| The Thin Red Line | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Terrence Malick |
| Screenplay by | Terrence Malick |
| Based on | The Thin Red Line byJames Jones |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | John Toll |
| Edited by | |
| Music by | Hans Zimmer |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 171 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language |
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| Budget | $52 million[2] |
| Box office | $98.1 million[2] |
The Thin Red Line is a 1998 Americanepicwar film written and directed byTerrence Malick. It is the secondfilm adaptation of the1962 novel byJames Jones, following the1964 film. Telling a fictionalized version of theBattle of Mount Austen, which was part of theGuadalcanal campaign in thePacific Theater of theSecond World War, it portrays U.S. soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, played bySean Penn,Jim Caviezel,Nick Nolte,Elias Koteas, andBen Chaplin. The novel's title alludes to a line fromRudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy", fromBarrack-Room Ballads, in which he says British foot soldiers are called a "thin red line of [h]eroes",[3] referring to thestand of the 93rd Regiment in theBattle of Balaclava of theCrimean War.
The film marked Malick's return to filmmaking after a 20-year absence. It co-starsAdrien Brody,George Clooney,John Cusack,Woody Harrelson,Jared Leto,John C. Reilly, andJohn Travolta. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran five hours. By the final cut, footage of performances byBill Pullman,Lukas Haas, andMickey Rourke had been removed (one of Rourke's scenes was included in the special features outtakes of theCriterion Blu-ray and DVD release). The film was scored byHans Zimmer and shot byJohn Toll.Principal photography took place inQueensland, Australia and in theSolomon Islands.
20th Century Fox premieredThe Thin Red Line inBeverly Hills on December 22, 1998, and released it in a limited release on December 23, 1998, before a nationwide release on January 15, 1999, and grossed $98 million against a $52 million budget. Critics gave it a positive reception, praising it for its philosophical depiction of war, Malick's direction, musical score, cinematography, screenplay, editing, and performances of the cast. The film was nominated for sevenAcademy Awards:Best Picture,Best Director,Best Adapted Screenplay,Best Cinematography,Best Film Editing,Best Original Score, andBest Sound. It won theGolden Bear at the 1999Berlin International Film Festival.Martin Scorsese ranked it as his second-favorite film of the 1990s. OnAt the Movies,Gene Siskel called it "the finest contemporary war film I've seen."[4]
United States ArmyPrivate Witt goesAWOL from his unit in 1942 to live among the carefreeMelanesian natives in theSouth Pacific. He is found and imprisoned on atroopship byFirst Sergeant Welsh of hiscompany. Witt is not allowed to rejoin his unit, and is instead punitively assigned to act as a stretcher bearer for the upcoming campaign.
The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment,25th Infantry Division, have been brought to the island ofGuadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secureHenderson Field, seize the island from theJapanese, and block off their route toAustralia. C Company is commanded by Capt. James Staros. As they wait in the hold of a Navy transport ship, they contemplate their lives and the upcoming invasion.
The company lands on Guadalcanal unopposed. They march into the interior of the island, and along the way encounter natives and evidence of the ongoing Japanese presence. The company soon finds its objective:Hill 210, a key enemy position.
The attack commences at dawn the next day. Charlie Company storms up the hill, but is immediately repelled by heavy machine-gun fire. One group, a squad led by Sergeant Keck, hides behind a knoll safe from enemy fire "to await reinforcements". When they are fired upon, Keck reaches for a grenade on his belt and accidentally pulls the pin, then throws himself back on the grenade so that he will be the only one killed by the blast. At another point, Sergeant Welsh attempts to rescue a dying soldier, only to provide him with enough morphine toput him out of his misery.
Lt. Col. Gordon Tall orders Staros over thefield telephone to capture the bunker by frontal assault, at whatever cost. Staros balks, stating that he will not commit his men to what he sees as a suicide mission. Meanwhile, Pvt. Bell covertly scouts the summit of the hill by himself and assesses the Japanese stronghold.
Furious at Staros's refusal to obey his command, Tall ventures up to Charlie Company's position, accompanied by his battalion executive officer, Captain John Gaff. When they arrive, they find that the Japanese resistance seems to have lessened, and Tall's opinion of Staros is sealed. After being advised of Bell's reconnaissance of the Japanese position, Tall suggests a small detachment of men to perform aflanking maneuver on the bunker to capture it. Among the men to volunteer for the mission are Pvts. Witt, Doll, and Bell. Captain Gaff is given command of the detachment, and they proceed up the hill toward the bunker. A fierce battle ensues, but ultimately the American forces are victorious, and the hill is captured.
