The Thin Red Line

The Thin Red Line (BFI Film Classics)
$14.95
Precious few books have been written about reclusive filmmaker Terrence Malick and his films. So little factual information is known about the man, so when a new book is published, there is a certain amount of anticipation by fans of his work. Michel Chion has written a book under the BFI Modern Classics banner that attempts to decipher many of the mysteries and enigmas that surround Malick's 1998 film, The Thin Red Line.

Chion recognizes that the film has no beginning or ending and therefore an analysis of the movie can begin at any point, which is exactly what he does as he makes an excellent observation about the jaded character of First Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn): "But perhaps Welsh has rediscovered that spark of consciousness and anxiety that had been extinguished within him. Perhaps the death of an individual is what allows the flame to move from one to another."

He argues that Malick's film places animals, the environment and human beings on the same scale -- a very unique concept as most movies put an emphasis on one group over another. Chion illustrates the unusual approach that The Thin Red Line takes on its subject matter. Characters pontificate about life and death and love and hate in "erratic, fragmented interior monologues" that embody "mysterious relationships created by the way shots are cut together, in the contrast between small details and big events."

There are several themes that run throughout Malick's movies and Chion does a good job of identifying what they are and then analyzing them. For example, he writes about the isolation that the protagonists in his movies experience. Many characters in The Thin Red Line are either shown to be alone in a shot or through voiceover narration. Direct conflict between characters is also avoided. Even the big showdown between Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) and Lt. Col. Tall (Nick Nolte) is done over the phone. Both Private Witt (Cavaziel) and Welsh are solitary figures alone with their thoughts -- Witt with his notion of another world, a paradise waiting for him, and Welsh with his cynical view that the war is only about property and nothing else.

Chion's book is an excellent primer for Malick's challenging movie. Newcomers to his cinema are given a thumbnail sketch of the filmmaker and his body of work and major themes. Chion does not just analyze The Thin Red Line; he also identifies its structure and breaks it down into five separate sections. At one point in the book, he even deciphers what the Japanese soldiers say. His writing style is clear and concise and acts as the perfect companion piece to this important movie.

WWII Collection (The Thin Red Line / Patton / The Longest Day / Tora! Tora! Tora!)
$39.98
Contains: *Thin Red Line, The *Tora! Tora! Tora! *Patton *Longest Day, The

The Thin Red Line
$14.95
I can overlook the filmmaker's desire to make an antiwar movie and incorporate some vague Eastern, Buddhist message of nonviolence, but I cannot allow, without censure, the failure to provide proper historical context, the absence of which serves to demean and disparage American soldiers fighting under immense pressure and unbearable conditions against an implacable, cruel, and barbaric Japanese enemy. This film depicts American soldiers bayonetting Japanese soldiers who had surrendered and callously killing Japanese soldiers who posed no threat to them. Although there were certainly instances of this conduct, where is the proper context and history to explain WHY American soldiers reacted to this enemy in this manner?

On Guadalcanal, Marines were killed and mutilated by the enemy--ears cut off, genitals cut off, etc. When corpsmen attempted to help wounded Japanese on the battlefield in the 1942, other nearby wounded Japanese soldiers, pretending to to be dead, shot these Americans trying to save the lives of their own fellow Japanese soldiers. The Japanese launched human wave banzai attacks, willing to sacrifice hundreds of their own men to kill but a few Americans. Review the Battle of the Tenaru for examples of Japanese fanaticism on Guadalcanal (about 800 dead Japanese to kill less than 40 dead Marines). The Japanese almost always refused to surrender, and employed ruses to make Americans believe they were surrendering, only to then ambush them when the American soldiers' guard was down. They granted absolutely no quarter to Americans captured--they killed all prisoners on Guadalcanal, usually in an horrific manner employing inhumane torture. Why should Americans have fought any differently than they way they did in response? And since over 90% of the Japanese never surrendered and fought to the death, how would you have reacted to this enemy?

I invite the reader to examine Winston Groom's "1942" and Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking" to understand the unparalleled brutal, bestial, and absolute evil military culture practiced by the Japanese during WWII. Captured American soldiers on the Bataan Death March, who suffered from dysentery, were given a choice if they stopped to relieve themselves: eat their own feces or be bayonetted or shot. More than a few complied and ate their feces, only to be shot anyway. Japanese soldiers practiced cannibalism on American prisoners, cutting them open while alive and removing their liver to be eaten with sake. They routinely beheaded POWs with their swords and routinely bayonetted soldiers in hospitals recovering from wounds and illness. If you can bear it, read about Japanese atrocities in Nanking, Singapore and Manila (contests to see who could cut off the most heads, gouging of infants' eyeballs, burying people alive, burning people alive, and torture beyond anything depicted in Dante's Inferno). And all I have related herein is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

So if a filmmaker wishes to depict American war crimes, first provide the context for those crimes and explain why American soldiers were at risk accepting the surrender of any Japanese soldier, few though they were. This film fails miserably in providing that context and for that reason alone is severely flawed.

The Thin Red Line: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
$7.99
Hanz Zimmer isn't my favorite composer, but he really knows how to make some great film music. Crimson Tide, The Lion King, and The Rock are just a few examples of his musical capabilities and his intelligence. Here, in "The Thin Red Line," the film showcases more of Zimmer's musical genius. With the film totaling 170 minutes in length, the composer is able to create dark, tranquil, and ethereal pieces throughout. My favorite track (actually, EVERYBODY'S favorite track) is "Journey to the Line." It's some of the most powerful music I've ever heard; it's a growing realization of the darker side of human nature.

It's true that this CD cuts out numerous minutes of Zimmer's score. I wish they released it as a 2-CD set, then we would have at least the complete score in our collection. But anyway, it's an astonishing score, and it fits perfectly with Terrence Malick's masterpiece.