By M. Sellers Johnson.
A lot of the people who worked for Malick have a lot of affection for him and want to protect him. They have this complicated feeling that they’re really keen to tell stories but they don’t want to be seen to be spilling the beans. Having said that there were also a lot of people who felt that a book was long overdue and were happy to contribute.”
John Bleasdale’s impressive new biography The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick (University Press of Kentucky, December 2024), reveals many crucial and insightful details on the filmmaker’s life course, from his Persian family history and fledgling youth in Oklahoma-Texas to an ongoing artistic career, spanning over half of a century. His career shifts from academia to journalism, and later to filmmaking, have secured his status as one of the industry’s most elusive, yet intriguing directors. For those curious as to how Malick curated such a sui generis approach to filmmaking, this text serves as both a series illuminating windows into the myth of the artist and a tonic for any doubts one might have levied against him. Among many things, the biography illustrates useful perspectives on Malick, offering an understanding of many of his remarkable activities: how, as a twenty-one-year-old undergraduate, he had a personal meeting with Martin Heidegger at his home in the Black Forest; which soft rock artist he took promotional photos with during the mid-seventies; how in 1975 (before production on Days of Heaven) Malick found himself in a pickup basketball game with Fidel Castro; what Malick’s activities were during his supposed twenty-year hiatus; and what qualifies the man to this day. Herein, lies many revealing and surprisingly simple answers. While honoring aspects of Malick’s known preference for privacy, Bleasdale imparts many formative and absorbing details on this mysterious figure. In so doing, he humanizes the mythic Malick and illuminates the biography of a man whose fascinating personal journey through life is truly the stuff of legend.
M. Sellers Johnson: The prospect of a Terrence Malick biography holds a lot of intrigue, especially considering Malick’s famous shyness and reluctance to speak on behalf of his projects. Do you think the readers will be surprised by the lesser-known details of Malick’s life revealed in your book?
John Bleasdale: Yes, I definitely think there are a lot of surprises in the book. Many things have never been written about before and some things are out there but have been gathered from obscure corners. Ironically, I think readers will be surprised by how much he isn’t a recluse. You don’t have to dig very deep before you realize that all roads lead to Terrence Malick sooner or later. I’d point to what Francis Ford Coppola wrote in an Instagram post last year, wishing Malick a happy birthday and calling him the funniest person he ever met. Coppola seems the opposite of Malick. A garrulous publicity-seeking figure, but they’re really coming out of the same context. Talk to anyone who knows him and they’ll tell you that Malick is funny and friendly. He just doesn’t talk to the press.
It’s all the more intriguing having so many contributors, colleagues, and friends of Malick discuss him with you. What can you share about your research perspective and how you sourced interviewees? How did you find a balance with inquiry, while also respecting Malick’s privacy?
I don’t think I had to respect his privacy as such. After all, an unauthorized biography has no obligation except to its readers and hopefully the truth if that’s not too pompous. But a lot of the people who worked for Malick have a lot of affection for him and want to protect him. They have this complicated feeling that they’re really keen to tell stories but they don’t want to be seen to be spilling the beans. Having said that there were also a lot of people who felt that a book was long overdue and were happy to contribute. I am really grateful to everyone who took the time to talk to me but people enjoy talking about him. I talked to the composer James Newton Howard and he said something that was very true. He said, “Every time I talk about Terry I start to smile.”
Much of the prevailing scholarship on Malick tends to orbit around critical perspectives of philosophy or theology. What is your take on the benefits and limitations of these philosophical approaches?
I think it has created an imbalance. Malick studied philosophy, translated Heidegger, and even met him personally but Malick abandoned his postgrad studies because he found academia too dry. He didn’t think he was a good teacher when he briefly tried. His films are influenced by his reading of philosophy but more by his reading of literature and he spent his whole professional life as a writer. He even had a stint as a journalist. So to keep insisting on looking at his films through this lens of philosophy seems to focus on a very brief moment in his life. Likewise theology, there’s no doubt Malick is a deeply religious person but this is definitely where his privacy is quite intense. He’s interested in all religions and I don’t think he likes being pigeonholed. So again, I’d like to encourage scholarship on Malick which looks at different aspects of his work or through different lenses. His historicism for instance, or politics.
