The Film Itself

“Look at this jungle. Look at those vines, the way they twine around, swallowing everything. Nature's cruel.” This contour can help sum up the difference between two of the biggest World War 2 films from the previous decade. On one side you have ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and the other ‘The Thin Red Line’, two completely different sorts of films besides the war they presented. One covered the European Invasion while the latter was during the Japanese campaign dealing with the ‘Battle of Guadalcanal’. The other comparison is ‘Band of Brothers’ to ‘The Pacific’ which came from director ‘Steven Spielberg’ who also happened to direct ‘Saving Private Ryan’ but more on that later.

 

 

Enter Terrance Malick (Days of Heaven, New World) director of only two films from the 1970’s and disappearing artist of nearly two decades until his comeback. Based on the novel by James Jones (From Here to Eternity), a film that garnered awareness from actors all over Hollywood, to the point everybody wanted to get a role in the film. From the likes of Johnny Depp, Edward Norton, Leonardo Dicaprio, Brad Pitt and Martin Sheen, indisputably giving you some form of perception as to the desire people had just to work with this director even though he hadn’t made a film in over 20 years.

 

The star of the film is Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) who as we discover has gone AWOL and lives with natives in the South Pacific and is put back into a sense of duty after being picked up by a Navy ship. Told by his Sergeant (Sean Penn) that he will get into trouble for going AWOL, until he joins the C-company for the taking of Guadalcanal being put together in a team consisting of private Bell (Ben Chaplin), Fife (Adrien Brody), Sergeant Keck (Woody Harrelson) and who is most remarkable is the character of troubled Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte).

 

Colonel Tall during the latter of the first hour until just shy of the last half an hour gives a performance deemed worthy of an Oscar for portraying a superior officer who fails to comprehend the basic human notion of men not willing to lose their fellow brothers over a promotion or take on a task that seems impossible within the given orders. This would be the battle between Colonel Tall and Captain Bugger Staros (Elias Koteas) until he is dismissed after the capture of the hill and replaced by Captain John Gaff (John Cusack) who seems quite enthusiastic with his promotion. Now as complex as the story may seem it is rather a simple plot; men storm beach, try to take hill; modify plan; take hill, capture soldiers and see the other side of pain (in one of the most expressive moments of the film-Japanese soldiers taken captive). 

 

While a fairly lengthy film it never lets down for even a single moment. What is even more surprising is for its length and at least over half the film takes place in silence/narration and that is the difference between ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘The Thin Red Line’, while the former is about storming the beach, moving to next objective, locating Ryan and trying to hold off the Germans, ‘The Thin Red Line’ is a visual expedition that is about the conflict between scenery and man-the mental state. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph when you compare those two mini-series, one is about the bond between men while the latter is about the mental agony the men on the other side of the world went through, just like the battle between these two flawless films. Though the sad event that took place is how did something like these two films lose to ‘Shakespeare in Love’?  Both were nominated for best picture and actors among a few other things. While those started the trend into World War 2 films all over again and are used as leading examples for making war films, was it the times? Were people not ready to accept these gory films that came as close to presenting the real adaptation of war films? Whatever happened it’s great to realize that winning Oscars doesn’t guarantee you a place in film history or remembrance at least that is something we can be happy about.

 

Now it is only fair to say that this is not your everyday middling film, if you are here looking for action packed fun then it will come in small doses, if you are looking for a self-reflecting film that really makes you think as if you were one of those men then park yourself down for three hours of pure visual exquisiteness which is accompanied by one of cinema’s greatest scores by ‘Hans Zimmer’ and as if that’s not enough there is the deeper meaning behind the score as it is played during the film, but telling would be spoiling. This is one of those films you owe it to yourself to watch that remnants fresh in your mind even after a week. If you happen to watch it, try to see how fresh it remains in your mind and how soon will it be before you view it again just to gratify your mind. For me it was only a day before it was back in the blu-ray player.

 

 

(Disc Review)

 

 

Coming from Criterion on a single 50GB disc, with disc art making up of the jungle, the cover captures the mood of the film, tense yet so beautiful. Spine #536, and coming in a different box than normal blu-rays as it happens to contain a 34 color booklet with two essays and transfer detail.

 

Now being a Criterion release, it is already known to have extras that are not in other releases of the film from the previous dvd, which was a rather bare-boned edition sadly. 

Commentary – While I only listened to part of this since it happened to not have Malick himself in it, though the production designer Jack Fisk, producer Grant Hill and cinematographer John Toll round it out very nicely. It was interesting to hear about the experiences of working with so many actors and the direction that Malick chose along with the timing of day when certain shots should take place along with problems that befell the cast and crew of working in the wild. Though it would have been a nice to have the actor’s commentary and hear about their own personal experiences but I guess the closest to that is in the next extra.

 

Actors – A truly amazing little documentary running around 35 minutes telling the story of how they got involved and what it was like to work on the film, with some funny little moments of impressions of Malick.

 

Casting – Another great feature that tells the stories of the actors auditioned from the likes of Johnny Depp to Leonardo DiCarprio. Using audition footage of those that made it into the film and those that did not. This one runs close to 18 minutes.

 

Editors – Features the editors who explained the amount of time it took to re-edit and cut out scenes that featured actors who were not in the film, while explaining the direction they were asked to go in, another worthy extra. This one runs close to 28 minutes.

 

Music – Hans Zimmer helps tell us the type of score that Malick wanted, describing what it was like to have him live with him and details of how it should play out. This one runs close to 17 minutes.

 

Outtakes – One could have hoped to see the scenes of actors cut out such as the likes of ‘Billy Bob Thorn’ or ‘Gary Oldman’, sadly those are not here but we do get a scene with ‘Mickey Rourke’ which was a surprise to me. Another one of those rare moments where each scene holds its own and you hope for more, this comes in around 14 minutes.

 

Kaylie Jones – This is the daughter of the writer ‘James Jones’ and is more of an extended interview about more on the novel and her father than the film, it’s more of a insight of the writer’s life and its imprint on him even after it’s over. This one runs around 20 minutes.

 

Newsreels – This is true gold here, this is something people should value because it’s newsreels from during the campaign of the Pacific which was shown in theatres back in America. Truly great stuff here, this runs in around 16 minutes.

 

Melanesian Chants – Hans Zimmer’s recording with indigenous people to production photographs, again another great extra that was unexpected. This was running around 7 minutes.

 

Trailers – Only one included here which is around 2 minutes 35 seconds, it was rather exciting to see since I did not see it back when released.

 

Booklet – Again here is the Criterion gold with the essays and further reading into the film they have presented here. One of the articles is written by James Jones back from 1963, very interesting look at war films being made during that time and his take on them.

 

 

 

 

Criterion has done Malick proud and Malick has done Criterion proud. There are rarely films made of such superior quality, ones that really make you think about the ordeal of warfare and the general atmosphere within the battles and their aftermaths. This is not the easiest film to get into but once you’re in, you will not want it to end-poetic narration along with national geography visuals the film has all the fundamentals of an unforgettable experience and what an experience it is. Coming across as a great home system presentation with the surprising text by Malick himself telling you ‘This film is meant to be played loud’, if you were to ask what is the better of the two, frankly one cannot say but only thing I can depart you with is which one will you be thinking and conversing about after it’s finished, that makes a great film even superior when it leaves you with that notion.