For their efforts, the men are given a week's leave, though they find little joy in the respite in the fighting. While the company is bivouacked, Staros is relieved of his command by Tall, who deems him too soft for the pressures of combat and suggests that he apply for reassignment and become a lawyer in theJAG Corps in Washington, D.C. During this time, Bell receives aletter from his wife, informing him that she has fallen in love with another man and seeks a divorce. Witt, meanwhile, comes across some of the locals and notices that they have grown distant and distrustful of outsiders, and regularly quarrel with each other.
The company is sent on patrol up a river under the command of Lieutenant Band. Witt, along with Cpl. Fife, and Pvt. Coombs, scout upriver and encounter an advancing Japanese column. As they attempt to retreat, Coombs is wounded. Witt draws away the Japanese to buy time for Fife, but Witt is encircled by one of their squads. The Japanese demand Witt surrender, but he raises his rifle and is killed. His body is buried by his squadmates, including a visibly grieving Sgt. Welsh. The company soon receives a new commander, Captain Bosche. They are relieved of duty and evacuated from Guadalcanal by a waitingLCT.
Beyond these numerous top-billed cast members, the ensemble included appearances in smaller roles by many other well-known actors, includingKirk Acevedo as Pvt. Alfredo Tella,Penny Allen as Witt's Mother,Mark Boone Junior as Pvt David Peale,Matt Doran as Pvt Orville Coombs,Don Harvey as Sgt. Peter Becker,Danny Hoch as Pvt. Hugo Carni,Thomas Jane as Pvt. Homer Ash,Miranda Otto as Marty Bell, andNick Stahl as Pvt. Edward Beade.
Lukas Haas,Bill Pullman,Donal Logue andMickey Rourke were also part of the film, but their scenes were ultimately cut.
John Cusack's character, Captain Gaff, was based on the real figure ofCharles W. Davis, who was awarded theMedal of Honor on Guadalcanal. The scene in which Gaff leads an attack on a Japanese bunker was inspired by the action for which Davis earned his Medal of Honor.
New York-based producer Bobby Geisler first approached Malick in 1978 and asked him to direct a film adaptation ofDavid Rabe's playIn the Boom Boom Room. Malick declined the offer, but instead discussed the idea of a film about the life ofJoseph Merrick. Once word got out aboutDavid Lynch's film ofThe Elephant Man, he shelved the idea. In 1988, Geisler and John Roberdeau met with Malick inParis about writing and directing a movie based onD. M. Thomas' 1981 novelThe White Hotel. Malick declined, but told them that he would be willing instead to write either an adaptation ofMolière'sTartuffe, or ofJames Jones'The Thin Red Line. The producers chose the latter and paid Malick $250,000 to write ascreenplay.[5]
Malick began adaptingThe Thin Red Line on January 1, 1989. Five months later, the producers received his first draft, which was 300 pages long.[6] In 1990, Malick met with James Jones' widow Gloria and Jones' daughter Kaylie about adaptingThe Thin Red Line into a film.[7] The producers spent a lot of time talking with Malick about his vision of the film. Geisler said,
Malick's Guadalcanal would be aParadise Lost, anEden, raped by the green poison, as Terry used to call it, of war. Much of the violence was to be portrayed indirectly. A soldier is shot, but rather than showing aSpielbergian bloody face we see a tree explode, the shredded vegetation, and a gorgeous bird with a broken wing flying out of a tree.[5]
Malick spent years working on other projects, including a stage production ofSansho the Bailiff and a script known asThe English-Speaker, spending $2 million of the producers' money, half of which for writing.[5] According to an article inEntertainment Weekly, the producers gained Malick's confidence by "catering to his every whim,"[8] providing him with obscure research material, including a book titledReptiles and Amphibians of Australia, an audiotape ofKodō'sHeartbeat Drummers of Japan, information on theNavajocode talkers recruited by theUnited States Marine Corps, making his travel plans, and helping the director and his wife Michele get amortgage for their Paris apartment.[9]
