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Moriarty's THE THIN RED LINE review
Harry here, frustrated as hell that I haven't seen this film yet. Quite honestly I'm dying to see it. I spoke to Hallenbeck on Sunday when he saw the film, he told me he was glad he saw it, that he'd never see it again, that there were several moments where he wanted to get up and get a breath of fresh air because the film was claustrophobic, and he felt it was pretentious as hell. Well, as soon as he said PRETENTIOUS.... I wanted to hear Moriarty's view on the film. Hallenbeck is still wrestling with his review, which I can only conclude would match my review of GOODFELLAS and LONE STAR, a pair of films I'm glad I've seen, that I thought were amazing, and I never want to see them again. But for now... I leave you in the capable hands of the dear Professor....
“Moriarty” here.
Even someone dedicated to Pure Evil, as I am, can appreciate the
holidays, especially when gifts are involved. This year, all of my
henchmen were very generous (well, the ones that are still living were,
anyway), so I was in a wonderful mood when we headed out to Westwood the
evening of the 25th to take in the prime time show of THE THIN RED LINE,
another of my presents. For someone who adores the earlier work of
Terrence Malick, this has been a long time coming. I read the script
for the film last winter and have been dying of anticipation ever since.
Along with STAR WARS: TPM and EYES WIDE SHUT, this film has been a mild
obssession since the first announcements about it were made. Living in
Los Angeles is nice this time of year since we get the exclusive Academy
runs of films. From what I understand, THE THIN RED LINE opens for the
rest of America in the middle of January.
Well, get ready, folks, because you really aren’t prepared for what
you’re going to get. I can confidently predict right now that many
filmgoers will walk out of this film frustrated, confused, and even
angry at the investment of time. Many people will try to compare the
film to this summer’s SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, thinking that they’re similar
because both focus on WWII as a setting. In the end, this film may
never find a mass audience, which would be a shame but not a surprise.
Why? Because Terrence Malick has made a film that is bold,
experimental, deeply thoughful and thought provoking, and unlike any
other experience I’ve had in a theater this year.
To begin with, I should say that anyone who’s looking for an exercise in
conventional narrative storytelling should just stay home. Malick’s
after something more than that here. Like 2001, or like last year’s
brilliant KUNDUN, this is a film that truly could only exist as cinema,
visual storytelling. Malick has made a $70 million poem about any
number of themes. The film deals with the idea that man’s nature is to
be at war while our ideal is to be at peace. It deals with the idea
that nature is a constant, beautiful force that no war of ours can truly
touch. It deals with the way men make an island of themselves during
war, holding on to whatever image or memory or desire they need to get
them through alive. And that’s just scratching the surface. This is a
film that is literally drowning in ideas... and that’s a good thing.
It’s invigorating to see a filmmaker who truly believes in the medium as
something more than mere entertainment. The work that Malick has done
here is enough to send other filmmakers staggering out of the theater as
if they were drunk. To see the way he and the brilliant photographer
John Toll have put this film together is truly to go back to school.
The film almost feels thought-activated, as if Malick has created some
new system that allows him to simply roam freely over the film as it
unfolds, dipping in to sample the thoughts of this character, then this
one. Shifting perspectives, multiple voice-overs, jarring cuts
backwards and forwards in time -- these are all things that we’re taught
not to do in filmmaking. Malick shatters the rules and manages to
achieve something of real power and beauty here.
His cast is outstanding, but the performances aren’t your typical
Hollywood idea of great performances. There’s no big speechifying here.
There are very few moments where anyone takes center stage to “act.”
Malick shoots unknowns and movie stars with an equal eye and the effect
is unsettling. He doesn’t give the movie stars the weight we expect
them to have, and it leaves an audience unsure how to react to them. I
think the point is made brilliantly that in war, faces come and go.
Some are familiar, some aren’t, but none of them are around for long.
There are actors like Nick Stahl and Adrien Brody who barely speak at
all in the film, yet I’d say they did fine work. Even John Cusack, who
shows up for a major sequence in the middle of the picture, barely
speaks while onscreen. When he does, it’s not the kind of “hip” or
catchy dialogue that you’ll be quoting to your buddies for weeks.
