Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Commentary (films not included). Pages: 22. Chapters: Badlands (film), Days of Heaven, Lanton Mills, The New World (2005 film), The Thin Red Line (1998 film), The Tree of Life (film), To the Wonder. Excerpt: The Tree of Life is a 2011 American drama film with experimental elements written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain. The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man's childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the universe and the inception of life on Earth. After several years in development and missing 2009 and 2010 release dates, the film premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or. Critics were divided about the film. Some critics praised it for Malick's use of technical and artistic imagery, directorial style, and fragmented non-linear narrative. Others criticised it for the same reasons. In January 2012, the film was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography. In the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, 16 critics voted for it as one of their 10 greatest films ever made; this ranked it at #102 in the finished list. Five directors also voted, making the film ranked at #132 in the directors' poll. A mysterious, wavering light, resembling a flame, flickers in the darkness. Mrs. O'Brien (Jessica Chastain) recalls a lesson taught to her that people must choose to either follow the path of grace or the path of nature. In the 1960s, she receives a telegram informing her of the death of her son, R.L., aged nineteen, in military service. Mr. O'Brien (Brad Pitt) is notified by telephone while at an airport. The family is thrown into turmoil. In the present day, the O'Brien's eldest son, Jack O'Brien (Sean Penn), ..