song and -my life-changing movie - KNIGHT OF CUPS will be with me for the rest of my life.
Malick gives me a key to interpreting life, in a unique good way.
Thank you Malick, and thank you Thomas Flight for this video.
Anyone else noticed that they take the piss out of his films style in Mr.Beans Holiday with William Dafoe?
I watched Badlands just now, after watching this video! Thanks so much, Badlands was great!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Badlands was a truly unique viewing experience for me, and my high regard for that uniqueness has remained constant. The feel it created was unforgettable. I realize this video is about style of filming, but may I just say that people call it (Badlands) amoral, but we need to be careful what is meant by that description. I felt it lent itself to unusually powerful moral takeaways precisely BECAUSE it left the inductive role to the viewer. I never got the feeling Malick was suggesting that the reprehensible was somehow not reprehensible. Not in the least. I then went on to Days of Heaven, and while I found it visually striking, it did not move me in any way similar.
I love the feel of malick film. I find him very intimate and unique as a filmmaker.
Your videos are awesome. Happy to see no dislikes and 346 likes.
Badlands is a classic example of how unique is each and every filmaker's approach in its vision and style..Give this script to Tarantino , he would have made a totally different Badlands.
Don't give anything to Tarantino. He makes dumb movies for smart preteens and that's about it.
Tarantino would most likely have turned it into a collage of POVs grotesquely at odds with each other and only coming together in violent clashes - of aesthetics and rhythm and, well, graphic violence.
An Aronofsky take on the matter would probably have been even further from what Malick did: Less internal landscape, more internal kinetics; less introspection and shifting between harmony/disharmony - more conduction and jutting between control/disorientation.
That was called True Romance
@@Owen-ub3fv No, that's something else entirely.
@@elfsieben1450 It's really not.
Crazy how my first eye opening experience with film cinematography, could've been with Terrence Malick film, but that day it was raining and I decided to go outside and play, now my influences are so different.........yet Malick is an inspiration that I don't really understand
great video
I think the best way to put his cinematic style from Tree of Life to A Hidden Life is that ghost-like feeling shaped through his cinematography/editing. It was definitely prevalent mood in his pervious movies expressed through voice over, but it developed into visual/audio in his later films.
And it is this "ghost" we become through his film that most resonates with his idea of love and life, permeating through space and time.
Thanks Thomas. I wonder what we'll get if you analyze Paolo Sorrentino's works. The Great Beauty has something similar to Mallick approach somehow.
I think I’ll watch more of his movies
8:20 wait a minute. is this where one of my favorite film scores of all time (You're so cool by Hans Zimmer from True Romance) came from? Even the voice over narration by Patricia Arquette's character Alabama sounds identical to this one by Sissy Spacek. It had to be deliberate by Zimmer and Tony Scott
It's a classical piece by Carl Orff ;) ruclips.net/video/TQ9_6W6bVoQ/видео.html
Amazing video, i would like to hear what you say about David Lynch!
That editing though 👌 choice
Thanks!
Great video! Which director is next in your series?
Most likely either the Coen Brothers or David Lynch!
Hey thomas flight are you a movie scientist. This is realy good, I have always been intereseted in terry M's style.
Great video. Re-watched Days of Heaven this week. Just my opinion, but I think your use of music on clips from Malick's movies was a little heavy handed. I think including the clips with just their natural sound is more appropriate for film comparison and criticism. But hey, stellar work and keep making stuff!
Thanks for watching and thanks for the feedback!
Great, video. What's the black and white film at the end?
Hello, could you please share the name of the song that you use at the middle of the video ? I just can't find it in Musicbed, please!
As it was (Piano Strings Instrumental) by Future of Forestry
Terrence Malick is a genius.
Wow
Recently, Malick has not so much based his films on a syntactical script form, analytically broken down into units from which to reassemble frames; he rather takes characters as a starting point and then places them in an environment and traces point of views around them which (both: environment & immersive audience POV) mirror their internal journey harmonically.
Being used to the syntactical approach and constantly looking for clues on that level, an audience in this mode of perception, can easily
miss the more harmonic clues given by Malick and thus evaluate/misinterpret his films as lacking form or direction. Coming from a syntactically narrowed perspective they might appear random.
But Malick does not use the medium film without intention or a sense of cinematic form to create his fiction. On the contrary, he uses what is very specific to cinema as an art form as opposed to stage acting or still photography or chapterised script or storyboard arrangement: movement AND imagery AND sound continuity AND time dilution - not so much serialized as a chronological array of units than all at once as a synchronized synaesthetic blend.
Yes, his is a more naturalistic approach than most would take, but nevertheless it is also artistic; the craft is in the way light and pacing is used, not as spotlights or hard cuts, but to create visual moods within a flow of time, a very "liquid" style.
