Patience and Attention

Yes, I needed patience to watch that first cut of A Hidden Life, because it was well over four hours long. In its theatrical release it was just under three hours, but that makes it the longest of Malick’s movies — so far. Let’s do a quick run-through of his films, with their dates and running length:

  • Badlands (1973): 93
  • Days of Heaven (1978): 94
  • The Thin Red Line (1997): 170
  • The New World (2005): 136
  • The Tree of Life (2011): 139
  • To the Wonder (2012): 112
  • Knight of Cups (2016): 118
  • Song to Song (2017): 129
  • A Hidden Life (2019): 174

Clearly, Malick’s movies have gotten longer since those first — but not in a way that makes them unusual. For instance, almost all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies are over two hours, with Avengers: Endgame leading the way at 181 minutes. The two longest Malick movies are set in World War II, which Hollywood has a long history of treating expansively: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), William Wyler’s epic about returning American servicemen, is precisely the same length as The Thin Red Line; Patton (1972) is two minutes longer; The Longest Day (1962) six minutes longer still.

Why am I pursuing this theme? Because Malick has a reputation for making long movies, a reputation which, it turns out, is unwarranted. But still: Might his movies require more patience than is normal? A movie may not be long but it can certainly feel long, especially if nothing seems to be happening.

Here’s what I would say: In many of his films, Malick asks us to do a couple of things that we easily and readily do in certain other circumstances.

Consider, for instance, what it’s like to visit a city you’ve never visited before, especially if it’s in a foreign country. One of the things you probably want to do, as early as possible in your visit, is to find a place to sit. Perhaps a plaza outside a museum; or a café with outdoor tables; or, if the weather is inclement, a restaurant or a coffeeshop with a table near a big window. You want to take some time to absorb the scene. You want to look and listen, to acclimate yourself to this new environment into which you have been thrown. If someone were to ask you, “What, are you just going to sit there? Aren’t you going to do anything?” you could very reasonably answer that you are doing something. You are adapting your sensibilities to the environment. It’s a necessary initial adjustment if you want to get the most out of experiences that to observers look more like “doing.”

Here’s the second thing. Imagine yourself as a counselor — either a professional or an amateur, maybe a friend helping out a friend. In any case you are someone to whom someone else has come for counsel and advice. And the first thing that you’ll need to do – you know this, you don’t have to be told – is to listen. You have to listen to that person’s voice. You have to give them time to open themselves to you, and as they do, you will need to listen, not only to what they say, but to how they say it. You’ll need to attend to their tone of voice, to notice when that voice cracks a bit, or when it rises in pitch out of anger or pain. This is something that most of us know how to do — though few of us are as good at it as we should be — but it’s not something that we usually do at the movies.

Terrence Malick in his films asks us commonly asks us to do both of these things. First, to attend to our new environment, to allow ourselves the time necessary to adapt to this cinematic world into which we have been thrown, and often to do so because it is in an environment into which the characters on the screen have been thrown. They are often just as confused as we are. And then, second, we have to listen to them. We have to take the time to let their voices enter our minds and hearts, because only in that way can we understand how they are really responding to their world. We have to hear their voices because the things that people do, the actions they openly perform, never tell us the whole story about them.

Does this mean that in watching a Malick movie we must arm ourselves with patience? In a way, yes – but maybe only until we get used to having these distinctive demands placed on our attention. Because, after all, as I have said, we are used to doing these things, we are used to acclimating ourselves to new environments and to listening to human voices; we’re just not used to doing it at the movies, at least not in the way that Malick asks us to. If you insist that patience is required, I won’t argue; but I think what we are asked to do is better described as an adjustment of our attention. We need to attend to things that, in other movies, we might simply take for granted as part of the background. And if we do that, well, then a thousand flowers can bloom.