ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

THE NOT SO THIN RED LINE

Copyright (c) 1999 by Michael Segers

-All rights reserved -

Last year, "Saving Private Ryan" attracted quite a lot of

attention because not since "Patton" in 1970 had there been such

a major film about World War II. Between these two films, howev-

er, American culture and American film had changed considerably,

nowhere more obviously than in attitudes toward war. Just as

Patton was the last of his kind, so too, in some ways, his filmed

biography may be the last of its kind.

Now, the filmmakers' camera is turned once again to the war

that we Boomers grew up getting bored with, and the result is

"The Thin Red Line," a stunning but frustrating failure that is

more interesting than many successes. Since it is director Ter-

rence Malick's first film since his 1978 wheat-opera, "Days of

Heaven," the new film is a link to the past itself. But the

previous film, at a mere 95 minutes, seems like a warm-up exer-

cise compared to the current film's 170 minutes.

I will leave for other souls the pressing question, do two

World War II films in one year ("Line" was technically released

last year, although on a few screens) make a trend, anymore than

two animated insect films create a new genre? The question for

me is, "What are we supposed to make of this film itself?"

Now, my approach to reviewing is to concentrate on things

that I expect to like. I am not going to waste my time with

something on the order of "Dirty Mamma's Bloodiest Car Crashes."

First, such a film has nothing to offer me. Second, those who

are inclined to like such things aren't going to put much stock

in a reviewer's opinions, while those who do value reviews prob-

ably are going to be staying away from such a thing anyway.

So, by choosing to write about "Line," I am choosing to like

it, to want to like it. It certainly comes with good creden-

tials--based on one of the great novels of World War II (by James

Jones), directed by a man who is at least a legend if not a

consistent creator of film, and featuring a gallery of outstand-

ing film actors. Unfortunately, not since "Around the World in

Eighty Days" have so many actors been squandered for so few

minutes. We can update, "Don't blink, or you'll miss Marlene

Dietrich" to "Don't blink, or you'll miss George Clooney," who

for half of his brief appearance (I can't really call it a role)

has his back to the camera.

I psyched myself up to go to one of the early performances

of its first day of general release, and I brought along with me

a friend, a wise old warrior (well, he would want me to emphasize

not quite so old), whom, as a veteran of the Vietnam war and of

many war movies, I could count on for technical comments about

the portrayal of war.

And, so... And, so... I want to like this film, but I feel

betrayed by it. It is the sort of film that gives those of us

who call movies films a bad name. Perhaps when I was half the

age I am now, I would have liked it twice as much. In  a

word, it is pretentious.

From its first languorous shot of a crocodile slowly sliding

from the shore into scummy water, it wants to be a New Age medi-

tation on beautiful things, somewhat like "Picnic at Hanging

Rock," but it is cursed in this ambition by horrific battle

scenes that make it look as if it is chasing Private Ryan. It

wants to be a war movie, but the battle does not begin until a

third of the way through, and although it is ostensibly about the

Battle of Guadalcanal, there is no historical context or feel for

the time or the place.

Inevitably, this film will be stacked up against "Saving

Private Ryan," but the differences between the two films are

enormous: "Ryan" is rooted in its time and place, right down to

the Edith Piaf songs, while "The Thin Red Line" is set in a

mythic, perhaps merely generic jungle, in a time of a rather

generic war. The not so old warrior accompanying me to the

showing of the film later remarked on his experience with the

elephant grass (so prominent in the film) that he dealt with, in

another war and another generation.

The film is too pretty, with its colorful birds, steamy

jungles, and even a gratuitous half minute of an owl. When a

director's film is pushing three hours, we have to ask, does the

film need that time, or is he using that time for some project

that may even be in conflict with the aims of the film? A half

hour of "National Geographic" style shots could have been pared

from this film. But these scenes fit well with the soundtrack,

heavy with the kind of music that a friend of mine calls "wallpa-

per for the ears," the monotonous, almost syrupy kind of music

that most dentists would be ashamed to play anymore.

