13 Years Ago
Terrence Malick‘s 10.1.96 draft of The Thin Red Line was tight and true and straight to the point, and it had no alligators sinking into swamps or shots of tree branches or pretty leaves or that South Sea native AWOL section or any of that languid and meditative “why is there such strife in our hearts?” stuff. During the junket round-tables I got Jim Caviezel, George Clooney, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, Mike Medavoy and Ben Chaplin to autograph my copy.
Now THAT is something I’d like to have.
I saw The Thin Red Line recently as part of all the Malick retrospectives to promote Tree of Life. I hadn’t seen it in whole since its release, and I was stunned how well it holds up.
I dont’ think there are many other films with so many passages of sustained brilliance. Like the whole first hour, for instance. And the montage that goes from the buried face to the fog battle to the overrunning of the camps is spine-tingling still. Toll’s cinematography may be the best of the lot of Malick films.
The worst attempt at poetry I’ve ever heard in a film. It’s like the bag boy from American Beauty wrote everyone’s musings.
Bowen, yeah I rewatched it again before Tree of Life too.
The hill battle is every bit as impressive as the beach landing in SPR. Malick should try his hand at another action sequence sometime.
Also, Caviezel should have gotten the grown Jack role in Tree of Life (he even looks like the kid).
“The worst attempt at poetry I’ve ever heard in a film. It’s like the bag boy from American Beauty wrote everyone’s musings.”
Coming from a guy who’s currently on his second day of standing in line to see the very first showing of “Transformers 3″, wearing his own pair of 3D glasses and dressed head to toe as Dorktimus Prime.
Malick stated in an interview early in his career that when most people try to say something profound, it often comes out as cliche, that in expressing that which is most private we often use the most public language. He treats that tendency tenderly rather than cynically. It’s not trying to be great poetry.
I’m giving Malick a lot of shit lately, so I’ll just reiterate this is one of the most transporting and moving films ever made. Every time “Journey to the Line” kicks in i start to get a bit misty. I even put that on my iPod and whenever it comes around my knees get a little weak.
I don’t want to drag in why this worked so well and Tree didn’t for me, but I’ll just say narrative and concise themes definitely had something to do with it.
The same can be said for the scripts for both BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN (especially this one). They were tightly constructed, more conventional dramas. I think it would be difficult write a script in Malik’s filmmaking style . It would be unreadable. For practical purposes, you have to start with something a little more typical.
That screenplay is a fascinating read. A tight, focused distillation of the novel with a crystal clear narrative from beginning to end. Pretty much everything the film’s critics regret that it’s not.
How did I miss that junket?
Oh. i remember. i told the publicist that I hated the film -ponderous and never ending.
And why in the world was Clooney at the junket for this two minute role?
Mallck is intellectual Ambien.
I think that’s George Steven’s signature, not Clooney’s.
Of course, Caviezel had to bring God up in his signature…jk.
“and it had no alligators sinking into swamps or shots of tree branches or pretty leaves or that South Sea native AWOL section or any of that languid and meditative “why is there such strife in our hearts?” stuff.”
but those are some of the many reasons that the film is a masterpiece.
One of the great moviegoing experiences of my life, seeing TRL the one and only time I ever saw it. It was one of those viewings that was so “huge” and singular, I never wanted to go back to the movie again, wanted it forever preserved as being as epic and intense and powerful as I found it on that giant screen in Westwood. Tarantino was even there at the theater, sporting a ridiculous mustache. Had a one-sheet up in my place for it, would get in shouting matches with anyone who dared to say SPR was the better movie… I’m very mixed (if positive) on Tree of Life, but TRL to me is a near-perfect movie. So for years I wanted it kept that way… Now, oddly, since being online so much and reading all the haters on blogs like this, I never want to see it again, but for a totally different reason– everyone’s ruined it so much by whining about it and taking something so beautiful and corrupting it with an arsenal of bitter negativity, it just casts an ugly pall on the whole prospect of ever being able to enjoy it.