There’s none of the Hollywood polish of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN present
here. Malick seems to have stripped his original script down to basics,
and what we’re left with is both very natural, and almost surreal. It’s
because he allows us into the interior lives of his characters that
there’s such a seemingly conflicted nature to the film. I love the
effect, though. I found it mesmerizing. Viewers who aren’t used to
having to stay engaged for the full length of the film might get tired
of the way Malick keeps taking windows into different charactes, but
it’s really not that confusing. Yes, Jim Caviezal (outstanding as Witt)
and Ben Chaplin (equally good as Bell) look somewhat alike. Critics
seem to be harping on that as a bad thing. Perhaps that’s the point,
though. These men are all essentially the same once the infantry has
them. As Witt speculates, “What if we are all just one soul, one man
with many faces?” The film examines the bonds that make these wildly
different men similar. None of them have any individual worth to their
higher-ups, something that is clearly illustrated in a great scene
between John Cusack and Nick Nolte, who delivers his typical exemplary
work here as a man who’s happy to finally have his war. His role, Col.
Tall, was offered at one point to Harrison Ford, who would have won the
Best Supporting Actor Oscar this year if he’d had the balls to play it.
Instead, Harrison ran off chasing the paycheck and made the miserable,
stinking 6 DAYS, 7 NIGHTS instead, proving once again how deeply out of
touch he is with his true gifts as an actor.
Overall, this is the kind of picture that makes me proud to be a
filmmaker. I am excited when someone steps up to the plate and really
makes a contribution to the art. Malick’s return is every bit as
wonderful as I’d hoped it would be, and is in many ways even greater.
As I said, I read the script to this film, and in most major ways, it
couldn’t have been more different from the final film. Malick
essentially shot one movie, then edited a completely different one.
Characters vanished, storylines were eliminated, the entire opening with
Witt gone AWOL was created, and the brilliant narration was composed
completely after the fact. I am in awe of the way Malick made this
movie, since it’s obvious that he allowed himself to stay open to
whatever he shot. People have accused him of being a control freak like
Kubrick is rumored to be, but only a generous artist could have found a
movie the way Malick did this one. There’s real courage in leaving
behind a great, literate screenplay and trying to forge something even
more adventurous, even more daring out of the footage you’ve shot. To
have that experiment pay off as well as it did here must have been
rapturous. It definitely was for me as a viewer.
In the end, I can’t say I recommend the film for everyone, but I will
say that anyone who is willing to lay aside any conventional thinking
will be rewarded. Don’t take RYAN into the theater with you. It’s not
fair to either Speilberg or Malick. They were after such different
things that it’s like comparing the work of a photographer and a
painter. One is after a record of something, while the other is after
an impression. Spielberg may have set new standards for realism in a
war movie, but Malick has forged something that is cerebral, emotional,
and haunting.
It may not have been a conventional Christmas film, but it’s the thing
I’m happiest to have found under my tree this year. Thank you, Fox, for
your faith in Mr. Malick. Thank you, Terrence Malick, for giving us
another gem. And thank you, Harry, for continuing to give me, Moriarty,
a forum for these thoughts.
Happy Holidays, all, and have an excellent New Year.
“Moriarty” out.
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Wow, It's like you got right inside of my head and expressed exactly what I felt about this film. I loved this movie, I dreamed about it at night, I woke up with some images lingering in my mind's eye the next day and I was literally drunk with adoration for the evocative spacious poetry Thin Red Line embraced, no annoying proddings to think a certain way or feel a certain way or pay heed to a particular plot point. It was like fishing with your dad alone on a river in silence. You get what you get out of it. The people I was with hated it: pretentious, confusing, waste of time, poor performances. I could easily see that being a common reaction. But I just loved the mind space that Malick gave me here. And the lack of stereotypes - every war film I've seen has had instantly recognizable, categorizable stereotypes that, seeing this film, I realize robs men of their souls. And in a way Malick has created something so much closer to the way reality is experienced - it isn't linear, it doesn't make sense, it's a layered web of sounds, internal and external imagery, thoughts....
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Congrats to Malik, who had the
guts to avoid that Hollywood
syndrome of 'shove as much
money and explosions into
a linear narrative and hope
for a good opening weekend'.
Saving Private Ryan...I hate to
break it to everyone, but it is
one movie that doesn't work.
Take a movie like THE WILD
BUNCH, where one has characters, and the elements behind the violence- the inherent primalcy of man- are explored. You don't have that in SPR. Instead, you just have a lot of gorework, only supported by a mediocre story, and in circumstances like that, blood doesn't work. Spielburg should have played against cliche, not with it. Hopefully, Malik does the opposite. -
Well, I didn't exactly hate Saving Private Ryan, but the unfair comparisons made between it and Thin Red Line really push me to think of it as a lot worse than it actually is. SPR is an ACTION movie, no matter how much you try to elevate it to something more significant; proof of the claim no more evident than in the despicable scene where the supposed "redemption" of Jeremy Davies character occurs when he learns to kill without remorse; you are supposed to hoot and holler, with the graphic violence providing more of excitement than dispassionate portrayal of reality. Well, I happen to think Malick's Days of Heaven is THE finest movie of the 70's and Thin Red Line, similarly, makes you very depressed. In contemporary movies, it is plainly IMPOSSIBLE to take deaths seriously and without cynicism, and I applaude Malick for NOT ONCE showing deaths and wounds for excitement and fake emotions. In Thin Red Line, innocents die for NOTHING and they have no place to go back to even if they do survive. This movie will perhaps look a lot better in twenty years, as do Badlands and Days of Heaven now than maybe twenty years ago.
