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Terrence Malick’s Production Designer (Jack Fisk) Talks About THE TREE OF LIFE

“father… mother… always you wrestle inside my immaculately designed sets… always you will.”

this is a monumentally good way to spend 8:20 of your time. believe. Fisk is a legend (look at him casually mention that he worked on Mulholland Drive — no big deal), among the best at what he does, and he sure seems cool with talking about it candidly. speaking with The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Eugene Hernandez, Fisk reveals just how long The Tree of Life has been gestating inside of Malick’s kooky bearded head, and talks about the hows and whys as to what was required to transform that small texan house and the 5 blocks around it into an entire half-remembered boyhood. 

give it a whirl.

THE 25 BEST FILMS OF 2011: A VIDEO COUNTDOWN

there are gonna be lots of “best of” lists floating around during the next few weeks — this one is mine.

please enjoy. and please watch it LOUD (and in 480p… bummer that a lot of these clips were only available in standard-def).

p.s. some of these films i included on the countdown have yet to receive a domestic release here in the U.S, but i’d rather help get people excited for something now than chide them for not seeing it a year from now. also — as with a certain film towards the very top of my list — some stories simply can’t afford to wait for us to catch up.

p.p.s. CERTIFIED COPY was ineligible, as it topped my list last year. a good thing, too, as otherwise i would never have been able to settle on a #1.

p.p.p.s. yes, there is no “22” and there are 2 “19s.” accept the mystery.

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Production Photos from THE TREE OF LIFE 

so not to further deify this movie or anything (haven’t you heard? Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film is the new hot mind-blower of the film year), but production intel on The Tree of Life still remains elusive and scattershot, a fact underscored by the film’s bare-bones dvd / blu-ray release. it’d be great to have even a gallery of still photos from the set, just to get a better idea of Malick and “Chivo’s” (his DP) production logistics.

when video surfaced of Malick filming Christian Bale at Austin City Limits i was knocked a bit sideways by how small his crew was, and the trio of Tree of Life production photos above suggests — as one might infer from Malick’s fluid, exploratory compositions — that even his most expansive projects are accomplished by just a few people fiddling about on the same page, doing away with all the cumbersome junk and commotion that one associates with such grand filmmaking. anyway, until Jessica Chastain leads me on a guided tour through her iPhone’s photo library, these glimpses of grace in action will have to suffice.

“[Terrence Malick] isn’t the kind of guy who would ever give a direction like, ‘Cut ten frames from this shot.’ He’d rather say something like, ‘Make this scene feel more like a fleeting thought.’”

THE TREE OF LIFE editor Mark Yoshikawa, describing how Terrence Malick communicates with his fleet of editors.

quote is excerpted from Bilge Ebiri’s ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL piece for Cinema Editor, in which he interviews several of the film’s editors in extraordinary depth. Malick fans need to read (and re-read, and then whisper) immediately.

A Clip of Jessica Chastain’s Audition Footage From THE TREE OF LIFE.

the TREE OF LIFE blu-ray is nigh, and though it’s tragically not coming to us via Criterion, the release won’t be entirely bereft of extras. in fact, The Playlist just posted this clip from the 30-minute supplement “Exploring The Tree of Life,” which this deceptively illuminating clip suggests might actually be a penetrating portrait of Terrence Malick’s methods and techniques, and not just a half-hour of actors talking about what an emotionally sensitive genius he is. i mean, sure, it’ll probably be 28 minutes of that, but those other two minutes might offer rare and unusual insight into the means by which Malick prepares the aesthetic and emotional undercurrents of his frames long before he works his alchemy in the editing room. i mean, the dude’s “audition footage” is more fetching than most finished films (and if it wasn’t actually shot by him, then Jessica Chastain has a DP friend who can forge directorial styles like Frank Abagnale Jr. can forge checks).

THE TREE OF LIFE hits dvd & blu-ray on October 11.