Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life’

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I’m a huge fan of Terrence Malick’s films; they have incredible depth and move me in a way that few other films have. Yet it wasn’t always that way. When I was younger I really didn’t understand what his films were trying to do. I thought his work was boring. Only after I had started to develop a more acute phenomenological sensibility (thank you Descartes and Husserl!) did I slowly begin to open up to the raw experience of the films as I found them. I read a bit more and then started (again slowly) to understand the formal elements and composition of his work. After a while not only was I able to open to the experience of his work, but I finally began to ‘get it'.


What this suggested, to me, is that aesthetic experience and intellectual subtlety are never truly opposed – but are complementary aspects of broader cognitive capacities. Likewise, human experiences are neither purely emotional or rational, but always unfold as complex admixtures of ideation and emotive reaction. And, ultimately, for me, the best way to experience a Malick film is to relax into the kaleidoscopic nature human experience and simply let them be what they are: a world coming into view.

Malick’s stylings and ideas come from a rich philosophical background. Malick studied philosophy under Stanley Cavell at Harvard University, graduating summa cum laude in 1965. He then went on to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, but after a disagreement with his adviser, Gilbert Ryle, over his thesis on the concept of ‘the world’ in Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, Malick left Oxford without a doctorate degree. Moving back to the United States, Malick taught philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology while freelancing as a journalist, writing for Newsweek, The New Yorker and Life, among others. In 1969, Northwestern University Press published Malick's translation of Heidegger's Vom Wesen des Grundes as The Essence of Reasons.

Following a lead posted at Enowning I stumbled upon a photo taken of a poster (at top right) released only  yesterday for Malick’s latest offering, The Tree of Life, due to be released May 27, 2011. Until now little has been known about this project, but this week at the American Film Market Fox Searchlight released the following synopsis of the film, in Malick’s own words: 

We trace the evolution of an eleven-year-old boy in the Midwest, JACK, one of three brothers. At first all seems marvelous to the child. He sees as his mother does with the eyes of his soul. She represents the way of love and mercy, where the father [Brad Pitt] tries to teach his son the world’s way of putting oneself first. Each parent contends for his allegiance, and Jack must reconcile their claims. The picture darkens as he has his first glimpses of sickness, suffering and death. The world, once a thing of glory, becomes a labyrinth.

From this story is that of adult Jack [Sean Penn], a lost soul in a modern world, seeking to discover amid the changing scenes of time that which does not change: the eternal scheme of which we are a part. When he sees all that has gone into our world’s preparation, each thing appears a miracle—precious, incomparable. Jack, with his new understanding, is able to forgive his father and take his first steps on the path of life.

The story ends in hope, acknowledging the beauty and joy in all things, in the everyday and above all in the family—our first school—the only place that most of us learn the truth about the world and ourselves, or discover life’s single most important lesson, of unselfish love.

The film looks to be another splendid example of Malick’s talent portraying the dynamics of being and becoming in the life of particular people in very particular settings. I look forward to taking another Malik crafted journey in May.