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The Thin Red Line (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]
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Genre | Military & War/World War II, Military & War/Drama |
Format | NTSC, Color, Multiple Formats, Special Edition, Widescreen |
Contributor | James Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, Sean Penn, George Clooney, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, Terrence Malick See more |
Language | English |
Runtime | 2 hours and 50 minutes |
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From the manufacturer
One of the greatest war films of all time
After directing two of the most extraordinary movies of the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, American artist Terrence Malick disappeared from the film world for twenty years, only to resurface in 1998 with this visionary adaptation of James Jones’s 1962 novel about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal. A big-budget, spectacularly mounted epic, The Thin Red Line is also one of the most deeply philosophical films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, a thought-provoking meditation on man, nature, and violence. Featuring a cast of contemporary cinema’s finest actors—Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, and Woody Harrelson among them—The Thin Red Line is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the experience of combat that ranks as one of the greatest war films ever produced.
Director-Approved Special Edition Features
- High-definition digital restoration
- Audio commentary by members of the crew
- Interviews with actors, the composer, editors, and more
- Interview with the casting director, featuring archival audition footage
- Outtakes
- And more
Product Description
Product Description
After directing two of the most extraordinary movies of the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, American artist Terrence Malick disappeared from the film world for twenty years, only to resurface in 1998 with this visionary adaptation of James Jones’s 1962 novel about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal. A big-budget, spectacularly mounted epic, THE THIN RED LINE is also one of the most deeply philosophical films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, a thought-provoking meditation on man, nature, and violence. Featuring a cast of contemporary cinema’s finest actors—Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking, Milk), Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides, Affliction), Elias Koteas (Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, The People vs. Larry Flynt) among them—THE THIN RED LINE is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the experience of combat that ranks as one of cinema’s greatest war films.
Set Contains:
The Criterion treatment of Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line has a raft of extras: recollections from members of the cast (including Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, and Thomas Jane), which leave the impression that nearly everybody on the film does a Terrence Malick imitation; a 20-minute piece on the casting process, with casting director Dianne Crittenden introducing fascinating audition tapes; a look at the process of editing Malick's enormous amount of raw footage (out of which came a movie considerably different from the script); 15 minutes of vintage newsreels about the Solomon Islands battles; and an eloquent 20-minute interview with Kaylie Jones, the daughter of James Jones, who recalls her father's complex feelings about war and some of the autobiographical incidents contained in his novel.
One of those incidents--the hand-to-hand killing of a Japanese soldier--was cut from the film but is included in the 15 minutes of outtakes here. Only 15 minutes? There must be hours more, but these few glimpses (including a scene with George Clooney and one abrupt moment with Mickey Rourke) will have to suffice for now. An audio commentary, with cinematographer John Toll, producer Grant Hill, and production designer Jack Fisk, is free-flowing and informative. Taken together, the special features paint a vivid portrait of Malick's searching approach, which depends on improvisation and chance as much as planning. --Robert Horton
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : R (Restricted)
- Product Dimensions : 0.57 x 5.36 x 7.55 inches; 2.72 ounces
- Item model number : CRRN1932DVD
- Director : Terrence Malick
- Media Format : NTSC, Color, Multiple Formats, Special Edition, Widescreen
- Run time : 2 hours and 50 minutes
- Release date : September 28, 2010
- Actors : Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, James Caviezel, George Clooney, John Cusack
- Studio : Criterion Collection
- ASIN : B003KGBIR0
- Country of Origin : USA
- Number of discs : 2
- Best Sellers Rank: #34,310 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #21,807 in DVD
- Customer Reviews:
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The movie is shot on location on Guadalcanal, an epic battle where the US Marine Corps fended off ferocious Japanese air-naval-ground forces. And the Marines did not have massive air power, huge numbers of tanks or numerical superiority. In my humble view, the Marine triumph at Guadalcanal is their finest hour. Indeed, Guadalcanal was the very first victory for the Allies in WW2.
There are very nice touches such as mockups of P-400 Airacobras, a version of the P-39 Cobra, F4F Wildcats and SBC Dauntless dive bombers. This movie features US Army forces who took over from the Corps to drive out the Japanese. The all star actors: Travolta, Clooney, Harrelson, Caviziel, Nolte, Brody, Penn, Reilly give us a variety of the Americans who served there.
Nolte's obstinate commander orders his men to take a dug in Japanese MG nest head on. Sheer suicide/homicide. His subordinate officer refuses but is able to take the MG nest with different tactics. Nolte dismisses him and sends him home stateside. In a tent, his troops thank him for sparing their lives.
There are excellent action scenes and a great deal of philosophy here as well. The exotic jungle backdrop of the actual Guadalcanal Island really sets the tone. Director Terrence Malick really elevates this film to high art.
Great movie!
I'll never forget how The Thin Red Line affected me when I saw it in 1999. I rated it a 9.0 out of 10 and this Criterion collection only reinforced how I felt after finally seeing the film for the first time in a decade and a half.
The film is visually stunning and truly grabs the viewer's attention. It showed how the interpersonal relationships that each character has with himself, nature and his comrades in arms. Malick held back on the gore. He very well could have shown more blood and guts had he chosen to do so. The film was rated R, after all. In a sense he sold the film short because the violence showcased could have been shown on network television. Only the language would have had to be culled. There was no sex and the violence was nowhere near gratuitous.
In order to review this movie I decided to reread Michel Chion's BFI Classics book The Thin Red Line and I saw on Youtube Siskel & Ebert's discussion and I read Roger Ebert's written review from 1998. Gene Siskel felt this was the best contemporary war movie he ever saw. Ebert, while enamored with the movie did not go that far. I too would agree with Ebert. I consider this movie to be the equal of Saving Private Ryan but at the same time I highly enjoyed The Thin red Line despite its minor flaws.