Casting has always been a fascinating part of Malick’s work. It’s no secret that often he will cut out entire storylines and talent during post-production. But it’s also exciting to think of the range of actors considered for various parts during the pre-production phases of his films. Auditions for the role of Kit in Badlands included the likes of Don Johnson, Peter Fonda, and Robert De Niro. John Travolta was famously the ideal choice for Bill in Days of Heaven, though other emerging actors at the time also read for parts, like Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Jeff Goldblum, Dustin Hoffman, and Genevieve Bujold. Even Sylvester Stallone passed during early talks for the role to concentrate on Rocky (1976). By The Thin Red Line, provisional casting included a bevy of talent, from Viggo Mortensen to Leonardo DiCaprio. Such lists go on and on, but what do you think of Malick’s extensive casting considerations? Also, what thoughts do you have on the initial choice for Mr. O’Brien in Malick’s opus The Tree of Life?
Malick finds casting difficult because he gets to know and like actors, so Diane Crittenden who became a close collaborator and casting director, would try and send him tapes so he didn’t get too personally involved in the process. And yet the care and consideration he takes often results in finding really fresh talent who go on to then have long careers. Martin Sheen, Richard Gere, Jessica Chastain, etc. His work with actors has often caused some controversy because he’s not giving conventional direction and increasingly the script gives way to improvisation. Some actors are better skilled and more responsive to this approach.
Editing is always a long process that begins during filming when much of the dialogue is taken out. This was already the case with Days of Heaven when almost all the scenes were reduced to one or two lines. But actors tend to judge the size of their roles by their lines which is wrong. There are actors who complained of being cut out of The Thin Red Line for instance but if you look at the script and the novel you’ll see there is no lead character as such. It’s always been an ensemble piece. Lines are cut definitely but those faces – Adrien Brody’s frightened eyes – are still there and play a role. Ultimately we have to judge Malick by his films. Did he hurt an actor’s feelings occasionally? Certainly. Did it make the film better or worse? I’d say it’s probably better. If anything, The Thin Red Line could’ve done with cutting out George Clooney as well. Not because he was bad but just that he turns up too late and is too distracting. With The Tree of Life, Heath Ledger was very nervous about the role having just become a father himself but he was a hugely talented actor, and who knows what he would have made of it? That said, for Brad Pitt, it’s his most successful serious dramatic role. He stretches himself as an actor in a way we have never seen before or since.
Coppola seems the opposite of Malick. A garrulous publicity-seeking figure, but they’re really coming out of the same context. Talk to anyone who knows him and they’ll tell you that Malick is funny and friendly. He just doesn’t talk to the press.”
I’ve personally found To the Wonder to be a unique and underrated Malick film. It seems that you share the same feeling. You analyze the important aspects of the story nestled within the oblique montage narrative. What would you say on behalf of this Malick film, and why did you choose to devote a singular chapter for this particular film out of the “Weightless trilogy?” And how useful is this appellation for a supposed trilogy?
It’s very contested as a name but also useful. What happened was a confluence of economic, logistical, and creative factors. Money was available, and projects and an appetite to work were strong. Collaborators such as Chivo (i.e., Emmanuel Lubezki) were ready to join the ride. Malick had always been working against his crew until he got a crew that understood what he wanted to achieve. That started with Nestor Almendros on Days of Heaven but came to its peak with Chivo and [Sarah] Green and [Nicolas] Gonda. So why not make a bunch of films? And they all share a thematic strain in that Malick is using his life as subject matter to explore – much more than people realize. Again it really runs against the image of him as a recluse.
