Malick and Transcendence Terrence Malick:

Malick and Transcendence Terrence Malick: Transcendental Director Terrence Malick is one modern artist of the past 20 years who represents the ideas of transcendentalism in his films. In Malick's 1998 film the Thin Red Line, the writer/director quotes John Steinbeck's Jim Casy, who states in the Grapes of Wrath his transcendental belief (borrowed from Emerson) that "maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of" (Steinbeck 24).

Malick's film elaborates on the concept of the Oversoul, as Private Witt proclaims that "every man lookin' for salvation by himself -- he's like the coal thrown from the fire." Throughout the Thin Red Line and the 2011 film the Tree of Life, Malick explores the world from the perspective of such major American transcendentalists as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman and Dickinson. This paper will analyze the ways in which Malick embodies their ideas to create original modern works of art.

The Thin Red Line echoes Thoreau's essay on transcendence through "Civil Disobedience" by highlighting the need of those who are dissatisfied with authority to rise above and exercise one's own moral strength. Private Witt embodies the transcendental spirit of morality in the film. While Thoreau states that "under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" (par. 22), Witt gladly accepts imprisonment after going AWOL and finding peace in the wilderness (much the same way Thoreau found peace at Walden).

Malick expresses through the character of Witt the importance of maintaining order within the soul in spite of the insanity that goes on all around one. Just as Thoreau's just man should be satisfied with imprisonment, Malick's Witt is satisfied to be sent to a disciplinary outfit and to tend to the wounded: he has learned the power of transcendence during his time of reflection and meditation in the wilderness. Malick also channels Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," which is an attempt at the versification of Nature.

Whitman illustrates the struggle of consciousness to assert itself in the face of a rhythm in nature that is apparently at odds with itself. The fact that Nature is at odds with itself is shown by Whitman in the abandonment of the "he bird" by the "she bird." The boy, whose consciousness is rising "up" and "out of" and "from" "down" below the depths of his being, is inspired to a level of pathos by this bird who calls out for its mate.

The boy listens for a meaning behind this loneliness which he senses in Nature and hears only Nature answer back: "Death, Death, Death, Death, Death." "Out of the Cradle" is a 19th century intimation of the coming 20th century's obsession with Death. Whitman relates it to some Natural phenomenon and recognizes the need to transcend it. Malick does the same in both the Thin Red Line and the Tree of Life.

The Thin Red Line begins with three questions posed by the narrator that echo Whitman's observations concerning nature in "Out of the Cradle." The narrator of the film asks: "What's this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself, the land contend with the sea? Is there an avenging power in nature?" Because it is a war film set during the Battle of Guadalcanal, the film explores the meaning of death and acts as a meditation on death much in the same way Christian eschatology contemplates the Four Last Things.

In this sense, Malick's Thin Red Line explores themes similar to those explored by Whitman and recognizes the need for spiritual transcendence in a world obsessed with death. Likewise, just as Emily Dickinson represents the force and power of eternity in "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," so too does Malick in the Tree of Life.

Dickinson writes in her poem of her understanding of immortality: "Since then -- 'tis Centuries -- and yet / Feels shorter than the Day / I first surmised the Horses' Heads / Were toward Eternity -- " and Malick attempts to do as much by illustrating the relationship of life, death and eternity through the representation of a family as the focal point of a narrative that spans the creation and death of the universe. While Dickinson's poem is small and simple, Malick's film is enormous in scope.

But he uses poetic images and music to express the over-arching theme of Tree of Life, which is that though we walk in the shadow of death, our souls are not doomed to die. Preisner's "Lacrimosa" accompanies the segment representing the creation of the world, literally reminding one that tears water the seeds of life. An excerpt from Smetana's "The Moldau River" adds a dimension of joy to the innocent days of.