For this reason, I never get (smart) people who say they ENJOY reading dissenting or contrarian critics…. for me all it does it make those whines and complaints rattle around my head and ruin the whole fucking thing.
I swear I miss the days growing up SANS INTERNET where I didn’t have everyone’s stupid opinions obscuring the purity of the ONLY ONE THAT MATTERS– my own.
One of the very best. Period.
Utterly moving, and masterful film. Can’t understand the haters on this one. To quote Sean Penn at Jim Caviezel’s grave – ‘Where’s your spark now?’
What actionman just said. Those elements are probably my FAVORITE things in the film. It’s what elevates it over the plot-driven, caricatures that pepper (no pun intended) Saving Private Ryan.
And to admonish Malick for making the film meditative is to be completely unaware of the uniqueness of James Jones’ source material. You want his stuff stripped-down and focused? Go watch that hack Zinnemann’s adaptation of From Here To Eternity.
Jeff becomes more of a philistine with each passing year.
One of the top 5 cinema experiences of my life. Have to agree with LexG on this one.
That could fetch a nice sum at auction.
Uh oh. Here we go. The old “Thin Red Line” vs. “Saving Private Ryan” game. (“You HAVE to like only one! You can NOT like both! Choose sides, goddammit, CHOOSE!”)
One of the most moving films ever made. The last hour in particular is hypnotic, it just puts you under a spell. Easily the greatest film of the 90′s.
I’m not going to hate on TRL because at many moments it’s simply astounding; particularly the hill sequence and all the stuff with Koteas and Nolte.
That said, people cut Malick a lot of slack.
Whenever I hear his voiceovers I think of the Robert McKee stuff in Adaptation. it’s pure laziness. He cuts all the dialogue etc to get a certain mood but then needs to patch narrative holes. The result is that all the characters sound like a first year philosophy student. Anyone who slams the thin characterizations in Saving Private Ryan and then praises crap like, “What is this war in the heart of nature?” is just plain full of it. Pretentious junk.
All the characters in TRL sound the same in VO and it’s really the same voice from Badlands and Days of Heaven and Tree of Life. That is POOR characterization which, last I checked, is important when you’re telling a story.
There’s no genius or metaphor in losing track of major characters for hours at a time. It’s sloppy storytelling.
Don’t get me wrong – I sincerely don’t think it’s a bad movie – but I also think people forgive a lot, bowing before the genius that is Malick and letting him get away with stuff they’d SLAM other people for.
“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?”
The narration combined with the nature shots, the music and the otherworldly feel of it all was incredible. I’m sorry but this “first year philosophy student” criticism is just cynical bullshit. It doesn’t hold any ground at all. Try watching the film with an open mind.
Once again, LexG FTW!
What exactly was the point of this post? A script is a blueprint – some adhere to it to a tee, others (Soderbergh for example) don’t. Is the claim here that the film would have been better without the “why is there such strife in our hearts?” stuff? And that STUFF is the heart of the film, not some greek captain who needs to take some hill. Come on, this is just lazy.
DavidF: Perhaps you’re forgetting the part about “all men sharing the same soul”.
There’s a reason why the narrations don’t often seem to be coming from a specific character.
And LOL at Malick’s writing being criticized through a Robert McKee prism.
And how PERFECT is Jim Caviezel in this? Not to go all Big Hollywood, because I don’t know for sure it’s the case, but too bad he seems to have been marginalized in the biz post-Passion or because of his politics. He has such a unique, haunted, innocent aura in that movie– and as someone said upthread, YES, amazing how well the main kid in Tree captures that same quintessentially Malick vibe. Even in a dog like “Angel Eyes,” he brought something interesting, then could be just as effective in weirdo parts in “Deja Vu” or “Ride with the Devil.” I see he’s got a big TV show for Abrams in the fall, but underutilized actor on the big screen.
