[HN Gopher] The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terren...
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The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick
Author : mitchbob
Score : 38 points
Date : 2025-05-16 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| mitchbob wrote:
| https://archive.ph/2025.05.14-163421/https://www.lrb.co.uk/t...
| latentcall wrote:
| I still remember seeing The Tree of Life in theaters. What an
| incredible experience that was.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Oh I remember that movie, very relaxing, put me right to sleep
| zzz
| CharlesW wrote:
| Ask your doctor if TikTok(tm) is right for you.
| badc0ffee wrote:
| There's a wide range of attention spans between a 2-hour
| experimental film and TikTok.
| flyingcircus3 wrote:
| I remember being so bored during this movie in the theater.
| My expectations of any plot whatsoever were unreasonably
| high.
| barelycompetent wrote:
| Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line are simply the most
| beautiful films ever made.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| I don't know if I would call The Thin Red Line "beautiful" but
| I think it's a great (anti-)war movie.
| rdtsc wrote:
| I think I would call it cinematographically beautiful, and
| parts of it were meant to be really be visually beautiful.
| But it all had to be contrasted with carnage, death, fear,
| and all the ugliness of war.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Seeing it in a packed theater with a bunch of teenagers on a
| Friday night ruined it for me the first time. They were
| expecting another "Saving Private Ryan" and got something
| totally different, so decided to entertain themselves through
| obnoxious behavior and mockery.
| meindnoch wrote:
| I wouldn't call it anti-war per se. It's a deeply spiritual
| movie, against the backdrop of war.
| rdtsc wrote:
| Like the first line says, he is probably the least known famous
| director. That is, he is not an activist and not flashy, doesn't
| make a lot of movies, and the general public simply doesn't know
| about him. But all the other movie directors and famous actors
| know him and kind of idolize him.
|
| When Thin Red Line came out in 1998 he hadn't done a movie since
| 1978 (Days of Heaven) and yet he snagged all the famous actors to
| play in it: Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel (though he wasn't as famous
| then), George Clooney, Jared Leto, Nick Nolte, John Travolta and
| others. It's like they were tripping over themselves to be in his
| film.
|
| But I can't fault the general public for not knowing him either.
| His movies are more "artsy" so he is like like an American
| version of Andrey Tarkovsky -- you have to really be in the mood
| for his movies, like watching Stalker or Mirror by Tarkovsky.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| Kind of like a "musician's musician"--ones whose names come up
| often in interviews with famous musicians, and often have
| covers of their songs by more-famous artists become very
| popular, but are largely out of the limelight, at least
| relative to their fame and influence in certain circles.
| PyWoody wrote:
| If you haven't seen it, A Hidden Life has the most Tarkovsky
| feel to it for me. It felt very inspired by Mirror,
| specifically. I say that as a person who loves both films, too.
|
| I can't believe the author of the article so blithely dismissed
| To The Wonder, Knight of Cups, and The New World. The New World
| is probably my favorite of all Malick's films so far.
| otherme123 wrote:
| IIRC Travolta was a furious that his role was brutally cut to
| almost nothing after shooting a decent amount of footage, and
| at least a couple of well known actors were fully out of the
| final cut.
|
| They were indeed tripping to be in the film, that's one thing I
| remember clearly, rumours of some actors begging to be in the
| movie for free.
| hondo77 wrote:
| They were falling over themselves to make *a* movie with him.
| Not so much *another* movie with him. I just happened to watch
| a video about that this morning:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqoQoN-Pb5I
| rdtsc wrote:
| > They were falling over themselves to make _a_ movie with
| him. Not so much _another_ movie with him. I just happened to
| watch a video about that this morning
|
| I think one of the main points of the movie is there is no
| "lead actor". In that regard it's realistic as far as wars go
| -- there is no "Tom Hanks" character going to rescue a
| "Private Ryan" with magic plot armor surrounding him. As an
| aside, that movie was released the same year, so it makes for
| a great contrast.
|
| Jim Caviezel's character (Witt) sort of became like a main
| character in the end but he still dies, surrounded and shot.
| Granted he sacrificed himself, which is notable, as well.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| His movies may be "artsy" but he had a big influence on cinema.
| I watched Badlands for the first time a couple of years ago and
| I kept having to remind myself that it was made in 1973, not
| 1993 or 2003. It just seems like a film that's out of place in
| time, but that seems to be because it influenced later films.
| haunter wrote:
| >There is a new film in the works, The Way of the Wind, about the
| life of Christ. Geza Rohrig plays Jesus, Mark Rylance is Satan.
| It was shot in 2019. The word is that it will open at Cannes in
| May. But I'm not sure they said which year.
|
| Sadly not this year either :(
|
| Probably my most anticipated film of the decade, I loved all the
| Terrence Malick films I've seen so far.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I hope he's able to finish it.
| ArthurStacks wrote:
| The guy to go to if you want an awful boring movie
| hondo77 wrote:
| So, you've seen Days of Heaven, too?
|
| (actually, I only lasted through the first 20 minutes)
| _m_p wrote:
| This book is particularly great about discussing the process of
| filmmaking, which in Malick's case often seems to involve a ton
| of experimentation through editing in order to shape a film after
| photography had finished.
|
| (Some of this editing work notably led to major actors having
| their roles cut from films. Adrien Brody, for example, apparently
| believed that he was going to have the lead role in _The Thin Red
| Line_ but ended up entirely cut.)
|
| For those interested, Richard Brody's book about Godard and
| Carrie Rickey's book about Agnes Varda are similarly detailed
| about the specifics of their filmmaking work!
| _m_p wrote:
| Those interested may also really like this article about the
| cinematography of _Days of Heaven_:
| https://theasc.com/articles/photographing-days-of-heaven
|
| > My work became "de-illuminating," that is, removing the false
| and conventional light.
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