Watch: What Terrence Malick Teaches Us About Sound | No Film School

Terrence Malick is well known and widely celebrated for being one of the medium's most visually conscious filmmakers. Ethereal and light, natural and nature-dependent, Malick's films show the beauty of the world and, in doing so, his filmography remains timeless.

Take The Tree of Life, for example, the director's 2011 magnum opus set in Malick's home state of Texas during the 1950s. It's both a mix of Earth's natural elements and the steel-like structures that humans have built on top of it. Through it all, through time and struggle, we remain connected, whether it be as caring parents or mischievous children, as demonstrated again and again through the millions of years The Tree of Life's narrative ultimately covers.

One way we remain connected is through the sounds that engulf our surroundings, and Malick's films, often heralded for being visual beauties, do not ignore the pleasures and disturbances of the ear. In a new video essay by the good folks at Fandor, Malick's aural soundscape is presented and dissected as being both a product of both nature and man. Take a look below.

The video breaks down the sounds into Synthesized, Lush, Naturalistic, De-Synchronized, and Immersive. As you can see (and hear), Malick's films are keen on diegetic sound design, and it's thanks to much more than his oft-used reliance on character voiceover that makes up his world of sounds.

What do you think of Malick's sound structure? is there a particular example you're most fond of? Let us know in the comments below.

terrence malick directing sound videos

What's the Hype With 'Interstellar' Revisiting Cinemas After a Decade in 70mm IMAX?

Here's Why You Need to Revisit 'Interstellar' in 70mm IMAX

Celebrate the love and hope at the center of Nolan's space epic in the format it was meant to be seen.

If we know anything about Christopher Nolan, he likes to go big. Nolan started with smaller-scale stories (as many of us do) with early noir adjacent works like Following, Memento, and Insomnia, then started going and staying big with his illusionist drama The Prestige. Since then, the scale has been various degrees of massive, with the biggest scope in his time-and-space sprawling epic, Interstellar.

While Interstellarmight not be everyone's favorite Nolan outing, there's no denying it's an impressive feat of filmmaking and his most emotional—if watching Matthew McConaughey's Cooper desperately try to reach his family through quantum space-time doesn't make you cry at least a little bit, what's going on, dude?

With Interstellar'sIMAX release, it's a great time to shed some tears in a public setting in one of the most prestigious film formats around. As we mentioned in our film gauge piece, Nolan loves shooting on film and utilizes 65mm intentionally to provoke a tone of massive scale. In that regard, Interstellar was made for 70mm IMAX. That goes without saying, dawg. That being said, other factors make Interstellar a perfect movie to revisit in theaters while you can.

Let's break down the release further below.

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