Malick & Contemporary Cinema
When one is asked to identify the filmmakers they associate with the 1970s, they are likely to list such contemporary heavyweights as Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg. Perhaps the easiest way for a filmmaker to be remembered by contemporary film audiences is to remain active in the business in one capacity or another for an extended period of time. It may also be beneficial to produce what filmgoers would call a blockbuster, a commercial film that’s primary responsibility is to earn back its budget plus interest. They can often act as the defining film in a director’s career. However, there is always an exception to the rule, and in this case, the exception is Terrence Malick, who despite never having made a single blockbuster in his reclusive career, has managed to remain a mythic figure in film study as well as popular culture.
While filmmakers such as Spielberg have extensive directorial outings under their belts, Malick has directed just four feature films between 1973 and 2005. Since the release of his 1973 feature debut, Badlands, Malick as a director “…has become the stuff of myth and legend within cinema, fuelled by a twenty-year ‘absence’ from the [film] industry…” (Patterson 3). With our limited scope of who Malick is, it is difficult to make a serious, accurate interpretation of his films, but it is entertaining nonetheless. Malick’s solitary lifestyle reflects his desire not to let his own life influence his films, however, it is hard not to be tempted to discuss possible reasons why he left the business or what he did in the twenty-year gap between Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998). But for the purpose of this paper, we must learn to separate the filmmaker from the films he has created for us to enjoy.
Before we get into too much depth on Malick’s films, one must understand the significance of the 1960s for the future of film study. In his book A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, film historian Robert Ray brings to mind a 1968 film symposium in which the members of the National Society of Film Critics “…responded to a series of questions ‘designed to shed light on a few of the most important issues [currently] confronting both filmmakers and critics’,” (247). Among the questions considered were ‘Are we standing on the brink of a radically different film age?’ and ‘what of the American commercial movie? Can it go on as it is?’ One must keep in mind that this meeting took place years before the names Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, and Malick were brought to our attention. While most attendees of this meeting sided with film critic John Simon, saying that there is no reason to for American commercial films to change; they were completely unaware of what Malick had in store for them.
Malick spent the 1969-1970 school year studying at the prestigious American Film Institute (AFI), during which Malick made his thesis film, a short film entitled Lanton Mills (1969), which to this day has yet to be released in any form. After being among the first to graduate from AFI, Malick landed work as a screenwriter, working most notably on undeveloped screenplays for Dirty Harry (1971, Don Siegel) and Drive, He Said (1971, Jack Nicholson). His first screenplay credit was the 1972 western comedy Pocket Money, with Paul Newman and Lee Marvin. That same year, he also wrote a drama entitled Deadhead Miles for filmmaker Vernon Zimmerman, about a long-distance trucker and his experiences on the road. It was the latter that was the first real test of what was to come the following year when Malick finally got the chance to direct Badlands.
When one familiarizes themselves with a Malick film, they will discover several recurrent themes. While a Malick fan may consider his themes to be wholly original, the only thing he has done is use cliché themes in a unique way. This is the test of a good filmmaker; they are able to create something new out of something old. After much research, it can be determined that the core theme to all four of Malick’s films is that of alienation. In the case of Badlands, alienation is “…shown to be a fundamental facet of human life…” (Lee 2). While it may not be something we may necessarily desire, alienation is sometimes inherited without choice.
In the case of Badland’s Holly and Kit, the protagonists, have two very different experiences of alienation. While it is assumed that Kit was born into the alienating community of Fort Dupree, South Dakota, Holly experienced an entirely different sense of alienation. In the opening sequence, she tells us of how her mother died young and that her father was so devastated that “he tried to act cheerful, but he could never be consoled by the little stranger he found in his house,” (Malick). Before one takes this statement out of context, one must understand that the time in which this film is set is 1959. When the wife passed away of pneumonia, the father, had to pull double duty as a parent. Father’s decision to move from Texas to Ft. Dupree was an attempt to start fresh and to make peace with his daughter, whom he had very little experience with prior to his wife’s passing. But by moving, they are drawn even more apart once Holly meets Kit.
Kit and Holly’s introduction is one of fate. The young garbage collector sees Holly on her front yard one day, while stumbling around, twirling her baton. While their introduction presents Holly to be naïve and defenseless, Kit is displayed as masculine and strong, two cliché societal [sexual] roles. While Holly is born into somewhat of a stable, middle-class home, Kit works as a garbage collector and does not have a lot of money. In addition, he has no authorial figures that we are aware of. Here are a few of Holly’s statements when Kit asks her if he will ever see her again: “Well, I know what my daddy’s going to say…that I shouldn’t be seen with anybody that collects garbage…there’s nothing he wants to know about it,” (Malick). Father’s emotional detachment from Holly and his strong ethical beliefs causes her to seek an alternative [male] authority figure to replace him.
