Terrence Malik - film director, producer, screenwriter. He is a visionary and perfectionist, about his readiness for hours to wait for the color of the sky he needs, cut out the roles of famous actors from the final version of the film, and legends have been silent for decades. He is an intravital classic of cinema, possessing his own recognizable style and stubbornly bending his creative line.
Biography
Since the seventies Terrence Malik has not been giving interviews and is not spreading about his personal life, so little is known for sure about his biography. He was born November 30, 1943 in the United States (according to some sources - in Waco, according to others - in Ottawa). His first education was philosophical: he studied philosophy at Harvard, then continued at Oxward, although he did not finish it. After that, he worked as a journalist, taught philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In 1969, Malik began to study cinema. His first work was a short film Lanton Mills. Then he worked for some time on the scripts of other directors.
Wasteland
In 1973, Terrence Malik's debut feature film, The Wasteland, was released. Starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. This is a kind of road movie about a couple in love (he’s 25, she’s 15), who become killers and go on the run. Despite the criminal component of the plot, the atmosphere of the film is philosophical, existential, it talks more about the inner emptiness and loneliness of the heroes than about the romance of the crime.
Filming cost only 300 thousand dollars, but it was quite difficult. The film crew changed almost completely several times: people were dissatisfied with Malik's exactingness, and generally did not believe in the success of the project. Malik even had to play a cameo role in the film himself, because the actor simply did not come to the shooting.
The Wastelands was warmly received by critics and spectators, and twenty years later they were included in the National Register of Outstanding Films.
“Harvest Days”
Malik's next film was released five years later, in 1978, it was the picture “Harvest Days” (“Paradise Days”). The film starred Richard Gere, and this began his stellar career. His hero, along with his girlfriend and sister, is forced to hide in the wilderness and work on the farm, helping to harvest. Gradually, a love triangle arises with which the characters are trying to figure it out.
To achieve a certain character of lighting, the picture was predominantly shot at a certain moment of the day - twenty minutes before sunset. This created a special atmosphere in the film, but at the same time, of course, greatly delayed the filming process. However, the integrity of Malik was appreciated by the audience and critics. It is sometimes said that this film has the most beautiful picture in the history of cinema, and the cameraman eventually won an Oscar for it.
It seemed that after two successful films by Terrence Malik a brilliant career awaited, but in the early eighties he unexpectedly left the United States for Paris, stopped making films and became a recluse. We can only guess why. Malik does not explain the reason for this act and does not tell what he did all these years. And now, when he returned to the profession of filmmaker and makes almost a film a year, he basically does not give interviews, does not appear at social events, including at the premieres of his films.
“Thin red line”
Terrence Malik began work on The Thin Red Line back in 1988, but the project was constantly delayed, and the film was released only ten years later, in 1998 (that is, the gap between his second and third film is twenty years). By that time, Terrence Malik was already considered a living classic, and he was ready to make stars of the first magnitude under any conditions. But the film “The Thin Red Line” was famous not only for the actors who are present in it (and this, for example, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson, Adrien Brody, Seann Penn, James Cavizel, John Cusack), but also the absent actors. The fact is that Malik completely cut out from the final version of the film the roles played by Mickey Rourke, Billy Bob Thornton, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Viggo Mortensen, which further strengthened his reputation as a principal artist who solves his creative tasks, regardless of the situation. Military drama for Terrence Malik is more a way to speculate on how a person and the world relate than to practice heroic pathos.
The Thin Red Line received the Golden Bear in Berlin and seven Oscar nominations, although it did not win a single one.
"New World"
In 2005, Malik's next film, The New World, was released. The plot is based on the story of the conquest of the North American Indians, on the background of which the love of two heroes unfolds, the English adventurer John Smith (played by Colin Farrell) and the Indian princess Pocahontes (played by K'Orianka Kilcher). Malik tried to make this picture as authentic as possible. For example, the shooting took place near the place of historical events, tobacco and corn were planted around, the actors were taught how to live in the atmosphere of the first settlers, and all those involved in the shooting had to learn the language that the Indians spoke then.
The audience appreciated the “New World”, and in terms of fees it turned out to be quite successful, however, this film received fewer awards and good reviews from film critics than previous works from the Terrence Malik filmography.
“The Tree of Life”, “By a Miracle”, “Knight of the Cups”, “Song by Song”
If Terrence Malik's early films are almost unanimously recognized as classics of world cinema, then there are polar opinions about his later works. Some consider them to be the quintessence of his skill and philosophical approach to cinema, while others consider them to be prolonged and pretentious. A characteristic feature of his later films is that it is a poetic cinema with almost no plot. In them, Malik tries to make viewers “feel” the film, and not just watch it, being interested in the ups and downs of the plot. One thing is clear: he remains true to himself and solves his own creative tasks.