THE MAGIC HOURS

A myth-shattering look into the life and career of the legendarily publicity-shy cinematic visionary.

Bleasdale didn’t speak with the subject of this book; Malick has permitted next to no interviews or photos since 1978. But his in-depth research uncovered a very different picture from the media-crafted version of the director that developed during the lengthy gap between his second film, Days of Heaven (1978), and its follow-up, The Thin Red Line (1998). In doing so, the author tells of a complex artist and human being whose films, good and bad, are among the most thrillingly original works of art on the planet. Malick had not planned to work in film. He studied philosophy at Harvard and in Europe but failed spectacularly as a professor at MIT. After a brief, spotty career in journalism—he stalled on an article about Che Guevara’s last days for the New Yorker—Malick won a spot in the first class of a program at the American Film Institute in Hollywood. One classmate, Paul Schrader, would go on to write Taxi Driver and become a major director in his own right. (“Malick had a tendency to start at the top,” Bleasdale notes.) The bulk of this book zooms in on the idiosyncratic, instinctual style of filmmaking that Malick has pursued, from his first feature, Badlands (1973), to one currently in post-production. It’s a style that has divided critics and film lovers from the beginning. “The battleground was solidifying into an attritional stalemate,” Bleasdale says of the reaction to a later film, To the Wonder (2012). “The die-hard Malickians on one side whispered, ‘Philistines,’ while the swelling ranks of skeptics yelled, ‘Pretentious fools.’”

No matter how you feel about Malick’s oeuvre, this book is a must for cinephiles.