Bibliography

If you want to read about Terrence Malick, here you go:

Books

If you read only one book on the subject, it should be Martin Woessner’s Terrence Malick and the Examined Life. It’s better than all the other books about Malick put together. I reviewed it here.

The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick, by John Bleasdale. The only full biography so far. I’m not crazy about it: it’s not insightful, and it gets some facts wrong, but overall it’s very thorough. More of a chronicle than a story.

All Things Shining: An Oral History of the Films of Terrence Malick, ed. Paul Maher Jr. Essentially a compilation of every major interview ever given by anyone associated with Malick, including some interviews with Malick himself.

A Critical Companion to Terrence Malick, edited by Joshua Sikora. Many good (though often quite academic) essays.

Essays and articles

• You can learn a lot by searching for “Terrence Malick” at criterion.com
• Why Terrence Malick Is the Most Influential Director in Hollywood
• Terrence Malick, the Way He Was
• Hollywood Bigfoot: Terrence Malick and the 20-Year Hiatus That Wasn’t
• ‘Days of Heaven’: On Earth as It Is in Heaven
• ‘The Tree of Life’: The Soul-Shaking Beauty and Pain of Terrence Malick’s Intimate Epic on Family, Nature, and Memory
• ‘The New World’: Terrence Malick’s Magic Portrayal of America’s Original Sin
• Let There Be Light: ‘The Thin Red Line’
• 21st-Century Cinema in Review: ‘The Tree of Life’

Also

Thomas Flight’s video essays on Malick are excellent.