Please turn off cellphones during screening April 10, 2012 (XXIV:12) Online versions of the Goldenrod Handouts are in color Terrence Malick, THE THIN RED LINE (1998, 170 min.)

Directed by Terrence Malick Based on the novel by James Jones Screenplay by Terrence Malick Produced by Robert Michael Geisler, Grant Hill, John Roberdeau Original Music by Hans Zimmer Cinematography by John Toll Film Editing by Leslie Jones, Saar Klein and Billy Weber Nick NolteLt. Col. Gordon Tall Jim CaviezelPvt. Witt Sean Penn1st Sgt. Edward Welsh Elias KoteasCapt. James 'Bugger' Staros Ben ChaplinPvt. Bell Dash MihokPfc. Doll John CusackCapt. John Gaff Adrien BrodyCpl. Fife John C. ReillySgt. Storm Woody HarrelsonSgt. Keck Miranda OttoMarty Bell Jared Leto2nd Lt. Whyte John TravoltaBrig. Gen. Quintard George ClooneyCapt. Charles Bosche Nick StahlPfc - Beade Thomas JanePvt. Ash John SavageSgt. McCron Will WallacePvt. Hoke John Dee SmithPvt. Train Kirk AcevedoPvt. Tella Penelope AllenWitt's Mother Simon BilligLt. Col. Billig Mark Boone JuniorPvt. Peale Norman Patrick BrownPvt. Henry Arie VerveenPvt. Charlie Dale Jarrod DeanCpl. Thorne TERRENCE MALICK (b. Terrence Frederick Malick, November 30, 1943, Ottawa, Illinois) has directed ten films, two of which are in pre-production and two in post-production: 2013 Knight of Cups (pre-production), 2013 Lawless (pre-production), 2012 Untitled Terrence Malick Project (post-production), 2012 Voyage of Time (post-production), 2011 The Tree of Life, 2005 The New World, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1978 Days of Heaven,

1973 Badlands, and a short (student film at USC) 1969 Lanton Mills. He was also one of the screenwriters on all his films, as well as 1972 Pocket Money, 1972 Deadhead Miles, and 1971 Drive, He Said, 1969. HANS ZIMMER (b. Hans Florian Zimmer, September 12, 1957, Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, West Germany) won an Oscar for The Lion King (1994). Some of his other 145 scoring credits are 2012 The Force, 2011 Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Masters, 2011 Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, 2011 Kung Fu Panda 2, 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, 2010 Inception, 2010 The Pacific (10 episodes), 2009 Sherlock Holmes, 2009 It's Complicated, 2009 Angels & Demons, 2008 Frost/Nixon, 2008 The Dark Knight, 2008 Kung Fu Panda, 2007 The Simpsons Movie, 2007 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 2006 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, 2006 The Da Vinci Code, 2005 Batman Begins, 2005 Madagascar, 2004 Spanglish, 2003 Something's Gotta Give, 2003 The Last Samurai, 2002/I The Ring, 2001 Black Hawk Down, 2001 Invincible, 2000-2001 Die Motorrad-Cops: Hart am Limit (23 episodes), 2001 Pearl Harbor, 2001 Hannibal, 2000 Mission: Impossible II, 2000 Gladiator, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1997 As Good as It Gets, 1997 Smilla's Sense of Snow, 1996 The Preacher's Wife, 1996 The Fan, 1996 The Rock, 1995 Beyond Rangoon, 1995 Crimson Tide, 1994 The Lion King, 1994 Renaissance Man, 1993 The House of the Spirits, 1993 True Romance, 1992 A League of Their Own, 1991 Regarding Henry, 1991 Thelma & Louise, 1991 Backdraft, 1990 Bird on a Wire, 1989 Driving Miss Daisy, 1989/I Black Rain, 1988 Rain Man,

