The Thin Red Line (1998, Terrence Malick) with Jared Frederick - Criterion Collection Spine #536

"I think of it as Saving Private Ryan for thinkers."

In this episode of Why This Film?, I'm joined by historian, author, and educator Jared Frederick to explore The Thin Red Line (1998), Terrence Malick's philosophical World War II epic and Criterion Collection Spine #536.

Released in 1998 after a 20-year hiatus from filmmaking, The Thin Red Line marked Malick's long-awaited return to cinema. Adapted from the 1962 novel by James Jones, the film follows soldiers of C Company as they arrive on Guadalcanal during the brutal Pacific Theater campaign of World War II, confronting both the physical violence of war and the deeper questions it raises about human nature, morality, and the natural world.

Unlike many traditional war films, The Thin Red Line moves beyond spectacle and patriotism. Through shifting perspectives, poetic voiceover, and sweeping cinematography, Malick turns the battlefield into something closer to a philosophical meditation.

Jared Frederick brings both historical expertise and a cinephile's perspective to the conversation. As a World War II historian and the co-creator of the YouTube channel Reel History, Jared examines where the film aligns with historical reality and how Malick pursues something reflective and artistic.

Together, we move through the film scene-by-scene and discuss:

• The Battle of Guadalcanal and the real history behind the events depicted in the film
• Why The Thin Red Line feels different from other WWII films like Saving Private Ryan
• Terrence Malick's use of nature, voiceover, and shifting perspectives
• The film's ensemble cast, including Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Jim Caviezel, Adrien Brody, and George Clooney
• The moral ambiguity of war and the film's empathy for both American and Japanese soldiers
• Why The Thin Red Line remains one of the most philosophical and visually ambitious war films ever made

You can find more from Jared Frederick below:

Reel History on YouTube

Jared Frederick

Hollywood ManeStays - Not a pin, not a clip. Just Better.

Transcript

Jared 0:26

I think of it as saving private rhyme for thinkers.

Ron 0:30

Hello everybody, my name is Ron and welcome to Why This Film, a podcast where we explore the artistry, cultural impact, and legacy of movies in the Criterion Collection. Each episode I sit down with experts in Cinophiles to ask, why was this film chosen for the collection and why does it still matter today? In this episode, we're heading to the tall grass of the Thin Red Line. Criterion Spy number 536, the 1998 World War II epic from director Terrence Malik. Art War film, philosophical meditation and nature poem, The Thin Red Line marked Malik's long-awaited return to filmmaking after a 20-year absence. Adapted from the 1962 novel by James Jones, the film follows Soldiers and Sea Company as they arrive on Guadalcanal during one of the Pacific Theater's most brutal campaigns. Join us as we move through the battle for Guadalcanal scene by scene, exploring Malik's vision of war, nature, and the boundary between violence and humanity. My guest today is Jared Frederick, a historian, author, and educator whose work focuses on bringing American history to life through scholarship, storytelling, and public history. Jared is the author or co-author of several books on World War II history, including Dispatches on D-Day, A People's History of the Normandy Invasion, Hang Tough, The World War II Letters and Artifacts of Major Dick Winners, and Fierce Valor, the true story of Ronald Spears and his band of brothers. Beyond his writing, Jared is also the co-creator of the YouTube channel Real History, that's R-E-E-L Real, where he explores how films portray the past and where cinema and historical reality meet. The channel has become a thoughtful space for discussing how cinema shapes our understanding of the past. Jared's work often sits at the intersection of history and storytelling, which makes him the perfect guest to help us unpack a film like The Thin Red Line, a movie that approaches World War II not just as history, but as philosophy. And with that, here's my conversation with Jared Frederick. I filtered criterion and said, here are the war films that maybe you might be interested in. You responded saying you were interested in discussing the Thin Red Line. What is your connection to that film?

Jared 2:28

I first owned The Thin Red Line on a VHS tape. And I think it was one of the first rated R movies that I ever owned. And I always found a caveat with my parents when it came to watching cinema like that because uh I was always able to coerce them into thinking it's a historical film, there's educational value to it, that is why you should let me watch it. And the important thing to keep in mind about this movie is that it comes out the same year as one of the penultimate war movies of all time, and that is Saving Private Ryan. And so inevitably it is going to be compared to Saving Private Ryan. And when people do that, they find a vastly different film from perhaps what they were initially expecting. And when I first saw this film going into sixth grade, probably, I found parts of it very tedious, very dull in some circumstances. But it is a film that has profoundly grown on me as I have matured, both in my understandings as a military historian and also in my appreciations of the artistry of cinema. And so I really enjoyed this film as middle schooler. I could appreciate many of its technical merits at the time. But I rank it as one of my favorite war films all of these years later.

Ron 3:55

I'm gonna have some things to get into when we're starting to compare this with Saving Private Ryan. It's almost unfortunate that this film came out the same year because it's so easy just to say, well, these are regarding the same war. They're two incredibly respected directors. This is big budget. Let's compare the two. But they're not at all similar, in my opinion. And we'll and I have a lot to get into there. This is based off of an autobiographical account by James Jones. I don't know if you have the criterion. I don't know if you're a physical media collector or not.

Jared 4:26

Absolutely. I'll die on that hill. Maybe that's a poor metaphor to use for this movie. I don't know.

Ron 4:31

Thank you for our first clip that I'll I can throw out there. So uh I do own the criterion release of the film, not sure if you do. I do too. There's an excellent article in here by James Jones, where he actually is talking about his experience of watching films about different conflicts and different wars, and how he was in a theater and laughing maniacally seeing how some things are depicted. What was his role at Guadalcanal when he was there?

Jared 4:59

This is one of several autobiographical writings that Jones embarks upon, and uh more than one of them is adapted into film. Another really acclaimed one is From Here to Eternity, which looks at the infantrymen of the 25th Infantry Division and the buildup to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and specifically in their domain, uh the simultaneous attacks on the Schofield Army barracks right outside of Honolulu. And so it's interesting to think of these characters, both from that black and white classic made in the 1950s and this film made in 1998. Those are soldiers who are part of the same universe. They belong to the same unit and they're tied together by this commonality in the experiences of James Jones. And so there's a lot of Jones to be found in this book. And when we get into some of the finer details of the battles and where art meets history, he participated in several actions at a place called Guadalcanal. And as was the case with many of these battles during the Second World War, it's not merely a battle that's taking place around one hill or on one field or one particular incident. Oftentimes there are dozens of battles taking place within a larger battle. And the fight on Guadalcanal is one of the longest and most harrowing that the United States military has ever confronted.

Ron 6:37

So where are we at this at this period of time in the war? Are we how far away are we from the attack on Pearl Harbor to how did we get here?

Jared 6:48

Yeah, so a little bit of background on Guadalcanal itself. Guadalcanal is located within the Solomon Islands, and the Solomons were going to be contested from 1942 until the end of the war in 1945. And so if we're thinking very big strategic picture here, um, the Solomons are really the front door into the heart of the Pacific, at least the Japanese-occupied portion of it. Uh, and the Solomons are going to be a staging area for the military that will be pressing into the Central Pacific that will be commanded by Chester Nimitz, uh, as well as military members uh who are heading into the Southern Pacific, uh, headed by General Douglas MacArthur. Um, and so uh they're both in a circuitous way pushing their way toward mainland Japan through a strategy that popularly becomes known as island hopping. And Guadalcanal will be among the first of those said islands that are going to be hopped as the Allies leapfrog their way toward mainland Japan. And really the common denominator with almost all of these battles, whether they be Guadalcanal or Iwo Jima, is the presence of a Japanese airfield. If there's a substantial Japanese airfield on an island anywhere within those chains and beyond, there's going to be a battle there because the Allies realize that the closer they get to Japan, the more airfields they will need in order to incessantly bomb it into submission. So uh the US Marines uh first landed on Guadalcanal in August of 1942, here eight months after the Pearl Harbor attack. The characters who are in uh the thin red line uh start to arrive and become engaged in combat in December of 1942 and going into January of 1943. Um, so that's a very big picture perspective of where our characters find themselves.