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I don't understand all that irritation with Saving Private Ryan, I loved the film. Of course is not compared him with StarWars for example, but it is very good in its way. Perhaps have been difficult for the public to understand the film.SPR it is not an action film, it is a war film. war is action.
If exists some war film that doesn't have action, then that is not a war film.
I don't stand that thing of placing a love history, or a tearful drama in films in that the main focus is another thing.
SPR doesn't have anything of that. -
Um, you weren't suppossed to "hoot and holler" when Davies kills that prisoner (the one who he'd earlier befriended) at the end of Ryan. Some did, but those were the people who missed the point entirely. I found that to ba a truly sad, powerful moment, showing how even this scared kid has been turned into a cold blooded killer.
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On the subject of Saving Private Ryan, I bilieve that Jeremy Davies last action in the film is a subtle anti-war statement. Upton is a character who believes that soldiers should act with decency while in war. That is why he convinces Tom Hanks not to kill the German soldier(in reality, the squad would put a collar on him and make him carry equipment). By the end of the film, Upton realizes that this decency cannot exist in war, hence his actions. He realizes that soldiers must loose their humanity and become killers to survive. This is not treated as a good thing in the film since Hank's character speaks that he doesn't know if his wife will recognize him anymore because of the way war has changed him. The movie is not completely anti-war because Spielberg, being a Jew, for obvious reasons felt WWII was worth fighting. I saw SPR with my Dad, who served two tours of duty in Vietnam(he said it was a great experience;I guess he is a bit crazy). He said that the battle sequences where the most realistic he has ever seen. he says combat a basically utter chaos. But, according to my dad, SPR was not completely reaistic. After the D-day sequence, the camera pans along the beach showing all of the dead bodies. The problem with this scene was that their was not any body parts. Soldiers where blown to pieces on the beach, but there was no body parts. When Wade was dying, the soldiers were not doing what they should be doing to save his life, which was to patch him up, not let him bleed. Finally, Rangers who had just captured the beaches would never be sent to find a soldier behind enemy lines. I am looking forward to seeing The Thin Red Line. I feel that Badlands is one of the best films of the 70's. I am not a big fan of Days of Heaven because the characters do not register at all. Aparently, Mallick made it more of a visual film because the performances of the actors where uneven. But with the talent in The Thin Red Line, hopefully that will not be a problem. I think that Saving Private Ryan is a great film, despite its problems with being realistic(my dad said it was the best he ever saw and he was the one who pointed out the problems) and I think The Thin Red Line could also be a great film(my dad will most likely tell me how this film is not realistic also).
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Okay,
Now I have to admit a few things first for the home audience...
1. I love Star Wars (I think it's quite possibly one of the few near perfect movies)
2. I love movies with head explosions. (What can I say Scanners changed my life)
3. I loved SPR (So what if it was an action movie. It made me respect the men who had to LIVE that action)
4. I HATED THIS MOVIE. (I paid 9 dollars for this?!)
I am all for the experimental type movie. I think that every once in a while you have to rock the boat a little. It makes people rexamine a genre. Fellow filmakers begin to take bits and pieces from your style and you add to the artform.. I can deal with that...
But what in the HELL was this movie about? Okay, I can understand that in a war everyone has his/her motivations. It makes them act differently under the same dire situations. More often than not being put in life or death predicaments gives one a new perspectives on life. However, after sitting through 3 hours of this rambling,confusing, steaming hot pile of dung I am still wondering what Malick's point was.
At the end of the movie I couldn't remember any one of the characters name, and I couldn't care less.
Nolte.. who was a big part of the movie was the only stand out for me... Okay I got it. He's a dick and doesn't care for the lives of his men... I got it. But he never gets his. He doesn't grow or evolve. You would think Malick would A. Make him get his.. or B. At least see him realize that perhaps men are more than pawns for his bid for power OR C. Give him a reward for being a complete BASTARD. Either one of them would have at least developed Nolte's character.
