The Tree of Life, To the Wonder and now this one are shot in the same style. Did he use the same type of camera work in his earlier films? The only movie I have a good recollection of is Days of Heaven in which he didn't. What about the rest?
I'm just asking about the camera work. Not the voiceovers and other stuff.
The deep focus, loose narrative stuff pretty much begins with The Thin Red Line, after his twenty year hiatus. That said, TTRL and The New World are still much more orthodox than The Tree of Life, To the Wonder and Knight of Cups.
Is this your homework, Larry?
I think it has been an evolution ever since Badlands, with many core visual (and other) qualities running through all works. I guess The New World could be seen as the bridge aesthetically between the older and newer. It is after-all the first time Malick worked with Lubezki and had a list of 'rules' for how it would be shot, which you can see in the trivia section here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402399/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_2
I agree with Harry on this one. It's an evolution in style. You can even identify elements in Badlands, arguably Malick's most conventional film, that has traces of Malick's visual inventiveness. Although I think that Days of Heaven is just as much of a logical turning point, in terms of visual style, as The New World, although the latter is emblematic of a freer and more fluid form of visual storytelling that has come to define his modern work. Malick's collaboration with Lubezki is essential to his modern aesthetic, and really has cemented his style, although I think that Days of Heaven is the seed that contains all of Malick's experimental tendencies and stylistic flourishes.
Like a kiss, soft, and wild with the delicate steps of petals fallen in a stream