Didn’t Caviezel say he was blacklisted following The Passion.
And i agree, he was perfect in TTRL.
@J. Ho
I watched it with an open mind a few weeks ago. Hell, I saw you guys praising it, and I thought “well, never seen a Malick, and this one is supposed to be one of his best, so I’ll watch”. And, I said it earlier on HE, and I’ll say it again – It’s Sucker Punch with less girls and CGI and more pretty pictures of trees. Stupid, pseudo-philosophical themes, beautiful imagery, and a plot so thin I can see the see the desk behind the script. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good film. Just not this amazing masterpiece that gives you wet dreams.
One example off the top of my head is the day-night editing. Sometimes it’s evening, sometimes it’s morning, sometimes it’s the afternoon. You crucify Ratner for doing this in X-Men 3 (as you should, along with many other reasons), but you ignore it in TRL and jerk Malick off. Maybe it’s a multi-day assault. Maybe some action happens a few hours earlier than the “present time”. Maybe it’s a flash forward in seeing what’s going to happen to these poor soldiers. I don’t know. I’m usually pretty good at figuring stuff out and hate being led by the hand, but I just could not follow the time changes.
I really don’t want to make a 3 hour post, so I’m just going to say that DavidF nailed the characterizations down. And it didn’t help that all of the actors pretty much looked exactly the same (other than Nolte and Penn and kinda Brody). Really? You’re going to name 2 characters “Witt” and “Whyte”? Then hide their faces behind dirt and mud and throw a helmet on them and give them the same fatigues and dance between them?
Don’t get me wrong, this was a good film. However, it’s not good enough to let Malick bang your wife and raise your kids and play with your dog. I mean, I shouldn’t have to force myself to sit through your film; if you’re going to include an hour long scene of a guy swimming with some kids, you should make me feel compelled to sit through it. If you’re not going to compel me, then make it shorter, because I get the point – living simply with nature is so much better than fighting a war or living in modern society.
Yeah, this epic tale of man’s capacity for good and evil, its place within the natural world, and its wish to control and transcend it, all placed within the context of Guadalcanal, it must be way too long. Way too overindulgent.
I mean, Transformers 3 did that in 13 less minutes, right?
“One example off the top of my head is the day-night editing. Sometimes it’s evening, sometimes it’s morning, sometimes it’s the afternoon. You crucify Ratner for doing this in X-Men 3 (as you should, along with many other reasons), but you ignore it in TRL and jerk Malick off.”
I bet it must have really confused you when sometimes Ben Chaplin was in his army fatigues at war, and then the next minute he was at home with his wife, and then he was back at war again. Is he a time-traveller or some shit? IT MAKES NO SENSE.
Anyway, yes – this film is an absolute masterpiece, certainly in my top five of all time, and possibly even the very top. Astonishing film.
Second the praise for Caviezel. Incredibly expressive performance. You can easily see why Brody’s scenes were marginalized – he gives a far more one-note portrayal of cowardice, and apparently Malick found Caviezel’s character much more interesting so bumped his screen time up significantly.
If you think the voiceover for Days of Heaven is too on-the-nose and literal like Robert McKee voiceover, then you don’t understand what “on-the-nose” means. It’s really that simple.
But I do think the voiceover in ‘Tree of Life’ was too on-the-nose, talking directly about profound things tends to make them seem kind of hollow to me.
“too bad he seems to have been marginalized in the biz post-Passion or because of his politics. ”
Lex – I don’t think it was political. I think that, with ‘The Passion’, he cultivated a fanbase that didn’t want to see him as anything but Jesus. He tried to break out of it by playing a serial killer in that Denzel flick (and he’s good in it), and his fans openly revolted and sent letters to the studio about how could they cast Jesus as a serial killer. So they got spooked by his fanbase.
Really? You’re going to name 2 characters “Witt” and “Whyte”? Then hide their faces behind dirt and mud and throw a helmet on them and give them the same fatigues and dance between them?
