He may be the only film-maker working now to whom the word "magical" can be applied, yet in nearly 30 years he has directed just five films. He has a degree in philosophy from Harvard; he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; he has published a translation of Heidegger's Vom Wesen des Grundes. He has a reputation as a recluse, whereas in reality he is a charming, amiable fellow happy to talk about a wide range of topics – but not film. He came close once to doing a film of Walker Percy's novel The Moviegoer, and in 1999 he did produce a picture about the great Ethiopian runner, Haile Gebrselassie, called Endurance. Then a year later he produced another documentary, The Endurance, about the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.
And his fifth film, The Tree of Life, is supposed to have its world premiere in London on 4 May – yet it may not. It is a while since a Terrence Malick film opened according to expectations.
Why "magical"? It's not just the uncertainty Malick spreads around himself – the Cannes film festival this year also hopes to have the world premiere of The Tree of Life, or even that there are rival contenders for which company has the right to release it. Far more, there is the legend whereby the film was conceived a long time ago and shot in 2009 (mostly in Texas), but that no one knows or will say what it's about. There are vague reports that it concerns a boy from the 1950s who becomes a man, and there is a trailer (gorgeously beautiful and arresting) that suggests Sean Penn could be the grown man with Brad Pitt as his father. There is the conundrum as to whether it's a small story about life or a vast portrait of Life. Why not both? Why not an actual tree (apparently an ancient oak in Texas) and the tree of life on which we are all leaves or bark?
What is "magical"? Well, it's always the pristine imagery and the serene reach of a Malick film. This has been so since Badlands (1973), a version of the Charles Starkweather case, in which a kid and his girl went on a casual rampage of killing, which is also a vision of the first children in a flat-faced Eden. But it's magic, too, because in this age of diminution and vulgarity at the movies, Malick conducts himself with the austerity of Chaplin and Kubrick – doing it his way, disdaining the press, but getting people to pay for it all. Never forget that a movie director is not just a master of imagery and drama, a conductor of actors, music and design. He is a guy who can persuade someone to put up millions on an airy conversation about life, plants, astronomy and philosophy. This is more than magic. It is the nerve that makes us believe in magic when we know it doesn't exist.
The other Malick films are Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998) and The New World (2005). (Legend says he has already shot another film – The Burial – but nothing is known about it.) The first was a story of three young people escaping from the city to a life on the prairie. The second was a version of the James Jones novel about Guadalcanal, in which the impact of war on a Pacific island was felt in the ranting of men, but also in the look of wind and sun on long grass. And the third was the story of John Smith and Pocahontas. In many respects, Badlands was the most compelling narrative and the most conventional movie. Ever since then, Malick has shown every sign of wanting to film the light, the air and insects, so it's no wonder at last he has reached botany in a title.
How do I know how pleasant he is? I had dinner with him once. He could not have been nicer or more interesting. I forgot he was a film director and came to appreciate him as an intelligent man of the world – and a man who with intricate care has compiled his own legend as an impossible, unreachable recluse.
What can one say about The Tree of Life? Just that for nearly 40 years it has been apparent that Malick might make a movie that could alter our understanding of what cinema should be. This may be it. But it hasn't opened yet.