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1986 Separate Vacations, 1985 Insignificance, 1984 Histoire d'O: Chapitre 2, and 1984 Success Is the Best Revenge. JOHN TOLL (June 15, 1952, Cleveland, Ohio) was cinematographer on 32 films, among them, 2011 The Adjustment Bureau, 2009 It's Complicated, 2008 Tropic Thunder, 2006 Seraphim Falls, 2005 Elizabethtown, 2003 The Last Samurai, 2001 Vanilla Sky, 2001 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 2000 Almost Famous, 1999 Simpatico, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1997 The Rainmaker, 1996 Jack, 1995 Braveheart, 1994 Legends of the Fall, 1989 The Young Riders, 1987 The China Odyssey: 'Empire of the Sun', a Film by Steven Spielberg, 1985 The Beach Boys: An American Band, 1972 The Hoax, and 1971 The Young Graduates. IAN GRACIE has 32 art director credits, including 2012 The Great Gatsby, 2008 Australia, 2005 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, 2005 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, 2003 Ned Kelly, 2002 The Quiet American, 2002 Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, 2001 Moulin Rouge!, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1997 Paws, 1997 Paradise Road, 1996 The Island of Dr. Moreau, 1994 No Escape, 1990 Quigley Down Under, 1988 The Dreaming, and 1985 An Indecent Obsession. NICK NOLTE Lt. Col. Gordon Tall (b. Nicholas King Nolte, February 8, 1941, Omaha, Nebraska) has 88 acting credits, among them, 2011-2012 Luck (9 episodes), 2011 Zookeeper, 2011 Arthur, 2008 Tropic Thunder, 2006 Peaceful Warrior, 2004 Hotel Rwanda, 2003 Hulk, 2002 Intimate Affairs, 2000 The Golden Bowl, 1999 Breakfast of Champions, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1997 Affliction, 1996 Mother Night, 1996 Mulholland Falls, 1995 Jefferson in Paris, 1992 Lorenzo's Oil, 1991 The Prince of Tides, 1991 Cape Fear, 1990 Another 48 Hrs., 1990 Q & A, 1989 Farewell to the King, 1987 Weeds, 1987 Extreme Prejudice, 1986 Down and Out in Beverly Hills, 1984 Teachers, 1983 Under Fire, 1982 48 Hrs., 1982 Cannery Row, 1980 Heart Beat, 1979 North Dallas Forty, 1978 Who'll Stop the Rain, 1977 The Deep, 1976 Northville Cemetery Massacre, 1976 Rich Man, Poor Man (9 episodes), 1974 Gunsmoke, 1974 Emergency!, 1974 The Streets of San Francisco, 1973 Electra Glide in Blue, and 1969 Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. JIM CAVIEZEL Pvt. Witt (b. James Patrick Caviezel, September 26, 1968, Mount Vernon, Washington) has 36 acting credits 2011-2012 Person of Interest (17 episodes), 2012/I Transit, 2009 The Prisoner (6 episodes), 2008 Long Weekend, 2008 The Stoning of Soraya M., 2008 Outlander, 2006 Dj vu, 2004 Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, 2004 The Passion of the Christ, 2004 Highwaymen, 2004 The Final Cut, 2002 The Count of Monte Cristo, 2001 Angel Eyes, 2000 Pay It Forward, 1999/I Ride with the Devil, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1997 G.I. Jane,

1994 Wyatt Earp, 1992 Diggstown, and 1991 My Own Private Idaho. SEAN PENN 1st Sgt. Edward Welsh (b. Sean Justin Penn, August 17, 1960, Santa Monica, California) won two best actor in a leading role Oscars: (2008) and Mystic River (2003). Some of his other 47 roles have been 2011 This Must Be the Place, 2011 The Tree of Life, 2006 All the King's Men, 2005 The Interpreter, 2004 The Assassination of Richard Nixon, 2003 21 Grams, 2000 The Weight of Water, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Hurlyburly, 1995 Dead Man Walking, 1993 Carlito's Way,