Good point. It’s very easy to confuse the main character with guy who looks like him, barely even has any lines, and gets killed in the first fourth of the movie, but has a similar name.
Not being able to tell the characters apart is a fairly common criticism in pretty much every war movie, due to everyone wearing identical uniforms and headgear. That said, I kind of have trouble buying such a complaint in a film where literally almost every single character is played by a recognizable actor. You know I was able to tell Witt & Whyte apart? It was because one looked like Jim Caviezel and the other looked like Jared Leto.
Massive amount of praise must go to Hans Zimmer and his Media Ventures/Remote Control minions for this one. Easily his finest ever score, and some of the arrangements of the hymns (I think Klaus Badelt did a lot of that) are stunning. The score when Chaplin’s reading the letter from his wife is perhaps the most beautiful music ever put to film. Incredible when you consider that Zimmer composed a lot of it before they’d even started shooting, and Malick used recordings to get the cast in the right mood. Amazing to think of a score possibly influencing some of the director’s decisions as he was shooting the film.
Eloi – absolutely correct. This is easily, without ANY debate, minimum, top 5 movie scores ever, if not THE BEST. And yes, that includes ANY film scores anyone here can think of, ever. Fact,
Just how professional is it to ask for autographs at an event like this? They are there to do a job, you are there to do a job – seems weird it would be thought no big thing to end by shoving a script in front of them to indulge in hero-worship.
Starting to understand why it’s difficult for our fearless writer to get into some of these things these days.
Oh, PLEASE. If I’m at a junket with Nick Fucking Nolte or George Clooney or Elias Koteas or Jim Caviezel, I’m asking for autographs and breaking out the camera, Ben Lyons style. Quite the opposite, I think it’s AWESOME that they signed it. Would rule if gods Travolta and Harrelson would’ve been there, too.
And is that true about Caviezel’s fans writing letters complaining about “Jesus” playing a bad guy in “Deja Vu” (in which, yes, he’s terrific)? That’s crazy times. Poor guy. As PSH once said to Lance Reddick across the crowded room:
“Good actor!”
One of the top 5 cinema experiences of my life. Have to agree with LexG on this one.
And how PERFECT is Jim Caviezel in this? Not to go all Big Hollywood, because I don’t know for sure it’s the case, but too bad he seems to have been marginalized in the biz post-Passion or because of his politics.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/05/02/jim-caviezel-mel-gibson-rejected/
right on lex, bravo.
My impression is that people who don’t like Malick are those who look at a Pollock or Kandinsky and say, “i don’t get it.”
“If you’re not going to compel me, then make it shorter, because I get the point – living simply with nature is so much better than fighting a war or living in modern society. ”
Nope, you totally missed it.
They’ve got fish that live in trees ….
“There’s a reason why the narrations don’t often seem to be coming from a specific character.”
Because the director wants to share his thoughts? “Sharing a soul” has nothing to do with sharing a mind.
I had an opportunity a few years ago to get the entire cast and director/producers of Casino Royale to autograph a script for me, but I couldn’t do it. It just felt wrong to ask for the autographs of people you’re approaching as a journalist, even an entertainment journalist. So even though I’m a *huge* James Bond fan and would certainly have framed it, I didn’t do it.
That’s not a criticism of Jeff, just the way it worked out in my own head.
go to any press junket, you can smell the grease of the marks-a-lot as the journos whip out the photos … funniest – the publicist tells everybody to absolutely NOT ask kevin spacey for autographs at an American Beauty round table … first question no shit …. “Before you go would you mind signing a couple of posters, I have to leave early because my radio shift starts in 45 minutes and my mom’s picking me up.” KS was so cool to this dude when he signed the multiple posters ….
i’ve always been torn on the issue of asking for an autograph at the end of an interview…i’ve certainly done it (a lot over the years) but, like ryanstewart points out, there are times when it just doesn’t feel appropriate…
i never feel bad about asking to get a book signed…authors LOVE it and will write lengthy inscriptions at the drop of a hat…plus, i have a pretty extensive library of signed 1st editions that i enjoy adding to…
some actors appreciate the request (james franco always does a drawing, julie andrews does very sweet notes)….some actors are kinda dickish (sandra bullock once told someone that she’d only sign if she could inscribe because she didn’t want to see it the next day on ebay…)…..
i think that if you ask politely and don’t just thrust something in their face, being an occasional fan is okay….the trick is picking a code of conduct and sticking to it….
