Terrence Malick - Film Career

Film Career

Malick's start in film began after earning an MFA from the AFI Conservatory in 1969, directing Lanton Mills. At the AFI, he established contacts with people such as Jack Nicholson, longtime collaborator Jack Fisk, and agent Mike Medavoy, who procured for Malick freelance work revising scripts. He is credited with the screenplay for Pocket Money (1972), and he wrote early drafts of Great Balls of Fire! (1989) and Dirty Harry (1971).

After one of his screenplays, Deadhead Miles, was made into what Paramount Pictures felt to be an unreleasable film, Malick decided to direct his own scripts. His first work was Badlands (1973), an independent film starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as a young couple on a crime spree in the 1950s. After a troubled production, Badlands drew raves at its premiere at the New York Film Festival, leading to Warner Bros. Pictures buying distribution rights for three times its budget.

Paramount Pictures produced Malick's second film, Days of Heaven (1978), about a love triangle that develops in the farm country of the Texas Panhandle in the early 20th century. The film spent two years in post-production, during which Malick and his crew experimented with unconventional editing and voice-over techniques. Days of Heaven went on to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, as well as the prize for Best Director at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.

Those rambling philosophical voiceovers; the placid images of nature, offering quiet contrast to the evil deeds of men; the stunning cinematography, often achieved with natural light; the striking use of music – here is a filmmaker with a clear sensibility and aesthetic who makes narrative films that are neither literary nor theatrical, in the sense of foregrounding dialogue, event, or character, but are instead principally cinematic, movies that suggest narrative, emotion, and idea through image and sound.

Chris Wisniewski about Days of Heaven and The New World

Following the release of Days of Heaven, Malick began developing a project for Paramount, titled Q, that explored the origins of life on earth. During pre-production, he suddenly moved to Paris and disappeared from public view. During this time, he wrote a number of screenplays, including The English Speaker, about Josef Breuer's analysis of Anna O.; adaptations of Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and Larry McMurtry's The Desert Rose; a script about Jerry Lee Lewis; and a stage adaptation of Sansho the Bailiff that was to be directed by Andrzej Wajda, in addition to continuing work on the Q script. Malick's work on Q eventually became the basis for his 2011 film The Tree of Life.

Twenty years after Days of Heaven, Malick returned to film directing in 1998 with The Thin Red Line, a loose adaptation of the James Jones World War II novel of the same name, for which he gathered a large ensemble of famous stars. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, won the Golden Bear at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival, and received critical acclaim.

After learning of Malick's work on an article about Che Guevara during the 1960s, Steven Soderbergh offered Malick the chance to write and direct a film about Guevara that he had been developing with Benicio del Toro. Malick accepted and produced a screenplay focused on Guevara's failed revolution in Bolivia. After a year and a half, the financing had not come together entirely, and Malick was given the opportunity to direct The New World, a script he had begun developing in the 1970s. Consequently, he left the Guevara project in March 2004. Soderbergh went on to direct Che.

The New World, which featured a romantic interpretation of the story of John Smith and Pocahontas, was released in 2005. Over one million feet of film was shot for the film, and three different cuts of varying length were released. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, but received generally mixed reviews during its theatrical run, though it has since been hailed as one of the best films of the decade.

Malick's fifth feature, The Tree of Life, was filmed in Smithville, Texas, and elsewhere during 2008. Starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, it is a family drama spanning multiple time periods and focuses on an individual's reconciling love, mercy and beauty with the existence of sickness, suffering and death. It premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Palme d'Or. It has also been awarded FIPRESCI's Big Prize for the Best Film of the Year. At the 84th Academy Awards, it was nominated for three awards including the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director for Malick and Best Cinematography for Emmanuel Lubezki. A limited theatrical release in the United States began on May 27, 2011.

Malick's sixth feature, titled To the Wonder, was shot predominately in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and a few scenes were filmed in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. The film will premiere at the 2012 Venice Film Festival. It is described in the program notes as "an exploration of love in its many forms". The film stars Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurylenko and Javier Bardem.

On November 1, 2011, Filmnation Entertainment announced international sales for Malick's next two projects: Lawless and Knight of Cups. Lawless will star Ryan Gosling, with a supporting cast including Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara and Haley Bennett. Knight of Cups will star Bale, and will also feature Blanchett, along with Isabel Lucas. The films will be shot back-to-back in 2012. Production designer Jack Fisk has indicated a June start date.

During the weekend of September 16, 2011, Malick was photographed and caught on film while on set for one of the first times ever, while he and a small crew were following Christian Bale and Haley Bennett around the Austin City Limits Music Festival as part of preliminary shooting for Lawless. He was also seen directing Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara at the Fun Fun Fun Fest on the weekend on November 4, 2011. In early 2012, the title "Lawless" was given to The Weinstein Company's The Wettest County, leaving Malick's Lawless untitled.