Ron 9:04

So it in Guadalcanal, I noticed now obviously I I've never been to Solomon Islands. The talk to me a little about the environment. It felt like the environment, the grass, the trees, the water, every part of it felt like a character all its own. Do you get that same sense?

Jared 9:22

Very much so, and I think that's very much reflected in the dialogue as well. Uh, when we think of Nick Nolte's character. That guy hates water, I believe. He hates water, doesn't he? Yeah. I think one of the really great bits of dialogue in the film is where he is speaking to Captain Star Oz, and he says, Look at that jungle. Look at all the vines and how they twist around and choke everything. And he uses that as a metaphor to then go on and say, Nature is cruel, Star O'S. Uh, and so he's not only talking about the jungle itself, but he's talking about the nature of humanity as well, which is why the jungle and mother nature and fauna and wildlife play an important assistant role in this film because uh it's all very allegorical from the perspective of Terrence Malik.

Ron 10:19

Even the the narrative structure, there's a lot of inserts of nature itself. There's a lot of voiceover, there's shifting points of view. I don't even know who is speaking the voiceover at times, unless I had the subtitles on in one of my watches, because I wanted to know who is this supposed to be that's speaking. Saving Private Rhyme, which comes out as we established earlier this year in '98, that film felt patriotic in a way. This film feels way more outside of that and more philosophical.

Jared 10:51

Very much so. And I I've joked with friends because World War II historians and military history buffs have very strong opinions on this movie. And there doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground. You either love it as a philosophical piece of art or you look at it as some sort of highfalutin artistic form that is a waste of time and dreadfully boring.

Ron 11:17

I imagine you are in the former of that.

Jared 11:19

Yeah, I I I think of it as saving private Ryan for thinkers. Okay.

Ron 11:25

I I can get I can get behind that. On a scale of like cartoonish to baked solely in reality, where are we landing with the thin red line? This is like one of your YouTube videos. We're going to shrink it down into a very, very tight answer.

Jared 11:39

As far as historical authenticity goes, I would give it a seven or an eight. And I would probably put saving private Ryan in a simpler category, although for different reasons. I think the thin red line, perhaps its momentum is a little bit imbalanced in comparison to Saving Private Ryan and its ability to keep your attention in regard to staging action. Saving Private Ryan, of course, has the very dramatic and at the time that it was released, traumatic opening in its depiction of Omaha Beach. Yet there is a very real brutality in the thid red line that I think far too many people dismiss. And I think a lot of it has to do with just the haunting nature of the environment itself. Unlike what we see in Normandy, there's a real brutality and a sense of mystery with the landscape in which these protagonists find themselves. And nature itself is an enemy in this context.

Ron 12:45

I think they shot over a million feet of footage for this film. It took a year and a half to cut. I think there were three editors that are working on the film. I cannot imagine that task of taking a million feet of footage and cutting that together. No wonder it's three hours. The original cut was five hours long. So when that comes out, we can meet halfway. We can watch the five-hour cut together. Sure, sure.

Jared 13:07

There were several notable actors cut out of that as well. And there's a lot of people who who read for it, people who appeared in it, and were ultimately cut entirely. I mean, this is even beyond Adrian Brody being infamously slighted.

unknown 13:22

Yeah.

Ron 13:23

Can you talk about that a little bit? What happened, what happened to him? Because I think in the book, his character, we were seeing the story through his character's eyes. Fife, I believe his name is.

Jared 13:30

Indeed. So Adrian Brody thought this is my big break. I'm the main character. And then he saw the finished version at the premiere, and he has about three lines.

Ron 13:41

You know, I can laugh about it now. He has two best actor awards. We can laugh at it now. Things turned out all right for him. Yeah, I think it's safe. So the cast is in is insane as it is. Jim Cavizel, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Ben Chaplin, John Cusack, John C. Riley, Woody Harrelson, Nick Stahl, Thomas Jane, Kirk Acevedo, Tim Blake Nelson, Adrian Brody, George Clooney, Jaron Leto, John Travolta, Adrian Brody, which I might have said twice, actually. Yeah, I did say it twice. Elias Cateus and Dash Myhawk. Those are who didn't, that's who didn't get cut that of names that I recognized. It's insane. I think Billy Bob Thornton did almost two hours of voiceover work that they did not use at all. Right. And I think their big part of that, or at least my he's actually in one of the they do have deleted scenes here in the Criterion release, and there is a small scene with with Mickey Rourke, if anyone's curious and wants to see the two-minute Mickey Rourke clip. I think a big part of that may have been that our director was did not make any movies for 20 years.

Jared 14:42

Right, since Days of Heaven.

Ron 14:43

Right. He's he was very well respected. If you watch any of the actor interviews in the supplements in this release, they speak of Terry. They call him Terry. He was so highly respected, if you listen to them talk, they would have done anything to be in this film. Like Kirk Ocevedo even said if they wanted me just to carry ammo behind Nick Nolte, I would have done it. So people really wanted to be a part of Terrence Malik's return to filmmaking.

Jared 15:09

Indeed. Tom Sizemore was offered a role as well, but he was offered a role in both this and Saving Private Ryan.

Ron 15:16

Do you know the deal that he had to make with Spielberg and Saving Private Ryan?

Jared 15:20

Yeah, he had to do drug tests every day.

Ron 15:23

Yeah, or they were they were going to cut him and replace him. So speaking of all of these actors, I have heard this before in other films like Saving Private Ryan, where the actors go through a boot camp together. What do you think this does for them as actors to go through boot camp together?

Jared 15:38

Yeah, and I've had the opportunity to speak with some of these actors who have gone through these boot camps, particularly some of the actors who were in the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, which is riding on the coattails of all these World War II movies that come out in the late 1990s. And so uh the boot camp for Saving Private Ryan was overseen by a technical advisor crew headed by retired Marine Corps captain slash actor slash producer, a guy by the name of Dale Dye. And I I believe his team also was the technical advisors for the Thin Red Line. So Saving Private Ryan and the Thin Red Line were being filmed at the same moment, a world apart. And so it's some really interesting perspective that I was able to gain from some of these individuals. And I've spoken with Dale Dye himself as well, because even though it's the same war, like you mentioned at the outset, the nature of that war is entirely different. And indeed, the nature of the films are entirely different as well. But as to the boot camps, it really builds a sense of camaraderie. Certainly isn't as rigorous as the three months that you you might spend in the real thing. But it's meant to break the ice, it's meant to, in many ways, strip the egos from these actors who often have a chip on their shoulder. Uh, and it's meant to distill it all down into the essence of teamwork.

Ron 17:09

Because of how many actors we have here and the all the different characters, are the character names accurate to soldiers that were active at Guadalquinal, to the best of your knowledge?