By directing Badlands, Malice was able to show his vast knowledge about cinema. For instance, Martin Sheen’s portrayal of Kit Caruthers is eerily reminiscent of 1950s movie icon James Dean: he smokes, he is ruggedly handsome, and is dangerous, a nonconformist to American society. Also, Badlands, about a doomed couple on the run, appears to be made in homage to several noteworthy films of the past: They Live By Night (1948, Nicholas Ray), Deadly Is the Female (1950, Joseph Lewis), and Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn); that’s one per decade for four consecutive decades. With the exception of Deadly Is the Female, all of these films feature the male lead dragging his female partner into a life of crime.
Before we continue, it must be understood that people are capable of anything, especially when it is two young persons acting together. “Although they appear motiveless, it is possible to view their actions in the film as motivated by their need to find, and more fully construct, identities for themselves,” (Patterson 25). Even though several authors such as Hannah Patterson have presented motives for Kit and Holly’s actions, the job of putting an end to these guesses lays on the shoulders of one person and one person only, the director. According to Malick, he does not wish to pass judgment on his characters; instead, he is much more interested in observing and studying whom his characters are and who they become. Holly’s transformation as a character is a powerful one. She grows up naïve with a distant, single father, meets and befriends Kit, goes on an exciting, dangerous adventure, and finally realizes that she is just not suited for this radical new lifestyle she is leading and that she needs out before it is too late.
“Whereas Holly’s narrative is presented as a minor break from the repetition of small-town life, Kit’s is a linear spiral to death…” (Danks 2). This statement as well as Kit and Holly’s introduction are eerily similar to Bonnie and Clyde, which features Clyde stumbling upon Bonnie’s home, leading her on a path of destruction that ultimately concludes with Bonnie and Clyde’s execution. Throughout the film, Bonnie emasculates Clyde, forcing them into even deeper trouble than before, and he is never really able to regain the masculine role he had played at the film’s start. The primary difference between Badlands and Bonnie and Clyde is that in the latter, the characters are presented as hooligans who knowingly delve into a life of crime (for thrills) and in the end, they get what is coming to them; Badlands on the other hand has Kit and Holly go on the run because they feel that that is their only alternative, Kit having killed Father due to his excessive verbal abuse. For these films and others like them, crime is completely masculine. In Badlands, the naïve Holly remains subordinate to Kit throughout the course of the film, at least until she decides to leave him and surrender herself for a better life she and the rebel-rouser Kit knows she deserves.
To say that anyone is totally against authority is a bit of an understatement. Most everyone desires to live a safe and easy-going life but when they feel threatened in any way, they are forced to do something desperate, maybe even criminal, for their own personal gain. There is a scene (please view attached video clip) in which Kit flat out says that what he and Holly are doing is wrong and that their ability to avoid police is temporarily one of luck. Because they feel that the authorities are closing in on them, Kit and Holly go on the run once Kit murders Father. American society is very two-faced; while they want you to be yourself, you must conform to their society or you are viewed as an outcast. When one commits murder, they have completely ignored this “rule”. Another example of a filmmaker whom I believe most accurately reflects this notion is independent film pioneer John Cassavetes, who first turned to filmmaking with the 1959 music drama Shadows.
In his 1968 social commentary film, Faces, Richard and Maria Frost are a seemingly normal suburban couple who try to make light of their own failing relationship by mocking their friends’ relationship. “…Faces is true to its title, in the attention it pays to the expressive possibilities of the face and the various feelings that register on its surface,” (Kouvaros 40). What we say and what we think are two completely different things. While we may say what we are told to say, our faces may give away our true intention in a heartbeat. For example, in the case of the attached Badlands clip, Sheen appears to be sorry for his actions but he comes off as arrogant and he stares off camera far too much for anyone to take him seriously.
In a stereotyped Liberal Hollywood, there are two “types” of filmmaking. Whereas Conservative filmmaking is much more focused on giving us the “correct” opinion, Malick and Cassavetes’ Liberal filmmaking styles present us with the facts, leaving us to form our own opinions. At the end of Faces, we find “…Richard and Maria…slumped on a staircase, unsure of what to do next. Eventually, they get up and exit the frame in different directions. The final shot of the empty stairway seems to return us to where we started, no wiser for the journey,” (Kouvaros 40). While Conservative opinion may be that they work out there issues and continue to be married, the Liberal opinion may be that they divorce and find someone more suited for their needs. However, by not “finishing” the scene, Cassavetes may not have wanted to influence your opinion of his characters, and Malick is no different. Peter Bart provides one likely reason behind this.
