Editor's note: This is the first installment of a series spotlighting obscure artists whose work deserves recognition.
His films have jump-started the careers of future stars such as Martin Sheen, Richard Gere, Jim Caviezel and Adrien Brody. In 1979 at Cannes he was awarded the jury prize for both Best Director and Best Film, and 20 years afterward received Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Screenplay. "Apocalypse Now" co-writer John Milius called him "a very talented director, if not the most talented of my generation."
Yet outside of Hollywood, director and Austin native Terrence Malick remains largely unknown to all but the most avid film buffs. Primarily this is due to the quantity rather than the quality of his output.
Though his career in films has spanned nearly 40 years, Malick has directed only three feature length films, 1973's "Badlands," "Days of Heaven" in 1978 and "The Thin Red Line" in 1998. Instead, what has earned Malick the legendary status which he now enjoys in the industry are the breathtaking cinematography, literary screenplays and consistently high-quality acting performances that have made each of his three features landmarks in cinema.
Born in Waco, Malick studied philosophy at Harvard and Oxford, producing a translation of Heidegger's "Essence of Reason" before disagreements with his thesis advisor led him to turn his back on academics. After brief stints as a journalist, an oil worker, a wheat harvester and cement mixer, Malick enrolled in the inaugural class of the American Film Institute. His short film "Lanton Mills" led to work rewriting scripts in Hollywood and eventually paved the way for his future work as a director.
Malick's feature-length debut, "Badlands," borrows heavily from Arthur Penn's 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde" as it delves into the psychology of two young killers on the run from the law in the American West. But whereas in "Bonnie and Clyde" the violence is stylized and balletic, the characters larger-than-life, "Badlands" makes little attempt either to romanticize or explain away the actions of its characters, making their distracted, apathetic reactions to the killing spree on which they embark all the more harrowing.
Malick's elegant camerawork and cinematography lend profundity and lyricism to the small of South Dakota town in which the film's two main characters live, and the strong, subdued performances of Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in its starring roles give life to Malick's meditative script.
"Days of Heaven" is not quite the unparalleled success that "Badlands" was. Telling the story of migrant field workers in early 20th-century Texas, its script is less focused, its story more diffuse, its characters' motivations less abundantly clear.
The film itself took more than two years to complete, plagued by editing and production troubles as Malick fought to realize his vision for the film on celluloid. But whether by design or accident, Malick's efforts produced one of the most stunningly beautiful films of the '70s.
The sunlit fields of wheat, turn-of-the-century harvesting machinery, locust swarms and bands of farm workers are caught by Malick's camera with an intuitive perception which invests his already breathtaking images with reverent, Biblical overtones.
In 1995, after a 17-year hiatus from Hollywood, word spread in the industry that Malick was attached to direct a remake of James Jones' 1962 World War II novel "The Thin Red Line." Actors including Brad Pitt, George Cooney, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and John Travolta lined up for parts, many agreeing to substantial pay cuts in exchange for a chance to work with the iconoclastic Malick. While Clooney, Penn and Travolta were eventually cast in "The Thin Red Line," most of its cast was drawn from a pool of largely unknown actors.
Opinions on the film which resulted were the most divided of any from Malick's career. Veterans groups who saw the film felt that it cheapened and denigrated their experiences in the war, and many critics were as equally hostile to Malick's sometime confusing and obscure script, especially when comparing it to Steven Spielberg's more linear "Saving Private Ryan," which was released the same year.
Many, however, including myself, have cited "The Thin Red Line" as one of Hollywood's greatest war films and the crowning achievement in Malick's directorial career. If indeed the film achieves this level of quality, it owes as much, if not more, to Malick's spare, heavily philosophical script as it does to the usual measured pace and vast landscapes captured by his direction.
"The Thin Red Line" brilliantly interweaves precisely executed combat sequences into a story that explores man's place within the natural realm. In between, the film explores the epistemological purpose of war itself, contrasting the idealistic and materialistic philosophies of its characters in an extended debate on human meaning.
Critics have rightly chastised the sometimes digressive and perplexing qualities of Malick's script for "The Thin Red Line," which they accuse of diverting the viewers attention away from the film's plot. But "The Thin Red Line" is not so much a war film as it is a subversion and exploration of the genre itself. In this sense, Malick's focus on the metaphysics and natural imagery which dominates the film enlarge rather than distract from the heart of the story, giving it a profundity and relevance far greater than all but a few films in movie history.
Malick is currently in Virginia filming "The New World," an adaptation of the story of John Smith and Pocahontas. The film, starring Colin Ferrell and Christian Bale, will be released in fall 2005.
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