Penn.. another good actor. Well it's cool that he cares about his men. BUT he just sat around the whole damn movie looking like someone pissed in his cheerios.
Cusack.. Hey cool scenes but then where in the hell did he go? Doesn't anyone stay around to make a damn point in this movie?!
And Mr. Dream about his wife in the war... Well it's truly effed up that his wife left him but it would have been nice to see him write a letter back.
In the end Malick set them up but didn't knock em down and I felt cheated by the whole experience. I am behind any filmaker that tries to add to the artform. Just tell a complete story for the Chrissakes!
To say this is a period movie it sure as hell didn't FEEL like the late 30's early 40s? NO It felt like 1998.
Perhaps Moriarty saw something in this movie that most us mortals couldn't. I am fully willing to admit in the grand scheme of things I know NOTHING about the fine art of movie making. But I will sit through another lame ass Police Academy sequel movie before I see this crap again.
I give this movie DA FINGER (Which means complete and total ass)
-Pax out
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Ah yes, speaking of stereotypes - that reminds me of Saving Private Ryan....
I disagree that Jeremy Davies character's actions at the end are meant to show how dehumanizing the war is. I also felt the way that material was presented was supposed to elicit cheers from the audience - the fact that he had become some kind of real man. There's nothing to back up this final killing as a tragedy. And it would be EASY to convey - just a lingering shot on the dead German's face or a register of deflation or demoralization in Davies face - you don't get that. Spielberg shoots it heroic. So just where do you get your stand from earlier poster dude? Also the Edith Piaf before the final showdown was ridiculous - it's a movie moment but it really erodes away at any believability. The dialogue in SPR is horrendous - they're all good actors, but no one can really succeed reading stagey cliches like what they had to spout. The Thin Red Line had great believable dialogue - all the death scenes were first rate. All but one that is, my only disappointment with the film was the one death scene followed by the grave scene which I just felt were kind of a letdown the way they were shot. And the grave scene was silly - it worked in Starship Troopers but TRL ain't camp. And the letter scene elicited laughs from the crowd I saw it with and it kind of deserved it. Also the movie felt like it was ending about 5 times, even fading to black only to introduce new storylines. This was exhausting and I kept wanting the film to end, even though I truly loved it, just because I was afraid it would start sucking and I knew the more I had to sit there, the more I'd have to hear the childish, angry, ignorant negative comments from my friends on the ride home. I did wish at times during TRL tho, that it had a little more SPR gore, and perhaps a tighter storyline that SPR did provide.. I just didn't like the SPR storyline too much, finding it trite guilt-alleviating insipid fodder for the shoot-em-dead pent-up popcorn crowd. There's a refreshing freedom to be found in the lack of a conventional formulaic storyline that feels very Zen and mature, and that feels, uh, good. -
Fuck all this war movie palaver...what I want to know about from Harry is what he thought about Goodfellas!!! How could you not want to see that again & again? One of my top 5 of all time, period.
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I saw this film the same night Moriarty saw it and at the same theater, the Bruin. This film is not a good film. Do not see this film. It is one of these message films where the message is that war sucks. No shit? War sucks? That's the problem with this film, we already realize that war sucks and Malick tries to tell us in two and half hours that it does. This is why this film is worse than Saving Private Ryan. You feel for the characters in SPR, you have no feelings for the two dimensional characters of ATRL. In SPR war is shown as brutal, and we aren't insulted that war is crap. We feel when Tom Hanks dies. When the characters die in this movie, we honestly don't give a shit. Malick who went to Harvard is a complete arrogant prick, and his arrogance shows through arrogant characters who pretend as if they're more knowlegdeable about life when they just sound like tripped out fuckheads. The annoying habit of the main character of staring out into space is not overwhelming but annoying. Do not see this film.
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It is suprising how many people who comment on this (SPR) film missed the point entirely. I believe that the whole point of this film was to convey the horror of WWII, or any other war, to those who have never experienced combat. I took my grandfather, a B-17 pilot over Germany, to see SPR, and he cried for 3/4 of the movie. Yes, the dialogue may have been a little unrealistic, and yes, the characters may have been slighty stereotypical, but that's not the point. Have any of you ever watched a movie in complete silence like I watched SPR? I personally have never exited a movie and seen so many people sobbing as the night I saw SPR. I am grateful to Mr' Spielberg for having the guts to make a movie to remember a generation that made so many sacrifices like my grandparents did. I don't think that a movie like The Thin Red Line,which is based on an amazing novel that I hope everyone reads, should be compared to a movie that approaches a different subject from an entirely different angle like SPR. Similar subject matter doesn't make two movies bitter enemies for a meaningless award like the Oscar.