Perhaps the most irritating aspect of this film is the

director's use of extended and rather pointless monologues, full

of the kind of high-blown rhetoric and philosophizing that I used

to be exposed to by high school students who fancied themselves

such great thinkers that the grade that I put on their composi-

tions was just one more burden they had to bear. At some point,

one of the characters starts to babble about some sort of world-

soul that we all share. That is the problem with these infernal

interior musings. It seems that all the men (there is only one

female character, the wife of one of the soldiers, who appears

only in his reveries) have the same thoughts. The soliloquies as

a rule develop neither the plot nor the characters. More wallpa-

per for the ears, I'm afraid.

As one who has tried his hand at writing dialogue (for

stage, not screen) I know how hard it is to create believable

dialogue that will show a character and further the plot, but

that is what dialogue is all about. Rather than face those

challenges, Malick has chosen to isolate his characters in their

own thoughts. Again, he seems to be pointing out what he is

doing by having one of his characters say that a man must make an

island for himself.

So far, I have spoken generically of the characters, the

men, and that is about as much as I can do. Names and faces

swirled in and out of the pictures. John Travolta showed up for

a few minutes near the beginning and George Clooney  nearthe

end. Sean Penn and Woody Harrelson are pretty much their typical

screen presences. Somebody gets killed, somebody risks his life.

Somebody refuses the orders of-- As the love-sick young soldier

says of his wife, "I can't tell you from me," and if we all share

that world-soul (a sort of spiritual world wide web), then why

bother? Why bother distinguishing a character, why bother having

two characters interact? A scene in which an American soldier

and his Japanese captive each speaks in his own language, which

the other does not at all understand, seems strangely symbolic of

the film as a whole.

The one exception is Nick Nolte. Whether playing a street

person (pardon my political incorrectness, a bum) in a Paul

Mazursky comedy ("Down and Out in Beverly Hills") or a president

in a snooty Merchant/Ivory wigs and knickers extravaganza

("Jefferson in Paris"), Nolte brings a sheer physical presence to

any role that makes anyone else unfortunate enough to be on

screen with him at best a supporting actor. Not handsome by any

conventional measure, he seems to create his own standard for

charisma and acts with every muscle.

Unfortunately, in the film in question, he flexes a few too

many muscles in a one-note, over-the-top performance in which he

not only chews the set but half of his lines as well. He is just

a little too crazy, and he is full of too many contradictions, at

least to be relegated to just one corner of this magnificent mess

of a film.

The true star of the film is the beautiful setting, a set-

ting as ironic as the title of Alan Paton's "Ah, But Your Land Is

Beautiful!" My military consultant and I waited until the audi-

ence for the next showing was milling into the auditorium, to try

to see where the film was shot--on location, it turns out. When

I commented on the beauty of the setting, my friend, with a cold

profundity that for me beats any of the lines in this film, said

"Young men die in beautiful places."

In the car, while cursing the traffic and discussing where

we could grab a sandwich, I was already trying to put my response

to the film into words. My military friend said that he pre-

ferred "Guadalcanal Diary" (1943), a film strikingly free of the

pretensions of "The Thin Red Line."

I was thinking of a scene somewhere in the last five or six

hours of the latter film, when the men are told that they will be

given a week off the line, and I wanted to cheer. A week off

this line!

I was trying to cram together the opposites that I see in

this film that will stay with me for a while, at least until I

can resolve its opposites--New Age film about war, war movie too

pretty for its own good--when my friend with one quick statement

earned the price of his ticket. "It's a three hour movie... that

should have finished up in two hours."

For me, this overstuffed, not so thin piece of film that

stretches its viewers' patience all too thin can have no better

response. The only thing bad about that is, I wasn't the one who

came up with it.

For more information, check www.foxmovies.com. You can

guess what you will find there. For more information on current

films, check www.hollywood.com.

So, till next time... I need your help. I would like to

come up with a list of videos that would be especially good for

Valentine's Day, and I would like to know how you reacted to "The

Thin Red Line." Let me know. Keep your feet dry (not so easy for

the characters in this film) and your mind full of noble thoughts.

And, if you are running short on noble thoughts, this film will be

glad to help you.