Research Presentation for Film Studies questioning whether Terrence Malick is the auteur of his films.

1. Research Presentation
Paige Neilson

2. My hypothesis
✤Terrence Malick is the auteur of his films due to his auteur features that are consistent
throughout his body of work, thematic preoccupations and certain collaborations.
Primary sources (focal films):
✤Badlands (1978)
✤The Tree of Life (2011)
✤To the Wonder (2012)
I chose these three films because I believe they are all a good representation of
Malick’s distinctive style and demonstrate his use of consistent motifs throughout his
body of work. I decided to choose one of his earlier films to show the development of
his style and use of technology but also demonstrate that there is consistency (in
terms of his style and motifs) throughout his body of work.

3. Badlands (1973)
✤ … is an American crime film An
impressionable teen girl from a
dead-end town and her older
greaser boyfriend go on a killing
spree in the South Dakota badlands
✤ Malick’s first feature film
✤ The story, though fictional, is
loosely based on the real-life
murder spree of Charles
Starkweather and his girlfriend,
Caril Ann Fugate in 1958

4. Progression from Badlands to now
✤ Auteur features such as use of natural light and
voiceover still used however have developed through
technological advances (especially in The Tree of Life)
✤ Themes like death and relationships are consistent
with his future work
✤ Narrative style has changed as his later work became
less linear and more unconventional- can be
interpreted as harder to follow

5. The Tree of Life (2011)
✤ … an American experimental
film drama that chronicles the
origins and meaning of life by
way of a middle-aged man's
childhood memories of his
family living in 1950s Texas,
interspersed with imagery of
the origins of the universe and
the inception of life on Earth.

6. To the Wonder (2012)
✤ … is a romantic drama art
film, about a man and
woman who fall in love in
Paris and come home to
Oklahoma where problems
arise. Their church's
Spanish-born pastor
struggles with his faith,
while Neil encounters a
woman from his childhood.

7. My three sub- topics
✤ Auteur features (visual style)
✤ Thematic preoccupations (recurring motifs)
✤ Collaborations

8. Auteur Features
Malick has a consistent visual style throughout his body of work as demonstrated
through the following auteur features:
✤ Natural light
✤ Handheld footage
✤ Wide angle shots
✤ Muted colours
✤ Heavy use of voiceover (often whispered)
✤ Steadicam shots

9. Auteur Theory
✤ Cashiers du cinema argues that films should reflect the directors personal
vision; an auteur is noted to have a distinctive personal style throughout his
body of work.
✤ Andrew Sarris said that an auteur can recognised by technical competence
and distinguishable style (“the strong director imposes his own personality
onto a film”)
✤ Another theorist that supports this is Francois Truffaut who argued that the
best directors have a distinctive visual style recognised by consistent
themes and aesthetic ideas running throughout their body of work.
✤ Sarris: “over a group of films a director must exhibit certain recurrent
characteristics of style, which serve as his signature”.
✤ David Kipen argues against auteur theory and proposes ‘the Schreiber
Theory’ which essentially suggests that the screenwriter s the auteur of a
film.
““A filmgoer seeking out pictures written by, say, Eric Roth or Charlie
Kauffman won’t always see a masterpiece, but he’ll see fewer clunkers than
he would following even a brilliant director like John Boorman, or an
intelligent actor like Jeff Goldbum. It’s all a matter of betting on the fastest
horse, instead of the most highly touted or the prettiest.”
✤ Auteur theory basically
suggests that consistent visual
style throughout a directors
body of work makes them the
auteur of his films which I
believe Malick has from the
many auteur features that can
be recognised throughout his
films.
✤ The Schreiber Theory again
backs my hypothesis of Malick
being the auteur of his films as
he writes and directs his films.

10. Examples within primary sources
✤ Wide angle shots ✤ Muted colour palette

11. Examples within primary sources
✤ Natural Light

12. Thematic Preoccupations
Malick has a consistent motifs throughout his body of work:
✤ Nature represents freedom
✤ The meaning of life
✤ Death
✤ Relationships (breaking down of relationships/ unconventional
relationships)
✤ Spirituality

13. Collaborations
Malick has a consistent visual style throughout his body of work
as demonstrated through the following auteur features:
✤ Emmanuel Lubezki- cinematographer (The New World, The
Tree of Life, To the Wonder)
✤ Douglas Trumbull- Special Effects (The Tree of Life)
✤ Jack Fisk- Art Director (all of his feature films)
✤ Mark Yoshikowa (The New World, The Tree of Life, To the
Wonder)

14. Douglas Trumbull
✤ Special Effects (The Tree of Life)
✤ Known for his work on films like 2001: Space Odyssey (special effects)
✤ Experimented with various ways to show ‘the universe’ and the cosmos, e.g. he put
water on a sheet of glass and sprinkle paint onto it to shoot with a Phantom camera at
a thousand frames per second. This made what the produced unexpected and
“exciting on the screen”.
✤ “the whole agenda was to be free to experiment”
✤ “Organic effects”
✤ The Tree of Life segment with the ‘birth of creation’ is reminiscent of Kubrick’s 2001: A
Space Odyssey- Doug Trumbull did special effects for both- do these influences make
his visual style not his own?

16. Collaborations- Emmanuel Lubezki
✤ He has been the cinematographer
of all of his latest films since 2005
onwards
✤ Is a highly recognised and
celebrated cinematographer also
known for his work with Alfonso
Cuaron
✤ Lubezki has a distinctive style in his
own right demonstrated through his
stunning use of natural light (very
evident in Malick’s films) and
complex, long takes
✤ Some would argue that film is a collaborative art
and there is no one auteur of a film. My
hypothesis can be challenged by Malick’s
consistent collaborations, like Lubezki, and can
suggest that his auteur features (that are highly
cinematography based) are not his own personal
style but a visual style created by a group of
people.
✤ However, I believe that his consistent
collaborations are just further suggests that he is
the auteur of his films. His auteur features have
been consistent from his first feature, like his use
of natural light, but have merely been enhanced
by working with other like minded people like
Lubezki.

17. Malick as a ‘perfectionist’ making him
an auteur
✤ As of 2015, Malick has directed a total of 7 feature films, having a 20 year break from films altogether
between Days of Heaven (1978) and The Thin Red Line (1998). This can suggest that Malick is a
perfectionist as he takes his time wight the films he makes (e.g. The Tree of Life was released 3 years
later that predicted)
✤ When working on Badlands, Malick decide to replace the original editor of the film after he was
unhappy with the cut of the film. . Malick himself and Billy Weber then recut the movie. Robert Estrin
remains credited as the sole editor, however, with Weber credited as associate editor. This
demonstrates how Malick wants things done right and proves that although film is collaborative, Malick
has control over al aspects of the film, from pre- production to post- production.
✤ “Malick's perfectionism is such that, along with prints of The Tree of Life on its US release last month,
he sent a note "for the attention of every projectionist" ordering them to: show the film in its proper
aspect ratio, dim the house lights well before the opening frame and ensure that the projector's "foot
Lambert level is at Standard 14”.” The Guardian, The Observer
✤ Waiting for the ‘magic hour’
✤ He is personally invested in his films (The Tree of Life and the death of his brother)

18. Conclusion
✤ “If Michael Bay’s the anti christ, he’s the opposite of
that.” Mark Kermode
✤ He is personally invested in his films
✤ His auteur features are consistent throughout his films
as well as the motifs he often uses.