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The shooting of the German at the end of that film can be read two ways; 1)Justifiable revenge on the German who (improbably) takes the life of Ryan- the man who spared his life. Or 2) A statement that the kid's innocence has been banished with this ostensibly unheroic act.
Well, if it's about the loss of innocence, as the press releases would no doubt have you believe, where is the super-graphic demise of that German? This is the film that goes to EXTRAORDINARY lengths to show what bullets and explosives do to human beings. All the GIs get blown to little pieces, or their brains are blown out, etc etc in very, very graphic detail to bring it on home to the audience just how unimaginably horrifying War really is. But, significantly, the German's death is handled in the traditional, implied fashion. No brains spilling out onto the dirt, no crying for his Mother for three minutes before he expires. Uh, uh. "Our" guys die as agonizingly and heart-rendingly as possible. But that Gerry at the end- his death didn't seem to hurt that much, did it? Nope, all off-camera. Nice and clean. We're all a lot more comfortable with that, aren't we?
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To CISCO bunny- Uh... The Color Purple wasn't written by Toni Morrison, I believe it was an Alice Walker novel.
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I just saw The Thin Red Line tonight and i have never been so bored in my life. I was eagerly anticipating this film and it is such a letdown. First let me give this little note to casting directors DONT CAST 2 MAIN CHARACTERS THAT LOOK ALIKE!!! Also whats up with all the damn animals huh? I mean who cares really??!! I was hoping to be entertained during this, I didn't want to see a film that nakes you want to go soul searching. All I'm really saying is if you wanna waste 3 hours of your life watch Godzilla again. A root canal is more entertaining than this movie.
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First of:
Maybe Spielberg leaves out the homosexual themes of said books, because it doesnt seem to be as important to him, as some of the other themes. It actually might not,especially if you are not gay...(I havent actually read any of the books, so I cant tell how big a part this (homosexuality) plays)
Anyway, Spielberg has the right to focus on what *he* wants in *his* movie...
About SPR:
Yes, the story was somewhat weak, and many of the characters stereotypichal of war-movies.
All in all the subject matter deserved a better story, but maybe the whole thing would have been to oppressing on the viewer, if the whole film shared the same intensity and gruesomeness of the battlescenes? (not saying that I wouldnt have liked it to be; I -
I'll be seeing THE THIN RED LINE tonight.... Had to post something on the Private Upton debate, though, as I saw it in a different light as the other posters. The message of this character is simple: you cannot take a bookworm from army intelligence, thrust him into battle, and a hero or a killer make. In battle, his response was pure and natural: one of cowardly self-preservation, nothing more. So, he shot that German soldier (and let the others go) because he didn't want a POW running around who knew him by name, or be fingered in any way for letting a German go in the first place. Remember, he shot him as soon as he said his name. Battle did not make Upton a hero, but made him selfish in a way he had previously thought himself above, having been educated with so many lofty ideals of warfare. I thought it was a great twist on the sterotypical war-story, which usually makes out like a young man's first kill is a rite of passage necessary to becoming a man.
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Personally I don't think either SPR or TRL cut it as anti-war films. They both present war as a horror, but a necessity - a part of life. Ryan asks "Was it worth it?" at the end of SPR - he's got a huge family, was obviously integrated into an American Dream lifestyle. I would imagine his answer was "yes" - war paved his path of comfort. Jon Voight in "Coming Home" - there's someone ravaged by war. And River Phoenix in "DogFight". I don't think SPR or TRL need to be anti-war films either, they are justified in presenting any case they want as long as they are conscious and competent. But it seems to me everyone is saying SPR is an anti-war film, and as far as I can tell it came from SPR's own publicity, and this is bullshit. The filmmaker might be anti-war, the publicists might be anti-war, but the film does not take a strong stance either way - so I wish people would stop trying to sell the emperor some new clothes with this one. Another irksome debate: the two leads of TRL hardly look alike. Jeez. And sure Spielberg has a right to de-homo an adaptation, but it's hard not to view his actions as pussy-footing for a self-righteous majority and I think it is pretty spineless. Like when they completely wrote out the central gay love story from "Interview With A Vampire" - that was just such a big mistake and the film sucked because of such bad and homophobic judgement.