To the Wonder is a perfect example of Malick hiding in plain sight. If you approach it as an American film about a love story going wrong, then it is going to frustrate you on many levels. It spends so much time in foreign languages both literally and visually. The language of the film, the editing feels new and unfamiliar. Everything is alluded to rather than shown and the main inspiration of the film – the love affair and death of Malick’s second wife – is so hidden as if it’s too painful to render in the open air. I have discovered the film through multiple viewings and I perfectly understand those who don’t have the patience to try. But now I find it truly moving and powerful. By comparison Knight of Cups and Song to Song are slighter, an extension and variation of a technique that’s already found its apotheosis.
As with any filmmaker, Malick has his supporters and critics. As Steven DeLay notes, certain audiences regard his first two films but not the rest, whereas others are ardent fans of his entire oeuvre—with all manner of variations in between. As a critic yourself, talk about your experiences of covering the director’s work. Have there been films of his that you initially weren’t keen about, but have since reappraised?
I’d say it’s more complicated than just those two groups. People have a film they get to and that’s where they drop out. The New World, The Tree of Life, and the post-Tree films are where the biggest exodus occurs. David Thomson in his Biographical Dictionary of Film calls Malick’s decline a tragedy but then rates A Hidden Life as a masterpiece. It’s understandable. Malick is a daring experimental filmmaker and one thing about experiments is that they have a high failure rate. As a critic, I was cautiously supportive of To the Wonder. I saw neither Knight of Cups nor Song to Song at the cinema which has a big impact on concentration. With Voyage of Time,I became genuinely angry with and wrote a one star review. But it was almost a genre to write rude reviews about Malick. It was like mourning mid-eighties Dylan. It wasn’t a straight response to the films but an emotional mix of bafflement and betrayal and an attempt to work out what was going on. Re-watching them for the book they suddenly make sense as a continuous pushing of methodology and cinematic language. Dialogue, plot, and coherence fall away as moments and sensations, thoughts and moods take over. Michael Cimino called Malick the one true poet of cinema and I think that is key to how his later films have been misunderstood. It’s like we’re reading Shelley or Blake and wondering where the story is and why the lines don’t go to the edge of the page.
With his forthcoming project, The Way of the Wind, you mention that the film seems it will employ the grandiosity of The Tree of Life while imploring the intimate religiosity of A Hidden Life. Assuming that it may very well be his final directorial outing, what expectations might you have for The Way of the Wind? And if you could speak with Malick now, what might you say to him?
I’ve talked to several people who’ve been involved in the making of the film and as is usual there is no agreement or real idea of what the film is going to be like. I think that it is going to be a very important film, in the sense that it is a film with a lot riding on it. Malick’s reputation would benefit from a critical success certainly but more importantly to Malick himself; the subject matter is something which is so personal to him he really wants to get it right. I think that’s part of the delay. He wants to get it absolutely right.
I don’t think it is necessarily his last film. In fact, there’s a possibility he’s already working on his next film. After all, To the Wonder was already shot before The Tree of Life came out. If I had the opportunity to talk to him I’d talk to him about something that isn’t film related. From everyone I’ve talked to, you get the idea of someone who has a wide range of interesting ideas. And no one says “Oh, we talked about Badlands and he told me what it meant.” So, I think it’d be better to hear some of that famous sense of humor Coppola was talking about. Or maybe talk about sports. He’s a huge sports fan.
M. Sellers Johnson is an independent scholar and editor whose research interests include French art cinema, transnationalism, historiography, and aesthetics. He received his MA from Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington) in 2021 and his BA at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2018. His work has appeared in Afterimage, Film International, Film Quarterly, Media Peripheries, Mise-en-scène, Offscreen, and sabah ülkesi, among other outlets. He is the founding Citation Ethics Editor for Film Matters, and the current Book Reviews Editor for New Review of Film and Television Studies.