Malick triple-feature: The White Sheik; Ménilmontant; Smokin Aces

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Malick mentioned I Vitelloni and The White Sheik as his favorite Federico Fellini pictures, with the latter being “one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen.” He spoke nostalgically of seeing these films as a boy in Oklahoma and “coming out into the light and making vows to be a better son or brother, or work harder,” reminiscing how those films – and the experience of seeing them in a theatre – “strengthened you.”

Malick also spoke affectionately of the silent era and made special mention of Ménilmontant, the 1926 Dimitri Kirsanoff short which critic Pauline Kael named as her favourite film of all time. Apropos of his own films’ fixation upon the natural world and their vaguely pantheistic bent, Malick likened silent cinema to a tree that was cut down prematurely, and described Ménilmontant as an indication of how the medium may have evolved had talkies come around ten years later. In an amusing aside, he also expressed his admiration for Joe Carnahan’s Smokin’ Aces, which he described as “quite well directed,”

Based Carnahan finally getting some respect