#536: MALICK, Terrence: The Thin Red Line (1998)

MALICK, Terrence (United States)

The Thin Red Line [1998]

Spine #536
Blu-ray

After directing two of the most extraordinary movies of the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, American artist Terrence Malick disappeared from the film world for twenty years, only to resurface in 1998 with this visionary adaptation of James Jones's 1962 novel about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal. A big budget, spectacularly mounted epic, The Thin Red Line is also one of the most deeply philosophical films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, a thought-provoking meditation on man, nature, and violence. Featuring a cast of contemporary cinema's finest actors — Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, and Woody Harrelson among them — The Thin Red Line is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the experience of combat that ranks as one of the greatest war films ever produced.

171 minutes
Color

Surround

2:35:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2010

Director/Writers

Based on the novel by James Jones.

Screenplay by Terence Malick.

Malick was 55 when he directed The Thin Red Line.

Other Malick films in the Collection:

#651: Badlands (1973)
#409: Days Of Heaven (1978)
#826: The New World (2005)
#942: The Tree Of Life (2011)

The Film

Twenty years between films is a long time.

It was worth the wait. The Thin Red Line is not just one of the greatest war films ever made — it’s a great film, period.

The first image of the film is a crocodile slithering under some scummy water. Much later, we see another crocodile that is tied up and apparently nearly dead, as the grunts poke at it — as human beings do when they need to feel superior.

Malick films many gorgeous inserts of worm-eaten leaves, tropical birds, bats, etc. which seems to be meant to indicate that there are living beings in the world who aren’t shooting at each other. (They may have their own natural wars, of course.)

Malcik and his editors slashed and slashed through scenes with “unneeded” dialogue — replaced with silent scenes, wildlife and tree inserts, and especially with a voice-over, from either a character or an unseen narrator. Extremely effective in producing this long river-like cinematic experience.

He uses many soft dissolves throughout; scenes merge with a fluidity that many other directors fail to capture.

The running time is fine — it flies by — and the acting: Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, and particularly Nick Nolte — is top-notch.

Hans Zimmer’s score is captivating — and undetectable on first viewing (always a good sign of a great score).

The location (Solomon Islands) is spectacular.

** (SPOILERS)

And what is the unanswered question … Why? Your life, your death — it can all be decided in an instant, if — say — you happen to be standing near Nick Nolte, as he “asks” for volunteers to climb a hill and take a ridge …

Or perhaps it’s even worse if — relieved of duty temporarily, and enjoying the whiskey and letters from home — your wife writes to you that she’s met an Air Force captain and wants a divorce. Sorry, honey — this is life and death, ya know?

The wife, btw, is Miranda Otto — one of only two (White) female roles in the film — and her only dialogue is in voice-over.

Film Rating (0-60):

58

The Extras

The Booklet

Forty-two page booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Sterritt and a 1963 reprint by Jones.

Sterritt is his usual intelligent, poignant and informative self. A truly great essay, analyzing this thing far better than we can do here …

He also points out some parallels with Mizoguchi, whose Sansho the Bailiff (1954) {Spine #386} he staged (with no particular success) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1993 …

The Jones reprint is even more informative! He takes the reader on a journey through all the bad war films which he sat through so he could point out why they’re so bad!

This is the dude who wrote From Here To Eternity and the book that this film is based on, and who actually fought at Guadalcanal.

Commentary

By cinematographer John Toll, production designer Jack Fisk, and producer Grant Hill.

All three nicely integrate their expertise into the commentary; for Toll it seems like an exciting gig — his first time working with Malick.

The real star of the film is the Akela crane, used to capture all those “dollying” shots in the tall grass that would have all but impossible with an actual dolly track:

Interviews

Actors

With several of the film’s actors, including Kirk Acevedo, Caviezel, Thomas Jane, Elias Koteas, Dash Mihok, and Penn; composer Zimmer, editors Billy Weber, Leslie Jones, and Saar Klein, and writer Jones’ daughter Kaylie Jones.

They all just wanted to work for Malick. The actor interviews all show what massive respect they held for his process, and what they went through to do their part. Penn is particularly philosophical …

**

Editors

The three editors all speak of their contributions to a film where over a million feet were shot …

JONES: “When we had the cut together, he didn’t want to see it … did he?

