If director Terrence Malick loved lattes, he would make them in the late morning with the sunlight casting dolorous hues. He would murmur, softly, “Espresso. Milk. How you wrestle within me so.” And the latte, crafted over two hours, would change a man’s life.

Of course, there’s no way to know if the reclusive Malick loves lattes. But it’s not so far-fetched to assume that the philosophical filmmaker, beacon of American cinema, would apply the aesthetic of his films to life. After 2011’s “The Tree of Life,” the legendary director is back in record time with a follow-up, “To the Wonder.” This week, columnists Sebastian Torrelio and Tony Huang question where his work is going, and whether it’s profound or just pretentious.


I am convinced that Terrence Malick can see something in the world that we mere mortals cannot. In the five previous feature films he has directed, spread over almost 40 years, Malick has created some of the most literal and most figurative forms of art that film can produce.

From the dazzling starkness of Midwest scenes in “Badlands,” to the destructive craft of contemporary war in “The Thin Red Line,”Malick has shown a signature taste for cinematography in all his work. He can be visually identified not just by his stunning nature shots, but also his clever simplicities. A locust scene in “Days of Heaven” was made by playing backward footage of helicopters dropping peanut shells.

Yet Malick’s Oscar attribution is still outshined by his ability for symbolism in directing and writing. What he does for the medium of film as a whole is akin to the work of many great American authors. Steinbeck and Faulkner created timeless works that may take a lifetime to sink in, pondering further intricacies of life, romance, death and beauty with each successive look back. Malick does the same for those with enough patience and interest to take on the challenge of his storytelling head-on.

There’s a reason his latest masterpiece, “The Tree of Life,” is the most critically lauded film of the decade so far. Its scope and ambition guide it through a maddeningly epic tale that makes other filmmakers look meager and trivial in comparison. At nearly 70, Malick has shown an odd increase in production, currently directing three movies for release after “To the Wonder.” For his most adoring fans, of past, present and future, his continuing voyage through time and new worlds is surely one to be anticipated, awed and meditated on.

Email Torrelio at storrelio@media.ucla.edu if you’re on the “love” side.


Nick Fury, I cordially invite you to get out of my movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I mostly enjoy the Marvel superhero movies, and even have enough room in my admittedly inhospitable heart to love “Iron Man” unreservedly. But the phenomenon of awkwardly tying movies together for a big box-office finish comes off to me less like intelligent filmmaking and more like an especially bad game of Tetris where none of the pieces fit together.

Take “Thor,” whose mythology is most explicitly expanded upon in “The Avengers.” We’ve got the one agent dude who – spoiler alert for the untainted masses – dies, the Tesseract that drives the plot of “The Avengers” showing up for a cameo, and oh hey, how’s it going Jeremy Renner, showing up for one scene to distract everybody with your outdated weaponry. None of the fan service links to “The Avengers” improves “Thor” in any way, and in fact detract from the movie, making it sillier than it is already. They distract and pull focus away and, most irritatingly, disrupt the escapism – “This is a movie! A movie that is tied to other movies!”

It’s the same shtick for every one of the links – it transforms perfectly entertaining popcorn flicks into feature-length trailers for the “real thing.” “Iron Man 2” was derailed into the next universe by Nick Fury. “Captain America: The First Avenger” had its main storyline cheapened by the reveal. It would be better if the result was worth it, but I guess I should confess, and please don’t kill me, I found “The Avengers” good but not really mind-blowing. Just perfectly fine – and the moviegoers from my small comic book-geek-deprived town seemed to agree.

I’m still curious to see how the future will pan out for this ambitious linkage. But for a non-fan like myself, I want good movies, not annoying fanfiction.

Email Huang at thuang@media.ucla.edu if you’re on the “hate” side.

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1 Comment

  1. Tony Huang, did you fall asleep at the copy/paste switch? Though a Malick-directed superhero movie would move me to the “hate” side…..

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