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.
