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'''The Thin Red Line''' is an Academy Award nominated 1998 war film which tells the story of United States forces during the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II. It marked Terrence Malick's return to filmmaking after a twenty year absence. Malick adapted the screenplay himself from the novel of the same name by James Jones, which had previously been adapted in a 1964 film. The film features a large ensemble cast.
The project took 20 years to make as Malick spent years researching and deciding whether or not to do it. Once it was announced that he would be returning to filmmaking, many big name movie stars expressed interest in appearing in the film, including Robert De Niro, Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. During filming, Malick forbade producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau to show up in Australia where the film was being made because they had refused to give up above-the-title production credit to on-location producer George Stevens Jr. Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke acted in the movie, but their scenes were eventually cut. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran three and a half hours, with Thornton contributing three hours of narrative voice-over material.
The film was not successful at the North American box office where it only grossed $36 million, well below its $52 million budget. However, it did well in the rest of the world and finally grossed over $81 million worldwide. Critical response was generally strong and the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards but failed to win any. It won the top prize at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival. Martin Scorsese ranked it as his second favorite film of the 1990s on Roger Ebert's television show.

Contents

Synopsis

Adaptation

Production

Screenplay

Casting

Principal photography

Reaction

Criticism

Responses

References

External links

Synopsis

When the film opens, a U.S. Army private, Witt (James Caviezel), is AWOL from his unit and living with Melanesian natives in the South Pacific. He is found and imprisoned on a cargo ship by his company first sergeant, Welsh (Sean Penn). What becomes clear from Welsh's conversation with Witt is that the private is less than enthusiastic about serving in the Army.
The men of C Company have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to seize the island from the Japanese. As they wait in the holds of a Navy transport, they contemplate their lives and how they may be affected by the invasion. On deck, Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) talks with his commanding officer, Brigadier General Quintard (John Travolta), about the invasion and its importance. Tall's voiceover reveals that he’s been passed over for promotion and this battle may be his last chance to command a victorious operation.
C Company lands on Guadalcanal and hikes to the interior of the island, seeing only sporadic clues that there is any Japanese presence at all. (At one point they find the mutilated bodies of two GIs.) They arrive near Hill 210, a key Japanese position. The Japanese have placed a bunker housing several machine guns at the top of the hill, giving them full view of the valley below. Any force attempting to climb the hill can be easily cut down by machine-gun fire and mortar rounds.
Shelling of the hill begins the next day at dawn. Shortly after, C Company attempts to take the hill and is instantly slaughtered by gunfire from the bunker. During the battle, Colonel Tall fiercely orders his field officer, Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) to charge directly toward the bunker, whatever the cost. Staros refuses, not wanting his men to be cannon fodder. The two reach a stalemate, so Tall decides to join Staros on the front line to see the situation for himself. By the time he arrives, the Japanese resistance seems to have lessened, and Tall's opinion of Staros seems to have been sealed. Also, during the battle, Pvt. Witt, having been bumped down to a stretcher bearer, asks to return to the infantry and is permitted to do so.

A small detachment of men perform a reconnaissance mission on Tall's orders to determine the strength of the Japanese bunker. Private Bell (Ben Chaplin) reports back, saying that there are about five machine guns in the bunker. He joins another small detachment of men, led by Captain Gaff (John Cusack), on a commando mission to take the bunker. The operation is a success and the rest of C Company are able to proceed with the larger mission of capturing the Japanese airfield in the center of the island. They are successful in this regard; the Japanese they find are largely malnourished and dying and put up little resistance.
A long stretch of the story then centers on the personal lives and moral views of the men. Staros is relieved of his command for disobeying Tall's orders. Tall nevertheless promises to recommend Staros for several decorations and JAG duty in Washington D.C. - he does not want the unit's name to be stained by the fact of having an officer removed from command. Elsewhere Private Bell receives a letter from his wife asking him for a divorce. Witt leaves the company to find another native village, only to find that his sense of peace in such places has been shaken, as he sees that even here there is horror and evil. He returns to the company before his departure has been noted. A conversation involving Sgt. Welsh and Witt follows, revealing that Welsh is unhappy around other people. The scene highlights Witt's devotion to the spark of light and glory he sees in people, even in death.
The unit is sent out on another mission further into the interior of the island. Witt and two other men are sent out but find that their unit is heavily outnumbered and must retreat, however, getting word back to Welsh will be difficult since they are surrounded. Witt decides to act as a decoy and lure the Japanese away from his two companions and the rest of their unit. He is quickly found by the Japanese and, in the course of retreating, is surrounded. As the Japanese move in to capture him, he raises his rifle and is instantly shot. The unit later finds his body and buries it on the island. The film ends with a new commanding officer (George Clooney) taking over Staros' unit. Welsh and several other key characters are finished with their tours and leave the island.