1990 State of Grace, 1989 Casualties of War, 1988 Colors, 1985 The Falcon and the Snowman, 1984 Racing with the Moon, 1984 Crackers, 1982 Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and 1981 Taps. ELIAS KOTEAS Capt. James 'Bugger' Staros (March 11, 1961, Montral, Qubec, Canada) has 76 acting credits, some of which are 2011 A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, 2011 Dream House, 2011 Winnie, 2011 Combat Hospital, 2010 Let Me In, 2010/II Die, 2010 My Own Love Song, 2010 Shutter Island, 2010 3 Backyards, 2010 The Killer Inside Me, 2009 The Fourth Kind, 2008 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2007 Prisoner, 2007/I Zodiac, 2002 The Sopranos, 2002 Collateral Damage, 2001 Shot in the Heart, 2000 Dancing at the Blue Iguana, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Living Out Loud, 1997 Gattaca, 1996 Crash, 1995 The Prophecy, 1994 Exotica, 1993 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, 1990 Look Who's

Talking Too, 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 1989 Malarek, 1988 Tucker: The Man and His Dream, 1988 Onassis: The Richest Man in the World, 1987 Gardens of Stone, and 1987 Some Kind of Wonderful BEN CHAPLIN Pvt. Bell (b. Benedict John Greenwood, July 31, 1970, London, England) has appeared in 35 films and TV series, among them 2011-2012 Mad Dogs, 2011 Twixt, 2010 London Boulevard, 2010 Ways to Live Forever, 2009 Dorian Gray, 2008 Me and Orson Welles, 2005 The New World, 2002 The Touch, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1997 Washington Square, 1995 Resort to Murder, 1993 The Remains of the Day, and 1990 Casualty. DASH MIHOK Pfc. Doll (b. Dashiell Mihok, May 24, 1974, New York City, New York) has 62 acting credits, including 2011 Grey's Anatomy, 2011 Hawaii Five-0, 2011 Prime Suspect, 2011 Trespass, 2011 The FP, 2011 The Mortician, 2011 On the Inside, 2010 Law & Order: Criminal Intent, 1995-2009 Law & Order, 2007 I Am Legend, 2007 Sex and Death 101, 2006 Hollywoodland, 2005 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, 2004 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, 2001 One Eyed King, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Telling You, 1996-1997 Pearl (22 episodes), 1996 Sleepers, 1996 Foxfire, and 1993 CityKids

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JOHN CUSACK Capt. John Gaff (b. John Paul Cusack, June 28, 1966, Evanston, Illinois) has 64 acting credits, among them 2012 The Raven, 2011 The Factory, 2007 1408, 2005 The Ice Harvest, 2003 Runaway Jury, 2003 Identity, 2001 America's Sweethearts, 1999 Being John Malkovich, 1999 Cradle Will Rock, 1999 Pushing Tin, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998/I This Is My Father, 1997 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, 1997 Con Air, 1997 Grosse Pointe Blank, 1996 City Hall, 1994 The Road to Wellville, 1994 Bullets Over Broadway, 1993 Map of the Human Heart, 1992 Bob Roberts, 1991 Shadows and Fog, 1991 True Colors, 1990 The Grifters, 1989 Fat Man and Little Boy, 1988 Eight Men Out, 1987 Broadcast News, 1986 Stand by Me, 1984 Grandview, U.S.A., and 1984 Sixteen Candles. ADRIEN BRODYCpl. Fife (April 14, 1973 in New York City, New York) won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The Pianist (2002). Some of his other 47 roles were in 2011 Midnight in Paris, 2011 Detachment, 2010 Wrecked, 2010 The Experiment, 2010 Predators, 2008 Cadillac Records, 2008 The Brothers Bloom, 2007 The Darjeeling Limited, 2006 Hollywoodland, 2005 King Kong, 2003 The Singing Detective, 2002 Dummy, 2000 Bread and Roses, 1999 Summer of Sam, 1999 Oxygen, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Restaurant, 1997 The Undertaker's Wedding, 1994 Natural Born Killers, 1991 The Boy Who Cried Bitch, and 1988 Home at Last. JOHN C. REILLYSgt. Storm (b. John Christopher Reilly, May 24, 1965, Chicago, Illinois) has 68 film and TV credits, among them 2010-2011 Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule (7 episodes), 2011 Carnage, 2011 Cedar Rapids, 2010 Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Chrimbus Special, 2007-2010 Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (25 episodes), 2010 Drunk History, 2010/I Cyrus, 2007 Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, 2007/I Year of the Dog, 2006 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, 2006 A Prairie Home Companion, 2004 The Aviator, 2002 The Hours, 2002 Chicago, 2002 Gangs of New York, 2000 The Perfect Storm, 1999 Magnolia, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Flagpole Special, 1997 Chicago Cab, 1997 Boogie Nights, 1995 Dolores Claiborne, 1993 What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 1992 Hoffa, 1991 Shadows and Fog, 1990 State of Grace, 1990 Days of Thunder, 1989 We're No Angels, and 1989 Casualties of War . WOODY HARRELSONSgt. Keck (b. Woodrow Tracy Harrelson, July 23, 1961, Midland, Texas) has 70 acting credits,

