A frame from the film. That is all you get.
2011 film · directed by Terrence Malick
Does Brad Pitt die in The Tree of Life?
He plays Mr. O'Brien.
Want to guess first?
Revealing shows only the answer. Everything else stays behind its own curtain.
No.
He is alive when the credits roll.
How it happens, in words. No pictures yet.
It's his son who dies; he outlives the boy.
The film opens with Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien receiving the telegram that their 19-year-old son R.L. has died in the 1960s, and the rest unfolds as older son Jack's memories of a 1950s Texas childhood under his stern, frustrated father. Mr. O'Brien, an engineer and thwarted musician, loses a patent suit and his plant closes, and in a moment of humility asks Jack's forgiveness before the family moves away. He is last seen alive, and in the film's beach-of-eternity coda the whole family, R.L. included, is reunited.
The film's central death is R.L.'s, delivered by telegram in the opening minutes. The afterlife/beach sequence is metaphysical, not a literal death of Mr. O'Brien.
- Director
- Terrence Malick
- Runtime
- 139 min
Where to find the scene.
The scene
No clip on file yet. Search YouTube for the scene