To be fair, this one minute and 49 second clip hardly does justice to the sequence in which Terrence Malick depicts the creation of the Earth and the cosmos in The Tree of Life, but it is all Fox Searchlight is offering at the moment so I can’t exactly present you anything more. Here’s how I described the full sequence from the film in my review from the Cannes Film Festival:
For what seemed like about 20 minutes, the creation of the universe plays out before your eyes as the cosmos shift and change, volcanoes erupt and dinosaurs walk the earth. It’s a creative counterpart to the star-filled embryonic fluid of the infinite found in Kubrick’s 2001. Without much embellishment, this is a sequence that equals a modern day pinnacle of filmmaking.
The rafters of the 2,300 seat Grand Theatre Lumiere literally shook as molten lava spewed from the Earth’s surface during the film’s first screening here at the Cannes Film Festival where I had what is arguably the absolute best seat in the house. It’s a sequence that will wow audiences no matter what they think of the rest of the film. It could win a short film Oscar were it be plucked from Tree of Life‘s 138-minute running time and presented on its own.
So take that into consideration when you watch, but if you have a subwoofer hooked up to your computer and turn it up you will get an idea of what I meant when I wrote how the rafters in the Cannes cinema were shaking as the lava began to flow.
SIDE NOTE: If you’re curious, the music is that of Zbigniew Preisner’s “Lacrimosa”.
In other Tree of Life news, there is a rumor floating around that Malick is working on a six-hour version of the film. The talk began with the following quote from an interview with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezski from Cahiers du Cinema (via The Film Stage):
“The first cut was 8 hours long. Terry is working on/preparing a 6 hours long version of the movie. What I’ve seen (of this) is absolutely incredible, it’s wonderful. The longer version will have to/will likely, for the most part, relate to the children part. There were outstanding things, we’ve shot many, many things about Jack’s childhood : his friends, his evolution, his changes, his awareness of the loss of his childhood… I don’t know if I’m supposed to say all of this! ”
For those that have seen the film, you already know Sean Penn’s part was cut dramatically so it’s safe to assume there would be a lot more Penn in a longer cut. The question is, just where would this cut be exhibited? My only guess would be as part of a massive Criterion release and seeing how they have already issued Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line on Blu, why not a six hour cut of Tree of Life?