Jared 17:22

All the characters in the book are composite characters, and a lot of those names carry over uh into the film. And there are some traceable uh characters that you can correlate with uh real life individuals. Uh I I think probably the best known one is John Cusack's character, his whose name is Captain Gaff, if memory serves correctly. And he uh he is based on a real life captain from the 25th Infantry Division, whose name was Charles W. Davis, who undertook an action very much like what we see depicted at the top of the ridgeline as John Cusack's character is rallying the troops after Star Wars has had somewhat of his breakdown. And so uh that took place at a location known as Mount Austin, and we can talk about some of the specifics of that in a little bit. But there are correlations that we can find between these composite characters and real life individuals. And uh, it wasn't uncommon for World War II veterans who were writing either novels or memoirs to change the names, even in pieces of nonfiction, because sometimes they didn't write flattering things about their comrades or their commanders, and they were either trying to save embarrassment or avoid a lawsuit for uh for slander. So um not uncommon to have the names changed.

Ron 19:04

Well, I w I want to jump into the movie because I'm having a hard time not stepping on the points of the movie at this point. Let's do it. But thank you, thank you for getting into that space of here's where we are and setting the stage. Because we open with Private Wit, played by Jim Cavizel, who wasn't supposed to be our main character, by the way, supposed to be Adrian Burdy's fight. And Jim Cavezel's character, Private Wit, and another soldier are living peacefully on this island. If you're going in blind, which I had not seen this movie before, by the way. So I was kind of going in like, I know what it's about, let's just go into it. And what we get is we get a depiction of a man living in peace. Now we come to find out later that the opposite is coming very soon. I think it's our first exposure to it is possible for man and nature to coexist. Am I going down the right path for you?

Jared 19:54

I think that's a fair interpretation.

Ron 19:56

And unfortunately, it's about to all end for them when they see an American ship pass. So we're not sure what's going on at this point. But we find that Private Wit and this other character were AWOL, and we get Wit versus Welsh round one. That's for Sergeant Edward Welsh, played by Sean Penn. And immediately we can see the duality of these two characters, their worldview being almost opposites. What do you make of that? We're gonna see a lot of these duality between characters throughout the whole film, and I think this is our first ex exposure to that. Do you feel that same duality between Penn and I mean, they're both they both have common goals, but their worldviews are so vastly different.

Jared 20:40

Yes, and I've always looked at them through more of a historical lens, perhaps unsurprisingly. And I I viewed wit as America representative of the isolationist mindset. That we're going to uh ignore all of the misery in the world, we are going to be an isolated nation, we're gonna turn all of that off, and we're gonna try to make good with what we have. I mean, meanwhile, Sergeant Welsh is the harsh realist who recognizes the fact that people need to step up and get in line to collectively head into the storm that is brewing on the horizon. So whether or not that was the intent of Terrence Malik, I know not. But I tended always to look at that dynamic, at least initially, through the historical rather than cinematic lens.

Ron 21:37

Yeah, they have two, and I'm and thank you for that because I'm always in that cinematic lens. They do have two more conversations throughout the film. And this one, Welsh says In this world, a man himself is nothing.

Speaker 4 21:57

And there ain't no world for this. You're on there, Top.

Ron 22:09

I've seen another world. And I I think Witt is saying that because he's lived that lifestyle. We saw him in the beginning living amongst the natives of the Solomon Islands. I presume that he's on the Solomon Islands at that point, but he's living amongst these people. And so that's when he says, You're wrong there, Top. I've seen another world. But Sergeant Welsh says that he is. going to send him to be a stretcher bearer. Is this a demotion for him, or is this a more like just as dangerous?

Jared 22:38

It is just as dangerous. And in some cases it can be more dangerous because stretcher bearers would in some instances be going into combat without weapons or at least not have ready access to their weapons because they would be carrying a wounded individual. But how I perceive that is that okay we're going to make use of you, private wit, but I'm not going to give you the momentous responsibility of wielding a rifle on the front line yet until I regain your trust or until there's some trust that's uh re-established here. So it's where he can sidestep a little bit of responsibility for wit yet try to get him back on the straight path.

Ron 23:22

Uh all of a sudden we're we're with Charlie Company and we're on a ship and I'm and I'm sorry if I say things that are just like it things have real names. Like it's not just a ship. It's a fill in the blank because I just don't know. So you have to excuse my ignorance. I'm just a guy that likes movies. It's all good. And we get an introduction to the task at hand which you laid out I actually appreciated them literally laying out the map in the film and pointing to here's where we are. Here's why this is important. Then we get down to where the men are staying there's a bunch of bunks and it is like a who's who of recognizable faces. It's incredible. We get a brief introduction to everybody and having that number of recognizable faces in such a short period of time I was disoriented. So I was waiting is John Travolta's here? Nick Nolte? And then there's all these other characters is this meant to show that this is just me kind of interpreting as I'm watching is it meant to show that each soldier is just another cog in the machine there there's no life more valuable than the next yeah I think so and it also goes back to the fact that every established and or up and coming actor wanted to be in this movie because they they realized that it was going to be an artistic tour de force.

Jared 24:35

But yeah we can go with that interpretation too that the fame of the cast is representative of the anonymity of the average soldier in the ranks.

Ron 24:44

I just want to point out that we just had a we just had our own juxtaposition there because I pointed something out from a lens of just another cog in the war machine and then you took the cinematic lens. So I'm calling you out I do it on real history all the time. But you're right there are there actually are unrecognizable faces here too which will become recognizable later down the line. But I I found that that had a way to humanize all of these people there are some that are afraid there are some that are excited there are some that are anxious there are some that are just sleeping there are some that are walking around and they're all reacting to this potential violence in different ways and it finds a way to to humanize these people.

Jared 25:25

And I I do think that there is some sound historical logic to that because you see the same thing in works as far back as the red badge of courage. How do individuals prepare for the inevitability of violent battle if you are in the ranks and I've read many accounts of soldiers and sailors on ships bound toward a contested shore. And some of them play cards they play dice they play craps they pray they walk the deck they exercise they try to keep their minds occupied they try to stay motivated others freeze up they have butterflies early on it's every spectrum of human emotion and it's a universal trait of people in war that's as old as war itself.

Ron 26:14

And I appreciate that they put that in there because you're going to continue to see it throughout the film in the different offensive maneuvers that the that the troops will take. And the first is we have Charlie Company they land on the beach and they find no opposition at first and they take the beach unopposed and they was scouted ahead and no enemy was found. They said it looks like it was quote deserted for at least a week so talk to me a little bit about this beach landing because what an incredibly stark contrast to that film that we've talked about already from earlier this year where Savior Ryan's depiction of Omaha beach. Now fast forward to the thin red line here a few months later and you see very familiar looking transports to get the soldiers to the beach and we have a completely different result.

Jared 27:02

Yes, absolutely and anytime that you see those landing craft often referred to as Higgins boats going toward the shore it creates that sense of foreboding and agitation the sensation that something horrible is going to happen here.

Ron 27:38

Nick Nolte's character Colonel Tall says the Marines have done their job see now you're putting the pieces together for me. The Marines have done their jobs.

