My brief chat with Argo director-costar Ben Affleck at today’s Telluride Film Festival patron’s brunch was mostly about Terrence Malick‘s To The Wonder, in which Affleck “stars,” so to speak. A friend who’s seen Malick’s film tells me Affleck has been all but cut out of it, just as Adrien Brody was edited out of Malick’s The Thin Red Line and Sean Penn‘s role was reduced to almost nothing in The Tree of Life.

In any event I asked Affleck if he’s seen To The Wonder and he said, “Yes, I’ve seen it”….(beat) (beat) (beat)…”and it makes The Tree of Life look like Transformers.” I didn’t take notes so the remainder of his comments are only approximately recalled, but he basically said it’s not a commercial film, that it’s the kind of thing that’s mainly for critics, and that when he’s directing a film “I’m always thinking about how to make this aspect completely clear and make this aspect understandable, and Malick doesn’t give a damn about any of that” and that his basic thing is to follow the butterfly, so to speak.

Jett and I are about to head up to the Chuck Jones theatre to see Argo, which Affleck will introduce, at 2 pm. He’ll be doing a q & a following tomorrow’s 1 pm screening.