Brett McCracken

Between Two Trees: A Review of Peter Leithart’s Shining Glory

Peter J. Leithart. Shining Glory: Theological Reflections on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2013. It’s not your average big-budget, Brad Pitt–starring movie that receives a book response from a systematic theologian. But Peter Leithart is not your average systematic theologian. And Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is not […]

M. Leary

To The Wonder (Malick, 2013)

Curator Magazine posted my review of To The Wonder last week. It was a delight to write for them. But more could have been said about the O’Keefe orchid and succulent shots, the shot focus on the mirror image of the unicorn in one of the medieval “Lady and the Unicorn” tapestries, the Lorica of St. Patrick, […]

M. Leary

They Who See God’s Hand: The Tree of Life as an “Upbuilding Discourse”

[Ed. note: A very, very welcome guest post from Nicholas Olson] The very moment everything was taken away from Job, he knew it was the Lord who’d taken it away. He turned from the passing shows of time. He sought that which is eternal. Does he alone see God’s hand who sees that He gives? […]

M. Leary

Tree of Life as Biblical Theology

The Tree of Life is not my favorite Malick film. It is a great experience, and it is saturated with great thoughts about fatherhood, sonship, and the cosmic significance of what happens to us as children. But it lacks the continental vigor that gave birth to Days of Heaven and decades later, The New World, which […]

Peter M. Candler Jr.

The Tree of Life and the Lamb of God

In one of the most astonishing passages in the book of Genesis, in the book’s second creation narrative, the Lord God is depicted as a gardener, out for a leisurely evening stroll in the garden he has just made, clearly pleased with his creation. In fact, there is almost a sense in the text that […]

M. Leary

What Malick Teaches Us About Cinema

The Gospel Coalition recently posted a review of Tree of Life that makes some interesting claims toward the end. I have emphasized the words that caught my attention:  “Recently, philosophers have begun asking the question of whether or not film has/will become a new form of thought itself.” “If these analyses turn out to be […]