Jared 27:46

It's our turn Yeah yeah and for a battle that has been going on for four months the landscape seems pretty sterile. There's not many ships there's not many planes there's no wrecked ships out in the ocean there's not big plumes of smoke arising from the landscape. It really gives you a false sense of serenity perhaps because they they would have seen supplies and cargo and the the beach would have been abuzz with vessels and every sort of machinery imaginable. So I I I think that that was a purposeful decision on the part of the filmmakers to highlight that idea of man and nature and that armed soldiers are going in here and they will ultimately be spoiling this tropical paradise as a result of their entry into the scene where in actuality it had been already going through the ringer for four months by that point.

Ron 28:42

So they they were coming in and the Marines were leaving is that is that where we're at? There are many, many layers to this onion but for uh for the sake of brevity I will say yes. Appreciate that this would be I'm sorry this would be really hard for me if I was in your shoes because I'd be like come on. It's an eerily quiet place in the film itself. It's been an I mean we're about 40 minutes into the film and it's it's I felt it to be eerily quiet. I think because of what I've been trained to expect from films that are going to depict war. And so again the the multitude of recognizable faces the eerie quietness I'm I'm disoriented at this point. So when they are on patrol it looks like they're moving forward inland and they come across these two dismembered soldiers your thought is oh shit like that's a harbinger of of what's coming and now as a viewer I'm back to bracing myself for bad things are about to happen to these people that somehow Malik and these editors have got me to actually give a shit about even though I haven't really heard any of them say more than a few lines. I think that's incredible. I think that's just good filmmaking in general.

Jared 29:51

Absolutely for soldiers coming across scenes like that that wouldn't have been uncommon because uh the Japanese abided by a warrior mindset that's often characterizes the Bushido code. And you see this play out in several moments in the film. And the the underlying notion of the Bushido code is death before dishonor and surrendering or offering refuge or comfort to prisoners of war, that doesn't qualify within the confines and characteristics of the Bushido code. And so if there are some American soldiers who are skirmishers, they're on patrol they're out ahead of the main body of the men behind them, they can be jumped pretty easily and then to send a psychological message the Japanese would not only torture and kill them but then often dismember their bodies so their comrades would find them and to create that sense of foreboding that you mentioned. And so that was a a very real life trait. It's important to note this too is also highlighted in the film to a certain extent the the Americans weren't angels in this regard because these were acts that were in turn reciprocated. And in the novel Jones writes about his comrades his fictionalized comrades taking up the corpse of a Japanese soldier and defiling it. So it's it really the environment very much strips these people of their humanity.

Ron 31:23

We're going to talk about good versus evil here very soon. We are seeing flashbacks speaking of humanizing these characters we get flashbacks just look inside of Jack's memory played by Ben Chaplin and he's the one that we see the majority of the flashbacks there's one of Wit and his mother at the beginning of the film and I feel as though the rest of them are Jack having memories of his wife as a way to I assume that's just showing us what's keeping this particular soldier going at this point. And there's a small meeting of the minds here we have Colonel Tall, Captain Staros, and Welsh is there as well and they're explaining that the only way to attack a hill is to go straight up it. Is this he says now we're not getting it as the audience yet but where is this specifically is this a specific hill on the Solomon Islands that you would know about but the layman such as I and many others maybe would not know.

Jared 32:20

Yeah and you can interpret this as either a strength or a weakness of the film. There's a sense of vagueness though to a lot of what we see on the screen the men don't have a unit patch on it could be any unit from anywhere. The specifics of the terrain are never really mentioned. Oftentimes these pieces of topography would have nicknames if they didn't have formal names on a map sometimes they would just be denoted by their height hill 210 so on so forth.

Ron 32:52

That one is mentioned Star O's mentions it here soon probably within a half hour of where we are here now.

Jared 32:58

Yeah but the the really famous combat scenes in this movie with these magnificent crane shots that just sort of sweep over the landscape it looks like drone photography but it they didn't have that sort of technology readily available yet. That's really a representation of the battle of Mount Austin and its surrounding environs. That was combat that began in mid-December of 1942 and continued into late January of 1943. And I I think one of the great historical strengths of the film in this regard is that that hill which uh was actually located in Australia that's where they filmed it they did a really good job of finding a landscape that resembled Mount Austin. These sweeping ravines tall grass the Japanese can watch the advance of the Americans quite readily incredible disadvantage to be where the Americans are.

Ron 34:02

It seems like for about an hour and a half the Americans are running up hill. That's what it feels like.

Jared 34:07

Yeah and it's it's stunning and I've had I myself have never been to Guadalcanal not yet but I've had a number of friends and colleagues who have gone there who have trudged up that hill themselves and for all my friends who have been to Guadalcanal they often give praise to this film because it matches what they saw or what they envisioned on the screen.

Ron 34:31

I imagine the actors had to be in great shape because I read that Terence Malik would shoot at three different times of day at the same scene so he and the editors could edit the film any way they wanted. I'm reading that thinking oh my God these guys had to run up and down these hills how many how many times full of gear. I don't know how heavy those weapons were I imagine as soldiers they were quite heavy as actors I'm sure they lightened the load on them a little bit.

Jared 34:56

And on on top of that too I I recall an interview with Dash Mihoque talking about all this and apparently there wasn't a lot of spare wardrobe and so they had to you know wear the same tank tops every day. That's disgusting. I I remember him specifically saying that you know it this t-shirt smelled like rancid meat after a week and every day they had to go and put this you know filthy grimy apparel on I mean so to their credit and it's reflected in their portrayals they they had they experienced a touch of that misery of that that grime that filth of the physical and mental endurance. No one's shooting at them but they by and large had to combat everything else.

Ron 35:42

This is the first mention of the importance of water staros Captain Saros brings it up played by Elias Cateus he's saying that his men are passing out and we need water here. And Colonel Tall says only time you worry about a soldier is when he stops bitching. And this representation of water we're going to see throughout the film after a battle Wit is shown pouring water over a wounded soldier to comfort him. Captain Gaff played by John Cusack he brings up water again. The film opens with Wit swimming in water he's on canoe looking apparatus and he's he's rowing on water. Spoiler alert when Wit dies they show him again swimming in water. But Colonel Tall almost acts as it's funny to have Americans in World War II versus an enemy but when I watch this film I'm almost viewing Colonel Tall as the antagonist at times because he's denying water which you need for life. We're going to get pretty philosophical here soon Jared but this representation of water can you go down that route with me a little bit?

Jared 36:41

Yeah absolutely I I mean I think you hit the nail on the head thinking of it from a symbolic standpoint. I also think of it as a logistical standpoint that water can be a point of salvation. It can also be an impediment it's an impediment to your movement. It can turn the jungle paths into an absolute quagmire where you sink in your up to your knees in mud. So uh it it can be salvation it can also be a detriment to your success on the battlefield as well.

Ron 37:11

They they start this frontal assault they use artillery on the position to make it look like the enemy is quote catching hell. Colonel Tall feels that even though this artillery is not going to reach the enemy it'll be a big boost to the morale of the men that they're he's going to send sprinting straight up a hill into enemy machine gun fire. There are two men scouting ahead and this is where the violence starts and it really caught me off guard. When you start the criterion release this is the first time I've ever seen this in any movie ever that I've watched thousands is before you hit play says quote director Terrence Malik recommends that the thin red line be played loud. Yeah. And I thought cool all right I have the surround sound and the all the great stuff that makes you feel like you're in theater. Oh my gosh. The music is beautiful but these first shots that ring out for these two soldiers that are shot down as they're asked to scout ahead by a Jared Leto's character who he looks like he's 14 years old in this movie. Yeah. And the shots look like they come out of nothing. You can see the muzzle flash but they look like they just come out of the grass out of nowhere. Is this what they were dealing with?

