The Thin Red Line

So after finding out the put the Siskel & Ebert archives on the internet and needing something to watch while I ate my Subway sandwich, I checked out their discussion of this movie. Siskel said it was the best war movie ever (probably pronounced "finest war film"), Ebert said it wasn't quite that though it was good (he actually said he thought Malick basically just remade Days of Heaven and set it a Guadalcanal, mistaking style for substance). I guess I agree with Siskel.

Unless you forget when this movie was released, it's hard not to compare it, at least a little bit, to Saving Private Ryan. Although I don't think it's possible that it could've been conceived as a response in any way to that film, it does essentially invert the structure of SPR: where Spielberg begins with an extended battle scene, then fills the middle of the film with a picaresque tale of the soldiers on their way to finding Matt Damon, bookended on the other side with another extended battle scene, Malick starts off with the non war stuff, as the main soldier guy isn't even with the rest of the army, having gone AWOL to hang out with natives on some SoPa island, who pretty obviously represent to him at this point the unspoiled natural world (although this is complicated a little bit by his voiceover ruminations about nature being at war with itself and stuff), then there's the leadup to the battle that focuses more on the characters than on the actual leadup to the battle, then we have the big battle for about an hour, then there's the rest of the movie after that when we get back to the soldiers just hanging out, talking about life and stuff. I guess there is again the little battle piece in which daydreamerguy gets killed, but it's really just a skirmish. Anyway, aside from the fact that neither Spielberg nor Malick are actually as interested in their characters as they want to be, Malick doesn't fall quite as deeply into the trap of making war seem pretty awesome despite trying to make an antiwar movie as Spielberg does. (Let me explain that a little bit more: Spielberg is just a little to good at making satisfying blockbusters for his own good with SPR. He wants the movie to show the brutality of war, which he does about as good a job as anyone has, but his instincts as a hugely popular filmmaker require him to also make the war scenes satisfying in the traditional way of making the battles a thrill ride. Malick almost completely avoids this: though it is fairly exciting when John Cusack steps in as action hero and leads the small group of soldiers to take out the bunker, for the most part the huge battle is actually the least interesting part of the film, and what's most interesting about the battle scene itself isn't really the battle but the way the characters act during the battle. It's actually possible while watching Malick's war film to wonder why these guys are even fighting this battle since it's pretty obviously not what any of them want to be doing and because there's an actual world that's been explored and portrayed around them that seems more important in lots of ways than the battle itself. By starting in the middle of a battle already in progress, Spielberg doesn't really allow for that type of questioning. And the final battle is also kind of inevitable, the way SPR's story is structured.) So Malick's film is ultimately more successful as an anti-war film that Spielberg's is. Whether or not it's actually better as just a plain movie, aside from it's message?

Well, I'm a little partial here. Malick makes movies that beautiful in ways that movie made by no one else (except Malick imitators) are, and The Thin Red Line might actually be his best one. But I should watch The New World again before I can really say that for sure. One thing I think this movie has over Days of Heaven is that it's just as beautiful a sound experience as it is a visual experience. Also, for fun, I think I'll read this book...