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Why does everyone always have to find something to complain about? No matter how great a film Spielberg makes, someone always has to find something to complain about. Whether it be that the plot was weak or Spielberg doesn't have the balls to tackle something like homosexuality or he's "too Hollywood"....I mean give the guy a break. Obviously he is doing something right. How many other directors out there have had as much success as he?...Very few, if any. So why does everyone criticize his work instead of study it. Get past the plot of SPR and why the German soldier was shot at the end and look at the movie as a film. Whether people agree or not the opening sequence of the film was some of the greatest filmmaking I've ever seen. It just boggles my mind how anyone could consider it anything less than that. Some of the people commenting here have admitted being students of film; so I ask you... How many of you could have done it better? Probably none. So my comment to you people is that you need to get past the fact that Spielberg is "too Hollywood". Because most of you are going to end up working for Hollywood, and if you disagree, then GOOD LUCK because there ain't much work out there besides Hollywood. Spielberg is a great director and I applaud him in his efforts to expand the idea of mainstream Hollywood moviemaking. Lastly, for the comments on the cutting of homosexuality from his movies...First, if Spielberg wanted to focus on homosexuality as a theme then he would do it. He had the balls to make a movie about the Holocaust and he didn't pull any punches. He showed us the inhumane persecution of the Jews. And in SPR he showed us how war takes the humanity away from people and makes them not even think of "the enemy" as a human beings anymore. He understands themes, and if he wanted to focus on the theme of homosexuality he would do it and he would do it without constraint. Second, if he would have left the homosexual story lines in his movies then people probably would complain about how he did that wrong. Give the guy a break and start looking at him as a great filmaker...maybe one of the best of our time.
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Why does everyone always have to find something to complain about? No matter how great a film Spielberg makes, someone always has to find something to complain about. Whether it be that the plot was weak or Spielberg doesn't have the balls to tackle something like homosexuality or he's "too Hollywood"....I mean give the guy a break. Obviously he is doing something right. How many other directors out there have had as much success as he?...Very few, if any. So why does everyone criticize his work instead of study it. Get past the plot of SPR and why the German soldier was shot at the end and look at the movie as a film. Whether people agree or not the opening sequence of the film was some of the greatest filmmaking I've ever seen. It just boggles my mind how anyone could consider it anything less than that. Some of the people commenting here have admitted being students of film; so I ask you... How many of you could have done it better? Probably none. So my comment to you people is that you need to get past the fact that Spielberg is "too Hollywood". Because most of you are going to end up working for Hollywood, and if you disagree, then GOOD LUCK because there ain't much work out there besides Hollywood. Spielberg is a great director and I applaud him in his efforts to expand the idea of mainstream Hollywood moviemaking. Lastly, for the comments on the cutting of homosexuality from his movies...First, if Spielberg wanted to focus on homosexuality as a theme then he would do it. He had the balls to make a movie about the Holocaust and he didn't pull any punches. He showed us the inhumane persecution of the Jews. And in SPR he showed us how war takes the humanity away from people and makes them not even think of "the enemy" as a human beings anymore. He understands themes, and if he wanted to focus on the theme of homosexuality he would do it and he would do it without constraint. Second, if he would have left the homosexual story lines in his movies then people probably would complain about how he did that wrong. Give the guy a break and start looking at him as a great filmaker...maybe one of the best of our time.
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Apart from what i wrote earlier, I would think that SPR definitely is an anti-war movie. Its message clearly is that there are things worth fighting for; the stakes in WW2 were such, that they could hardly be ignored, but the way war is portrayed as illogical, gruesome and leading to dehumanization of the participants, can hardly be seen as in any way glorifying war. It is,-rightfully so-, glorifying the bravour of the men involved in the invasion of normandy, but at the same time showing the war-crimes of allied forces. Did anyone else find the clearing of bunkers, and execution of its inhabitants as they emerged, to be somewhat nauseating? Was it portrayed as either justifiable, or the consequence of the absurd situation (war)? (Anyone caught cheering while watching this movie is a genuine moron.) A warmovie can, in my opinion, be anti-war, even though it acknowledges the need for armed aggression in particular cases.
SPR is such a movie.
And by the way: while most people see the scene of the killing of the german as a moral regression
of its perp, I see it as an intellectual and moral victory, showing that the soldier still sees the enemy as seperate human beings, with seperate reasons for being there, rather than just wanting to kill every single one of them; a very uncommon thing in most warmovies. He chooses to kill the german who wouldnt lay down his gun even when he got the chance, not just because he was belonging to the enemy forces, but because of dissapointment in him.
GG -
Does me not having read any Oscar Wilde make me a homophobe? :-)
I think people should be a little more thoughtful of their use of the word, and not misinterpret(sp?)lack of interest in, or focus on, gay issues as homophobic. Actually it makes *you* look like a homophobe, trying convince everybody else otherwise.....