Jared 38:20

Oh absolutely absolutely you and this was true often in Europe as well you could rarely see the enemy be shooting at you from a hundred yards or more away in some and they have tactically tactical disadvantage because they are at a lower elevation.

Ron 38:39

Absolutely so it's like a double whammy of a nightmare.

Jared 38:42

Yeah absolutely so they couldn't outflank them as they say in the film this wasn't this wasn't an option for them and in the film the great obstacle is the jungle and to navigate through the jungle and try to find a path and locate a means to outflank the enemy it takes time it takes resources. What sorts of additional perils might await you in that thick vegetation that might be impassable and when you're on the field of battle time is always of the essence and so the great question is will more men die in the time wasted trying to outflank the enemy or is it a better option just to try to overwhelm them by force push up this hill as fast as we can these were the really precarious command decisions that were being made on an organic level day in and day out on places like Guadalcanal because Tall calls Star O'S and he's praising him meanwhile we're seeing what looks to be mass mass casualties on the American side and Star Oost is being praised.

Ron 39:49

So that that praising turns pretty quickly to orders after Star O'Shares they haven't captured anything. It made me think back to the conversation that Colonel Tall had with and forgive me I don't I do not know John Travolta's character in this film his name he says to Colonel Tall you know everybody's watching everyone's always watching as in like you better get this done this is so important to the overall strategy that we have in the war. This is where a second duality of characters comes into my mind. You have Staros and Tall. Tall is willing to sacrifice men whereas Staros is very hesitant to send these men. He he thinks it's a suicide mission. Was it a suicide mission to be sending these men up there like that? Because when Tall comes in later it's kind of quieted down somehow.

Jared 41:02

Yeah. I think it's almost an impossible question for for me to answer because so much of it has to do with luck, with timing, the shifting nature and circumstances of the battlefield when some people decide to take the advantage they prevail they benefit they're lauded as heroes. When other people decide to take the advantage it backfires and they become outcasts and scapegoats for their failure. So so much of this is a roll of the dice and I think that dichotomy plays out very well in the interactions that Star Oz and Tall have with each other.

Ron 41:43

In this same attack Keck who is played by Woody Harrelson he has an unfortunate end instead of pulling the grenade he pulls the pin to the grenade by accident and he blows himself up. And Wit is looking into his eyes and it's I think it might have been a callback to when he had a voiceover at the beginning he talked about his mother dying and he said I wondered what it'd be like when I died what it'd be like to know this breath now was the last one you was ever going to draw. Every 10 minutes you're getting these philosophical questions where I almost have to pause and contemplate this is the first of two times that Wit looks into someone's eyes as they pass on. It's quite sad. And this is where Welsh runs out to Kirk Acevedo's character and gives him the morphine and and he runs back and he comments the whole thing's about property. What did he mean by that?

Jared 42:32

Boy you can you can dissect that in a multitude of ways. When you think about the war you can ponder the concept of island hopping you can think about terrain in a proprietary sense. But on top of that too if we really want to get to a philosophical perspective what is really the only thing that we actually own that's our bodies our lives and so you can look at that in a rather one-dimensional way that concept of property we can think of it as territorial rights the broader strategy of the war or you can get to a more fundamental aspect of it and think of property as individual human life that is being lost. So there's my two ways of how we can crumble that cookie.

Ron 43:20

It's like a philosophical way of saying I'm done with this this is bullshit. Like I've had I've I've I've seen enough already at this point. Tall shows up he says I'm coming down there. This is after he ordered all of Star O's men to attack straight up the hill. Staros wants to flank and he's denied and still ordered to attack with every man he has and Star O'S refuses again.

Speaker 5 43:41

What the hell's matter with you Star Off? Those men should be reinforced immediately now what the hell are they doing? I can see them through my glasses they're just lying there behind that leg. They should be up and up bringing off those machine guns over the I don't think you understand what's going on down here sir.

Speaker 3 43:57

We've had uh heavy casualties we had a man got shot out on the slope siren upstead now what about those reinforcements over two squads two uh first two night two squad you get in everybody everybody

Speaker 5 44:32

And you move him to the front to the red. And you get the second platoon. You move him over to the hill. Go straight up to the guy. You can't get it.

Speaker 3 44:49

I don't think that you fully understand what is going on. My company alone cannot take that position, sir. The jobs are too well ducked in. It's got too much firepower. There's a bunker up there. We can't see it. It's chewing my men to pieces. I formally request to be given permission for patrol reconnaissance around to the right of Hillview 10 through the jungle. I believe the entire position, sir, can be outflanked with a maneuver there in force. No! God damn it, I tell you no!

Speaker 5 45:21

There'll be no flanking move!

Ron 45:22

I will say when Nick Nolte's character, Colonel Tall, does arrive and he's standing there and an explosion goes off and he doesn't flint, that's pretty badass, actually.

Jared 45:30

I was wondering how they did that, because how do you not flinch at all? And I'll just interject something here about Nick Nolte, the exchange that he has with Star O'S over the sound power, their field telephones. I think it's one of the finest acted scenes in the movie because it genuinely looks like Nick Nolte's ready to pop a vein. He does in those scenes. It is so palpable in those scenes. I mean, you could make the argument. Unfortunately, this is one of like Nick Nolte's final hurrahs as kind of a leading man actor before some of his uh life decisions and other things kind of hindered that a few years down the road. Man, that guy, that guy could act.

Ron 46:27

So here's the funny thing about that. There were there were seven Oscar nominations for this film, zero wins. It was nominated for best picture, director, adapted screenplay. I think it had a different name at the time. Cinematography, sound, editing, and score. And that same year, Nick Nolte was nominated for Best Actor, but in a different film. It's in a film called Affliction, which I've never seen. Boy, I forgot about that one. Yeah. I've never seen it. In fact, I had to just look it up because I knew I saw when I was looking at I'm like, this had to win some sort of cinematography. But as I was researching that, I did come across like, oh, Nick Nolte's great in this. Wonder if he got any type of praise outside of at least from the academy. I don't know if he won anything outside of that. But of the seven Oscar Noms, I don't know. I felt like editing. I don't know. I I love kind of sometimes looking back at old years and having a revisionist eye on some of these awards. Oh yeah. That's always fun. But yeah, I agree. Nolte is if there was any acting awards for this film, I think you and I might be on the same page here that Nolti would probably get the nod.

Jared 47:24

Yeah, best supporting actor. Yeah.

Ron 47:27

And when he gets up there, the situation's changed. It's uh it's funny, it changed, but then a bot uh, you know, there's an explosion that goes off right behind him by about 50, 50 feet away 50 feet away, and it's still quieter and seems safer. And the actor Ben Chaplin, who plays a character named Jack, he uh scouts ahead and they find five machine guns and they're they're dug in on yet another hill. Colonel Tall asks for volunteers to go and take them out and clear a path. This feels like an action film in this sequence. I need good men to go up and complete this mission. And holy cow, is this incredibly cinematic and tense? And these seven men volunteer. And before that mission takes place, Tall and Star O'S have a conversation. And Tall asks the question how many men is this mission worth? It's a very uncomfortable question.

Speaker 5 48:19

I don't know if you realize the importance of this operation, Star O. Once our position is secured, we can move the bombers. That means air power for a thousand miles in every direction. Lives will be lost in your company, Captain. If you don't have the stomach for it, now is the time to let me know.

