THIN RED LINE, THE (1998)

(December 1998, U.S.)

At the start of writing this blog, I'm just learning that Terrence Malick's (BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN) epic war film THE THIN RED LINE is, in fact, a remake of a previous 1964 adaptation of James Jones's original novel. In a way, that's disappointing, but it doesn't deter for a moment what a spectacular war film this under Malick's direction, released just in the wake of Steven Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN the previous summer.

One of the most distinguishable things about war films is that the action and drama of combat almost never changes. It's blood, guts and glory all the way, particularly when the story is centered during World War II and our brave fighting men in the Pacific. Although it may be hard to grasp the details of this film while you're watching it, the mission is a, more or less, straightforward arrival and departure of American soldiers of an island in the South Pacific with the sole objective of securing a field being held off by the Japanese. The process of achieving their objective is a slow and tedious one, with many human casualties along the way.

What we have to remember here is that while this is essentially a combat film, we're also watching a Terrence Malick drama in which human thoughts and emotions are narrated and felt in conjunction with the horror of war and the salvation of finding peace. When the film opens, life is calm and peaceful for a U.S. Army Private who's gone AWOL from his unit and is living among the carefree Melanesian natives. We hear his thoughts and feel his feelings of joy and contentment, but this last only until he's inevitably found and imprisoned on a troop carrier by his superior sergeant and eventually thrown back into the mix of his unit. The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field and seize the island from the Japanese. Throughout out their ordeal and their fears, the men contemplate the invasion and the meaning of their lives.

Malick's film settings may be considered a virtual "Eden" or a "Paradise Lost", raped and pillaged by the poisons of war. Combat is bloody, to be sure, but very often their are shots in the film that avoid too much gore and perhaps focus more on the explosion of a tree, the shredding of vegetation or perhaps even the close-up of an exotic bird or alligator. The director's unconventional filming styles and techniques include the beauty of a bright, sunny morning within the majestic glory of high trees, or just the simplicity of a tree branch or a parrot.

As a World War II film, THE THIN RED LINE is daring, if not philosophical in its approach to what makes the American soldier tick in a time crisis and uncertainty. It's often confusing, even while it fascinates. The battle scenes are masterful in their own right, though it may evoke similar comparisons to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, as well as Oliver Stone's 1986 Best Picture Oscar winner, PLATOON. Truth, or whatever we wish to consider to be truth, is hardly based on the facts of war, but rather the emotions expressed by the human heart and the mind's wisdom. Out of death and destruction, we're meant to believe and understand that love, life and creation can ultimately grow.

Like THE LONGEST DAY (still my favorite war film, by the way) the players are extensive, while avoiding too much attention to making any particular actor a star of the film. In a cast that includes great actors like Sean Pean, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Ben Chaplin, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, John Travolta and George Clooney, we may easily take notice of principal players like Penn, Caviezel, Chaplin and Nolte who manage to maintain the perfect tone and rhythm for scenes that may not last more than a minute or two. They're all big stars in our minds, but on the screen and in the jungles, these bright stars may also be interpreted as fallen angels...who just happen to be men who are big stars. It's elements like this that made THE THIN RED LINE (and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) two of the best war films of the 1990s. I didn't truly get sucked into a well-crafted war film like that again until Christopher Nolan's DUNKIRK (2017).

Favorite line or dialogue:

First Sergeant Edward Welsh: "Property! The whole fucking thing's about property!"