 Which would the author say of both directors?
But Malick, a certified intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and Days of Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not specious. He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars (John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. He speaks the movie's epitaph, "Darkness and light, strife and love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face?
 they missed a key component in their films
 they missed a key component in their films  there were times when the movies were unclear  the films portrayed the real characters poorly  the visual imagery was done well