Ron 49:20

Your mind goes to wow, this is the way he's thinking. How many men am I willing to sacrifice to complete this mission? It's a terrible way to think about any of this, really.

Jared 49:28

It circles back to the concept of property. Yeah. But yeah, if I may, with John Cusack's character, linking him back to Captain Davis, who was associated with uh this action. Um it well, and if I'm jumping the gun here, feel free to rein me in. But uh after that action concludes, Colonel Tall goes up to Captain Gaff and he says, you know, I might nominate you for the big one.

Ron 49:55

Mm-hmm.

Jared 49:56

Yeah, it would be a hell of a thing for the battalion.

Ron 49:58

Yeah, and he says, uh, I don't know if I can actually get it for you, but I'm gonna try.

Jared 50:02

Yeah, yeah. And so uh Davis uh actually did receive uh the Medal of Honor um for that action. And uh I thought it worthwhile to read part of his citation to see how it lines up with what's depicted um in the movie. Yeah, so this uh speaks to January 13th, 1942. This is the second half of his citation. Major Davis again volunteered to lead an assault on the Japanese position, which was holding up the advance. When his rifle jammed at its first shot, he drew his pistol and, waving his men on, led the assault over the top of the hill. Electrified by this action, another body of soldiers followed and seized the hill. The capture of this position broke Japanese resistance, and the battalion was then able to proceed and secure the core objective. The courage and leadership displayed by Major Davis inspired the entire battalion and unquestionably led to the success of its attack. So there you have the reel to reel, so to speak.

Ron 51:05

Well, it's actually not far off, I feel like, minus the pistol part, I guess, but I mean all those men displayed incredible bravery.

Jared 51:14

Yeah, yeah, I feel all in all, it's um it's a fairly accurate scene. Doubling down on that even further, this is an incredibly authentic movie from a material culture standpoint. The uniforms are perfect. That is exactly what American and Japanese soldiers looked like on Guadalcanal. And minus one or two very small exceptions with the sort of weaponry that they have. There is very much a sense as I watch it that this is how a battle looked, it's what a battle sounded like, this is how these men were equipped, and so it's it's a very authentic depiction in my mind.

Ron 51:55

After this battle ends, well, in a traditional movie sense, you have bad guys versus good guys, good versus evil, and when the good guys win, if the good guys win, we're supposed to feel a sense of victory. For some reason, watching this, and I watched this scene again this afternoon to see if anything changed for me. And me personally, I don't feel this. I don't know if it's Hans Zimmer's score, I don't know if it's how everything is depicted, I don't feel a good versus evil. I feel triumphant. I hate to keep comparing it to the earlier film from 1998, but that because that film had this sense of patriotism and it's it's a lot in the the main battle we open with is something that almost all of us are familiar with. We feel good whenever Omaha Beach is taken. I don't feel good watching these Americans come up and take this hill for some reason. And I can't quite put my finger on why that is. I'm hoping you can help psychoanalyze me, Jared.

Jared 52:49

Yeah, you posed a great question there. I don't know what I feel after both of those scenes come to an end. I have a sense of relief, not necessarily jubilation or a desire to do a victory lap. You know, I kind of lean back and think, My God, I'm glad that's over. Yeah. Uh and it it lets you gather your breath a little bit. Now, unfortunately, I think the one thing about saving Private Ryan is that that first 30 minutes has it's become so ingrained in our collective consciousness and historical memory of what we think World War II was that we've really lost the shock value to it. We've become desensitized to just how horrible it was. I agree 100%.

Ron 53:30

Yeah.

Jared 53:30

Yeah. And the fact that every war movie since has by and large tried to replicate that um in one form or another. War movies before 1998 weren't like what they are today. And there's there's a pivot point that happens um in that year. So yeah, I mean, I I don't necessarily feel that the finale of the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan is patriotic, although the finale of the movie itself certainly is. But I I find that to be one of the commonalities between the two films after the big grand battle scene. You need a moment of meditation to think about what you just endured.

Ron 54:11

I think I think Han Zimmer also creates with the music in The Thin Red Line. The music in films tell you as the audience what the filmmakers want you to feel at that moment. And his score is melancholic. It's not something that you feel good about. And plus you're watching these Japanese soldiers cry, pray, beg, run away afraid. It's not anything that we should be excited about in general. But I think that lends itself to where I'm going here soon of just the philosophical crux of the film, which I think we get in a few more scenes. Tall shows up, he's very excited. So I'm not feeling good about myself. And he shows up and he is very excited. And there's burned down tree, nature is dead. It seems like everywhere Tall goes, there's just destruction. And he says here again, don't worry about water. And he says it in a pretty angry way because you mentioned earlier about the timing of things. And he's talking about the momentum of we have the momentum, we have to keep going. And Captain John Gaff, played by John Cusack, just stares at him and he mentions again about the water. They could die without water. He just keeps going, and Tall keeps going on and on and on about how this is big for him. He's saying, This is my first war. He's talking about how he was passed over.

Speaker 4 55:26

Don't worry about water. John, I don't want anything to break out this attack. Of course, now that we have the momentum. We'll have some water. I've arranged. We just can't stop now. God damn it. Wait for it.

Speaker 5 56:08

Tough boys. Come on, man, let's go! You'll see plenty more of those when we're going! Are we going up this hill arrive?

Ron 56:24

And I think that conversation is why I feel that he's my antagonist a little bit. Because he's willing to sacrifice the lives of these men, and then he turns it around to talk about how this is good for him personally. Finally, he relents and he's going to give these people water. He sends three people back for water. That seems like not enough considering the amount of terrain that they they've crossed. How are they transporting water for people once they've gone this far away, this far inland? Are they getting it from freshwater sources? How are they transporting things?

Jared 56:57

They had them in cans, kind of like fuel cans or jerry cans. That's the most accessible way. Depending on the terrain, you could have trucks bring it up. You could have water tanks. There were some units in World War II whose specific responsibility it was to purify water and filtrate it.

Ron 57:15

So I think that was a Poly Shore movie.

Jared 57:19

Yes.

Ron 57:20

I think it was an old Paul Shore movie, wasn't it?

Jared 57:22

Yeah, we aren't going to be talking about that one, the Criterion Consider.

Ron 57:24

I don't think that's going to make it. I really don't think it's going to make it. Yeah. And they go running through this Japanese, I didn't know what to call it, because there's men, it looks like they are being treated for like you're treating the wounded. I'm not sure where they are exactly.

Jared 57:39

It's a bivouac, and that's uh in the jungle beyond the the hill.

Ron 57:44

It seemed strange because it it looked like we had coordinated attacks, and then we get these tracking camera shots of people just running through this place and just shooting at anything that moves. So that this can this film just continued to disorient me. Maybe it's just me. I'm not sure.

