Malick, A HIDDEN LIFE, and the Hypothetical Soul of Belief (Patreon)

1. The Falls of Edens

Once upon a time, Terrence Malick was my favorite filmmaker.

Perhaps it was because I hit this real sweet spot of timing. It was back when I was in high school, falling deeply in love with they history of cinema and I remember reading this Vanity Fair article by Peter Biskind about reclusive legendary who made two 70’s classics, who was now finally coming back with this grand epic about WWII and it was starring just about every movie star on the planet. I had heard of Badlands and Days of Heaven before, but the article gave the gumption I needed. So I immediately hunted them down and I was struck so deeply by their soulful beauty and the overall poetic quality of his work. Suddenly, The Thin Red Line suddenly became all I was interested in. And perhaps brashly, I took a bunch of friends who thought they were going to see “a war movie” and were utterly not prepared for barely-a-narrative meditation on life and death within a sprawling military company in Guadalcanal. I could sum up their reaction as, “mostly bored, but weirdly moved, too.” I even remember one person lamenting that there was “only one cool fight scene.” As for my reaction? Well, it was incredible. Maybe I was just impressionable, but it was probably one of the most moving experiences I’ve had in a theater. But what it had to say, along with that incredible soundtrack just became everything to me. He was now my favorite filmmaker and that’s all there was to it. Of course, he would take some time between movies and it was years before The New World, another film I adored wholeheartedly at the time.

Ironically, it was The Tree of Life where my unwavering affinity for his work began to lessen. It may seem strange, given how many people it seemed to strike a chord with, but I had trouble with it. This is going to sound reductive, but what I loved most about Malick was that way he brought poetry, philosophy, and existential underpinnings to these somewhat classic narrative stories. Now Malick was bringing those qualities to those subjects in and of themselves. The Tree of Life *is* about the grand story of existentialism. Which may be a perfect marriage for some, but I couldn’t help but feel like he was putting a hat on a hat. I just couldn’t connect to it the same way. Or hey, maybe I was just getting older. Maybe my taste was shifting. All I know is that I struggled even more with To The Wonder, where the notions of conflict and “scenes” were being replaced with pure mood and contemplation. And Malick seemed to be falling so in love with this off-the-cuff, improv style and it lost the thoughtful deliberate choices in his prior work. Everything was being shot with this wide angle, low-placed camera that was both unquestionably pretty and yet utterly singular. You can see this even more in this trailer for Knight of Cups, which was a shockingly facile interpretation of Hollywood stardom and I outright admit I couldn’t finish it. I just couldn’t… and I never even saw Song to Song. I didn’t really know what to make of this arc with his work. Maybe Malick was changing or maybe I was changing. But rather than really trying to think too hard about it, I just let it all be and moved on.

But for the last couple of years I had been hearing rumblings that Malick’s A Hidden Life was both criminally under-seen and an absolute return to form. I kept being unsure about watching, perhaps mostly out of paralyzed fear. But a few weeks ago I just woke up in one of those moods where I was like, “yeah! I can watch a three hour meditative epic on morality and faith!” So I watched the film and was absolutely struck by the power of its narrative. Sure, I wish Malick still shot SOME damn shot reverse shot instead of playing out every conversation with someone center point and the other at the edge of the wide, but it felt so much less obtrusive. Perhaps it was the towering verticality of the Austrian landscape and the way everyone seemed to have to rest on a slant. But more than these surface-level details, the film thankfully revolves around a central driving conflict that is so damn powerful. And I utterly recommend you watch it (It’s still so under-seen I won’t spoil anything I guess, but it’s on HBO max now). My mind has been swirling since I saw it. If only because I was also struck with a pretty simple realization.

Terrence Malick has been telling the same story his entire life.

I know that is reductive to say, but I mean that the “The Fall of Eden” has been the center-point thematic and dramatic approach from day one. Whether it was two wayward teens playing Swiss Family Robinson before the police closed in. Or two lovers in the lush light of magic hour before jealousy and the literal plagues arrive. Or the joys of going AWOL and playing in tranquil Polynesian villages before being forced to go back to war. Heck, The New World is about a land of peaceful coexistence before the horrors of greater colonization followed (these are also reductions, but the intention is clear). Even that Knight of Cups trailer echoes the notion, “once the soul was perfect and had wings and could soar into heaven.” And so much of the intro of A Hidden Life paws at the same notion. And it is not much a stretch to imagine why The Fall of Eden and so many other biblical tableaus appear in his work.

