(Ir)religiosity

I’ve been looking forward to the enigmatic and reclusive director’s latest work ever since I saw the trailer. Malick is known for his idiosyncratic style, the juxtaposition of images of nature with the evils of humanity, and especially the haunting voice-over narrations. The Tree of Life looks to be no different. In fact, if the trailer and the early reviews are any indication it may be the pinnacle of Malick’s style, which makes sense since it is the very film that sent Malick on his 20 year hiatus after Days of Heaven. The film debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last week, winning the coveted Palme d’Or and opens today in limited release.

Malick’s films have always exuded a sort of poetic, quasi-philosophical, one might even say crypto-theological, quality. They explored the deep contingency and ambivalence of human nature, indeed of nature itself. A type of mystery that always leads back to the awe of existence, the wonder, the grace the inheres in all things and is, I think, the starting point of all theology. The opening narration in The Thin Red Line describes it well.

What’s this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself? The land contend with the sea? Is there an avenging power in nature? Not one power, but two?

And later as the film closes.

The brother. The friend. Darkness from light. Strife from love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining.

The cinematic ground Malick treads is ripe for theological rumination. It shouldn’t be too surprising. Though Malick has made a career out of scrupulously keeping to himself it is no secret that he studied philosophy at Harvard under Stanley Cavell and later at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He eventually left Oxford without a degree after a disagreement with his advisor over his dissertation on Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Wittgenstein. So Malick turned to film. And he has created some real masterpieces.

But it looks like The Tree of Life — and the IMAX documentary companion piece The Voyage of Time that Malick hopes to make — may be more explicitly his than any other project. We’ll see. I can only hope.

For now what interests me is an interview with Brad Pitt, one of the stars of the film, conducted by Time Magazine. Near the end of the interview Pitt comments on the religious and theological themes of the film.

Terry has an embrace for Christianity, for all religions, but not in the textbook definition of Christianity. You’re looking at a man who loves science, and has an interpretation and a feeling for God. In America those two things usually don’t coincide. And yet he sees the two as one: he sees God in science and science in God. [...] I’d say that Tree of Life is not a Christian so much as a spiritual film. I was surprised, watching it last night, how powerfully it struck me. What the film was saying to me is that there is an unexplained power; there is this force. And maybe peace can be found, but not by trying to explain it with the religion. Maybe there’s peace to be found just in that acceptance of the unknown.

Aside from the fact that Pitt’s somewhat predictable remarks reinforce and are based upon the tired, “spiritual but not religious” cliché, they proffer an unimaginative, flat-footed reading of religion, specifically of Christianity. By dismissing what he calls ‘religion’ as something that impedes rather than facilitates a sense of mystery in the unknown Pitt ignores a robust theological legacy that does just that.

It’s probably because I am preparing a sermon based on Paul’s famous sermon at the Areopagus and I’m just coming off writing a thesis and making a short film of my own dealing with precisely these theme. Contingency, ambivalence, and unknown mystery are central to theology. They may not be the most noticeable motifs in the public sphere, but they are there. This is exactly what Roger Ebert picks up on in his reflections on Malick’s latest film.

Terrence Malick’s new film is a form of prayer. It created within me a spiritual awareness, and made me more alert to the awe of existence. I believe it stands free from conventional theologies, although at its end it has images that will evoke them for some people. It functions to pull us back from the distractions of the moment, and focus us on mystery and gratitude.

These conventional theologies are certainly operative but they are not representative of the entire discourse nor should they be taken as such. Theology is about “seeing through a glass darkly,” into the unknown enigma that is our ultimate concern. It seems to me that this is precisely what Malick’s film is about, indeed the narration in the trailer is almost a word for word reference to 1 Corinthians 13:12 (one of the few passages I prefer in the King James). I’m sure I will have more to say after viewing but it seems a safe bet to say that The Tree of Life may be the best type of theological film, the type of theological film we desperately need. It is an exploration of the mystery that we can never fully know but can never stop seeking.

Related articles

• Terrence Malick’s Mystical Tree of Life (pajamasmedia.com)
• Pick of the week: Malick’s gorgeous, crazy “Tree of Life” (salon.com)
• Watch 7 minutes of Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE (geektyrant.com)