Terrence Malick's Disciples

Malick is also unique in that while I love his work, I understand anyone who can't get into them and finds them dull or pretentious. It's as if some people are tuned to his frequency and others just receive white noise. When you're tuned to it, it's a timeless meditative, spiritual experience. Our wedding bands carry the words of the Tree of Life's 'Mrs. O'Brien': 'Unless you love, your life will flash by'. I hope he can finish 'The Way of the Wind' in times for Cannes this year.

I see Malick in a lot but similarly I see Tarkovsky in a lot of overlapping movies. I don’t think Americans are as attuned to Tarkovskys influence on modern film. I definitely recommend Stalker as an amazing film.

He is definitely a director's director. The people who study cinema like him, people who become young directors and cinematographers like him, college professors teaching cinematography like him, but is he definitely not for the general audience.

I completely understand why your average moviegoer (is there such a group of people any more?) would walk out of his movies.

When Thin Red Line came out (1998) I saw it a few times in the theaters, then Saving Private Ryan came out about the same year, and I remember having interesting debates with my friends about which one was a "better" war movie. It was this perfect A/B study. They found Thin Red Line completely boring and terrible: no main hero, one who is sort of the main character dies senselessly in the end (well he sacrificed himself, but it wasn't with any sense of bravado or anything). And my point was, that's kind how war is: there are no heroes and people die senselessly and often stupidly, and there is a lot of boredom and sitting around waiting, too.

> This kind of earnestness stood out in an age of relentless irony and snark.

That's why I like him. And to be fair, I am the first one to enjoy relentless irony and snark, but on a deeper level I realize it's also unhealthy and often is an escape from something terrible or a way of distancing from what's happening, so when something more honest and authentic some about, I pay attention.

This article made me think of Shane Carruth. He's best known for his debut film Primer, but his follow-up Upstream Color is very Malickean.

I'm a huge Malick fan. If you are curious about his very unique style, this 20-minute video outlines why his cinematography is so unique and so powerful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waA3RXy13aA

"Disciples", but seemingly without back and forth feedback from the "teacher". Many happy to ride on the coattails of his reputation, though. This particular style might also be attractive to new film-makers because it allows them to dispense with learning the basics of traditional film language.

Tree Of Life is nothing short of a masterpiece IMO. Influential on me personally as my first exposure to how much editing and structure (or lack thereof) build directorial style. It left an impression on me to feel so much for a film that explicitly says so little.

Obligatory mention of that iconic low-angle shot of The Mother floating gracefully across the plains. One of the best of all time.

best malick movie that wasn't a malick movie i saw recently was "here".

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