By January 1995, Geisler and Roberdeau were broke and pressured Malick to decide which project he would complete. They approached Malick's former agent,Mike Medavoy, who was setting up his own production company, Phoenix Pictures, and he agreed to give them $100,000 to start work onThe Thin Red Line.[5] Medavoy had a deal withSony Pictures and Malick began scouting locations inPanama andCosta Rica before settling on the rain forests of northernAustralia.[10] In April 1997, three months before filming, Sony pulled the plug while crews were building the sets inQueensland, because new studio chairmanJohn Calley did not think Malick could make his movie with the proposed $52 million budget.[10] Malick traveled toLos Angeles with Medavoy to pitch the project to various studios.20th Century Fox agreed to put up $39 million of the budget with the stipulation that Malick cast five movie stars from a list of 10 who were interested.[10] Pioneer Films, a Japanese company, contributed $8 million to the budget, and Phoenix Pictures added $3 million.[10]
Casting for the film became a hot topic. WhenSean Penn met Malick, he told him, "Give me a dollar and tell me where to show up."[8] Scripts were also sent toRobert De Niro,Robert Duvall andTom Cruise. In 1995, once word went out that Malick was making another movie after many years, numerous actors approached him, flooding the casting directors until they had to announce they wouldn't be accepting more requests. Some A-list actors includingBrad Pitt,Al Pacino,Gary Oldman, andGeorge Clooney offered to work for a fraction and some even offered to work for free.Bruce Willis even went as far as offering to pay for first-class tickets for the casting crew, to get a few lines for the movie. At Medavoy's home in 1995, Malick staged a reading withMartin Sheen delivering the screen directions, andKevin Costner,Will Patton,Peter Berg,Lukas Haas, andDermot Mulroney playing the main roles.[5] In June of that year, a five-day workshop was scheduled at Medavoy's with Pitt dropping by, and culminating with Malick putting on the soundtrack ofWhere Eagles Dare and playing Japanese taiko drums. Malick met with an interestedJohnny Depp about the project at the Book Soup Bistro on theSunset Strip.[5]
Edward Norton flew out to Austin and met Malick, who had been impressed by the actor's screen test forPrimal Fear.Matthew McConaughey reportedly took a day off filmingA Time to Kill to see Malick. Others followed, includingWilliam Baldwin,Edward Burns,Josh Hartnett,Crispin Glover,Philip Seymour Hoffman,Stephen Dorff, andLeonardo DiCaprio; the last of these flew up from the Mexico set ofRomeo + Juliet to meet Malick at theAmerican Airlines lounge in the Austin airport.[9] Before the casting was finalized,Nicolas Cage had lunch with Malick in Hollywood in February 1996. Malick went off to scout locations and tried calling Cage that summer only to find out that his phone number had been disconnected.Tom Sizemore, however, was offered a more substantial role inSaving Private Ryan and, when he could not contact Malick for several days, decided to doSteven Spielberg's film instead.[9] ActorsBill Pullman,Mickey Rourke, and Lukas Haas filmed scenes for the movie but were cut from the final film due to time constraints.[11] Publicity stills of Pullman (as Sgt. MacTae, in a scene opposite Brody and Chaplin) can be seen online, Haas is pictured in the booklet of the CD soundtrack, and one of Rourke's scenes was restored for the Criterion Blu-Ray/DVD release of the film. Malick wrote a part specifically for Oldman, but the character was eventually scrapped before production began due to too many characters being in the film. He was later thanked in the credits along with Lukas,Viggo Mortensen, Sheen, Rourke, Pullman andJason Patric.
