As a person who spends hours each week thumbing through press releases, I’ve come to appreciate artists who avoid the necessary evil of self-promotion and allow the reputation of their art to precede what they have to say about it. Of course, an artist has to reach a certain level of notoriety before anybody cares that you’re not self-promoting—how you get there is anyone’s guess.
Such has been the case with the famously press-shy director Terrence Malick, whose fifth feature in four decades, Tree of Life, won the Palme D’or at Cannes this week. There’s been a big, and not unexpected, to-do about how Malick wouldn’t walk the red carpet or appear any press conferences. What, exactly, is this guy’s deal?
An conversation with the film’s production designer Jack Fisk, the husband of Sissy Spacek who lives locally, provides some interesting insight into what makes Malick tick. From the Los Angeles Times:
"It turns out Malick is a huge fan of Zoolander, Stiller’s 2001 send-up of fashion fabulousness—so much so that for Malick’s birthday one year, Stiller dressed up as the character Derek Zoolander, made a personalized video card and sent it to the director. ‘I think Zoolander is one of Terry’s favorite movies ever,’ said Jack Fisk, Malick’s longtime production designer, who has known him for nearly 40 years. ‘He watches it all the time, and he likes quoting it.’"
Wait—did Jack Fisk just say that this very serious American filmmaker’s favorite movie is Zoolander?
Details like this are especially delicious when they’re hard to come by.
What do these things have in common?