including 2012 The Hunger Games, 2011 Rampart, 2011 Friends with Benefits, 2009/I 2012, 2009 Zombieland, 2009 Defendor, 2008 Management, 2008 Sleepwalking, 2007 No Country for Old Men, 2006 A Prairie Home Companion, 2001 Will & Grace (7

episodes), 1999 Play It to the Bone, 1998 The Hi-Lo Country, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Ellen, 1998 Palmetto, 1997 Wag the Dog, 1997 Welcome to Sarajevo, 1996 The People vs. Larry Flynt, 1994 Natural Born Killers, 1985-1993 Cheers (200 episodes), 1993 Indecent Proposal, 1992 White Men Can't Jump, 1991 Doc Hollywood, 1991 L.A. Story, 1989 True Believer, and 1978 Harper Valley P.T.A.

JOHN TRAVOLTABrig. Gen. Quintard (b. John Joseph Travolta, February 18, 1954, Englewood, New Jersey) has been in 63 films and TV series, among them 2010 From Paris with Love, 2009/I Old Dogs, 2009 The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, 2007 Hairspray, 2007 Wild Hogs, 2006 Lonely Hearts, 2004 The Punisher, 2003 Basic, 2000 Lucky Numbers, 1999 The General's Daughter, 1998 A Civil Action, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Primary Colors, 1997 Face/Off, 1996 Michael, 1996 Broken Arrow, 1995 Get Shorty, 1995 White Man's Burden, 1994 Pulp Fiction, 1993 Look Who's Talking Now, 1990 Look Who's Talking Too, 1989 Look Who's Talking, 1983 Two of a Kind, 1983 Staying Alive, 1981 Blow Out, 1980 Urban Cowboy, 1975-1979 Welcome Back, Kotter (78 episodes), 1978 Moment by Moment, 1978 Grease, 1977 Saturday Night Fever, 1976 The

Boy in the Plastic Bubble, 1976 Carrie, 1975 The Devil's Rain, 1973 The Rookies, and 1972 Emergency! GEORGE CLOONEYCapt. Charles Bosche (b. George Timothy Clooney, May 6, 1961, Lexington, Kentucky) won a best supporting Oscar for his role in Syriana (2005). He has 68 other film and TV acting credits, among them 2011 The Descendants, 2011 The Ides of March, 2010 The American, 2009 The Men Who Stare

