Not much is known about Tree of Life, the latest from secretive director Terrence Malick (Badlands, The New World), which I guess has something to do with the fact that he’s a secretive director. We know the film stars Sean Penn and Brad Pitt, who replaced the originally cast Heath Ledger (fortuitous turn of events there). We know, thanks to this casting call, that Tree of Life Needs Babies (which sounds almost as ominous as “Soylent Green is people”). And we know that the film is now shooting in the Austin area. In fact, as fortune would have it, it’s being shot a few blocks from the home of Austin American-Statesman columnist Michael Corcoran in Smithville, Texas, and thus Corky has been able to unearth a detail or two.
First of all, it appears that “Smithville is standing in for 1950s Waco, where Malick grew up. We know this because the film has asked the Waco Tribune to make some mock 1950s front pages. Could this be Malick’s first personal memoir film?” If so, it would come as something of a relief, since the title Tree of Life is conjuring up bad flashbacks to The Fountain for me.
Secondly, “Brad Pitt plays the father and Jessica Chastain is the mother of three boys, ages 7- 12. One scene filmed Tuesday was at a barbecue pit on Lee Street and one witness told me that Pitt was driving three boys in a vintage 1950’s car. The day before filming started, the three kids were hanging out at the house on Burleson Street where the title tree is planted.”
And…that’s about it, aside from the photo Corcoran snapped, which may or may not depict the titular tree. Oh, and then there’s this tidbit: “Another publication printed the rumor that someone had been defecating on the front porch of the film house. Not true, says the chief of police. The house is under surveillance around the clock, lest some Brad Pitt fan want something he touched.”
Stay tuned for further developments.
