Terrence Malick is, from all accounts, a rather tough guy to work with. It could be argued that this arises from how intensly private he is about both his life and his work – I mean, there’s pretty much only one good picture available of him, and it’s the one I’ve included to the right of this text.
Perhaps his being “tough to work with” explains why so few people make a second film with him, though Christan Bale has recently done what he can to buck that trend. Malick does what he feels he needs to do to achieve the shots and visual storytelling he believes to be the point, and doesn’t seem to care for much for tradition or normal practice or “the way things are done.” Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it does have its effects and repercussions.
In a recent round table (or triangle table) interview with some of 2011’s best actors, Christopher Plummer was asked what it was like to work with Malick on THE NEW WORLD. Here’s the very interesting stuff he had to say, including how he “gave [Malick] shit for being boring” (along with an extra story from Clooney about THE THIN RED LINE):
You can check out the rest of Newsweek’s Oscars Roundtable here!
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What’s Not Allowed