Big news for fans of Terrence Malick and the filmmaker’s tendency to wait for years, or even decades, between movies. A long-gestating project that is connected to Tree of Life is finally hitting theaters this year and the details are more than intriguing. As Indiewire reports, Malick’s 30-plus years in the making documentary Voyage of Time is finally coming to theaters. On October 7th of this year, the doc will be released in IMAX with plans to release a longer version at a later date. The film is lightly tied to Malick’s 2011 meditation on nature and how childhood experiences shape people The Tree of Life, and is described as;
…a celebration of the earth, displaying the whole of time, from the birth of the universe to its final collapse. This film examines all that went to prepare the miracle that stands before us now. Science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet — all come together in Malick’s most ambitious film to date.”
Well, that is a description that could easily have been created via Malick Mad Libs and it still sounds amazing. The opening of The Tree of Life is an extended look at the evolution of Earth and life itself, so it’s no shock that Malick’s interest in that subject has borne another similar project. It is also no surprise that Malick has spent so much time on one project that he wants to ensure is perfect before it is released for mass consumption. Further details make the film even more excitement inducing.
The IMAX version will run 40 minutes and be narrated by Brad Pitt, who starred in “The Tree of Life;” Cate Blanchett narrates the feature-length version. Ennio Morricone will provide the score for “Voyage of Time,” marking the Italian composer’s first collaboration with Malick since “Days of Heaven.”
Seeing as Malick’s films usually run for hours on end, a shortened IMAX-version of this release may be a great way to introduce new people to the filmmaker’s work without asking them to commit an entire afternoon to a movie. Anything with Blanchett attached automatically deserves at least a cursory look, and Ennio Morricone reuniting with the director for the first time since 1978 is downright heart palpitation-inducing. Morricone of course recently won an Academy Award for his The Hateful Eight score and his re-emergence as a working composer in Hollywood is a pleasant turn of events. This release comes on the heels of Malick’s most recent movie Knight of Cups, which received a tepid reaction from some critics and fans. Even some of his actors on the project didn’t know what was happening, which seems about par for the course for Malick films.
Fans will have to see if this announced release date sticks or is shifted to a later date again, and how long the feature length version will end up being. Smart money is betting on more than three hours. Getting from the birth of the universe to the collapse of all we know and love could take a while!
(via Indiewire)
