The Work of Terrence Malick: Time-Based Ecocinema

180 Pages·2019·1.76 MB·English

by  Gabriella Blasi

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the work of
Terrence
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time-based ecocinema
gabriella blasi
The Work of Terrence Malick

The Work of Terrence Malick
Time-Based Ecocinema
Gabriella Blasi
Amsterdam University Press
Cover illustration: Still from To the Wonder (2012)
Cover design: Kok Korpershoek, Amsterdam
Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout
isbn 978 94 6298 910 8
e-isbn 978 90 4854 151 5
doi 10.5117/9789462989108
nur 670
© G. Blasi / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.
For Alaya

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments 9
Introduction 11
Framing Nature and History in Malick Scholarship 13
Ecocritical Film Studies and the Problem of Space 18
The Figural Approach to Analysis in Film Studies 21
Benjamin’s Concept of Time in Film Studies 30
Terrence Malick’s Work: Time-Based Ecocinema 38
Works Cited 41
1. From Myth, Tragedy and Narrative to Allegory , Trauerspiel
and Film in Badlands and Days of Heaven 49
Symbolic and Allegorical Nature in Badlands 51
Tragedy and Trauerspiel in Days of Heaven 55
Prehistory and Second Technologies in Badlands and Days of
Heaven 60
The Blue Flower in the Land of Technology: Splinters of Messianic
Time in Badlands and Days of Heaven 66
Conclusion: from Mythic to Figural Temporal Relations in Films 70
Works Cited 73
2. Time and History in The Thin Red Line and The New World 77
The Thin Red Line Between Historical and Mechanical Nature 80
Critiquing Violence in Nature and History 83
Timidity and Courage in The Thin Red Line and The New World 87
Camera Work as Pure Mediality 90
Conclusion: Time-Based Phenomenology 98
Works Cited 100
3. Looking at Evolutionary Narratives in The Tree of Life and
Voyage of Time 105
Replaying Life’s Tape? Competing Mythological Narratives in
Malick’s The Tree of Life and Voyage of Time 107
Reconfiguring Modern Aesthetics in Evolutionary Narratives 114
Figural Space beyond Idealism and Nihilism 118
Materialist Theology in The Tree of Life and Voyage of Time: Life’s
Journey 119
Conclusion: Counterfactual Histories in Evolutionary Narratives 123
Works Cited 125
4. The Wastelands of Progress in To the Wonder, Knight of Cups
and Song to Song 129
The End of Teleological Time in To the Wonder 133
The Pilgrim’s Progress in Knight of Cups 138
Twenty-First Century’s Histories and Technologies in Song to Song 143
Contemporary Ecocinema in Song to Song 147
Conclusion: Finite Freedom and Materialist Theology in
Ecocinema 149
Works Cited 152
Conclusion 155
Bibliography 159
About the Author 173
Index 175
Acknowledgments
Many voices contributed to this book’s arguments over the years. I would like
to thank Warwick Mules, Tony Thwaites and Jane Stadler for their support
and challenges during my PhD at The University of Queensland, where the
majority of the research informing this book took place. I acknowledge
the long lasting impact of Thomas Elsaesser’s UQ Masterclass on Lars von
Trier, and the conversations that ensued from it, in October 2014. I am also
grateful for the support and collegiality of many others, including David
Baker, Amelia Barikin, Jamie Carson, Joanne Faulkner, Susan Forde, Greg
Hainge, Ian Hesketh, Lisa Hill, Jason Jacobs, Wendy Keys, Marguerite La
Caze, Helen Miller, Ted Nannicelli, Tom O’Regan, Richard Read, Steven
Rybin, Robert Sinnerbrink, Lisa Trahir, Herman Van Eyken, Sara Visocnik,
Marcus Waters, Jillian Whitlock.
Some sections of Chapter 1 of this book were published in ‘The Orchid
in the Land of Garbage: an Ecocritique of Terrence Malick’s Badlands’,
Environmental Humanities, 5 (2014), pp. 55-75. Limited sections of Chapter
2 of this book were published in ‘The Cinematic Life of the Figural: Mapping
Shapes of Time in Terrence Malick’s The New World,’ Cinema: the Journal of
Philosophy and the Moving Image, 7 (2015), pp.11-27 and in ‘Nature, History
and “Critique of Violence” in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line’, Parrhesia:
The Journal of Critical Philosophy, 26 (2016), pp. 81-95. Limited sections of
Chapter 4 were published in ‘The Cinema of Entanglement: How not to
Contemplate Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder, Voyage of Time and Knight
of Cups’, New Review of Film and Television Studies. 17 (2019), pp. 20-37.