GG -
I was just wondering if anyone reads all these posts and says "Oh, some guy on some web sight says not to see Thin Red Line so even though I have been wanting to see it, I guess I won't now". I was just wondering why some one thinks they know what everyone else likes. In my opinion ggo see Thin Red Line and if you don't like it then it won't be the last time you pay for a movie and get disappointed.
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Ugh! Please, Harry, I beg you to give us Hallenbeck's review of A Thin Red Line soon! I can't take another pretentious movie review from Moriarity! Hallenbeck has remained the only movie reviewer who talks impartially and honestly about the MOVIE instead of using his review as a forum for oral masturbation! Every review of a film by Moriarity is a thinly veiled insult to the reader's intelligence, always filled with such self-agrandizing comments as "I can't recommend this film to everyone" (read: most of you cretins can't appreciate great cinema like I) or "As a filmmaker myself I can appreciate..." blah blah blah. Please. The only film we know he's been involved with is some super cheesey straight to video SCREAM rip-off called Walter Did It! which he boasted about on your site a while back. Please, Moriarity, I'm sorry your film career is a failure, but don't take it out on us. Stop with the patronizing attitude!
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Good post, "CISCO bunny." If you've ever any Alice Walker, issues of race, gender and sexuality are her main bag, baby! These are themes Spielberg has simply never addressed adequately; they are not his strengths as a story teller. I further contend that whenever he has tried to deal with such issues, they seem really, really forced. When he made THE COLOR PURPLE, he was indeed very much still in his "peter-pan" phase, as you put it. As his first bid for artistic credibility, TCP was pretty dilluted. I remember him saying his inspiration for the art direction was Dysney's SONG OF THE SOUTH (!!) Well, it is much later now, and the man HAS matured as a story-teller. Still, I cringe in anticipation of "GEISHA." Now, the real question is... HAS ANYBODY SEEN THE THIN RED LINE?! (I tried to go last night to The Coronet here in SF - alas, it was sold out)
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The Thin Red Line...Thin Red Line, the name of the film is THE THIN RED LINE... Anybody, anybody, have anything to say about THE...THIN...RED...LINE (any resemblance of THE THIN RED LINE to films by Senior Stehanapolous Spielbergo, livid or deadly, is purely coincidental).
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(various snips from cisco bunnys last post(
>NO - I DON'T READ WHAT I WRITE. I >just let it out as fast as I can >and press "post".
You really should though.(are you serious?) It saves you a lot of problems.
>Thirdly, yes I do call my gay >friends queer. In fact, most of >them prefer that term to gay.
This is not a case that can ever be closed. I -
I guess we'll have to wait 'til "Space:1999" to get "the Harry" on this flick, and talk the talk. Last night's early show for THE THIN RED LINE was again sold out at The Coronet (a huge theater!) - so limited release, at least in SF, is doing great. Beat it over to see A SIMPLE PLAN, which is quite good - there, in the front row, gaped at the extended trailer for TRL, and man am I hyped! Could it be? Something hitherto unseen: a spiritual war-film with shades of Emerson, Milton and Thoreau?
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The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan are two different and distinct films. Ryan deals with the horror of war, while T.T.R.L. explores the horror of beauty. To compare one against the other is unnecesary, uninteresting, and terribly obvious.
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I just thought, since I was the one who brought it up, I should reply to CISCO's comment about "What other director has had as much success? REPLY: Michael Bay. Michael Bay is a phenomenal director... at action movies. Don't get me wrong, Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon are some of my favorite action movies and I think that Michael Bay's direction, camera work, and pacing are amazing. You can learn a lot from studying him. But again, he has directed only 3 films (which have been highly successful) that are all in the same genre. I agree with Shade when he says bring Michael Bay up in about 15 years. Spielberg has been highly successful in almost every genre he chooses. Close Encounters(Sci-Fi)... Jurrassic Park(Adventure/Action)...Jaws(Suspense/Horror)...All 3 Indy films(Adventure/Action)...and of course Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan (etc.) All very successful and have influenced many movies of our generation. So again I ask...How many other director's out there have had as much success as Spielberg? Probably few if any. And again I ask...How many study Spielberg as a filmmaker rather than mocking his lack of exploring certain themes?
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Well, I saw The Thin Red Line last week with my girlfriend and I am still haunted by it. I am a screenwriter/film maker and avid fan of movies in general. When I saw SPR, I was rocked into the horror of WWII so much, that I began reading extensivly (sp) about it and even picked up The Thin Red Line.
