Powell, Russel C.2023-05-232023-05-232019https://www.jrfm.eu/index.php/ojs_jrfm/article/view/168https://mediarep.org/handle/doc/20700While 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.engCreative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 GenericNarrativeExperimentReligionPolitics791Terrence Malick10.25364/05.05:2019.2.910.25969/mediarep/19508THE TREE OF LIFE2617-3697