at Goats, 2009/I Up in the Air, 1994-2009 ER (109 episodes), 2008 Burn After Reading, 2007 Michael Clayton, 2007 Ocean's Thirteen, 2006 The Good German, 2005 Syriana, 2005 Good Night, and Good Luck., 2004 Ocean's Twelve, 2002 Solaris, 2001 Ocean's Eleven, 2000 The Perfect Storm, 2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 1999 Three Kings, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Out of Sight, 1997 Batman & Robin, 1996 From Dusk Till Dawn, 1993-1994 Sisters (19 episodes), 1993 The Building, 1992-1993 Bodies of Evidence (16 episodes), 1992 The Harvest, 1992 Unbecoming Age, 1988-1991 Roseanne (11 episodes), 1988 Return of the Killer Tomatoes!, 1987 Murder, She Wrote,

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1984-1985 E/R (22 episodes), 1982 And They Are Off, and 1978 Centennial JOHN SAVAGESgt. McCron (b. John Smeallie Youngs, August 25, 1949, Old Bethpage, Long Island, New York) has 10 films in post-production, plus 170 other acting credits, some of which are 2012 Hit List, 2012 Sweetwater, 2011 The Orphan Killer, 2011 The Last Gamble, 2010 Dreamkiller, 2010 The Right to Bear Arms, 2009 Buffalo Bushido, 2008 The Grift, 2008 The Golden Boys, 2006 Shut Up and Shoot!, 2006 Kill Your Darlings, 2006 The Drop, 2005 The New World, 2003-2005 Carnivle (15 episodes), 2005 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, 2004 Law & Order: Criminal Intent, 2004 Fallacy, 2002 The Anarchist Cookbook, 2000-2001 Dark Angel (24 episodes), 2001 Dead Man's Run, 1999 Summer of Sam, 1998 The Thin Red Line, 1998 Centurion Force, 1997 Firestorm, 1997 Flynn, 1997 Last Cut, 1996 One Good Turn, 1996 White Squall, 1995 The Crossing Guard, 1995 The X-Files, 1990 The Godfather: Part III, 1989 Do the Right Thing, 1987 Beauty and the Beast, 1986 Salvador, 1981 The Amateur, 1981 Cattle Annie and Little Britches, 1980 Inside Moves, 1979 The Onion Field, 1979 Hair, 1978 The Deer Hunter, 1976-1977 Gibbsville (13 episodes), 1973 Steelyard Blues, 1972 Bad Company, and 1969 The Master Beater.

David Steritt: The Thin Red Line: This Side of Paradise (Criterion Notes) The Thin Red Line, arguably the greatest war film ever made, ended two decades of silence from Terrence Malick, cinemas wandering auteur. The silence wasnt entirely self-imposed, since during this time he tried to launch a few productionsincluding a tale of nineteenth-century psychoanalysis and a Jerry Lee Lewis

biopicthat didnt reach the shooting stage. But mainly he appears to have bided his time, gathering ideas and inspirations while living in Paris and Los Angeles, then rejoining the industry for his most ambitious project to datea World War II epic as poetic and philosophical as his previous pictures, Badlands (1973) and Days of Heaven (1978), and larger in scale than both of them combined.

By all accounts, it took long negotiations for a team of producers to get Malick back behind the camera. Hollywood had

gone through drastic changes while he walked the earth for twenty years, and the new corporate chiefs preferred market-friendly blockbusters to offbeat art pictures. With support gathered from Fox 2000 and some independent production companies, Malick started shooting in June 1997, wrapping up a hundred days and more than a million feet of film later, on time and on budget. The result is a masterpiecea Malick masterpiece, telling a powerfully written, superbly acted story that casts new light on his characteristic themes of nature and culture, thought and language, humanity and inhumanity, paradise lost and transcendence found.

