Terrence Malick

Terrence Frederick Malick (; born November 30, 1943) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. Malick began his career as part of the New Hollywood film-making wave with the films Badlands (1973), about a murderous couple on the run in the American badlands, and Days of Heaven (1978), which detailed the love-triangle between two labourers and a wealthy farmer, before a lengthy hiatus. He returned to directing with films such as The Thin Red Line (1998) and The Tree of Life (2011), being awarded the Golden Bear at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival and the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival, respectively. Malick's films have been noted for exploring themes such as individual transcendence, nature, and conflicts between reason and instinct. They are typically marked by broad philosophical and spiritual overtones, as well as the use of meditative voice-overs from individual characters. The stylistic elements of the director's work have inspired divided opinions among film scholars and audiences; some praised his films for their cinematography and aesthetics, while others found them lacking in plot and character development. His first five films have nonetheless ranked highly in retrospective decade-end and all-time polls. 2Early life Terrence Malick was born in Ottawa, Illinois. He is the son of Irene (née Thompson; 1912–2011) and Emil A. Malick (1917–2013), a geologist. His paternal grandparents were Assyrian Christian immigrants from Lebanon and Urmia, in what is now modern day Ira