The Thin Red Line

    365 Films

Entry #69

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Directed by Terrence Malick

Film is predominately known as a “director’s medium” and in order to produce anything of value one must maintain the strictest control over every single facet of production.  Several directors are notorious for their obsessive attention to detail but I like to think Terrence Malick prefers to fly in the face of that particular wisdom.  His process evolves at every single stage of production.  Writing evolves the idea, shooting evolves the writing, and finally, post-production kicks the ball another 100 yards down the field (that analogy makes sense, right?)  Obviously, never having been on set during one of his productions, I have no way of validating this but then again, I’m writing on the Internet and I can talk out of my ass all I want.  Twenty years had transpired between Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line and if there was ever a film to answer the “where the hell have you been these past years?” question, it was Line.  A World War II epic on an intimate scale, as much a clash between philosophies as a conflict between nations, and the start of Malick’s current practice of democratized voice-overs, Line is at once a culmination of Malick’s filmmaking style and a step in a bold new direction.  The Thin Red Line was released in December of 1998 and unfortunately suffered from a rigged game comparison to Steven Spielberg’s zeitgeist vacuuming World War II summer blockbuster, Saving Private Ryan.  You will not hear any ill words from me about Ryan, for I was always baffled by the comparison.  It always seemed like a fool’s errand to qualitatively compare two films on the same subject from two such diametrically opposed filmmakers.  The more fascinating discussion would be not in the comparative success of the two films, but rather how Spielberg and Malick represent and obscure their visions of war.  But as you can see, I’m getting way off track.  I saw The Thin Red Line with my Mom (and possibly Brother) on a Sunday morning in early January of 1999.  I only mention this to you because it brings to mind a similar experience two years ago when I got home from a Sunday morning showing of The Tree of Life only to read on twitter that fellow attendees felt that the mood in the theater was similar to that of sitting in a cinematic church.  This is where the Malick non-believers are either rolling their eyes or slapping their palms to their face post haste.  I have nothing to say to you so I will choose to carry on with the entry. I can’t remember what initially attracted me to The Thin Red Line other than it being a star-studded World War II movie that promised the usual catharsis of war is hell topped off with a little bit of good old fashioned greatest generation nostalgia.  It was to my utter delight and amazement that the film trafficked in none of my expectations.  In fact, The Thin Red Line might be the most subversive film in the Malick catalogue because performs an audacious bait and switch.  I remember responding to it immediately, walking out of the theater with the realization that cinema was capable of something truly incredible.  The incredible thing to which I’m referring is the ability to represent, down to the minutest detail, the experience of human existence.  Movies up until that point had existed in a realm of make believe, similar to the camera’s early promise as an act of magic.  There was a distinct boundary between the screen and myself, and nothing was capable of permeating that.  The Thin Red Line was the first film I recall seeing where the very nature of the visual style was meant to reflect the ability of the eye to capture moments of glory on the fly.  Wind blowing through the tall grass, the sound of a river pulsating over rocks, and the ever-present majesty of sunlight, these were sensations yet unbeknownst to me the cinematic realm.  I only knew of them in the real world.  I walked out of The Thin Red Line eager to absorb every atom of the fabric of my natural world.  I can’t think of any other director who inspires such a particularly consistent reaction from me.  The Thin Red Line was the beginning of my Malick obsession and while it has been an incredibly fruitful viewing investment on my part, I can’t help but hold Line in a somewhat higher esteem than the rest.  I have no idea if it is or isn’t his best film (asking me to rank Malick pictures is like asking a parent to rank their children…yeah, I fuckin said it), but what I do know is that without that particular Sunday morning experience way back in early ’99, my cinematic and natural world-view would have been altered drastically.