Jared 58:02

I'll admit I I think the attack on the bivouac is is probably my favorite scene artistically in the movie because to keep the momentum, and I'm speaking uh a cinematography standpoint, to keep that level of action going before it fizzles out and to maintain our attention from a technical standpoint, it really requires a lot of artistry. And I think two, um, it's the most stirring of the songs from Hans Zimmer's soundtrack. Um, it's it it has it has that forward momentum to it, and it builds up the tension and it culminates with this cacophony of of noise. It's the closest thing to any sort of triumphant music that we get in the entire film. But I'll I'll give you a few reasons why that scene stands out in my mind, not only because the the cinematography and the music are so stunning, but it really demonstrates how everything has just descended into chaos. Like any sort of veneer of civilization or order or sensibility has completely been stripped away. It's a free-for-all. The Americans smell blood in the water, the Japanese have been driven off the hill, and they're pushing into the jungle to finish off the hunt. This, in moments like this, is when the Japanese could be the most dangerous because now they are cornered. And if you are trapped into a corner and you have nowhere else to go, that is when you are going to fight your fiercest, especially if you are abiding by the Bushido code. And uh, sure enough, in that scene, they initiate a bonsai charge. They're gathering everybody, everybody who can stand. They are pulling them out of the beds, out of the bunkers, they're fixing the bayonets on their rifles, and they are going to go out with a bang for the emperor. And so it's it's like two ocean waves crashing into each other here in uh the the denseness of of the jungle. And so I I just think it's a stunning scene, and something else that I find very appealing in it from a humanistic standpoint is that we get a big degree of empathy for the Japanese characters in this scene because they're they're weak, they're wounded, they're malnourished, they're really skinny. Some of them are half naked. And you see the sort of fear and terror in their facial expressions that we've been seeing in the American characters, by and large, up until this point. And then it it concludes with a Japanese soldier who is cradling one of his dead comrades in a trench. And you sit back and you think, wow, these characters who have almost always been depicted as stereotypes in movies about the Pacific War, you really, for the first time ever in a major motion picture, get a sense that these people are human, they are experiencing the same emotions, and they are also feeling the same sort of loss that our main protagonists have been. So it's a really powerful scene, and for all those reasons and more, I just think it's very evocative.

Ron 1:01:12

There's a voiceover at this point that I had my most emotional reaction, I think. I think this last watch had almost, almost not quite, brought a tear to my eye. Is there is a Japanese soldier voiceover.

Speaker 2 1:01:25

Are you righteous? Kind. Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Do you imagine your sufferings will be less because you loved goodness? Truth.

Ron 1:01:58

This is why I love Terence Malik. We're not only getting exactly what you described, which is a sense of empathy toward the opposition, we also now get to be inside of their minds and realize how similar the mindsets may be. There's a second voiceover in this section that I had flagged as for myself as uh philosophically the crux of the film. And the voiceover says, bear with me, this great evil, where does it come from? How did it steal into the world? What seed? What root did it grow from? Who's doing this? Who's killing us? Robbing us of life and light, mocking us with the sight of what we might have known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you too? Have you passed through this night? And I feel as though that philosophical crux is that voiceover talking through that human nature is what it is. It could take advantage of this stunningly beautiful environment. When they land on the beach and you're getting these insert shots of what the environment looks like, this untouched, beautiful land, humans could take advantage of this. And instead, they're destroying one another. And in doing so, they're also destroying nature. This man versus nature imbalance that we have in this film. There's another insert where a little baby bird has been struck by a bullet. They show a crocodile at the beginning of the film, and then halfway through they show another crocodile that's been captured. There's a scene where men are crawling in the grass and a snake doesn't look like a friendly snake, is slithering toward them. I'm just going on and on here because I love this film. Staros versus Tall. It's wit versus Welsh. It's man versus nature. It's not just America versus Japan on the Solomon Islands. Did I go too far down the philosophical rabbit hole for us?

Jared 1:03:46

Not at all. I I'll add that I've shown portions of this film in classes on World War II that I teach. Not because it's a 100% authentic depiction, but because it allows us to have a platform to discuss a lot of the moral ambiguity of warfare in general. One question that I asked students after we watched the middle portion of the film, I asked them, uh, what sort of leader are you? Are you a Staros or a tall? And that leads to some really interesting conversations.

Ron 1:04:26

Bet. Do you s do you have an even split or do you feel as though your students lean more one way than the other?

Jared 1:04:32

It varies, but it's generally split. There are students who take a kind of humanistic approach, like I'm a person of empathy. I look after the people around me, and then there are others who say I will get done whatever I have to get done. So it's an interesting interpretive foundation to discuss about a broader philosophy of life.

Ron 1:04:54

I guess that half of your class would not like the fact that I feel as though Tall is the antagonist of the film. I guess they wouldn't like that point very much. I don't know if that's what Malik's trying to say because he's anti-water. When he shows up to talk to Gaff, the environment is completely destroyed. I don't know if I'm reading too much into what was just on the screen. I tend to do that quite a bit with film. That's why I need people like you to reel me back in. That's why we're here. Tall has a meeting with Staros after this, and he relieves him of his command. He says, You're not tough enough. You're too soft. And that struck me because what made Staros not tough enough? Staros made the call that he wasn't going to send the men into certain death. But Tall says, it doesn't matter. That was the order you were given. You didn't follow the order. You're not tough enough. You're not right for this job. But he did he does offer him a way out of it. Like I'm sending you home for what? He said, you have that scratch on your face. Was that common practice to say you're gonna save face? But all of Star O's, everyone that reported to him have to know what's going on, right?

Jared 1:05:59

There was a lot of obfuscation and concealment and official records dictating why people are being transferred, why people are being promoted, why people are being demoted. Sometimes it had to do with personal clashes, egos, cover ups. We could go on ad nauseum, but ultimately the official record is a reflection of the people in charge. And it's the narrative that they want to get out that is ultimately released and uh be becomes the the the Chief narrative.

Ron 1:06:30

Well, Starrus's men thank him before he leaves. So they must have felt similarly. I mean, they're watching the carnage ahead of them and know that they may have been following suit. This next section of the film I've really struggled with. I'm hoping you can help me, of why it's there. Because they they shot so much footage. The original cut was five hours. And I'm wondering what purpose Jack getting the letter from his wife saying that she's moving on. She's asking for a divorce because she's met an Air Force captain that she would now like to marry. I'm struggling with analyzing what purpose that is showing us. What why is this here? It stands out to me as something that's outside of what we've seen so far and what we're going to subsequently see next. Now you're smiling, so I think you have something.

Jared 1:07:17

Yeah. Yeah. So to and to skip ahead here just uh a little bit, because I'll I'll reflect on something at the end of the movie. So there are three World War II movies that come out in 1998. Two of them are well known, the third one is not. The the first one is Saving Private Ryan, and then the next one is The Thin Red Line, and then there's a third one, which is an HBO film entitled When Trumpets Fade, about a little-known battle that took place on the Belgian-German border in the Hurtgen Forest. And in all three of these movies that come out in 1998, uh the concept of life is the central theme in all of them. In Saving Private Ryan, the takeaway is that life has meaning, that we we can sacrifice life in order to save other life. Life has meaning. The thin red line, the the chief theme, is that life goes on. Maybe not in the literal sense in regard to human life, but natural life goes on. Mother Nature always wins. In When Trumpets Fade, a movie that has a plot defined by the futility of war, life is meaningless. Life has no purpose, everything is squandered for nothing. And so as we kind of inverse that back into our conversation here, it goes back to that theme that life goes on, and sometimes it goes on in unexpected ways. To use an interesting metaphor here that Terrence Malik himself used to explain to actors why they were being cut from the movie, he said, Your character, you have to picture an iceberg, and your character was a sheet on that iceberg, and it just it broke away and it it slipped away from the chief form. Yeah, you know, so that's how he used to describe it. And so interestingly enough, some of the characters within the film are treated much the same way. Star O'S moves on, Jack's wife moves on, people who are transferred are moved on, people who die move to the great beyond, presumably. And really the only the only consistency is that nature changes. Uh, and nature will always win, whether it be of the natural world or of human nature. So I I think that is really what it's getting to here that change is the only consistency in this world.