Adaptation

Malick's film has many differences with Jones's novel.
Jones's novel makes no mention of the native inhabitants of Guadalcanal, whereas Malick depicts them throughout.
In the novel, the Greek Captain Staros, is a Jewish Captain called Stein (a continuation using a different name of a similar character in ''From Here to Eternity''). In the novel, the last rank of Private Gordon Bell is Lieutenant Gordon Bell. He received a commission during the campaign. Most of the other main characters are also promoted into NCO positions or higher.
There are entire segments of dialog and character interaction, such as Witt's interogation by Sergeant Welsh, that are taken directly from the James Jones novel ''From Here to Eternity''.
In the film, a character called Queen carries a shotgun; in the novels, this character is called Cash, and Queen is a different character.

Production

Screenplay

New York-based producer Bobby Geisler first approached Malick in 1978 and asked him to direct a film adaptation of David Rabe's play ''In the Boom Boom Room''. The filmmaker declined and instead proposed a touring circus that would present the story of John Merrick." Straight Out the Jungle Rachel Abramowitz In 1988, New York based producers Bobby Geisler and John Roberdeau met with Malick in Paris about writing and directing a movie based on D. M. Thomas' 1981 novel ''The White Hotel''. The director declined but told them that he would be willing instead to write either an adaptation of Molière's ''Tartuffe'' or of ''The Thin Red Line''. The producers chose the latter and paid Malick $250,000 to write a screenplay.
Malick began adapting ''The Thin Red Line'' on January 1, 1989. Five months later, the producers received his first draft that was 300 pages in length. According to an article in ''Entertainment Weekly'' magazine, they gained the director's confidence by "catering to his every whim,"^[1] providing him with obscure research material, including a book titled ''Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia'', an audiotape of ''Kodo: Heartbeat Drummers of Japan'', information on the Navaho code talkers enlisted by the US Army to communicate in their native Navaho language in case Japanese troops intercepted radio transmissions, making his travel plans and helping the director and his wife Michele get a mortgage for their Paris apartment.
The producers spent a lot of time talking with Malick about his vision of the film. According to Peter Biskind's December 1998 article in ''Vanity Fair'' magazine, Geisler said, "Malick's Guadalcanal would be a Paradise Lost, an Eden, 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 a Spielbergian bloody face we see a tree explode, the shredded vegetation, and a gorgeous bird with a broken wing flying out of a tree." The finished film does not contain any sequences exactly like this, but the battle scenes do contain intercutting between images of violence and images of nature.
Malick spent years working on other projects, including a stage production of ''Sansho the Bailiff'' and a script known as ''The English-Speaker'', spending $2 million of the producers' money, half of which for writing. By January 1995, they were broke and pressured Malick to decide which one 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 on ''The Thin Red Line''. Medavoy had a deal with Sony Pictures but its chairman, John Calley, didn't think Malick could make his movie with the proposed $52 million budget and dropped the project in the Spring of 1997, three months before filming. The director traveled to Los Angeles to pitch the project to 20th Century Fox who agreed with the stipulation that he cast five movie stars from a list of ten who were interested.

Casting

When Sean Penn met Malick he famously told him, "Give me a dollar and tell me where to show up." Scripts were also sent to Robert De Niro, Robert Duvall and Tom Cruise. In 1995, once word went out that Malick was making another movie after many years, numerous actors approached him. According to ''The Telegraph'', he staged a reading with Martin Sheen delivering the screen directions, and Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Peter Berg, Lukas Haas and Dermot Mulroney playing the main roles, in March of 1995 at Medavoy's home. In June of that year, a five-day workshop was scheduled at Medavoy's with Brad Pitt dropping by and culminated with Malick putting on the soundtrack of ''Where Eagles Dare'' and playing Japanese Kodo drums. Malick even met with Johnny Depp at the Book Soup Bistro on the Sunset Strip.
Edward Norton flew out to Austin and met Malick, who had been impressed by the actor's screen test for ''Primal Fear''. Matthew McConaughey reportedly took a day off filming ''A Time to Kill'' to see Malick. Others followed, including William Baldwin, Edward Burns, and Leonardo DiCaprio who flew up from the Mexico set of ''Romeo + Juliet'' to meet Malick at the American Airlines lounge in the Austin airport. Before the casting was finalized, Nicolas Cage had lunch with Malick in Hollywood in February 1996. The director went off to scout locations and tried calling the actor that summer only to find out that his phone number had been disconnected. Malick felt insulted and refused to even consider Cage for a part. Malick told Tom Sizemore that he wanted him for a role in his film and the actor agreed. However, Sizemore was offered a more substantial role in ''Saving Private Ryan'' and when he couldn't contact Malick for several days, decided to do Steven Spielberg's film instead.
To appease the studio, Malick cast George Clooney in a small role and Geisler remembers, "Terry was worried that having a big star like Clooney play a character who enters the film near the end would be distracting." James Caviezel, who was cast as Private Witt and later went on to fame after portraying Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ, credits Malick's casting of him as the turning point in his career.^[2] Weeks before filming began, Malick phoned his wife and asked for a divorce and then put his girlfriend, her sons and daughter on the payroll working on the production in various capacities.

