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Does anyone have any suggestions for sources (Journal or book) on Malick's relation to Heidegger? I'm aiding in a film series for our philosophy department and might show Days of Heaven. I have some of my own ideas about the film that I'll post soon but want to look up some scholarly work in the meantime (if it exists?) I've found a few books sources that I'm going to read over. I'll post the results when I'm done.

In the meantime, I thought it'd be nice to have a thread for discussion of the films and a sort of review of any sources (and I didn't want to crowd the Tree of Life thread up anymore).

Off the top of my head (more or less):

Check out "VISUAL LITERACY AND THE LEGAL CULTURE:
READING FILM AS TEXT IN THE LAW SCHOOL SETTING" by Philip Meyer (in LEGAL STUDIES FORUM no 17) for a discussion of BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN that might be useful.

Also, didn't Malick study at Harvard? Some of his former instructors might be responsive to email queries, though if I recall correctly, I think I once read that he left under strained circumstances (though I could be wrong).

I think Malick translated Heidegger (THE ESSENCE OF REASONS?), so his translator's intro (if one exists...and I think one does) might be worth a gander.

FILM-PHILOSOPHY ran an article a while back on Heidegger and Malick's THE THIN RED LINE. Also worth a look might be "Film, Philosophy, and Terrence Malick" by David Sterritt available here.

Invaluable for your specific needs might be: "On the Objects in Days of Heaven" by Hwanhee Lee at OFFSCREEN (http://www.offscreen.com/biblio/pages/e ... ts_heaven/) and "Calm -- On Terrence Malick's _The Thin Red Line_" by Simon Critchley, which looks at Malick's engagement with Heidegger's notion of the thing itself.

Sarah Manvel's monograph on Malick (The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic Visions of America) might be valuable as well.

Hope this helps, and sorry if you've already covered this ground.

I haven't studied Heidegger's works in-depth, but I have came to an understanding of his concept of Being (da-sein). It's torturous to explain, but builds a sense of mystery within oneself over time.

Here's a PDF link to the Film Philosophy article; or HTML if you prefer.

Interesting to note that Heidegger had seen Kurosawa's, Rashomon, though he seems to have been ambivalent about Cinema, which doesn't really surprise me, given his philosophy of technology (which is supremely fascinating). Poetry was how Heidegger liked to roll. His lecture on Hölderlin's The Ister might help in getting to grips with Heidegger's philosophy of art/aesthetics. There's a 3-hour documentary on this aspect of Heidegger's work, called, The Ister (You Tube link). I found it dense and obscure, but it was interesting, nevertheless.

I hope this was helpful in some small way, blindside.

He wrote his thesis on Heidegger and Husserl (The Concept of Horizon in Husserl and Heidegger) and to my knowledge it was supervised by Stanley Cavell. Here is the link for it on Harvard's library website.

Jay,

Thanks for all the suggestions. I was aware of all those and am in the process of getting Malick's translation sent from another institute. Also, I was not aware that Critchley had written an article on any of Malick's films. These things will be good to browse through.

Also, to 'Person' or anyone else wondering, I'd suggest 'The Origin of the Work of Art' to anyone interested in learning a little about Heidegger's aesthetics without having to read something the length of his essay on the Ister. I would also assume it might be more to the point.