He also does use camera angles and variations of distance a lot, to create perspective; yet again not as dominating single frames, but as a movement like in a symphony, long-form.
Lots of recent mainstream as well as arthouse movies, even though using real-life sets instead of setpieces, nevertheless use these like they would use a studio or stage: Confined frames for the action.
Malick uses locations as a whole in a way; he could zoom in or out of what we actually do get on the screen and we would still see the same things more or less; with many other directors we would either lose important parts of the body language or props or backdrops immediately if they zoomed in just a little, or we would notice the lighting equipment, tape or whatever used to seal off the location, auxiliary cameras, gaffers and so on when zooming out just a little; Malick on the other hand seems to give more breathing space, blurred borders, extension of imagery beyond the frame, a sweeping panoramic air to his films. There's a lightfooted almost sleepwalking/dancing approach to how he uses perspectives and light, not a preset, cutout one. Thus in his movies all the effects appear to be immediate and intuitive rather than processed and filtered through rational thought.
This does not mean it's not premeditated, though. Malick might put just as much if not more planning and thought into his arrangement than other directors.
But Malick seems to be more interested in using what is already in a scene or a location to his advantage by the way he captures and portrays it than arranging a composition of things he adds or moves in a frame before filming.
Malick puts the main focus of his works on other techniques than a younger audience is used to: Whereas other contemporary directors tend to put the tools of their trade inside (and some around) the picture, Malick tends to put the techniques around (and some beyond) the picture. His POV seems to be ostentatiously behind the camera, moving the audience in-to the frame (or even - seemingly bodyless - floating around characters), using light for overall mood and angles for psychological effects (audience perceptive mode manipulation; triggering immediate emotional response; impressionistic direction); most other directors' POV rather seems to be inside a camera (or even inside a virtual narrator character, seeing eye-to-eye with other characters), oriented along fixating lines of sight on-to the frame, using light to specifically contrast and highlight and angles for perceptive effects (audience concrete focus manipulation; triggering abstract associative thought; expressionistic direction).
For comparison, Malick in this respect is going even beyond the Tarkovski side of the spectrum, very ethe-real, whereas the mainstream fashion has gone even beyond Kubrick in turning to single, corpo-real frame-by-frame arrangements. The average amount of cuts per minute has drastically increased in recent years, replacing harmonic flow with contrastive rhythm.
The current cinematic fashion is to go for compartmental train of thought, but Malick goes with emulsionised stream of consciousness.
Very nice deconstruction.
Thank you!
What’s the music that starts at 3:21?
Embarking by Future of Forestry
To fully understand TM one has to understand Heideggers philosophy.
Tradução de panorama crítico sobre Terrence Malick publicado em 1989 e da autoria de Geoff Andrew: magiadoreal.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-film-handbook216-terrence-malick.html
I love this series! i hope to see the likes of Tarantino or Baz Lurman up in here!!
look at Gus Van Sants film .....ELEPHANT....
How should i react when somebody tells me Malick's films are boring?
A lot of people also think the greatest literature ever written is boring. That said, I'm generally pretty understand of people, if they're only used to watch blockbusters, Marvel, etc, something like The Tree of Life is going to be a pretty big leap. People don't have the attention spans. (But they should try to have them).
So basically "It's not for you" and "Stick to your likings" kind of reply?
@@thiccboss4780 "It's an acquired taste" and "it's not for everybody" is kinda what I'm getting at.
i like that , some perspectives can't be so easily digested to quickly throw away , some need to be slowly and thoroughly analyzed to see meaning or fun in it.
Enough dedication and shit giving, any boring movie can be immersive and any repetitive game can be enjoyable , it's only a matter of Circumstance and Subjective need.
But most people are too lazy to bother with that so just scrape the top, assume it's bad and join a bandwagon
*sigh*
Imo, the first three movies of Malick are masterpieces. He showed incredible talent for filmmaking and unique features (introspective, nature-oriented cinema) while still submitting to basic rules of 'conventional cinema'. ,which made his movies enjoyable and still interesting due to his personal style.
When he breaks that balance and goes full 'experimenting' mode, I lost all interest. I know that postmodernism and this idea of breaking the rules of art' to allow complete freedom is quite fancy nowadays arouhd independent circles. However, by renouncing to certain narrative parameters, he is killing the art in my opinion. I respect that, but if the outcome of 'breaking the rules' is Malick's last movies, I just dont like it. I may have to admit that I prefer certain rules to 'restrict' complete freedom in art, while still allowing unique and personal styles, although I am not a fan of rules myself most of the times :D
My video "Malick's Obsessions" from earlier this year dives deeper into some of my thoughts and frustrations with his newest three films. But I will say I think you're totally correct, his best works is when he's restricted a little, (specifically it seems within a historical context). The Thin Red Line is my favorite of his films, because I think the struggle between his existential style and the reality of showing war creates something entirely unique.