It’s because Terrence Malick is a devout christian who is making christian films. We don’t really think about it like this, of course. For one, he doesn’t speak too much about this subject, nor does his work embody the trite “told ya so” attitude that comes with a lot of Christian Films. Nor is Malick even interested in preaching the gospel. Instead, he is the kind of person who studied philosophy at Harvard College and went on to become a Rhodes scholar and even taught philosophy at MIT. There is this academic bent that ties in with the humane nature of doubt itself. But it’s also not aggressively agnostic in the way that Lindelof’s work can sometimes be. It’s more about the quiet plights of the soul amidst the greater forces of the world. More specifically, hHow does faith intersect with the general problems that I am wrestling with?” As someone who isn’t religious, one would think that it would be a hard notion to relate to, or something so easy to find cloying. But in A Hidden Life, like so much of his early work, it instead inspired a million competing thoughts within myself.

Because in the end, everything is personal.

2. Just Do As Your Told

I’ll be clear from the start, I do not believe in god.

But I don’t care all that much about the fact that I do not believe in god. Honestly, I find a fervent brand of atheism to be arrogant, rude, and assumptive - and is often about feeding your own ego and putting yourself above other people. “Well, does that mean you are agnostic?” Not really. I don’t know, but I don’t really care that I don’t know. Because likewise I think there’s an aggressive brand of agnosticism that fixates on trying to find the answers, which is certainly understandable, but also something I’m utterly disinterested in, too. But the reason I don’t really wrestle with the concept because it is something that, by its very design, exists at the intersection of being both impossible to prove and impossible to disprove. Thus I often have zero interest in debating the subject, particularly because any debate about this stuff would try to set aside the prove / disprove parameters that are unfortunately inherent.

This may be a weird point of comparison, but I basically feel the same way when people present arguments like “is a hot dog a sandwich?” Because I don’t care and this kind of classification is relatively pointless. Words are meant to be descriptive. To wit, if you asked me if I wanted a sandwich and I said sure and you brought me a hotdog, I’d look at you funny. These are tricks of classification that bear no productive ends. And similarly, anyone telling you they have proof “god” is real or unreal is just selling you something, instead of also reaching for productive ends. Now, what I *do* love about religious discussion, is talking about its effect on people. To talk about where I’m coming from with it, and in turn. understanding where people come from, too. Which is I still find myself deeply curious about certain aspects of religion, mainly in the way they impact communities and specifically how you grew up.

For example, I grew up Boston Irish Catholic. Which is probably why the notion of god was pretty much dead husk in me from the start (but I’ll get to that in a minute). First I have to jump ahead to the most defining moment of skepticism for a lot of people in the catholic church and that should be fairly obvious. Because I cannot explain how utterly far reaching the pedophilia scandal was in Boston. Everyone knew someone who was affected. Everyone. And a lot of people were that someone. The Spotlight article came out when I was in college, but the thing that haunts me is just how much *everyone knew* that it was all happening. I mean, you don’t have an entire joke about something in a city for years and years and years without that being the case. And just faced with the magnitude of utter evil and hypocrisy of that particular system have oft been too much to bear. It just stared you in the face. I mean that literally. I was confirmed by Cardinal Law. Yes, the bad guy from Spotlight who shuffled them all around the area was the one who did confirmations. He was the one who looked us in the eye and said “you were now a true Catholic.” And let’s just say the thought still rankles.

But now I spend time thinking about the life that happened before all that, along with the day to day life of the community. For starters, practically EVERYONE I knew was catholic. There were a few scattered folks of different religions whether Judaism, Greek Orthodox, and even a few Unitarians. But as far christianity goes? I genuinely didn’t realize there were non-Catholic christians until, like, 7th grade? That’s how insular it was. And within that group, the only real difference was whether or not you were Irish or Italian (though culturally, that was a big difference). But the thing about that omnipresence of Catholicism was the fact it was “just what you did.” Everything was about lackluster participation. For all the dogma, the truth is that showing up in a musty building once a week was the only requirement, aside from moments of mindless obedience. I mean, I went all the way through and got confirmed even though I utterly hated it from the start and didn’t believe in god. You just didn’t want the wrath of judgment. Or even worse the disappointment of your older relatives. Which is really the only driving technique there was behind any of it.

You’d walk into these old, tall cathedrals that were meant to make you feel small. You’d do what you were told. I can’t tell you how much the stereotype of “nuns being mean” seemed to really be true. And unlike so many other forms of christianity, I can’t tell you how little people read from the bible (I honestly learned more about the bible doing NYT crosswords than I did in decades of CCD). I can’t tell you how weirdly terrifying confession was, especially for a confused child. I remember one church I went to didn’t even use the booths. You were just put face to face in a room with some weird guy you didn’t know, but he apparently had the keys to heaven and hell in his pocket and you had to be comfortable talking about the worst parts of yourself (hint: I wasn’t comfortable with it). EVERYTHING felt like this potential for punishment. And as I describe all this it’s unsurprisingly that the old adage, “I don’t believe in god, but I fear him” summed up everything about the experience. Because everything was about judgement. Everything was about looking down on you. Which means I would see all these loving “Kum Ba Yah” depictions of christianity on TV and thought, “what the hell is that?” Because I’d never seen it. There was no togetherness. No community. No positive association. You just show up. You say your lines. You get judged. And that was it.

Which means everything outside that was also weirdly up for grabs? I can’t describe it exactly, but we lived in this weird system of harrowing admonishment with instant forgiveness from Priests (with punishments that involved mindlessly repeating prayers), which just caters to an inherent rebelliousness with built-in guilt cycles. I mean, if you create a system with all this insane verbal pressure, saying “you go to hell if you have sex” to a bunch of fucking 15 years olds, those 15 year olds are going to be “uhhhhh, I think we all want to have sex?” And then you just hate yourself. The wrath of the cycle was just fuel for one of the most unhealthy relationships ever. And through it all, even if they feared the church, I never felt like anyone cared. No one actually bought into the program.

And I can’t tell you how interesting it is to talk to people who did.

I’m not talking about Boston Irish Catholicism, I’m talking about people who grew up in systems that made it so much easier to buy in. I’m instead talking about people who had genuinely good experiences. People who found community, love, and acceptance. I know there are horror stories, nor am I just talking about people who grew up religious, hit the wall with obvious intolerances and left. I’m talking about many people for whom their religious community is still a big part of their lives. Who wrestle with what it means in the modern way that is so unfamiliar to me. Even now, I have friends who adapted to modernity in ways that actually reflect the values of Jesus, embrace LGBT+ communities, and come without judgement. I love listening to personal stories about this because it was just so foreign to my personal experience described above. And I kind of want to hear broadly about your experiences if you’re comfortable sharing? Not even if you’re still religious at all. I want to know about what you took away from it and what you didn’t. Because these things are irrevocably a part of us.

But the thing that I can’t stop thinking about with regards to this movie, and really culture at large, is the complication / salvation of what it means to have a soul.

Because it’s kind of a big one…

3. The Dilemmas of Our Dilemmas

The thing about morality is that we often think that the gray areas most exist in situations where the central notion of “what is right” is actively unclear. For instance, we see this in the endless permutations of “the trolley problem,” where we wonder whether it is better to intervene with the fate of a runaway trolley and kill one person instead of four or something. Or perhaps you think of a Tell-Tale video game where you quickly have to decide if you save the woman you love OR your best friend from zombies or something. The problem with these ethical quandaries is not just that they’re artificially reductive, it’s that they’re designed to be agonizing. They put the framework of morality and conflicting wants into simple math, which (outside of actuarial work) is something we rarely do. And the truth is that our most common experiences with moral gray areas happen when there are extremely clear moral rights and wrongs, the question is what do you realistically do about them. It’s the old adage, right? Stealing a loaf of bread? Wrong. Stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving family? Way less wrong. Because the hyper-specifics of circumstances always count.

We understand that the world is a complicated place. But when we look at recent history of America, it is easy to say that the story of Germany, Hitler, and the horrors of World War 2 has provided the framework for a real life “moral absolute” when it comes to global conflict.  There was a genocidal country bent on taking over the war and then everyday Americans rallied together to do what was right. Of course, this is a gross simplification. For one, 30% of the country supported that fascist bull shit even then and it wasn’t until Japan attacked that the US entered the fray. But popularly-speaking, the war became the subject of “hindsight clarity” and got all the assurances that came along with it. I mean, there’s a reason so much popular entertainment had Nazis as the de facto bad guys and it’s because they provided a clear moral framework that made rooting interest easy. But some stories within that framework are more complicated.

A Hidden Life tells the real life story of Franz Jägerstätter (I guess don’t click to his wiki if you want spoilers? Point is he was a real dude), an Austrian man who was a conscientious objector of the war and refused to take the oath to Hitler. It is as simple and clear a moral choice as there is. Someone who recognizes the immorality of that horrible regime and refuses to support it. The problem, if you can call it that, is the personal cost of making this choice in a world full of those who went along with it. Not just because a fascist state is a unforgiving one, but because of the way it can impact and tear apart the people you love. Especially when the clear morality of “the thing he’s fighting for” becomes more and more hypothetical. I’m not going to spoil the details of the movie (again, you should just watch it). But I keep thinking about the way this applies to our modern setting.

Because I don’t think it’s an accident that Malick made this movie in the age of Trump. Which is not to say it’s radically political in its thinking, nor intention. Nor does it imply the filmmaker leans in any real political direction. In fact, Malick’s politics seem like that old holdover of the perhaps mythical time when American religion wasn’t invaded by political dogma, nor conspiratorial thinking (we’ll come back to this). He is only concerned with the decency of the soul. And as a Christian living in Texas, it’s not hard to imagine his concern with the growing climate of fascist bullshit. But I do not think he is comparing the plight of “being a christian who finds Trump bad” with the plight of Jägerstätter’s story. Not in the slightest. He’s making a moral warning of a world that bends toward fascism and the Christian hypocrisy of even rolling along with it to a single degree. After all, it’s not hard to imagine what it would be like right now if Trump's attempts to rig the election worked or if 1/6 and the ensuing months went a very different way. Just as it is important to realize that in some ways, things are still absolutely going in that fascistic direction right now.

States with conservative leadership are full on attacking systems of voting, making it illegal to hand a voter a water bottle. Just this week there was a Minnesota law proposed  that makes it so getting arrested at a protest (AKA a probable consequence to just going to a protest and being in the wrong spot at the wrong time) takes away your right to student loans and food stamps. In Florida, it is now legal for pedestrians to drive through protestors and kill them. This is all real. It is fascistic suppression to absurd degrees. And it is 100% a reaction to the positive impact of the protests this year. Which is why they are now attacking our right to assembly with everything they have. Yeah, that precious “first amendment” they were always talking about? It’s not about that. It’s never been about that. It’s about them being fascists and wanting more fascism and everything bending toward that will.

That’s the thing. Fascism thrives on acceleration, one that comes with an inverse relationship to personal cost. Meaning the more and more the fascists create reason to protest, the more and more cost they will create for protesting. For some, this just becomes more and more reason to show their incredible moral spark and fight. And for many others, it creates more and more people who are just willing to go along because they are afraid to fight and face those costs. Or perhaps they will be content to “fight” in a way that costs nothing. Because they are comfortable. Even now, what am I really doing about any of this? I am sitting on my couch and putting links up to news articles for a bunch of people that already probably agree with me. Am I going to do more? Am I going to sacrifice? Am I going to go to Florida and protest? Even if I decide to stay here and focus on local issues, how is this helping that specific problem? I ask myself this constantly, how am I actually helping? What can I do that’s real? What is the cost when sacrificing for the purely hypothetical idea of what is right? But it is in this realm of the hypothetical where we hit the crux of dealing with those who hold religious belief.

Because what if there is no such thing as a hypothetical?

4. The Weight of Souls

Quick, define a soul! Just real quick! Go ahead!

Yeah I’m just joshin' ya. The notion of a soul is one of the most radically complex notions in the world. What even is consciousness in a singular, definable sense? Doesn’t the very concept of a soul tie into the psyche and grander religious notions throughout the many walks of history and culture? Anthropologically and philosophically speaking, what put us here? And why?

Yeah, I can’t fucking answer those questions and am old enough to not even bother trying. Especially given that there are people who write about religious history on a pan-cultural level with far more insight. What I can do regurgitate two basic collegiate reductions that I was taught when looking at Abrahamic cultures! Yay!

1) The soul is the notion that gives purpose to existence / alleviates (some) fears of death.

2) The judgment of the soul allows for a reward / punishment system for behavior in life.

You know the drill. Be a good person and you will spend the afterlife in heaven. Do bad and you will spend your life in damnation. In simplest terms, it seems like a fairly straightforward moral caucus. Of course, the problem is that there are different definitions of good and bad that get brandished like a cudgel, especially when benefitting the religious organization in question. You give us money and you go to heaven! Or basic othering that comes with “Eat this food, not that food!” or “Don’t be gay!” Again, these are reductions, but ones that feed such obvious conflict with the decency of human nature. These “bad things'' are not bad at all (I mean the opposite with the money thing though, it’s bad not good). But there are other arenas where the notion of having a soul really impacts the personal scale of moral choices - which brings us back to  A Hidden Life.

Because Franz Jägerstätter’s belief in a soul is a fundamental part of his actions. It’s not solely about this, of course. But he has a meaningful relationship with god. He truly wants to be and honor him. Which means, crucially, his protest is not about righteousness, nor being seen as moral or saintly by anyone in this world. Nor is even it about making a stand that will change things. In fact, his actions only bring disrespect and comments of hypocrisy. They may even have a negative, rallying effect. But he cannot falsely embrace an ideological that he believes to be evil. He puts it so simply into words: “I don’t judge you. I’m not saying ‘he is wicked, I am right.’ I don’t know everything. A man may do wrong and he can’t get out of it. He’ll make his life clear. Maybe he’d like to go back, but he can’t. But I have this feeling inside me. That I can’t do what I believe is wrong.” It’s actually a deeply complicated way of putting that idea. To the non-believer, there is this idea that one can say some words and be absolved - that it is only about the concrete. And these are just words, divorced from reality. But to him, it’s the deeper betrayal of the deepest sense of self. It is not hypothetical. It is conscience incarnate. And the cost to the soul is too much.

Honestly, I’ve just been thinking about it non-stop. Not because it is a landmark or radical idea that is new to me. Nor because I’ve also found myself in endlessly complicated situations where I feel like I did the wrong thing by comparison. But just because this film presented something so incontrovertibly pure of faith and left me to wonder what that means about the real nature of goodness. I mean, I’ve spent a lifetime criticizing the obvious problems with religion and it’s billions of examples of hypocrisy. And here is this concrete example of “good” that is so specifically wrapped up in the smallest of internal battles, and yet plays out on the grandest of stages. And so my mind wanders. I’ve suddenly been imagining what it would be like to live “a religious life.” I’ve been thinking about how I would view my life differently if I believed I had a soul. I’ve been thinking about how a religious community has shown me outrageous kindness lately and the ways I owe them. I’ve been thinking of what it would mean to follow in that spirit. I’ve been thinking about how warming and loving it could feel. There is this sudden and palpable value to his - the allure of Eden - a stark counterpoint to the feeling of hopelessness of the world I live in now… but, of course, I’ve been thinking about how this is obviously wishful. Because there are inherent complications and sacrifices that come with it. Especially with the pratfalls I do not see. And I’ve been thinking about all the damage those systems have done to me. And so, I’ve been thinking about how I just wouldn’t be able to. Much for the same reasons it would feel like the deepest betrayal of self - perhaps in the way that Franz’s did for him.

In a way, this is all about the myth of Eden - and the longing for it.

I stated earlier that Malick has always been making movies about The Fall of Eden and with every film it’s reflected in the popular wisdom of how people feel about [insert current unrest]. It’s kind of this “oh no, this new horrible person / thing is ruining everything!” But the problem is that so many people have rightfully learned to have a thousand yard stare with the horrors of the world, particularly when it comes to the myth of America. This was a country founded on invasion, genocide, and slavery. It was never an eden. But people really believe it was. And with every story, Malick always sees the Eden that existed first. Literally so with John Smith’s love with Pocahontus (which is a deeply problematic, erroneous, and romanticized account). Same goes for the soulful dignity of the poor migrant worker and the ideal “simple life” before the fires burned. Same goes for “finding peace” with Melanesian villages during war. These are reductive, damaging simplifications. And when you look at the pattern of them, you have to ask the biting question: does the belief in Eden create a forever state of blindness to the suffering that exists in perpetuity? I mean, American religion had been corrupted long before Trump. And Austria knew the horrors of war just a few decades prior. Thus, to even believe in the concept of Eden is to be like Lucy and the football. You commit yourself to a cycle of ignorance.

To whatever credit, I think Malick might understand this some way (or at least I hope he does). However errantly it ties into history, I think he is always viewing “eden” as a deeply personal thing. A idealic way of viewing the world that is always going to get upended and tested because it IS ignorant. Which means it’s probably closer to that other popular myth, the allegory of the cave. In which our states of ignorance are only really confronted through the harshness of the world. At the same time, I’m not sure that’s how it all feels emotionally to him. Rarely does anything ever feel wiser on the other end of a Malick film. It feels more like something broken and lost and sad. As if a state of innocence has been ruined - and the longing for the return to the grace of Eden in a life that comes after.

Thus, I emerge out of this realization about his work with a duality I cannot synthesize. It is a way of seeing the world that is at once deeply moral, loving, and uncynical - and yet ignorant and cynical about the nature of corruption that is most certainly always there. Basically, it mirrors a lot of my complicated feelings about religion in general. But the fucking coup de grâce of A Hidden Life is the way he ultimately ties this most amorphous of concepts - that is the morality of the soul - right into the most concrete notion possible.

… It’s just also a hypothetical.

5. The Hidden Lives

Malick’s latest film makes its ultimate thematic point with abject clarity, for the title itself comes from a quote from George Eliot’s Middlemarch: “The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

There are so many ways to interpret these words and even question what a “hidden life” really means (especially given that George Eliot was but the pen name of Mary Ann Evans). But it’s not just about the acts of morality that we will never see. I mean it would be so easy to highlight the heroism of Jägerstätter and those who made sacrifices that went unnoticed. Just it’s so easy to fixate on the version of Jägerstätter’s story as it exists. But really, what the film is trying to show us is the power of “the one that didn’t exist.” In essence, it is a celebration of the butterfly effect of moral choices. What if Franz joined the army against his instincts? What if he hurt someone? What if he did some small part that helped that war continue just a little bit longer? In short, what if he added to the pain of the world?

It’s perhaps odd to see the lens of morality in terms of “what horrible thing was not done.” I mean, no one deserves a medal for NOT kicking an old man down the stairs. But it doesn’t matter because we are measuring something immeasurable we thus cannot really debate in concrete terms. But the inner soul measures the immeasurable. And in the world of fascism? One full of those who shrug and roll along with it? The argument is that this matters deeply. Perhaps more than anything.

So in the end, A Hidden Life does something so rare, which is make me throw myself into a hypothetical debate with absolutely no parameters and no possible answers. I don’t know if Malick is being ignorant, a genius, both or neither- only how little these designations would even matter. I only care that weeks later, the film still rests in my skull. But not because it delivered the diamond bullet to the brain. But because it gently let my brain become awash into the unknown, spread before you like grains of sand, ebbed back into the ocean. As a writer, I honestly don’t spend a lot of time here. Mostly because it’s not all that helpful to end your essays with a big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but hopefully that’s not how this is coming off.

It’s about how in awe I can be of the things that remind me how little I know. It’s being in awe of how far away I am from actually understanding much of anything. No, I don’t believe in god, but outside of literal astronomy, this is probably the closest I get to the feeling of spiritual grace in a universe that is so obviously beyond me. Which means, for once, I’m so comfortable writing something, nay BEING something that I try to stay away from…

I’m just a hat on a hat.

<3HULK