We had hopes that Terrence Malick might finally unveil “The Way of the Wind” in 2025, but I’m hearing that the film is “nowhere near finished,” and this comes from someone who is very privy in knowing how the film’s post production process is going.
Last year, there were hopeful reports that the film was nearing completion with editing having supposedly been completed, and post-production entering the sound mixing stage. You even had the main actor, Géza Röhrig, who plays Jesus in Malick’s biblical epic, saying that the film would premiere at Cannes 2025.
Malick has been editing the film, which was shot in 2019, for close to six years now. According to actor Mathieu Kassovitz,, Malick, supposedly, shot close to 3000 hours of footage for ‘Way of the Wind.’ Is that even possible? To attain this number you’d have to leave the camera on overnight, every night, for four straights months.
“The Way of the Wind” is supposed to convey passages “in the life of Christ” through the representation of evangelical parables. Jesus Christ's descent into the world of the dead, also known as his “descent into hades,” is rumored to be one of the parables included in the film. The cast includes the likes of Schoenaerts (as Saint Peter), Röhrig (as Jesus), Ben Kingsley, Joseph Fiennes, and Mark Rylance (as Satan).
Malick wrote the screenplay for ‘Way of the Wind.’ Sam Lipman composed and orchestrated the score. Jörg Widmer, who worked on Malick’s last film (“A Hidden Life”), is the cinematographer.
Why is Malick taking so long to refine and perfect his latest film? Who knows. Malick has a salad-toss approach to editing his films, he tries to find the right poetic groove for his narrative and it can sometimes take years for him to finally be satisfied with a final cut. I guess we just have to let the man work; his free-form way of editing has —at times— definitely been worth the wait (“The Tree of Life” “The Thin Red Line”).
Malick is even known to edit out numerous movie stars from his films. In “The Thin Red Line” he completely nixed already-shot roles by Billy Bob Thornton, Mickey Rourke, Viggo Mortensen and Bill Pullman. Same goes for “To The Wonder” which got rid of Jessica Chastain and Barry Pepper’s characters. Christian Bale also got the boot in “Song to Song.
John Bleasdale, who just published the excellent Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick, recently spoke with longtime Malick production designer Jack Fisk on his podcast, Writers on Film. Fisk didn’t work on ‘Way of the Wind,’ but he knows all about the project which he says has been percolating in Malick’s head since the ‘70s. He added that Malick believed ‘Way of the Wind’ to be his “most important film.”