Why is it that no one except myself has even mentioned what would seem to any observant person like a somewhat plausible (if not entirely plausible) reason for the vague, sketchy, mostly dialogue-free nature of Terrence Malick‘s To The Wonder? The reason I’m suggesting (apart from the fact that Malick’s natural inclinations are to jettison characters and dialogue) is that he’s a very private fellow, notoriously so, and yet, paradoxically, he very clearly based the narrative bones of To The Wonder on his own personal history, as I pointed out on 8.19.12.

Variety‘s Steven Gaydos commented as follows: “I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone connected the dots between an artist’s obsessive desire for secrecy and privacy in life and their obsessive desire for full-frontal exposure of everything personal and painful and private in their art.”

It just seems queer that not one reviewer has brought this up. Not even as a talking point, not even as gossip…nothing.

From the article: “I’ve heard or read bits and pieces over the years, but a 5.21.11 ‘The Search’ document by Brett McCracken called ‘39 Facts About Terrence Malick‘ reports that in the early 80s, Malick, raised in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, fell for Michele Morette, ‘a Parisienne who lived in his building in Paris and who had a daughter, Alex. After a few years the three of them moved to Austin, Texas. Malick married Michele in 1985, but they divorced in 1998.’ That same year, McCracken writes, “Malick married Alexandra ‘Ecky’ Wallace, an alleged high school sweetheart from his days at St. Stephen’s school in Austin, Texas. They are still married and currently reside in Austin, Texas. Ecky Wallace is the mother of actor Will Wallace, who appears in The Thin Red Line, The New World and The Tree of Life.”

Are you going to stand there and tell me that Neil (Ben Affleck) isn’t Malick, Marina (Olga Kurylenko) isn’t Michele and Jane (Rachel McAdams) isn’t Ecky?