The Thin Red Line (1998)

Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line is undoubtedly a mess, but the final product is likely the finest mess I’ve ever seen. There are no less than 50 World War II films that could have been made from this material, and I’m not entirely sure Malick didn’t film each and every one of them. While most movies tell a story that revolves around no more than a few characters, The Thin Red Line desperately wants to illustrate the journey of every last soldier who ever fought in the Pacific. Despite what Adrien Brody will tell you, there is no single protagonist. This film has as omniscient a point of view as anything I’ve ever seen. The focus casually shifts from character to character, and just about every actor gets several lines of voiceover narration. The Thin Red Line aims not just to be a story set in a war; it wants to tell the story about war.

The absolute hugeness of The Big Red Line can be inferred simply from reading the cast list. All of the actors in this film are worthy of starring in their own war film, and yet the clutter provides the film’s impact. The greatness of each performer—and their respective performances—only adds to Malick’s desire to tell the story of each and every soldier. If each scene was filled with nobodies, we wouldn’t pay them any mind. George Clooney doesn’t show up until the end of the film, yet the brevity of his appearance is key to the film’s themes. It implies that the story of the film will continue on well past the end credits. This conflict between the actors’ performances and Malick’s filmmaking adds to the film rather than detracts from it.

Of course, this overcrowding meant Malick would have to reduce certain characters down to almost nothing, and in some cases he expunged them altogether. Throughout shooting, Adrien Brody was convinced he was the film’s protagonist. (The script allegedly backs this up.) In the final version of the film, Brody is almost a non-presence, as he spends most of his time in the background looking worried about something. His only dialogue—that I recall—consists of a few frantic lines at film’s end. Even in these few scenes, you can sense that there’s more to Brody’s character than meets the eye. Even those soldiers who aren’t important feel like actual people rather than extras. (Brody actually got off easy. Martin Sheen, Mickey Rourke, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Viggo Mortensen, Billy Bob Thornton and Lukas Haas all had their roles entirely cut from the film.)

The narratives of Malick’s films are often presented in nontraditional ways. In most cases, the dialogue in The Thin Red Line is mostly irrelevant—with the exception of the several passages of voiceover narration. Clooney’s speech at the end is mostly concealed beneath an example of this narration. Most war films would make this speech the most important scene, yet Malick seems to suggest the words coming out of Clooney’s mouth are actually of little importance. This is a filmmaker who firmly believes in the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, and a single word is worth exactly that. The actors are playing out their scenes with conviction (and they’re doing it well), but what they’re saying and doing is often irrelevant to the film’s impressionistic impact. It was the great director Martin Scorsese who perhaps said it best in a special episode of At the Movies, where he named The Thin Red Line his second-favorite film of the ’90s. He described it as essentially “an endless picture” with “no beginning and no end.” Therein lies the film’s secret: its story is not contained within this single three-hour film. It’s a story that started with the beginning of time and won’t end until wars stop being fought. This is but a snapshot.

For a filmmaker that’s usually so meditative, Malick is able to create some truly enthralling combat scenes. The best example comes about 45 minutes in, as the American protagonists must battle their way up a particularly dangerous hill. Malick keeps the camera low, and as it glides through the tall grass the audience feels fully immersed in the fighting. Malick paints war as a claustrophobic place, as the soldiers are surrounded only by gunfire and death. Either they kill or they shall be killed, and most don’t feel like doing either. A particularly profound moment comes after a soldier kills a Japanese soldier. Out loud, he brags to his soldiers about his feat. Yet his inner thoughts—which we hear—suggest more remorse.

The Thin Red Line makes no argument against the evil of war, yet it also seems to believe that war is inevitable. The closest thing to a protagonist in the film is Jim Caviezel’s Private Witt, a soldier who has a firm belief in the inherent goodness of mankind, despite the fact he is in the midst of all this violence. Even the best war films are often dismissive toward their subject—presenting clear good v. evil narratives or condemning combat altogether—but The Thin Red Line has another angle in mind. The film argues that war isn’t only part of human nature, but it is in the very air we breathe. At the beginning of the film, we observe Witt as he lives amongst a group of Melanesians. At this point, he sees this place as a sanctuary which can protect him from the war. When he returns to this place later in the film, he no longer sees them as the innocent creatures he thought they once were. Malick’s film doesn’t the answer the age-old question of “why we fight,” but he suggests that maybe it’s just the way of nature. That doesn’t mean we have to like it.

GRADE: A

P.S. – This movie was released in 1998, the same year as Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. I will not comment on which film is better, because it does not matter. I am merely here to mention that both films were nominated for Best Picture, yet the Academy believed that Shakespeare in Love was better than both. So yeah.