I didn’t say the voiceover is on the nose, I said that it’s lazy: It’s telling instead of showing. Malick’s an amazing visualist but seems to take his movies (in the editing stage) to a point where the visuals totally derail the narrative. Then he comes back in and adds a voiceover to cover over narrative holes. I’m not pro-McKee, merely referring to the scene in Adaptation where “he” mentions how lazy it is to use voiceover to define your characters (obviously I appreciate the irony of the context in which this “rule” is delivered).
Shouldn’t Malick be able to make his points about nature and war and all that by showing the alligators and the birds and the dead Japanese guy without shoving the obvious down your throat? Mightn’t the movie be stronger if he did?
The voiceovers in TRL range from poignant to eye-rolling but they NEVER sound like the character delivering them. I can’t remember all the one-syllable names but any given soldier sounds exactly like Linda Manz or Sissy Spacek. Nolte’s narration is in the same voice as Caviezel’s. And if the voice is Witt’s but doesn’t seem like anything the Witt you’ve met could possibly be thinking, it’s lazy or bad writing. The fact that the exact same voice delivers the same kind of voiceovers in virtually all of Malick’s films shows the problem is not a TRL problem.
Really, this thread is a perfect example of how far people will apologize for Malick. Yes, war movies tend to make everyone look alike but everyone in TRL has a hard-to-hear one-syllable name (Witt, Whyte, Fife, Gaff, Bell, Doll etc etc etc.). Say what you will about Saving Private Ryan’s flaws, no one ever confused Caparzo and Reiben.
And while, yes, some of the “time changes” are OBVIOUSLY flashbacks or other shifts it’s also clear that some of them are due to how the film was shaped in editing.
It’s a movie everyone should see but it’s not perfect. No shame in admitting that. No one will take away your Cineaste Membership Card for admitting Malick is not, in fact, God.
Can someone tell me what what Caviezel wrote before his signature? I can’t make it out.
That is an awesome item by the way.
Looks like it says:
“Jeff,
So kind of you to meet w/ us.
God bless,
Jim Caviezel
‘Witt’”
“For this reason, I never get (smart) people who say they ENJOY reading dissenting or contrarian critics…. for me all it does it make those whines and complaints rattle around my head and ruin the whole fucking thing.”
Difference of philosophies here. For me, at least, I know I can’t fully commit to saying something’s a truly GREAT film (which is different from “loving a flick”) without putting it through the absolute ringer first.
There are a handful of things I refuse to revisit, but those consist almost entirely of mid-range movies from my childhood that I have fond memories that I just know deep-down won’t hold up. In those select cases, I’d rather treasure the subjective memory than risk trashing the entire experience to verify my suspicions about its objective quality.
Having said all that, I do need to take another look at TRL. I haven’t seen it since ’98 either, and it’s the only Malick — aside from TOL, obviously — that I haven’t given a second viewing.
BTW, New Beverly confirmed a double of Badlands and Days of Heaven next month.
Rashad (naturally): “The worst attempt at poetry I’ve ever heard in a film. It’s like the bag boy from American Beauty wrote everyone’s musings.”
It’s like you went to imdb or RT, read a few reviews that called it a “tone-poem”…. and you think that 1) this phrase refers to the *voice-over*, and: 2) that this indicates that the voice-over was supposed to rhyme, like Dr. Seuss.
You are truly an idiot.
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