As we all know, Terrence Malick‘s process on each of his features has involved shooting thousands upon thousands of feet of footage, and then finding the film in the edit. This has led to countless actors being cut from his movies, and a plethora of unseen material never hitting the big screen. However, a fascinating slice from the director’s underrated 2012 effort “To The Wonder” will soon be seeing the light of day.
At the SXSW Film Festival next month, photojournalist Eugene Richards will unveil the 43-minute short, “Thy Kingdom Come.” The New Yorker details the fascinating story behind the project. In 2010, Malick rang up Richards, and hired him to help find real residents of Bartlesville, Oklahoma to interact with Javier Bardem‘s troubled, faith-tested priest. As you might expect, only a glimmer of those sequences wound up in the final film, so Richards sought Malick’s permission to use the excised material.
Now it’s here and it promises to be moving stuff. The interview subjects shared many deeply personal and painful stories with Bardem, and the fact that he wasn’t actually a real priest didn’t seem to matter. “Most people knew him as the murderer in ‘No Country for Old Men,’ ” Richards explained. “A couple people knew him as Penelope Cruz’s husband. Some didn’t know who he was at all. And absolutely no one cared, in the end, who he was, except that he was there to listen.”
No word on how “Thy Kingdom Come” might be released after SXSW, but I’d imagine an indie-minded streaming service would want to scoop this up.
Sounds interesting and anyone who got to sit with the great Bardem must have been a treat.
I used to really love Mallick’s work. Not anymore. First there was Badlands. Then the great and still one of my very favorite films of all time, Days of Heaven. Just great, great film. I started oscillating with The Thin Red Line. After that film I just lost interest in him and his work and doubt I’ll ever gain any interest again. He’s still unique and gifted, for sure, but his work is so self indulgent and ponderous and boring I simply can’t be bothered. His themes might be amazing to him and others, but I find them sophomoric and trite. His understanding of these supposedly heavy themes totally eludes his ability to present them successfully. The themes and his fascination with them far exceeds his grasp of them. At least to me.
I’d say I agree to some extent. Especially with Days of Heaven being his best (such a beautiful film). Past that, I think he got self-indulgent, but not always negatively (though sometimes). I still love Tree of Life, which is so self-indulgent as it’s autobiographical, it draws parallels between what he could possibly know, his life from birth to wherever, to the creation of all. Which could be seen as egocentric, I simply choose not to see it that way. One can only make what one knows of, and with that film, I think he made a film about his everything. I can understand why people don’t care for it (I certainly don’t for anything he made after), but I hope it’s a mutually understanding agreement. If that makes sense.
Good reply/post. Thank you. I don’t think anything Mallick’s done is negative. I just don’t think he understands his themes well enough to present them other than an almost naive and sophomoric manner. Perhaps his creating the films allow him to further investigate and understand what he’s delving into. My observation come from having traveled on a very conscious spiritual journey and studying and reading some pretty heavy material about enlightenment and truth realization that Mallick’s probing into it doesn’t further my own interests or curiosity. He seems like he might be in the 1st grade…and if I’m lucky I might be in the 2nd grade….lol….
His work certainly does no harm and might even be a positive force for others to look at the themes he’s fascinated with and that can only be a good thing I would think. Peace.