Terrence Malick was a Heidegger scholar who did the (only?) English translation of “The essence of reasons”. His latest film, The Tree of Life (with Brad Pitt & Sean Penn), won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. I can’t get through 10 minutes of The Tree of Life without tears welling up in my eyes. It discloses the human condition in all its richness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvQZfLavWfU
Malick turned away from a promising career as an academic philosopher to become a film maker. This is precisely in keeping with Heidegger’s ‘turning’, whereby philosophy was to become art and poetry. Malick refuses to comment on the relation between his two careers, but the influence of Heidegger is present in every single shot of his films. In particular, the unrelenting force of nature pervades Malick’s films, constantly upstaging the human participants. The people in Malick’s films are thrown into a world. Those that are open to the world flourish, those that resist their world are swallowed up by it...