Thin Red Line, The (1998)

THE SCOOP
Director: Terrence Malick
Plot: Director Terrence Malick's adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel, focusing on the conflict at Guadalcanal during the second World War.

Genre: Action/Drama/War
Awards: Nom. for 7 Oscars - best picture, director, adapted screenplay, cinematography, film editing, music, sound. Won Golden Bear (Berlin).
Runtime: 170min
Rating: PG for realistic war violence and language.

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IN RETROSPECT

The Thin Red Line is one of American cinema’s great ironies. After two decades out in the filmmaking wilderness, director Terrence Malick popped up from nowhere to deliver one of the most unique war films ever made. Only his third feature after Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line received numerous acclaims, the highlight of which was the prestigious Golden Bear award from Berlin.

The film went on to be nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director – the former ignominiously given to John Madden’s overrated period drama Shakespeare in Love (1998), and the latter rightly given to Steven Spielberg’s more superior WWII drama Saving Private Ryan. Herein lies the irony. In any other year, Malick’s film would have at least secured an Oscar, but fate seems to have charted a less glorious path for his film. Twelve years on, The Thin Red Line still lives in the shadow of “the other great WWII film” of 1998. Is it a cinematic tragedy, or is Malick’s film really not as great as it seems.

Very obviously, The Thin Red Line features extraordinary cinematography and camerawork by John Toll. He employs crane and steadicam shots that seem to glide effortlessly over the landscape, especially that of the grassy hills as soldiers make their ascent. Even in scenes of frantic action, the camera weaves past explosions and gunfire like a flying bat avoiding rock walls. Such is the artistry of the camera language that it sometimes feel like poetry in motion.

The Thin Red Line stars a killer A-list cast including Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, and Jim Caviezel. However, it also features, to the film’s detriment, redundant cameo roles by John Travolta and George Clooney. The film follows a company of American soldiers as they trudge up a grassy hill in Japanese-occupied Guadalcanal, and later, their attack on a small makeshift camp built by the enemy. This is essentially the main, driving plot of the film, but Malick deviates from it by introducing a pointless romance subplot that adds nothing of significance to the overall viewing experience.

The periodic intercutting of the aforementioned romantic subplot with the main narrative is at best draggy, and at worst, a total distraction. I feel that the pacing of the film could be improved by removing the subplot completely. The film is already quite slow to begin with, and although the war action presents a change of pace (albeit only slightly), it takes some endurance to sit through three hours of what is mostly philosophical meandering by a narrator that is exclusively Malickian.

On a more praiseworthy note, Malick’s trademark intercutting of tranquil scenes of nature allows a fair amount of symbolic juxtaposition with chaotic scenes of warfare. The startling irony of war is laid bare here. Soldiers do battle with each other on the hills and in the jungles; these are huge environments that appear to swallow the men who fight in them. Does nature, at any moment, care about the actions of these men? Does the death of a young soldier on foreign land amount to anything nobler than a writhing baby bird on the ground waiting to die, as shown by Malick?

The Thin Red Line lacks the urgency of Saving Private Ryan, or for that matter, of any other great war film out there. It is lackluster in parts where the action dies down. In the area of characters and their development, Malick has also made the misjudgment of being too inclusive rather than focus-centered. There are far too many characters in the film, each receiving either too much unnecessary screen time or too little development. As a result, there is no character to root for or to identify with. There is simply too little emotional payoff for a war film of this scale and uniqueness.

GRADE: B- (7/10 or 3 stars)

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