Song to Song: should Terrence Malick take a break? | Film
A new movie by Terrence Malick used to be a seismic event; now it’s more of a “mehâ€. Malick’s return after a 20-year absence with 1998’s The Thin Red Line, was regarded as the second coming of a mystical movie messiah, so revered had the reclusive Texan become in the decades since Badlands and Days of Heaven. But for an outsider auteur, Malick has sure been churning them out lately. Since 2011’s acclaimed The Tree of Life, he has made three features and two versions of a documentary â€" practically a film a year.
And as Malick’s output has increased, the reverence has decreased. His latest, Song to Song, is another free-associative drama treading a now-familiar line between visionary rapture and feature-length perfume ad. “It pains me to say it, but Malick might want to consider another lengthy hiatus,†was the verdict of Variety’s chief film critic.
We celebrate artists for being prolific but maybe cult status is as much a result of not making movies as making them. People were delighted at John Travolta’s rehabilitation to the A-list with Pulp Fiction, for example. But he then went on a “you love me!†spree, taking every role he was offered. Some were good (Face/Off); some were abysmal (Battlefield Earth); either way he became so ubiquitous that we didn’t love him any more.
Or take Jane Fonda. Like Malick, she began this century in virtual retirement, her reputation sealed. But then she grandly broke a 15-year screen exile to star in … Monster-in-Law, a Jennifer Lopez romcom. Should Daniel Day-Lewis stick to his recently announced retirement, he’ll be an exception. Similar announcements have invariably ended up being renounced, from Jack Nicholson (now remaking German comedy Toni Erdmann) to Steven Soderbergh (tempted back into the game by Channing Tatum).
The only surefire way to leave a good-looking back catalogue is to die young. Hardly a tempting career move. You wonder what might have happened to stars had they lived. River Phoenix might have been the villain in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Tupac Shakur might now be a judge on The Voice, rather than the subject of a biopic.
Less is usually more. Between 1960 and 1980, Stanley Kubrick made seven films in 20 years: all masterpieces. Woody Allen has made 20 films in the past 20 years, very few of them masterpieces, though you have to admire his determination. A lengthy hiatus doesn’t appear to be in Malick’s schedule, either: he’s already on to his next movie, a first world war drama set in Austria. It could be a masterpiece â€" especially if he spends another 20 years on it.
Song To Song is in cinemas from 7 July
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