Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy

by Thomas Deane Tucker (Editor), Stuart Kendall (Editor)

This title discusses Malick's films as individual objects, as a corpus, within contemporary film studies, and within a wider cultural discussion. 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.

Genres: Film, Philosophy

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Thomas Deane Tucker is Professor of Humanities at Chadron State College. He is the author of Derridada: Duchamp as Readymade Deconstruction (Lexington Books, 2008) and co-editor of Terrence Malick: Film and Philosophy (Continuum, 2011).

Reviews

[Travis K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don’t have much time for the pedantic over-intellectualizing of most academic film criticism… the better the film, the more difficult it is to say anything worthwhile about it, and almost impossible to do so in the mode engaged here. That said, Malick’s Heideggerian roots are endlessly fascinating to me and do illuminate the nature of his project in some remarkable ways. The first essay in this collection, “Voicing Meaning: On Terrence Malick’s Characters” by Steven Rybin, is deeply insightful in this regard and one of the best considerations of Malick I’ve read. It will be on my mind as I engage his films in the future and I’ll probably return to the essay itself as well. And the closing essay by Elizabeth Walden, a reflection on The New World’s myth “whereof one cannot speak,” approaches with the meditative posture more proper to interaction with great art.

[Miguel Arsénio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too advanced for my taste... I barely understood the topics being discussed in most of the essays. Perhaps a great read to academics and philosophy experts.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

my review of this book, published here: http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/...