The Return Of Maverick Malick

This week sees the UK release of The Tree of Life, the fifth film in five decades from maverick auteur Terrence Malick. But why are his films’ releases such hugely anticipated events?

When The Tree of Life won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes, you might have been forgiven for assuming that its director, Terrence Malick, would attend the awards ceremony to collect his prize. After all, this was probably the greatest achievement of his five-film career so far. However, the director was not seen on the red carpet or at the acceptance podium at all during the festival, in keeping with his legendary privacy – he refuses to do interviews and stipulates in his contracts that no current photos of him may be used for publicity.

Malick’s reclusiveness feeds his legend. Due to his refusal to explain himself and his intentions, his films remain open to speculation and theorising, as has been shown with The Tree of Life: it is so abstract that a convincing explanation as to what exactly it is about is yet to be published. Despite the fact that none of his films have taken more than $35 million at the box office, the esteem with which he is held in his industry could not be higher. Actors queue up to work with him – his 1998 effort The Thin Red Line featured Sean Penn, George Clooney, John Travolta and Woody Harrelson among others, with the performances of Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Billy Bob Thornton and Mickey Rourke ending up on the cutting-room floor. The small number of films he has made means that there has been little opportunity to criticise him, with all of them so far considered to be masterpieces.

In keeping with his public persona, Malick resists flashy direction: his acclaim comes from the images he captures with his camera, rather than the way he manipulates it, in direct contrast to more commercially successful directors like Spielberg and Nolan. He rarely uses dialogue, preferring to use voiceover, and since his debut feature, Badlands, he has had a preoccupation with the presentation of nature onscreen, frequently lavishing such attention on it that it almost becomes another character in the story. The flat, emotionless plains of Montana in Badlands come to embody the relationship between Kit and Holly, while the framing of farmhouses looming against clear blue skies and lengthy shots of wheat blowing in the breeze underline the fragile relationship man has with nature. The Tree of Life goes even further, exploring the dynamics in the 1950s Texas-dwelling O’Brien family and then shifting back to the creation of the universe, where we see planets forming, volcanoes erupting and even CGI dinosaurs. The film has much more of a “what is the meaning of life” feeling about it than Malick’s previous work, and its ambiguity has polarised critics and fans, with some labelling it genius and others as pretentious trash.

Due to the perceived genius of his limited output combined with his maverick style, any new release by Terrence Malick will inevitably garner a great deal of attention, especially given the controversy of his latest film. The Tree of Life will be like nothing you have ever seen before. You may love it, you may hate it, but you cannot deny that behind the camera sits a true master of his art.