Article:
Narrative and Experiment, Religion and Politics in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life

Abstract

While most interpretations of Terrence Malick's 2011 The Tree of Life concentrate on the film's theological resonances, I focus here on The Tree of Life's political vision. I locate this vision in the fraught relationship between two influential strands of American religio-political thought, Augustinianism and Emersonianism. The Tree of Life's theological concerns are undoubtedly Augustinian, yet it takes up a similar radical politics as what Emerson did in his best-known essays. The result, I argue, is a cinema of religio-political possibility with important implications for a potential rapproachment between religionists (namely evangelical Christians) and secularists, particularly on the topic of environmental conservation and sustainability.

Download icon

Published in:

Preferred Citation
BibTex
Powell, Russel C.: Narrative and Experiment, Religion and Politics in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. In: Journal for Religion, Film and Media, Jg. 5 (2019), Nr. 2, S. 167-185. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19508.
@ARTICLE{Powell2019,
 author = {Powell, Russel C.},
 title = {Narrative and Experiment, Religion and Politics in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life},
 year = 2019,
 doi = "\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19508}",
 volume = 5,
 address = {Marburg},
 journal = {Journal for Religion, Film and Media},
 number = 2,
 pages = {167--185},
}
license icon

As long as there is no further specification, the item is under the following license: Creative Commons - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell