Rumor: Terrence Malick's "Radegund" to Premiere at Fall Festivals

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In an interview with the Independent, actor Matthias Schoenaerts discussed his work on “Radegund” with Malick, and it seems like the film will maybe premiere at this year's fall film festivals. According to the Independent, we can expect “Radegund” to premiere either at Toronto or Venice, later this year. 

“Radegund” follows the real-life story of Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, who famously was a conscientious objector and refused to fight for the Nazis during World War II. 

Your liking of Malick, of late at least, will depend very much on whether you liked the last three films of his "Texas nouveau-riche"  trilogy; "Song to Song," "To The Wonder" and "Knight of Cups." It's the same idea, same style, same love triangles, same "wonderment" at nature, same self-congratulatory sense its own existence. I personally hated those films. I thought they were Malick jerk-off sessions. However, the biggest problem for me, when it came to these films, was the fact that he was casting a who's who of Hollywood A-listers, which rendered the films inauthentic in their attempt to attain authentic naturalism. These films featured some of the biggest names in the business: Ben Affleck, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Natalie Portman, Rooney Mara, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams. Having star wattage, well known faces, did a disservice to what Malick was trying to achieve. You don't buy the romantic yearning these star actors are performing on-screen. Maybe having unknown actors would have benefited the story a little more.

These three films proved to be some of the most disappointing in my lifetime of watching movies. Soul crushing, even, Malick was amaster that could do no wrong before that, with films after film of considerable importance being released throughout his scattered but rich career: "Badlands," "Days of Heaven," "The Thin Red Line," "The Tree of Life" and, althought I'm not a fan," "The New World."

Suffice to say, the Malick-hate hit its goal of de-legitimizing the once legendary director.

These last three films from Malick, although original in their unconventional structure, had the most cliched love stories imaginable, but, more importantly, barely used a script. The word "mess" seems to be the most commonly used word from critics in their reviews.

With all that being said, I am very much looking forward to his next film, "Radegund," which has already wrapped-up shooting and was shot with German actors, all in German with English subtitles, and set in WWII. A departure from his the "Texas nouveau-riche" trilogy.

Malick gave a rare, in-depth Q&A following a screening of “Voyage of Time” at Washington D.C.’s Air and Space Museum (Thanks to And So It Begins…). It seems like the director was excited about shooting with a script again with "Radegund":

“Well, here was a script (in “Voyage of Time,") which was the evolutionary history of the universe [audience laughs]. And lately – I keep insisting, only very lately – have I been working without a script, and I’ve lately repented the idea. The last picture we shot, and we’re now cutting ("Radegund,") went back to a script that was very well ordered,” he said. “There’s a lot of strain when working without a script because you can lose track of where you are. It’s very hard to coordinate with others who are working on the film. Production designers and location managers arrive in the morning and don’t know what we’re going to shoot or where we’re going to shoot. The reason we did it was to try and get moments that are spontaneous and free. As a movie director, you always feel with a script that you’re trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. And with no script, there’s no round hole, there’s just air. But I’m backing away from that style now.”