The book moved me tremendously due to its brutal honesty and dreamlike vision of war. I suggested it to everyone (of course, no one listened) and then I began reading all the atricles and hearing all the rumors about the film. And so now that I have seen it, here are my thoughts.
As a film, it is a gem. I agree with EVERYTHING that Moriarty said. As one talkbacker said, I feel like he jumped into my head and read my thoughts. I see that some of you don't agree and feel that the film was crap due to the lack of development and storyline. I disagree with you because you are thinking in conventional and relative terms. You are basing your review of other films you have seen and what you EXPECT a film to give you. Malick has done just the opposite in that he has weaved the passing thoughts and visions that the soldiers have so that we are given a chance to touch the surface of that confusion and to know how lost all of these young men must've felt.
BUT, being a reader of the book, I WAS a little let down with Malick's adaption. I think, based on how great the movie is anyway, many people are overlooking how much he reworked the original book. Take Witt for example. In the book he is a loudmouthed Kentuckian with a penchant for whiskey and fighting. Yet he as a loyal heart of gold and is adored by the men of C- Company. In the film, he is portrayed as a doomed poet who daydreams his way through the war due to a peace he has found in "another world" while going AWOL. And take the character of Cpl. Fife in the book. Perhaps the most important character in the whole book due to the fact that he goes through the biggest development out of any of the men. I originally thought that Penn was gonna play him and was sort of let down when I heard Penn was playing Welsh. Fife was completely dropped from the movie. Instead, we see him as the skinny, grovelling soldier that is always hiding behind Elias Koteas' (Cpt. Staros) back. That was a waste of a great character. Besides that, the film was great. God, this will probably read like shit but I'm too tired to proof-read. -
Having read some of the postings I see alot of people not only watch the movies they feel they have to act in it. Now I like a good movie and symbolism and hidden meanings but you have to ask yourself, is there any need for alot of that in a War flick, I mean we all know what the goal is, to win and to come out alive. albeit a few sacrifices but honor and bravery are no strangers to a fighting man and having served myself in the Military I can tell you there was alot more communication and Meaning than what was going on in the Thin Red. Line, you don't have to put uncertainty and confusion in a War film to make it seem haunting or scary although it is a tension builder. In the beginning of SPR what had transpired in the film on the landing craft had actually happened in the D-Day Invasion, with the men looking white as ghosts, nervous and puking on themselves and praying to god. Who wouldn't be, in that situation. And no film has ever captured pure celluloid chaos as pristeen as Steven Spielberg did, though it will never match the true reality of what happened on Omaha Beach it certainly registered alot of "oh my's from the audience and alot of sucking breaths and unblinking shock from the audience. As far as War goes, I probably wouldn't be writing this and you probably wouldn't be reading this if we had Lost WWII. I think people forget sometimes that the United States is a fighting Nation, and although alot of people are against War, sometimes it is necessary to achieve peace and to maintain what we all take for granted; the freedom to read what you want to read, and to take in any dang movie you want to see. So I think Directors shouldn't look at trying to make a war film an abstract of hidden meanings, heck my Grandpa who fought in WWII can tell you what Islands he hit in the Pacific and give lucid details about every move he made in the War and there is no hint of confusion or hidden meaning, just up front facts and a sense of pride of having been there and having done his part. Just go to the local VFW and ask them about WWII they will surely be able to tell you, and probably in great detail with no regret or anti-war notion. Maybe people read into a movie too much and miss what it really was all about, the fact that young men were trying to do their part to give themselves and theyre country abit of respect and to make their family and their country proud of them and making themselves proud into the bargain. I think only those who have served their country can truly understand what this means and those who haven't, it would be advisable not to resort to movies to learn about the War but to experience them as they are as movies and restaged reenactments, much like America's Most Wanted reenactments with a bigger budget. I would recommend watching the Discovery Channel or the History Channel versus movies, to hear from real veterans and to watch real stock footage of the War rather than Hollywood. But best of all would be to just talk to a vet of WWII and listen to his story and if your lucky like me, you can have your Grandfather hand you his Silver Star and tell you the story of how he got it. Spielberg cant touch that, but he does a super job of establishing as true to realistic as any Hollywood movie can go without being distasteful and causing the audience to regret they ever spent the money and the time to see the movie. Thanks
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Moriarty, I finally saw this last night, and I want to thank you for championing it; I felt it was easily the best picture of 1998. Infinitely deep
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Fuck this film. I got better things to do like invest in Worldcom and Enron. Later bitches.
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What a strange thing to say. Goodfellas is a great movie that is very re-watchable. That was written 7 years ago. I wonder if Harry never really saw it again.
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