Ron 1:09:49

And absence is supposed to make the heart grow fonder, but in this case, absence made the heart grow closer to an Air Force captain. We get the final scene of Welsh and Wit having a conversation, and that's our their third time meeting and speaking, showing again how different these men are and their views of the world are very different. The men get some good news. They get a week of R for their efforts. There's a lot of voiceover in this section, a lot of introspection. We get into a lot of their thoughts of this incredible. I don't know how long this has spanned at this point. Is this days? Is this a week out? Like I don't how long are they have they been since landing on the beach to their week off? Can you presume it's never articulated? We're not sure. Unfortunately, the next big part of the film that we get here is we're gonna have Wit's death. Why the hell is he always putting himself in harm's way? He volunteered for the attack up the hill. He's volunteering for this mission. They're on patrol and they're trying to use the phone, and then they say the line is cut. The CO sends two men to see where the line is cut.

Jared 1:10:57

They would typically send out forward observers and observation points to keep an eye on an enemy, and that those forward positions allowed them to connect with commanders and people further back, so they could be you have the eyes and ears out front.

Ron 1:11:12

Coombs and Fife are chosen by whoever the commanding officer is. I don't think we ever get his name. Fife played by Adrian Brody. They're selected, and Witt volunteers himself to be in harm's way again. They come across a very large group of Japanese soldiers in a stunningly beautiful shot where the camera does not move, and you see part of the river in the jungle, and slowly men start appearing. And over seconds long it takes for slowly you realize how large this force of Japanese soldiers is that's slowly creeping toward the camera. And they need to get back and warn everybody of the impending doom that may befall them. And things don't go as planned. But Wit shows some bravery here, and he leads the soldiers on a chase through the jungle to allow Fife enough time to get back and warn the rest of the men. Do you want me to break your heart and tell you what the Japanese soldier was telling Wit in Japanese whenever they finally surround him?

Jared 1:12:07

I've heard this before. Something very empathetic and like, you know, we are brothers or something like that, if I recall correctly, but refresh my memory.

Ron 1:12:16

Surrender. It's you who killed my friends, but I have no desire to kill you. You are surrounded, please surrender. But unfortunately, Wit lifts his rifle instead, which is almost like suicide. Why do you think he goes with that fate as opposed to surrendering? Do you have a lot of people?

Jared 1:12:33

I might be reading into this a lot.

Ron 1:12:34

Please do. Read in with join the club. It's what I do.

Jared 1:12:38

But have you ever sensed that like all of this is foreshadowing Jim Cavizel's role as Jesus and the Passion of the Christ, that he becomes the sacrificial lamb, you know, that these three conversations that he has with Welsh, it's like Judas and Jesus, and you know, denying him three times. There's something very spiritual about it that that Witt doesn't necessarily want to do this, but he, as he's walking up the hill, summoned to a greater call.

Ron 1:13:10

He self-sacrifices at the end to say to say Yeah. From a cinematic standpoint, I would guess that it's because he may have heard stories of what has happened to those soldiers that have been captured by the Japanese and chooses his fate of death as opposed to whatever his fate may have been if you were captured. But I kind of like your analysis a lot better, to be honest. That's a lot more fun for us to think about.

Jared 1:13:38

In reality, the Japanese just would have shot him on the spot. They wouldn't have posed a philosophical question to him. They just would have shot him right there. Um forget it. He was done for anyway. The whole the whole premise of a dozen of them surrounding him and none of them shooting him is probably the most historically far-fetched part of the film.

Ron 1:13:59

Well, that's you know what, that's saying something though. Because if that's it, I think we're in pretty good shape.

Jared 1:14:04

Yeah, yeah. But it most certainly provides the somewhat spiritual finale of of the film and gives us a lot to think about.

Ron 1:14:13

Well, when he when he passes where they show him, we're back in water. This idea of him swimming, we get that shot again of him swimming with the native people in water again. Uh I I should have been like a philosophy major or something. And we have our end. We have Staros's, I'm presuming it's Staros' replacement. It is Captain Bosch, played by George Clooney. This is another where I'm like, I just watched this movie for two hours and 40 minutes. What the hell's George Clooney doing here? It's like I thought I I thought we ran out of stars at this point. He speaks for this whole scene, but he's only on screen for like a little over 60 seconds, I think. And he's going on and on with this analogy of family, that he is the father, that Welsh is the mother, and uh the men then walk past a makeshift graveyard en route to a ship that is, I presume, is is taking them home at that point. Unfortunately not.

Jared 1:15:03

Oh no. They have many hard campaigns yet to fight, but this is a division that would play a crucial role in uh the retaking of the Philippines over the next two years. So uh unfortunately they are not on their way home. They are on their way to the next battle.

Ron 1:15:20

Thanks for crushing. Thanks for crushing my hopes that these men were gonna get some some extended rest. You know, and I as I listen to Clooney's speech, this is the last point I want to make before getting that big closing question to you. I listen to Clooney's speech, and he's using this analogy of family. And the more I consider these other films and and you mentioned Band of Brothers, both from that time period of our lives at least, and I feel like big themes of those are about relationships between these men that are side by side in the military. But this film I feel like doesn't really necessarily take that route. This film goes the man versus nature, or do you think maybe there's a lot more of that brotherhood baked in that we just have to look a little deeper beyond maybe that theme that they're really throwing at us, which is man versus nature?

Jared 1:16:05

I think it's a story about relationships between superiors and subordinates, between man and nature, between American and Japanese, between comrade and comrade, even between sergeants and sergeants, the scene where Woody Harrelson and Sean Penn are bickering with one another about how to manage the company. It truly is a movie about relationships, for better or for worse.

Ron 1:16:32

I hope I didn't step on your answer to the big question. We close every episode of this podcast where the guest gets to the chance to give their answer to why this film. So why the thin red line? Why does it deserve its place in the Criterion collection?

Jared 1:16:47

I think the thin red line deserves a place in the Criterion Collection because it really breaks the mold of the traditional war film. In addition to revealing pathos and the inner thoughts and inner workings of the characters in the film, I think from a technical standpoint, it is just brilliant. I think the cinematography, the sound effects, the production design, the attention to detail and the material culture and costuming, the incredible soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, it is a feast for the senses in a lot of ways. And if you have the patience to work your way through the inner monologues overlapped with the scenery of the Solomon Islands, and if you give yourself the open window of opportunity to process it and to think about it and to ponder what this movie actually means and what it tries to say about us and our interactions with nature and society and war, it's going to give you a lot to think about. Accordingly, it'll pay off in big dividends from a philosophical and artistic standpoint. And that's why I think it's a worthy addition to the Criterion Collection.

Ron 1:18:04

Thank you again to Jared Frederick for taking the time to speak with me about the Thin Red Line. If you'd like to support the show for as little as $3 a month, you can do so by selecting the support the show link in the episode description. You can follow the podcast on Instagram for updates and subscribe on YouTube for full video versions of each episode. Links also in the description below. Next time I'll be joined by second assistant director Chris Cook to discuss the Royal Ten and Bombs. Thanks for listening. Please be sure to follow, share, and keep an eye out for the next episode.