James Caviezel, who was cast as Private Witt, credits Malick's casting of him as the turning point in his career.[12]
CinematographerJohn Toll began talking to Malick in August 1996 several times over the phone about the film.[13] Toll met Malick in September of the same year and was asked to do the film in the beginning of 1997. Malick and Toll beganlocation scouting in February 1997 and started principal photography in June of that year.[13]
Pre-production went slowly. Weeks before filming began, Malick told Geisler and Roberdeau not to show up in Australia where the film was being made, ostensibly because George Stevens Jr. would be the on-location producer supporting line producerGrant Hill.[5] Malick told them that they had upset the studio for refusing to give up above-the-title production credit to Stevens. He did not tell them that in 1996 he had a clause inserted in his contract barring the producers from the set.[8] Geisler and Roberdeau were mystified about this behavior; Geisler toldEntertainment Weekly, "I didn't think he was capable of betrayal of this magnitude."[8]
Malick and Toll shot for 100 days in Australia using Panavision cameras and lenses, 24 days in theSolomon Islands and three days in the United States. They scouted the historic battlefields on Guadalcanal and shot footage, but health concerns overmalaria limited filming to daylight hours only. Logistics were also difficult to shoot the entire film there:[13] As director of photography John Toll put it, "It's still a bit difficult to get on and off the island, and we had some scenes that involved 200 or 300 extras. We would have had to bring everybody to Guadalcanal, and financially it just didn't make sense."[14]The Thin Red Line was filmed predominantly in theDaintree Rainforest and onBramston Beach, both in northQueensland, Australia.[15] Filming also took place on Dancer Mountain, which had such rough terrain that trailers and production trucks could not make it up the hill. A base camp was set up and roads carved out of the mountain. Transporting 250 actors and 200 crew members up the hill took two hours. Filming took place in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California near Santa Catalina Island.
Malick's unconventional filming techniques included shooting part of a scene during a bright, sunny morning only to finish it weeks later at sunset. He made a habit of pointing the camera away during an action sequence and focus on aparrot, a tree branch or other fauna.[7] Malick's reputation and working methods commanded great respect among the actors, with bothWoody Harrelson andJohn Savage staying on for an extra month after they finished all of their scenes just to watch him at work.[7]
Bill Pullman,Lukas Haas andMickey Rourke performed but their scenes were eventually cut.Billy Bob Thornton recorded narration that was scrapped.Martin Sheen andViggo Mortensen participated in readthroughs of the script and are thanked in the end credits.[16] Editor Leslie Jones was on location for five months and rarely saw Malick, who left her to her own devices.[17] After principal photography wrapped, she came back with a five-hour first cut and spent seven months editing, with Thornton contributing three hours of narrative voice-over material.[8][17] It was at this point that editorBilly Weber joined and they spent 13 months in post-production and the last four months mixing the film, using fourAvid machines with a fifth added at one point.[17] Malick edited the footage one reel at a time with the sound off while listening to aGreen Day CD.[18] There were no preview screenings but several in-house ones, the largest for marketing executives which was attended by 15 people.[17] The editors faced the challenge of blending footage of veteran actors with less-experienced ones, integrating the many cameos, and the voice-overs. According to Jones, "Malick removed scenes with dialogue whenever possible, with the final film varying greatly from the original concept."[17] Four months after principal photography, Malick invited Toll to a rough-cut screening of the film.[13] In December 1998, Toll did the first color correction at the lab prior to the film's release in North America.[13]
The editing resulted in many of the well-known cast members being on screen for only a brief period. John Travolta and George Clooney's appearances are little more thancameos, yet Clooney's name appears prominently in the marketing of the movie. The unfinished film was screened for the New York press in December 1998 andAdrien Brody attended a screening to find that his originally significant role, "to carry the movie", as he put it, had been reduced to two lines and approximately five minutes of screen time.[19]
Malick was upset that the studio screened his unfinished version for critics and Penn ended up helping him in the editing room, shaping the final version.[8] Malick spent three more months and cut 45 additional minutes from the film. The director refused to subject his film to test screenings before delivering his final cut.[20] After Geisler and Roberdeau told their story toVanity Fair magazine, Medavoy's attorneys declared them in breach of contract and threatened to remove their names from the film unless they agreed to do no future interviews until after theAcademy Awards.[5]
The film score was composed byHans Zimmer, with additional music fromJohn Powell. The album was nominated for Best Dramatic Score at the71st Academy Awards. It was Hans Zimmer's fifth Oscar nomination as a composer, but he lost out toRoberto Benigni'sLife is Beautiful (music byNicola Piovani). The album was released byRCA Victor and conducted byGavin Greenaway. Among the music not written by Zimmer which appears in the film isIn Paradisum fromRequiem byGabriel Fauré and the opening minutes ofThe Unanswered Question byCharles Ives.
Zimmer wrote several hours of music, and an abundance of different themes, before Malick started to shoot the film. The director played the music on the set, while filming, to get himself, and the rest of the crew and actors in the right frame of mind.