Malicks legendary refusal to do interviews or comment on his work makes it hard to answer certain basic questions, such as why he wanted to film James Joness 1962 novel to begin with. Based on Joness own experiences, The Thin Red Line takes place on Guadalcanal, the strategically located Pacific island where Allied troops confronted Japanese forces by land, sea, and air between August 1942 and February 1943. This was a costly but pivotal campaign, marking the transition to offensive operations that brought victory for the Allies in the Pacific theater. Taking a grunts-eye view, the novel follows a company of infantrymen who arrive as reinforcements when the fighting is well under way. The story is long, dense, deterministic, and grim, combining realistic descriptions of combat with intimate accounts of soldiers thoughts and impressions. The first time I read it, I found it more cumbersome and conventional than Joness earlier and better war novel From Here to Eternity (1951), and although its psychology seems truer and more complex to me today, its major differences from Malicks previous picturesincluding its faraway setting, historical background, and large cast of charactersmake it an unexpected choice for such a quintessentially poetic filmmaker.

Its likely that a couple of key factors drew Malick to the novel. One was his fascination with ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Many critics have discussed Malicks intellectual bent, his training in philosophy, his study of German thinker Martin Heidegger, his brief professorial career. What rarely get mentioned are more routine parts of his biographyplaying high school football, working as a farmhand, writing for popular magazines like Life and Timethat reflect an interest in unremarkable folks. Almost every man in The Thin Red Line is an everyman, lost in the bewilderness, struggling to survive under conditions as baffling as they are horrific. Among the most important to the film are Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte), who hopes the fighting will get him a promotion; First Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn), a battle-weary man whose pragmatism borders on cynicism; and Private Witt (Jim Caviezel), whose perception of a transcendent spark in even the most hardened and afflicted people is at the narrative and philosophical center of the film. Malicks sympathy goes out to some characters more than others, but his sensitive portrayals testify to his profound engagement with all of their lives.

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I think Malick was also intrigued by the tremendous contrast between story and setting in the novel, where savage combat rips bodies and minds apart on a tropical island of stunning beauty. The book and film both contain hard-hitting battle sequences, especially during the companys protracted effort to take a hill protected by a heavily armed Japanese bunker, but where Jones concentrates on naturalistic military and psychological detail, Malick gives full play to philosophical ideas as well. Opulent nature imagery is his most recognizable cinematic trademark, but crucially he finds human personalities and behavior no less natural than their surroundingsa fact thats especially resonant when the environment is a jungle, where life and death, creation and destruction, are continuously and ubiquitously intertwined. At times, The Thin Red Line seems pessimistic, suggesting that forces of degeneration and regeneration are not one power but two, as Witt puts it, forever battling each other, with humanity caught in the crossfire. The films first image is of a crocodile slithering into concealment, signaling the danger and violence that dwell in nature whether or not civilized intruders add to the fray with murderous mechanisms of their own. Yet in the end, Malick puts forth the optimistic belief (with an almost gnostic tinge) that the cosmos is essentially harmonious, in its spiritual wholeness if not its material particularities. Darkness and light, strife and love, a voice-over muses in the final scene, are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face?

Malicks answer is yes. The crocodile reappears only once, as a harmless captive of the soldiers, and while military violence is the narratives driving force, sunstruck images of grass, trees, magnificently colored birds, and idealized native Melanesians recur throughout the film as well. Neither darkness nor light can be said to win the day. Malick respects and reveres them both, regarding them less as categories of physics, biology, and art than as transcendent realities that abide within and beyond the world of appearances we inhabit. Malick agrees with Heidegger that humanitys fundamental mistake is to use intellect and technology as means of controlling the world rather than dwelling organically with its mysteries, the most daunting of which is death. With this in mind, he weaves conflicting impulses toward natureto harmonize with it and to

prevail over itinto the very fabric of The Thin Red Line. His great creative passionsnuances of light, subtleties of camera movement, rapport between word and pictureall reflect his conviction that cinematic reality is reality, and that film, treated with due reverence and expertise, is able to absorb not just patterns of luminosity but also the transcendent essences of people, places, and things.

