Synopses & Reviews
Terrence Malick's four feature films have been celebrated by critics and adored as instant classics among film aficionados, but the body of critical literature devoted to them has remained surprisingly small in comparison to Malick's stature in the world of contemporary film.
Each of the essays in Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy is grounded in film studies, philosophical inquiry, and the emerging field of scholarship that combines the two disciplines. Malick's films are also open to other angles, notably phenomenological, deconstructive, and Deleuzian approaches to film, all of which are evidenced in this collection.
Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy engages with Malick's body of work in distinct and independently significant ways: by looking at the tradition within which Malick works, the creative orientation of the filmmaker, and by discussing the ways in which criticism can illuminate these remarkable films.
Review
Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy provides a wonderfully stimulating range of approaches to Malick's films, unlocking the philosophical depths of the most thoughtful auteur of recent decades. The collection engages Malick's cinematic oeuvre with the works of Heidegger and Cavell as might be expected, but also provocatively deploys Deleuze, Hegel, Marx, Schiller, Derrida and Merleau-Ponty alongside esteemed film theorists like Sobchack and Branigan. As such, this book is at the cutting edge of recent developments in film-philosophy, and is essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. It is also a superb exploration of Malick's most important films as writer and director, from Badlands to The New World.--Dr David Martin-Jones, Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of St Andrews, UK
Synopsis
Discusses Malick's films as individual objects, as a corpus, within contemporary film studies, and within a wider cultural discussion.
About the Author
Thomas Deane Tucker is a professor of Humanities at Chadron State College. He is the author of Derridada: Duchamp as Readymade Deconstruction (Lexington Books).
Stuart Kendall teaches Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts. He is the author of Georges Bataille (Reaktion Books, Critical Lives) and The Ends of Art and Design (Infrathin Press).
Table of Contents
Introduction
Stuart Kendall and Thomas Deane Tucker Voicing Meaning: On Terrence Malick's Characters
Steven Rybin
Terrence Malick's Histories of Violence
John Bleasdale
Rührender Achtung: Terrence Malick's Cinematic Neo-Modernity
Thomas Wall
Worlding the West: An Ontopology of Badlands
Thomas Deane Tucker
Fields of Vision: Human Presence in the Plain Landscape of
Badlands and
Days of HeavenMatthew Evertson
The Belvedere and the Bunkhouse: space and place in
Days of Heaven Ian Rijsdijk
The Tragic Indiscernibility of
Days of HeavenStuart Kendall
Darkness from Light: Dialectics and
The Thin Red Line Russell Manning
Song of the Earth: Cinematic Romanticism in Malick's
The New WorldRobert Sinnerbrink
Whereof One Cannot Speak: Terrence Malick's
The New WorldElizabeth Walden
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index