Just like the start of the past few years, we wonder if in the months ahead we’ll see the latest from Terrence Malick, who is currently sitting on two films; an untitled Austin music scene set movie, and “Knight Of Cups.” Will they screen at Cannes or perhaps be split up and hit a couple of different festivals? Your guess is as good as ours, though Malick’s protege A.J. Edwards—the director behind the very Malick-y “The Better Angels” (our review), which the reclusive filmmaker put his name on as producer—seems to think they will indeed arrive sometime in 2014.
“Terrence Malick was always a phone call away,” Edwards said during a Berlin Film Festival press conference about Malick’s participation in this film. “He was shooting his two pictures at the time, that’ll be released this year. He was most important in the beginning of the project, the origins of it, mostly through conversations, while we were editing ‘The Tree of Life’ together. This is before the treatment and the screenplay, just talking about an approach and production fundamentals, what the meaning is—’The Better Angels’ being his two mothers that guided him to immortality through their goodness. Because of his other pictures, he wasn’t on set or in the cutting room, because of his other obligations, but his friendship and his encouragement is long-lasting and so important in the film.”
Anyway, we’ll see if that prediction comes through, and in the meantime, revel in yet another anecdote about Malick’s particular style, which finds known faces reciting a lot of material, while the director points the camera somewhere else. “RoboCop” star Joel Kinnaman stopped by Collider to promote the upcoming remake, and shared a story about his memorable time on “Knight Of Cups.”
“I shot one day on ‘Knight Of Cups,’ and I had a 17-page monologue. And Christian Bale, who I was playing opposite—who had a lot of lines that would lead me into the next three pages—he hadn’t seen his pages. So when we started shooting, he’d just walk off, and I’d be chasing him saying all this stuff, when he was actually the one who was supposed to be interested, and that’s the reason that I was talking,” Kinnaman explained. “And then into page nine of my monologue, I’d turn around and see Terry like a 150 yards away shooting some pink dog running around. It was indeed a very interesting experience. I have no idea what that film is.”
No word yet on if Kinnaman or the pink dog will make the final cut.