Director Terrence Malick may be preparing a special edition of The Tree of Life that runs about six hours. Granted, this is coming from an English translation of a French article with a Mexican cinematographer found on an IMDb message board, but it’s a possibility nonetheless. The final film’s cut runs a hair shy of two hours and twenty minutes, and according to the article, Malick’s original cut was around 8 hours and he’s got a total of 370 hours of footage just sitting around somewhere. Needless to say, holy shit.
While I have yet to see the film, the reviews I’ve seen have been anywhere from the greatest thing ever put to film since Citizen Kane to the largest pile of pretentious shit ever put to film since Citizen Kane. With reviews like that it’s a wonder I haven’t seen it yet. But a six-hour cut of a film? That’s pushing it even if it is one of the greatest pieces of art ever produced. I get bored just thinking about it.
Source: Movie Line