The official soundtrack features tracks that were not used on the film and some tracks from the film are not found on the CD.The film features several pieces of Melanesian choral music sung by the Choir of All Saints inHoniara and theMelanesian Brotherhood inTabalia, only one of which is featured on the soundtrack.[21] However, another soundtrack was released containing several tracks from the choirs, titledMelanesian Choirs: The Blessed Islands – Chants from the Thin Red Line, which has since gone out of circulation.[22] This album was re-released by La-La Land Records as part of a special edition in 2019.[23]
The Thin Red Line was given a limited release on December 25, 1998, in five theaters where it grossed $282,534 on its opening weekend. The film was given a wide release on January 15, 1999, in 1,528 theaters where it grossed $9.7 million during its opening weekend. The film earned $98,126,565 at the worldwide box office.[2]
Onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes,The Thin Red Line holds an approval rating of 80% based on 107 reviews, and an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The Thin Red Line is a daringly philosophical World War II film with an enormous cast of eager stars."[24] OnMetacritic, the film has aweighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[25] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale.[26]
Gene Siskel describedThe Thin Red Line as the "finest contemporary war film I've seen, supplanting Steven Spielberg'sSaving Private Ryan from earlier this year, or evenOliver Stone'sPlatoon from 1986."[4][better source needed] A more subduedRoger Ebert gave it three stars out of four, saying that it felt confused and unfinished. He wrote, "The movie's schizophrenia keeps it from greatness (this film has no firm idea of what it is about), but doesn't make it bad. It is, in fact, sort of fascinating... The battle scenes themselves are masterful, in creating a sense of the geography of a particular hill, the way it is defended by Japanese bunkers, the ways in which the American soldiers attempt to take it ... Actors like Sean Penn, John Cusack, Jim Caviezel and Ben Chaplin find the perfect tone for scenes of a few seconds or a minute, and then are dropped before a rhythm can be established."[27]
In his review forTime,Richard Corliss wrote, "Some films deal in plot truth; this one expresses emotional truth, the heart's search for saving wisdom, in some of the most luscious imagery since Malick's last film, the 1978Days of Heaven."[28] Mike Clark ofUSA Today gave the film four out of four stars.[29][better source needed] Michael O'Sullivan ofThe Washington Post wrote, "The Thin Red Line is a movie about creation growing out of destruction, about love where you'd least expect to find it and about angels – especially the fallen kind – who just happen to be men."[30]
Andrew Johnston ofTime Out New York wrote: "Like Malick's previous efforts –Badlands (1973) andDays of Heaven (1978) –Line is a film of incredible beauty. However, the atmosphere created by John Toll's breathtaking cinematography and Hans Zimmer's powerful score is occasionally compromised. The parade of cameos (John Travolta, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson and John Cusack briefly appear) is somewhat distracting, and the fact that Bell and Witt both have Appalachian accents sometimes makes the characters hard to differentiate. Yet, even though it's confusing at times (and perhaps a little long),Line is still a film of rare substance and power."[31]
Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B−" in his review forEntertainment Weekly and wrote, "The Thin Red Line could, I think, turn out to be this season'sBeloved, a movie too paralyzingly high-minded to connect with audiences."[32] In her review forThe New York Times,Janet Maslin called it "intermittently brilliant" and wrote, "The heart-piercing moments that punctuate its rambling are glimpses of what a tighter film might have been."[33]
In a special episode ofSiskel and Ebert, guest hostMartin Scorsese selectedThe Thin Red Line as the second best film of the 1990s behindThe Horse Thief.[34][35]
Time magazine ranked Malick's film #6 on their Best of 1998 Cinema list.[59]
Jonathan Rosenbaum, film critic for theChicago Reader, ranked Malick's film as his second favorite film of 1999.[60]
On September 28, 2010,The Criterion Collection released a special edition ofThe Thin Red Line onDVD andBlu-ray with a new, restored4K digital transfer, supervised and approved by Terrence Malick and cinematographer John Toll.[61]The release was met with positive reviews.[62][63]
Various lines of dialogue have been sampled from the movie.[64]
"This Great Evil"
"Are You Righteous?"
"Worldly Perspective"
"Dark Water"
"I Feel Sorry For You Kid"
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