The Thin Red Line

Borrowed this the other day and watched it for the first time since seeing it in theaters in '98. I was fourteen at the time so my mindset has changed. I had remembered it being very long, and although that hasn't changed I definitely appreciated it more the second time around.

Beautiful movie, but my criticisms are the usual. The narrative is very disjointed, and I wasn't a fan of the multiple voice-overs (flashbacks to Dune).

Jim Caviezel is a little too distant as the somewhat-lead: I understand that him and Sean Penn are contrasted in philosophies, with the former finding the beauty in life (and death), while the latter sees only meaninglessness and looking out for #1.

The second hour is incredible, with a slow-burn interrupted by sudden violence. I love how the Japanese soldiers are only seen from a distance at first, and as the American soldiers get closer we see more of the Japanese as they do. The scene that plays out around the 2 hour mark, as the American soldiers storm the Japanese camp and Hans Zimmer's score swells to perfection had me enraptured (although, haha, I couldn't help but retroactively be reminded of Inception's score).

Unfortunately the third hour destroys all the momentum. I understood storming the hill, there was a clear geography laid out, but moving further into the island feels like generic jungle.

Great performances all around. Weird, much like Band of Brothers, to see every male actor of the late '90s, early '00s show up.

I had always known about this movie (my movie nerd mindset was really coming into it's own in 1998), but I never saw it until I got the Criterion Blu-ray back when Amazon had that quick Gold Box deal on it in December. HOLY SHIT. What an amazing movie. That assault that you mentioned Bartleby, is THE big moment in the movie. the 3 hours really seem to fly by. It actually feels more like a 2 hour movie.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bluelouboyle 

And Nick Nolte is in full scenery chewing mode.

Agreed, although I think he ends up being pretty fantastic in this.  Tall is such an interesting character - I think his inner monologues are the only ones that really gel with the narrative.  He's so gruff and intense on the battlefield, and his seemingly blatant disregard for human life initially comes across as monstrous.  But at the same time, you almost feel sympathetic towards him as hes essentially a life-long grunt who never really got his due, and this is his last opportunity for glory.  He comes across as sad and borderline pathetic in his scenes with Travolta, and later on Cusack, after the bunker assault is a success.  

I love that grey area that exists between the ideologies of Tall and Staros.  It's easy to label Tall as a massive asshole and Staros as a humane captain who care about his troops.  But this is war, and the reality of it is that maybe Tall knows his shit, and Staros is kind of being a giant pussy.  Malick isn't really picking sides, but hes putting it all out there for us to consider.

That assault on the Japanese Camp is probably the showiest moment of the film, but it's also the thing that sort of justifies a lot of the other Malickism. I tried to watch this initially in 1999 and was put off by how slow it was, I was like 13 at the time and wanting another helping of Saving Private Ryan, so when I came to do a rewatch I sort of girded my loins (despite the fact that I've seen, and adored, three other Malick movies this year). There's the lyrical quality to the film, which feels perfectly like Malick, but what makes that lyrical quality work is contrasting it against what's on screen. The intercutting monologues, narrative diversions, suddenness of action, all sort of bring us into the soldiers minds in a way that really shouldn't work as effectively as it should. It's the contrast between intent and action that makes characters like Robert Witt so fascinating. On one hand he's monolouging about the nature of warfare, the destructive nature of man, but it's done whilst he's surveying the remnants of what he and his company have done. As such the entire film seems to play as people trying to work through this nightmarish situtation they're in.

The only criticism I have with the film is that it's got a wealth of characters that Malick doesn't really know what to do with. His other films, even sprawling works like The New World, seem to have a core cast of two or three characters. This film has got at least half a dozen main characters and about a dozen more tertiary characters and it feels too sprawling at times. Cutting the film to just focus on Nolte, Caviezel and Koteas characters might have helped with its overall focus.

The film is stunning looking as well, the Blu-Ray is probably the handsomest film I have in my collection with amazing colours which really support Malick's roving eye. The soundtrack is great, although I had a moment of disconnect when I realised the music, and dialogue, from the camp attack had been sampled by Explosions in the Sky.

I just saw this again for the 5th or 6th time & it still doesn't work. It still feels like a beautifully photographed actor's workshop. Malick's interior monologues worked beautifully in DoH & Badlands, but here, those tools fail him completely. The problem is that the characters are poorly defined & each interior monologue is asking the same questions, speaking with the exact same wistfully vague philosophical voice - Malick's voice.

It seems like this film needs a 5 hour Das Boot-like cut, wherein the characters could develop & the jumbled narrative could see some cohesion. But the fact that Malick fills about 15 minutes among some of the most drawn out, cliched "I'm dyin', Sarge!" scenes ever filmed, I wonder if the script actually had anything more to offer.  

The script was the James Jones novel.

The film is a jumble of scenes from the novel -- some of Jones' material in its entirety, other scenes in montage or muted and voiced-over by Malick's ruminations. Some of it works, a lot doesn't. I prefer the novel.

I really need to give this another spin.  I haven't seen it since theaters.