Director Watch Podcast Ep. 67 – ‘A Hidden Life’ (Terrence Malick, 2019) with Special Guest Dave Giannini of InSession Film

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love. On episode 67 of the Director Watch Podcast, the boys are joined by Dave Giannini, Editor-In-Chief of InSession Film, to discuss the final film in their Terrence Malick series, A Hidden Life (2019).

The time has come for the Malick series to come to an end, and it is ending with yet another beautiful look to the past by the director after years of making personal films about the present. In taking a journey back to the past, the director was able to search into a man’s personal, religious reasoning for not wanting to go to war for the Nazis. Shot beautifully cinematographer Jörg Widmer, Malick has created another masterpiece of epic, poetic masterpiece, contrary to many who thought it was just another Malick film; this one is just as special as the rest. Ryan, Jay, and Dave break down their relationship with the film, Malick’s stance on religion, the film’s beautiful score, the excellent performance from August Diehl, give their final thoughts on the series, their final Malick rankings, and announce their next series they will be doing starting next week.

You can listen to the Director Watch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music and more.

This podcast runs 2h26m. The guys will be back next week to begin their series on the films of Carl Franklin with a review of his film, One False Move. You can rent it via iTunes and Amazon Prime rental in preparation for the next episode of Director Watch. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: MUSICALIFE, from Pond5 (intro) and “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).