WEBER: “No. We forced him to watch the first cut of the movie, which was five hours. And we sat him down … and I said to him, ‘I’m not gonna work anymore. I’m stopping ‘til you sit and watch everything.’ So he did; we sat one day and we watched the five-hour cut.”

JONES: “So the whole editing process took about a year-and-a-half …

WEBER: “Yeah, a year-and-a-half to cut. We had a lot of footage; something over a million feet — 6,000 feet is an hour, so 6,000 divided into a million is that many hours [167 hours] …

At several points in the film, you’ll hear a deep low sound that comes from a long steel beam that had bridges and strings and was dangerously loud:

KLEIN: “The [Cosmic] beam idea came a little bit later, when we were looking for something to capture the fear of war — and he remembered a guy, I think from like Venice Beach back in the 70s — and tracked him down and that was actually fascinating, it worked incredibly well. The traditional compositions weren’t working for him; he felt like another element was needed. And we brought him down — I wish I could remember his name (Francesco Lupica) … it was really hard to figure out where to set him up, because he has a huge I-beam connected to a whole bunch of pick-ups and Marshall amps and all that. You needed an 6incredibly large space for it to resonate in … I think they set it up in a huge parking structure on the Fox lot, and that didn’t really work, and so at some point, they just found the biggest sound stage they have, and they brought the beam, and put a big Persian rug and a huge wall of amps — it looked like a Led Zeppelin concert — and they recorded it over there. I remember visiting and getting the old aviation grade earplugs, so your ears won’t bleed. Once we got that, it was incorporated into Zimmer’s music …”

**

Music

Zimmer interview:

“We spent an inordinate amount of time just talking about colors … John Toll came in and we started talking about music and colors and all these sort of things, so most of the time we having incredibly unpractical, unpragmatic philosophical conversations about films … this monumental beast that was in front of us, sort of sideways and obtuse ways, and trying to figure out a style of how to even tackle this.”

“Somewhere along the line, Terry came up with this idea of ‘everything should always ask questions.’ — including the music, which is an interesting one. How can you get music to ask questions? And I sort of took this as our leitmotif, as our dictum throughout the whole thing — that things should never be answered; the question was much more important, and more interesting.”

Non-Zimmer music:

First shot (accompanying the crocodile): Arvo Pärt’s Annum Per Annum.

0:02:13-0:04:14: Gabriel Fauré Requiem. (Zimmer calls him “Gustave Fauré) 

1:52:00: Zimmer’s score beautifully merges into Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question.

**

Writer

Kaylie Jones (a writer herself) talks about her father and his experiences, accompanied by old photos … a great video bio of the man who inspired Malick to make this film.

Casting

With casting director Dianne Crittenden, featuring archival audition footage.

Always great to watch audition tapes.

“We could have cast this film with 15 different casts!” (so many actors wanted to be in it; even Johnny Galecki [Leonard, Big Bang Theory] auditioned; he already had a decent resumé at that time!)

Outtakes

Fourteen minutes.

Surely cut because Malick was always trying to trim the dialogue.

1. Scene between Caviezel and the great John C. Reilly (who may have two lines in the finished film!)
2. Short scene with Don Harvey (Sgt. Becker)
3. Drunken grunts at the R&R camp confronting Lt. Band (Paul Gleeson)
4. Young private bayonetting a Japanese then trying to wipe the blood off, ala Lady MacBeth. A bit too on-the-mark, perhaps …
5. Scene between Arie Verveen and Caviezel about missing home
6. Herding Japanese prisoners down a hill. One of the prisoners is near death. They want to kill him, but worry about coming back with one missing from the count …
7. Scene between Chaplin and George Clooney. Clooney has more lines in this deleted scene than in the final cut, where his appearance amounts to a cameo!
8. Adrian Brody (Fife — who’s more central than Witt in the novel) gets evacuated with a bad ankle. He seems supremely pleased (Fife was probably Jones’ alter-ego in the novel) …

Newsreel

World War II footage from Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands.

Some of this footage seems to have made its way into the film. Except, of course, Jones (whose booklet essay is a must) would have rightly criticized it as too superficial.

Melanesian chants

Absolutely gorgeous music. A precious addition to this wonderful release.

Original Theatrical trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

38

58 + 38 =

96

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