Everything we know so far about Terrence Malick’s… | Little White Lies

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Every­thing we know so far about Ter­rence Malick’s Way of the Wind

05 Oct 2022

Words by Finlay Spencer

A man with a straw hat, sunglasses, and a denim shirt holding a video camera on a film set.
A man with a straw hat, sunglasses, and a denim shirt holding a video camera on a film set.
True to form, the elu­sive Amer­i­can auteur is tak­ing his pre­cious time over his forth­com­ing Bible epic.

The Ter­rence Mal­ick rumour mill was set spin­ning in 2019, as Mark Rylance was poised to begin shoot­ing the director’s then-titled pas­sion project The Last Plan­et. Ter­ry wrote four ver­sions of the char­ac­ter of Satan,” he revealed, and I thought I would play only one. But I heard I was going to play all four.”

Film­ing got under­way soon after, mov­ing from Ice­land to south­ern Italy before wrap­ping in Rome. Karim Deb­bagh, one of 14 pro­duc­ers list­ed in the cred­its, described the film as a high­ly spir­i­tu­al expe­ri­ence” that puts a dark genre twist” on the Good Book.

The film’s IMDb page shows grainy set pho­tos of a betril­bied Mal­ick stand­ing next to a don­key with Poldark’s Aidan Turn­er. The log­line of the since reti­tled The Way of the Wind (which will no doubt be released under a new moniker) is A retelling of sev­er­al episodes in the life of the Christ,’ includ­ing pas­sages that bear a resem­blance to the Book of Job, which Mal­ick pre­vi­ous­ly cov­ered in 2011’s The Tree of Life. The director’s recent out­put has been laud­ed, but will his first direct adap­ta­tion of scrip­ture alien­ate non-believers?

In typ­i­cal style, Mal­ick has assem­bled a cast of A‑listers and art-house dar­lings. Géza Röhrig will play Christ, Matthias Schoe­naerts will play Saint Peter, and for­mer heart-throb du jour Dou­glas Booth, who Mal­ick mis­took on the phone for Dou­glas Hodge, will appear in an as yet unspec­i­fied role.

Mal­ick will also reunite with his A Hid­den Life star Franz Rogows­ki and direc­tor of pho­tog­ra­phy Jörg Wid­mer, so expect more wide-lensed, nat­u­ral­ly-lit cin­e­matog­ra­phy. In 2020, Eleni Karain­drou (Ulysses’ Gaze) was enlist­ed to com­pose the score.

With lit­tle more than a peep from the actors involved, online spec­u­la­tors have begun to ques­tion the sta­tus of the film. Despite crop­ping up on annu­al films to look for­ward to’ lists, Malick’s marathon edit­ing process has seem­ing­ly left the project in lim­bo. Ear­li­er this year, reports sug­gest­ed that Cannes head Thier­ry Fré­maux and Mal­ick had con­ver­sa­tions for a walk down the Croisette, which didn’t come to pass.

The rumour mill claims that it may end up as an unfin­ished sym­pho­ny’. But with post-pro­duc­tion on Knight of Cups and Song to Song tak­ing three and five years respec­tive­ly, it’s still too ear­ly to say when it will be ready.

Malick’s acolytes can only pray at the altar in the hope of a trail­er, first-look image or fresh announce­ment. Mar­tin Scors­ese spoke at the 2019 Tribeca Film Fes­ti­val about how Mal­ick wrote him a let­ter after watch­ing Silence, ask­ing What does Christ want from us?’ Maybe, in The Way of the Wind, he will find his answer.

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