Revisiting The Thin Red Line (1998)

Terrence Malick is one of cinemas most elusive characters. Reclusive, uncompromising and brilliant in equal measure, Malick stands as one of the greatest living directors. His triumphs include masterpieces such as Badlands, Days of Heaven and most recently the Tree of Life. Yet his greatest achievement remains, in my opinion, Second World War epic the Thin Red Line.

Released in 1998, the Thin Red Line was one of two war films to generate mass critical acclaim. The other, of course, was Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg’s offering crushed the box office (as Spielberg movies tend to do) and cleared up at the Oscars, yet Malick’s first film in twenty years left empty handed despite being nominated for a whopping seven Academy Awards.

The Thin Red Line suffered considerably due to being released so soon after Spielberg’s behemoth had beaten cinema audiences into bloody submission. Expecting another adrenaline fuelled action adventure with a John Williams soundtrack, audiences instead were faced with a master class in the art of poetic filmmaking. As such, Malick’s vastly superior film has forever lived in the shadow of Saving Private Ryan.

That being said, Malick’s tone poem is certainly not for everyone, clocking in at just shy of three hours, the Thin Red Line is long, really long. At times the pacing is glacial, major actors prove distracting in tiny cameos, the bulk of the film rests on the shoulders of relative unknowns and the narrative textbook has well and truly been thrown out the window. Yet despite this, the Thin Red Line stands as a triumph of contemporary filmmaking.

In a nutshell, the plot is concerned with the dangers faced by Charlie Company as they attempt to secure a heavily fortified ridge in the battle of Guadalcanal during the Second World War. Woody Harrelson, George Clooney, John Travolta, John Savage, Thomas Jane, John Cusack, Jared Leto, Nick Nolte, John C Reilly and Adrian Brody all feature, yet the true protagonists of the film are portrayed by Ben Chaplin, Sean Penn, Elias Koteas and Jim Caviezel.

Malick’s camera flits freely between these characters, examining how each individual deals with the devastating demands of war. Chaplin’s character seeks refuge in erotic fantasies with his wife, whilst Penn cynically dismisses any hope he may have of salvation. Many of the characters provide a voice over narration, not to progress the plot, but to reveal more about themselves, their collective view of the war and its many disturbing facets. Malick seems to be more concerned with the psychological effects of war than the physical. The old adage states that war strips men of their innocence, Malick takes this idea further; he would suggest that war launches an assault on the soul. 

The Thin Red Line frames war as an unnatural state, a terrible villain that has no rightful place in this world. The film is riddled with tropical symbolism, and strives to depict man’s eternal struggle in the destruction of nature and himself. Where Spielberg shows a man shorn down by machine gun fire, guts in his hands, Malick reveals a baby bird, dying, haven fallen from its nest as bombs drop nearby. Thus Malick demands that we consider the very nature of war, how can we allow this to happen? The Thin Red Line is a perfect example of onscreen philosophy, the very ideas of Malick reflected in a visual tone poem.

Although the action scenes in the Thin Red Line are few and far between, they are expertly orchestrated. Bullets ricochet, explosions desecrate the landscape and soldiers scream in agony. One particular scene where Charlie Company assaults a fortified ridge is every bit as visceral as Saving Private Ryan’s famed beach landing. Spielberg’s film sheds little light on the nature of the Thin Red Line; perhaps a better comparison would be with the surrealist dreamscape of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.

John Toll is the man responsible for the staggering cinematography on display. The vibrant jungles and lush landscape are beautifully captured through perfectly controlled tracking shots and slow camera pans. With the landscape itself being such a key thematic component of the film, it is imperative that it be captured in a manner that demands the attention of the audience. The ever brilliant Hans Zimmer provides an original score for the Thin Red Line, with much of the soundtrack consisting of several Melanesian choral songs and chants, which perfectly compliment the films many thematic elements.

Whether you admire the Thin Red Line for its vast poetic beauty, or consider it pretentious and isolating, it is impossible to deny the supreme power of the film. Malick is able to convey the very nature of love, death, heroism and war in a way no other film has ever accomplished. A free flowing visual poem of ideas, the Thin Red Line lives long in the memory. Never has a film this intimate, felt so epic.  A true masterpiece.