If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack...

I guess I've kind of given up on this blog in the past couple months or so. I don't know why but for some reason, I get the inspiration to write about something, and then as soon as the physical action of the thing starts up, all my energy gets sapped. It's the damndest thing, I think what I've come to realize is that I need to write as soon as my mind conjures up a thought. That way, I could write like a billion blog entires a day ( I wish, most of the time I'm just doodling or mentally un-dressing the female parishioners...Homer said it). The point being, I found something to write about, and I'm going to do it, that's the way it's gotta be and that's the way I gotta do it.

The Thin Red Line is the most gorgeous movie ever made, it's definitely one of the top ten films of the 90's and maybe even the last half century. It has an absorbency unlike any other movie ever made, on no matter what size screen you watch it, you become enveloped by the images. The jungle swallows you up, and your fate is the same as the soldiers. It's the kind of film you know that if you had half the talent, visual bravado, and confidence as these people do, you still wouldn't be able to come up with a tenth of their achievement, although you still really want to try.

So much has already been written about this film, it feels somewhat futile to try and add anything new. I think it's a shame it was overlooked the way it was back during it's initial release, sure it was overshadowed by Saving Private Ryan ( a film I refuse to bash because it is brilliant in it's own way). But I think even without the burden of Ryan, Line still would have been forgotten because it's a war film where soldiers wander into war rather than fight it. It's a war film where giving another soldier enough morphine to kill himself after a fatal wound is the closest anyone gets to an act of courage. And it's a war film not so much about characters and individuals, but about some kind of collective unconscious that floats through the air and intersects through the entanglements of a mind induced to violence, and a nature that has to watch itself be destroyed. That doesn't mean it takes some kind of scholar to appreciate a film like The Thin Red Line, and as much as I don't want to dissect, analyze, or do any of that other cinema studies stuff, but for me, this film works on every single level of aesthetic, content, and execution. Malick has a method of finding the film while it's being shot, and some critics have complained that Line feels incomplete, (it's original cut was 6 hours long, god I hope they release that on DVD some day). I couldn't disagree more, to me there is not a moment in the film that feels wasted or from some other far away part that was never properly developed. Every emotion is earned, every death is felt, and every image is a perfect representation of not a clear and distinct message, but of a feeling or a state of mind that makes the experience of the film so much more enjoyable because it is yours and yours alone. Very few directors can do that, Malick is one of them and forget about all the mythology around the guy, the mystery and all that other bull shit. Just watch Badlands, Days of Heaven, and (hopefully) The New World, and you'll see an artist who has such control over his craft that it no longer becomes his, it passes through as a kind of transcendence between artist and observer and only the best art in the world is capable of that.

One last thing because there is only so many times I can gush about a film, but The Thin Red Line, as previously stated is the most beautifully shot film ever made (for me). Malick has a such a delicate touch that even a shot like that of a jungle leaf penetrated by gun fire being illuminated by the mid-day sun never feels arty or self-conscious. There is one shot in this film that always confounds me with its simplicity and earth shattering profundity. It's an empty hill side, the hip-high green blades of grass gently swaying with the wind. The frame is empty and all of a sudden, the field becomes illuminated by the sunlight, inch by inch, blade by blade. I have no idea how in the world they planned for that, how they executed it, maybe it's all fake but it sure doesn't look like it. I think it may be one of my favorite shots ever, and I could go on and on for this movie. I have to mention the gliding camera movements tracking the battalion's movement over the insurmountable hillsides, the eloquent encircling of a tree trunk, or the peaceful destruction of Witt. It's so hard to convey the exact feeling these shots extract from me, but I can say it's quite close to a state of bliss.

Okay I've yakked enough, it's sunday and it's snowing outside, get out and enjoy it.

"Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?"