Most filmmakers would kill to have
A-list stars like Rachel Weisz and Jessica Chastain in their movie.
Terrence Malick, on the other hand, gets them but then leaves them on
the cutting room floor.
The suddenly prolific filmmaker,
who took a 20-year hiatus between "Days of Heaven" (1978) and "The Thin
Red Line" (1998), has followed up his much-debated "The Tree of Life" a
mere two years later with "To the Wonder," a dreamlike meditation on the
troubled romance of Neil (Ben Affleck) and Marina (Olga Kurylenko).
Neil's journey leads him back to his childhood sweetheart, Jane (Rachel
McAdams), and Marina befriends Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), a
Catholic priest and fellow outcast, whilst Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki,
the director's go-to cinematographer since "The New World," take
beautiful shots of lush fields, babbling brooks and, you know, tree bark
and stuff.
"To the Wonder" has a pretty
impressive cast as-is, but it used to be even more impressive, as many
other high-profile actors were once a part of the production. Besides
Chastain (who starred in Malick's "The Tree of Life") and Weisz, Amanda
Peet, Michael Sheen and Barry Pepper also shot scenes that ended up
being cut from the final film -- which removed their roles entirely.
Rachel Weisz, who apparently only spent a few days on set, at least
seems to be taking it all in stride -- or at least is putting on a
pretty good poker face about it.
"It seems that my part has been cut," said Weisz to Italian outlet La Stampa
before the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival last fall. "I had
the experience of working with him [Malick] but I will not have the
pleasure of seeing my work."
Jessica Chastain, on the other hand, isn't surprised that she didn't make it into the final cut of "To the Wonder."
"Just as I suspected, my small
role has not made it into the final version. But I really didn't imagine
it would," Chastain posted on her Facebook
page. "The three days I shot were with Ben Affleck and he was doing
really great stuff. I'm looking forward to see how it all brilliantly
comes together."
"To the Wonder" certainly isn't
the first film from which Malick has cut major stars during
post-production. He cast almost every male actor in Hollywood in his big
comeback film, "The Thin Red Line," and cut
most of them from the final product. The WWII film sports the
incredible cast of Jim Caviezel, Adrien Brody, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn,
John Cusack, Elias Koteas, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson and even
George Clooney -- that cast also once included Mickey Rourke, Bill
Pullman, Jason Patric, Gary Oldman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen and
Martin Sheen. Billy Bob Thornton also recorded voiceover narration that
was completely scrapped.
Terrence Malick is currently in
post-production on no less than two new feature films, "Knight of Cups"
and what's being referred to simply as "Untitled Terrence Malick
Project." Both films feature Malick alum Christian Bale ("The New
World") and high-profile Malick newcomers like Cate Blanchett, Natalie
Portman, Michael Fassbender, Freida Pinto, Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara
-- though it remains to be seen which of them actually end up in the
final cuts.
"To the Wonder" opens on Friday,
April 12, which means there's still time to cut Ben Affleck from the
film if the mood strikes Malick.
Post a Comment