Principal photography

According to Biskind's article, pre-production went slowly as Malick had a hard time making decisions. Weeks before filming began, Malick told Geisler and Roberdeau not to show up in Australia where the film was being made because George Stevens Jr. would be the on-location producer supporting line producer Grant Hill. Malick told them that they had upset the studio for refusing to give up above-the-title production credit to Stevens. However, he didn't tell them that in 1996 he had a clause inserted in his contract barring the producers from the set. Geisler and Roberdeau were mystified about this behavior with Geisler telling ''Entertainment Weekly'', "I didn't think he was capable of betrayal of this magnitude."
The movie was filmed predominantly in the Daintree Rainforest in north Queensland, Australia. The soldiers firing the number two and three M2A2 artillery guns from the fire support base were actual serving members of 1st Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery. Filming also took place on Dancer mountain which had such rough terrain that trailers and production trucks couldn't make it up the hill. A base camp was set up at its base and roads carved out of the mountain. Transporting 250 actors and 200 crew members up the hill took two hours. 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 shot for 100 days in Australia, 24 in the Solomon Islands and three in the United States. The decision not to shoot on the island of Guadalcanal was a practical one. It has a 50% rate of malaria and it lacked logistical feasibility. As director of photography John Toll said, "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." ^[3] Malick finished on time and on budget.
In addition to the cast seen in the final cut of the film, Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke also performed, but their scenes were eventually cut. ^[4] Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran three and half hours, with Thornton contributing three hours of narrative voice-over material. Geisler and Roberdeau told their story to ''Vanity Fair'' magazine and Medavoy's attornies 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 the Academy Awards.
The editing also resulted in many of the well-known cast members being on screen for only a brief period: for example, John Travolta and George Clooney's appearances are little more than cameos, yet Clooney's name appears prominently in the marketing of the movie. The unfinished film was screened for the New York press on December 1998 and Adrien Brody attended a screening to find that his originally significant role had been reduced to two lines and approximately five minutes of screen time. 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. Malick spent three more months and cut 45 additional minutes from the film.

Reaction

Criticism

Although the film has been praised in some circles for placing a human face on the Japanese military, there is some concern that this was done at the expense of historical accuracy. In reality, very few Japanese soldiers were taken captive on Guadalcanal and even fewer surrendered willingly during the active phase of the campaign. This was in keeping with the official policies of the Imperial Japanese Army, the Bushido code, and a growing belief among senior US commanders that attempting to take prisoners would present an excessive amount of danger. Of the estimated 36,200 Japanese troops which fought on Guadalcanal, only an approximate 1,000 were taken captive before the island was declared secure on February 9, 1943. Nearly 30,000 Japanese troops lost their lives in the campaign.
Another historical inaccuracy is the use of a modern Australian L126 Balikpapan class landingcraft (the L129 HMAS Tarakan) in the scene where the US soldiers leave the island. Being a modern landingcraft the L126 Balikpapan class did not exist during World War 2.

Responses

Critical responses were generally strong. It has a 79% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that of the 78 critics polled, 62 of them gave it a positive review. ^[5] Roger Ebert gave it three stars, saying that it felt confused and unfinished, but was "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." ^[6] The general consensus was similarly that the film was flawed but powerful and masterful. It has a score of 7.3 on the Internet Movie Database. ^[7]
''The Thin Red Line'' was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Picture, Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was awarded the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival for 1999.
This is one of Martin Scorsese's favorite films of the 1990s, as told on Roger Ebert's television show; he ranked it at #2.

References

1. Days of Hell Josh Young
2. James Caviezel: why Hollywood learned to pronounce his name in a hurry - Interview Michael Atkinson
3. The War Within Stephen Pizzello
4. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120863/trivia
5. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1084146-thin_red_line/?critic=columns
6. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990108/REVIEWS/901080302/1023
7. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120863/

External links

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★ Calm: On Terrence Malick's ''The Thin Red Line'' by Simon Critchley

★ The Shape of Fear: Thoughts after ''The Thin Red Line'' by Bill Schaffer

★ ''The Thin Red Line'': Cosmic Questions on the Battlefield by Jeffrey Overstreet