The Tree of Life (2011) on Netflix
In 1950s Waco, Texas, Jack O'Brien grows up between his stern father and his nurturing mother. The two teach him opposite lessons about the world. As an adult, he looks back.
- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.8/10193,458 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
The O'Brien family lives in the Waco suburbs in the 1950s. Mr. O'Brien works as an engineer and spends his free time on music. Mrs. O'Brien keeps the house and the neighborhood friendships. Their three sons are Jack, R.L. and Steve. Mrs. O'Brien fills her sons' lives with wonder and teaches them the way of grace. Mr. O'Brien is hot-tempered and stern; he trains his sons to fight and to mistrust others, the way of nature. As Jack grows, he weighs these two lessons against each other. In the present day, Jack is an architect in an unnamed city, looking back on that childhood and on his difficult bond with his father. Images of the universe's birth and the start of life on Earth unfold alongside his memories.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Tree of Life (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For the cosmic sequences Douglas Trumbull worked with chemicals, paint, fluorescent dyes, smoke, liquids, CO2 and flares, doing things like pouring milk through a funnel into a narrow trough filmed with a high-speed camera to look cosmic, galactic, huge and epic.
- The tree the film is named for is a large live oak that was excavated from a property five miles outside Smithville; the 65,000-pound tree and root ball were trucked into Smithville and replanted.
- For the roles of the three brothers the production team spent over a year and saw more than 10,000 Texas students, and about 95% of the entire cast had no prior acting experience.
- Heath Ledger was set to play the role of Mr. O'Brien but dropped out, due to recurring sicknesses, a month before his death in early 2008.
- Emmanuel Lubezki estimated that he shot 600,000 meters of film, over 350 hours of footage, and he revealed to Cahiers du Cinéma that the first cut of the film ran eight hours long.
- Announced in late 2005, the film was to be financed by the Indian production company Percept Picture Company and shot partially in India, with Colin Farrell and Mel Gibson at one stage attached to the project.
- Film students from USC and the University of Texas, as well as interns, were allowed to play a part in the editing process, and some of them stayed on the film the whole time.