Malicks devotion to cinematic sight and sound is equaled by his commitment to the aesthetics of language. The Thin Red Line is about words as much as its about anything; more precisely, its about the intimate interconnection between word and image, which Malick explores in truly audacious ways, especially in the scenes with voice-overs. The more Ive watched The Thin Red Line, the more unsure Ive become about how some of the voice-overs correspond with the people on the screen; so many characters have similar accents, speech

patterns, and tones of voice that even a key passage like the darkness and light soliloquy is impossible to pin with certainty to a particular speaker. This isnt because Malick wants to separate the characters from their wordsjust the opposite: he wants to underscore the fact that human beings are bathed in language at every moment, and that language may ultimately be the best, most lasting facet of human experience, able to glide and soar even when the bodies associated with it are dying and

decaying in killing fields below. Everyday language, wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein, another modern philosopher Malick takes to heart, is a part of the human organism and is no less complicated than it. Taking this unity as a given, Malick explores not only the social functions of spoken dialogue but also the meditative functions of unspoken inner speech, often heightened and expanded by music that privileges emotional depth over

linear, logical meaning. Malick accomplishes this most movingly when words,

music, and cinematography unfold in counterpoint, contrasting and converging in polyrhythmic waves. As the film approaches the two-hour mark, for instance, a relatively minor character named Private Dale (Arie Verveen) threatens a traumatized Japanese prisoner with brutal treatment. The captive, who doesnt understand a thing Dale is saying, speaks a few soft phrases in Japanese, and in the background, Hans Zimmers

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magisterial score quotes the interrogative trumpet line of The Unanswered Question, the 1906 tone poem that composer Charles Ives described as a cosmic landscape echoing with the unanswerable question of existence. Another superb example comes when Tall orders Captain Staros (Elias Koteas) to execute a frontal attack on the Japanese bunker and Staros refuses to obey, seeing the mission as suicidal. Their argument, conducted over portable field telephones, is filmed in a conventional back-and-forth pattern, with occasional cut-aways to other soldiers. Yet the sequence carries unconventional power, due partly to the performancesNoltes volcanic rage versus Koteass reasoning calmbut more to Malicks superb orchestration of audiovisual details: the contrasting vocal timbres, the progressively tightening close-ups, the sunlight striking one side of Talls face, the bent-backed rigidity of his finger on the handset, and above all the brooding current of low strings on the soundtrack, which transforms what might have been a merely dramatic scene into something close to the musical form called melodeclamation, fusing voices and instruments into a single expressive force. Exactly when Staros begins declaring his refusal, moreover, the music relaxes its tension and moves to a higher, brighter register, again enhancing the moments emotional strength. This is total cinema of the highest order.

Riveting scenes like these are reminders that The Thin Red Line is not a philosophical tract. Its an action picture, albeit an unorthodox one where the fighting doesnt start until halfway through and major stars (John Travolta, George Clooney) turn up in tiny roles, thanks to Malicks apparently intentional postproduction excising, not only to reduce the running time but also to undermine the hegemony of the Hollywood star system. The films philosophy comes mainly through the voice-overs, which spend more time asking questions than propounding answers. Malick even takes an amusing swipe at intellectual pretentiousness. On the battlefield, Tall boasts to another officer that he read Homer in Greek during his West Point years, but Malick has made it plain that Tall is a thoroughly shallow individual, pretty much clueless about anything more meaningful than nailing the promotion he has eaten untold buckets of shit to engineer. He can say that eos rhododaktylos means rosy-fingered dawn, but hes as philosophical as one of those buckets.