That said he's tackling a historical topic again next, so I'm interested to see what that's like.
@@ThomasFlight Ah, I didn't notice this link between his restriction and the historical context of the film, that is very interesting. I had lost any hope of seeing the 'old' Malick again, but now I am hyped about this upcoming movie. Thanks for answering!
His next movie is more than likely a jump back to what his first three movies are.
Maybe he's got that experimental stuff out of his system. We'll see.
His current style uses voiceover narration (one or more characters) even monologues by a central character. That's appropriate for the philosophical content, religious quotes and references, (also visual symbols). Nature is the key background...he shoots outside with little artificial light.
But that brings no cash...Terrence Malick wasn't on the lists. So in his recent boom top filmstars entered his idyllic style....It makes little sense. Then in "A Hide life" makes a U-turn and hires August Diehl and Valerie Pratchett in a movie based on a history of a local, almost anonymous hero. To top it: George Eliot's Middlemarch final quotation...about millions of anonymous people who make history and we should thank...
So, what's next? Back to sound funding and cashcows? It could ruin his new adquired status as independent with a peculiar style, not very easy to understand or enjoy: no entertainment flicks but a wouldbe highbrow artist with a brand of his own. Will the philosophical view hold? Hamlet´s monologues? Beautiful and simple nature? A tough choice.His style could be compromised and no longer tagged as independent filmmaker.
yeah..yeah..blah blah blah..you totally forgot to mention that BADLANDS features the earliest example of Martin Sheen executing his famous "coat flip"
I do hope Malick returns to the same thinking that gave us "Badlands" and "Days of Heaven" and "The Thin Red Line" and "The New World." I love "The Tree of Life," it's a wonderful film, but I also believe that it augured a kind of decline. I don't think much of Malick's recent stuff, which is a shame, since he's probably America's most visionary director - and one of the most visionary directors, period. Simply put, he needs a damn script (however oddly written), an essential part of filmmaking that he seems to have foregone entirely. (e.g. www.dailyactor.com/news/christian-bale-on-not-having-a-script-for-knight-of-cups-i-never-had-any-lines-to-learn/ ) I don't care if he writes it or not, because his talents don't lie so much in that particular process, but everybody needs a good blueprint for a successful movie, generally speaking.
I honestly believe Malick's got one masterpiece left in him. Here's hoping "Radegund" or a later project fulfills that potential!
Ezekiel Yu stop it. Malick went all the way, he's doing what no one else would even dare to do. It's visual poetry, it's pure. No script, no real direction, it's beautiful.
It's how some purists don't consider music with lyrics, or even music with generic structure as not real music. Because it's not supposed to follow a preset notion of music, it's not supposed to go anywhere. It's hard to put this into words, but I connect with a couple of his newer movies like I never did with anything else. But that's just me.
I think his next movie Radegund is going to be like his early stuff. It definitely won't be like Tree of Life, or Knight of Cups. I hear there's a script and he's following it.
@@TxxT33 That's fine! I like his willingness to experiment and find news ways of cinematic expression, even at an old age. He's a visionary. We'll have to agree to disagree on the quality of his recent movies, though. I have no issue with the fact that you personally relate to them, of course.
Amidst all the love shown for his work, I'll voice my utter dislike of his work. Pretentious and artsy for arts sake. Check out what Christopher Plummer had to say about working with "Terry".
His films are gorgeous to look at. But increasingly I've grown frustrated with his final products. The narratives are increasingly nonexistant and his voice-overs become superfluous over time. Repetitive, even. I get more and more that he isn't so much doing art as he is rambling on and on about his personal fears and obsessions. They almost seem more like cries for help from a deeply depressed man. The guy so clearly needs mental help. A therapist to sort out his parental issues he so clearly has lost his mind to. There just isn't any progression.
Again. They are awesome reels of cinematography. I just wish he had something new to say. Or at least that he stopped the voice-overs and embraced them as meditative cinematography porn like the works of Ron Fricke. By putting words to the basic thoughts of his characters he diminishes the potential for exploration of his themes. They just become simplistic and repetitive... Like this comment.
I definitely agree a bit and I'm not as amazed by his work since The Tree of Life, even though I'll continue to watch his films just because of how original he is.
My other video on Malick, "Malick's Obsessions" dives a little deeper into some of my thoughts on the three newest movies and some of my frustrations with them.
That said, he's doing a historical topic next, so I'm interested to see what that will be like!