Writer Peter Bart gives a good possibility why Malick films lack linear plots. In his article “Silence of the Malick: What’s his ‘Line’?” Bart makes it quite clear that Malick becomes obsessed with character and story so much that they are subject to change during the entire course of filming, as is evident in Malick’s return-to-form, The Thin Red Line (1998). According to imdb.com, Malick shot over one million feet of film, totaling about six hours of footage. In the yearlong editing process, many characters were either eliminated completely or reduced to meager cameo appearances, such as Adrien Brody’s Cpl. Fife, which despite being very silent and brief (about six to seven minutes in length), is considered to be the film’s central (and stand-out) character. This is not to say that Malick is a bad writer or a bad filmmaker; rather, he is bored with conventional Hollywood and wants to bring something new to the table. His independent interest in making a film regardless its potential profit is reminiscent of Hollywood films of the past, newer, money-motivated audiences just do not recognize it.
Malick’s second film was the period drama Days of Heaven, which has its main characters move from Chicago to Texas in search of a better life. A major aspect of Malick’s earlier two films is that they both involve Texas. This is interesting because unlike Badlands, which has its characters (Holly and Father) move away from Texas (Malick’s home state) in search of a new, better life, Malick’s use of Texas in Days of Heaven is almost prophetic, in which the three main characters move to Texas in search of that better life. However, in both films, this better place in which the characters moves to is ruined by their inability to make coherent. moral decisions.
Molding the film almost completely like a silent film, Malick has single-handedly redefined the movie western, which “…is a hybrid vision of the American West inseparable from the idea of Manifest Destiny, the founding of a nation based upon the movement west by settlers, ranchers, soldiers, politicians and outlaws,” (Patterson 61). When they meet the Farmer, Bill and Abby make the decision for Abby to marry the Farmer, when he announces that he is terminally ill, so they could inherit his land and home once he dies; but when he fails to die, they rekindle their relationship in private. Abby and the Farmer’s relationship is best symbolized by fire. Fire is often fierce and uncontrollable. Abby and the farmer officially call themselves a “couple” over an open fire and their relationship is ended once the Farmer burns all of his crops. This powerful scene almost makes this place no more “Heavenly” than it is an eternal “Hell”, in which Bill and Abby must deal with their sins. Some may view Days of Heaven’s Texas as limbo, where Abby and Bill have to work out their mistakes before they can move on to “wreak havoc” elsewhere.
Malick, like so many auteurs of the era, completely redefined filmmaking in the 1970s. He encouraged improvisation to a degree of obsession and made films the only way he knew how. “Malick decided to toss the script, go…wide instead of deep, shoot miles of film with the hope of solving the problems in the editing room,” (Biskind 297). The norm is that films are shot on time and on budget. But by shooting his film his own way, Malick completely strayed away from Hollywood norm. Some film critics may call Malick brilliant; others may call him uninterested in his craft, due to his film-sabbatical. His reasoning behind this time off was not that he did not wish to continue making films, he just wanted the liberty to make his films on his own terms, and this was something he did not think Hollywood would let him do after the dismal financial success of Days of Heaven. Regardless of his attitudes towards his craft, Malick has been able to produce four very different films, each brilliant in and of itself.
Works Cited or Consulted:
Bart, Peter. “Silence of the Malick: What’s his ‘Line’?” Variety Magazine. 1998. Eskimo. 17 October 2007.
Cohen, Hubert. “The Genesis of Days of Heaven.” Cinema Journal. 2003.
Cook, David. Lost Illusions. University of California Press, Ltd.: London, 2000.
Danks, Adrian. “Death Comes as an End: Temporality, Domesticity and Photography in Terrence Malick's Badlands.” Senses of Cinema. 2000. Metro. 17 October 2007.
De Beauvoir, Simon. The Second Sex. Vintage Publishing: New York, 1949.
Kouvaros, George. Where Does It Happen? John Cassavetes and Cinema at the Breaking
Point. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2004.
Lee, Hwanhee. “Terrence Malick.” Senses of Cinema. 2002. Senses of Cinema. 14
October 2007.
Malick, Terrence. Badlands screenplay. Warner Bros. Pictures: 1973. Simplyscripts. 21
October 2007. <>
Ray, Robert B. A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema, 1930-1980. Princeton University Press: New Jersey, 1985.
Schickel, Richard. “The Future of Film: A Symposium.” 1968. An Anthology by the National Society of Film Critics. 19 October 2007.
Media Bibliography:
Almendros, Nestor. Days of Heaven publicity poster. 1978. Paramount, California.
Badlands. Dir. Terrence Malick. Prod. Terrence Malick. Perf. Martin Sheen. Warners, 1973.
Faces. Dir. John Cassavetes. Prod. John Cassavetes and Maurice McEndree. Perf. John Marley and Lynn Carlin. Castle Hill, 1968.
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