Of the many gratifications offered by The Thin Red Line, one of the most enjoyable is teasing out the amazingly wide range of referencesliterary, poetic, musical, cinematicthat Malick weaves through it. Some allusions are hard to miss, such as the skulls in a ruined Melanesian village that recall avatars of insanity in Francis Ford Coppolas very different war movie Apocalypse Now (1979). Others are oblique and ephemeral. Spending time in the brig for being AWOL with the locals yet again, for instance, Witt has a fleeting vision of a metal plate

dotted by circular holes with raised edges, which momentarily fills the screen. This object may or may not be part of his surroundingsits impossible to tell from the brief look we getbut the circular openings definitely echo the timeworn bases of age-old pillars seen in the opening shot of Kenji Mizoguchis classic Sansho the Bailiff (1954), another film juxtaposing savagery and redemption. If this connection seems like a stretch, recall that Malick loves Mizoguchis cinema so much that he wrote a stage version of Sansho the Bailiff, produced (without critical or commercial success) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1993. Tracing all the connotations of this visual echo would take half an essay in itself, and The Thin Red Line bristles with such evocations, not to mention its multifaceted dialogue with Malicks earlier films, its anticipation of his 2005 epic The New World, and its implied

commentary on the war and historical-epic genres. For sheer cultural richness, it has few rivals in modern film.

Before closing, I want to return to the often-quoted darkness and light soliloquy in the final scene. Oh my soul, it concludes, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining. Its a curious

passage that doesnt make literal sense. The soldier is asking to be in his soul, and for the soul to look out through his eyes, which is an impossible trick unless you do the kind of topological math that makes doughnuts and teacups identical; the statement that all things are shining seems equally amiss, considering the horrors weve been witnessing for almost three hours. But in this films context, the voice-over seems right and lucid. Purist, perfectionist, and obsessive planner though he is, Malick remains a radically intuitive artist, guided by personal visions as surely as The Thin Red Line is haunted and blessed by dematerialized voices of another kind. Neither words nor pictures can lay bare the mysteries of existence, he seems to say, but their combination in cinema can help us know the mysteries are there and sense the truths that underlie them.

Malicks intuitive approach explains why The Thin Red Line starts with unanswerable questionsWhats this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself?and ends with a verbal paradox, accompanied by free-flowing images that frame the narrative without dictating its meanings or restricting its ideas. The final image is the most enigmatic of all: a small clump of soil, or perhaps a broken coconut shell, in a pool of calm water, holding a stalk of new life that reaches toward the sky with its shoots and toward the earth in its shimmering reflection. Is it a symbol of all things shining? An intimation of immortality in a world inundated with death? A response to the films opening questions, saying that nature can harmonize with itself after all? Its impossible to decide, or even to know what all

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the choices are. And this is precisely what makes it one of the most intensely memorable film images Ive ever seen.

Writing about Malick several years ago, I quoted Wittgensteins observation that the world and life are one, which could be Malicks motto. More than any of his peers, he focuses less on the psychological self than on what Wittgenstein calls the philosophical self, defined as the metaphysical subject, the limit of the worldnot a part of it. Among the many achievements of his towering war film, none is more enthralling than its transformation of Joness messy, muddled soldiers into carriers of the metaphysical spark that Witt sees in Welsh (to Welshs own amazement) and that Malick sees in all

his characters, even those who look most godforsaken to ordinary eyes. The title of The Thin Red Line means a number of things. In one of the epigraphs of Joness novel, its a line of military heroes praised by Rudyard Kipling; in the other epigraph, its the porous border between the sane and the mad mentioned in an old midwestern saying. These meanings are pertinent to the film and book alike, but for Malick the phrase has deeper resonances. To him, the thin red line is ultimately the limit of the world. Film is the only medium that lets him glimpse it, and lets us glimpse it with him, as cinema enters our souls and we look out through its eyes, feeling Witts elusive spark within ourselves.

TWO MORE IN THE SPRING 2012 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXIV

Apr 17 Fernando Meirelles, City of God, 2003 Apr 24 Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight 2008

CONTACTS:

...email Diane Christian: engdc@buffalo.eduemail Bruce Jackson bjackson@buffalo.edu .for the series schedule, annotations, links, handouts (in color) and updates:

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subject line.

The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo

With support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News

Color versions of the Goldenrod Handouts are online at the BFS website.