Jeff Owenby in his Youtube response said: "There were far too many actors[Characters], and the constant switching of big names without enough storylines to accommodate them hurt the movie." This sums up the main problem with the movie. Even Roger Ebert said this. "The soldiers are not well-developed as individual characters. Covered in grime and blood they look much alike and we strain to hear their names barked out mostly in one syllable (Welsh, Fife, Tall, Witt Gaff, Bosche, Bell Keck, Staros)." As a result of this we the viewer have problems seeing who is who. This creates a detachment from the characters and (Unlike In saving Private Ryan) prevents us from empathizing with the characters (Save For Witt). This is the reason why so many people have not given this movie its just due.
Another problem as Roger Ebert mused (I Agree) saw it was that all of the characters seemed to mull and ponder their fates in the same voice. The voice of a much older person. In a nutshell, they were 20-year old kids acting 20-years older than they were. With the exception of Lt. Colonel Tall and Sgt. Welsh, the characters are too young to even be contemplating anything more than trying to survive their tour on Guadalcanal.
I also had questions. What happened to Sgt. McCron, the man who comes unhinged at the loss of his squad? Did he survive? was he given a Section 8? Did Dale regain his humanity after crying in the rain? Did Doll return the .45 pistol he stole? Did Lt. Tall get his promotion? He certainly deserved it. A man his age should at least have been a full Colonel, if not a Brigadier General (Like Travolta's Character Was). The movie refrains from giving us any details as to the fates of the men after they depart the island. Michel Chion writes about this eloquently in his book. He goes into great details of each character's "inner voice." Yet he, unlike Ebert, does not seem to realize that the musings of the men sound like that of the director, an older man. But their musings do not tell us their eventual fate nor do they foreshadow what would become of them in the future.
Roger Ebert also said on his show how the narration sounded a bit too much like the Days of Heaven narration, which distracted him when he saw The Thin Red Line. Simply put, the movies seem to have the same voice which is unrealistic. It seemed like he took the tone of the narration and moved it from the Texas wheat fields to this island in the Pacific and yet he's asking the same questions. As I mentioned earlier, this same "voice" does not give the characters any individuality. It only serves to make them what seem to be clones. This was not the case with the book by James Jones. Each character was delineated precisely and Ebert even says that had Spielberg done this movie it might have looked much more like Saving Private Ryan.
The battle scenes were nothing but superb! Taking Hill 210 must have been like taking Hamburger Hill, a pure hell for anyone attempting to ascend it's hellish terrain. This is where the movie grabbed and held me. The vivid scenery, the musings of the soldiers as well as the individual shots of wounded and angry wildlife. A captured crocodile, a wounded bird and a maddened snake (According To Wikipedia there Are Few Venomous Snakes On Guadalcanal).
I highly recommend this movie and I'm proud to have been the 535th person to rate it Five Stars and the 1067th overall. I also recommend you purchase Michel Chion's book. He was able to translate the words of the Japanese soldiers that surrounded Witt at the end of the movie! I'd always wondered what they were saying to him. I was fascinated when I read what they were saying. I'm still glad that Malick chose not to subtitle those words because it kept us in Witt's point of view and kept us from identifying too much with the "enemy" as shown in this movie. Chion's book is the perfect companion piece to this movie. See also the Siskel & Ebert segment for this film (And Any Others From Their Time Period Together). I also recommend reading Roger Ebert's original January 8, 1999 review of the movie. All of his reviews are timeless. He and Gene Siskel will always be missed.
A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.
A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.
** UPDATE ** I've watched all of the extra features, which are uniformly insightful and superb.
Commentary: This is by cinematographer John Toll, production designer Jack Fisk, and producer Grant Hill. Criterion commentaries are usually of three breeds, I find: hit-or-miss commentaries by film scholars (Peter Cowie's Bergman commentaries would be hits, the dull "you see the door in that shot? that door represents an opening" commentary on Solaris would be a miss), idiosyncratic commentaries by directors (Edward Yang, Jim Jarmusch), and then incredibly detailed production commentaries by people who worked on the production (The Last Metro, both Malicks). I like the director commentaries the most, since they usually combine both interpretation and production stories. The Thin Red Line commentary is completely about the production of the film, suffused with an almost worshipful regard for Terrence Malick. I found it a little dry. I would've liked discussion about, say, the poetry of the film -- the beautiful scene of Witt's mother dying, for example, which is like a Renaissance painting. Instead you hear that that scene was one of the last ones filmed.
Actors: An almost 30 minute featurette, featuring interviews with Sean Penn, Kirk Acevedo, Thomas Jane, Elias Koteas, Dash Mihok and Jim Cavaziel. I didn't find this particularly interesting; the actors uniformly fawn over Malick's genius and basically congratulate themselves for participating in the film.
Casting: A twenty minute featurette with the casting director, Diane Crittenden, featuring many audition tapes. Pretty interesting to see now well-known actors audition in the beginning of their careers (Nick Stahl, especially). Thomas Jane was quite the rockabilly.
Music: Hans Zimmer talks about his ambitious (he calls it "pretentious") ideas for the soundtrack of the film, particularly the idea that the music "should keep asking questions." I didn't realize that Zimmer had done the thoughtful music for Thin Red Line: it's so different from the sonic bombasts he's been doing lately.
Editing: Malick's team of editors, Billy Weber, Leslie Jones and Saar Klein discuss their work on their film. I found this feature to be the most interesting of the lot, particularly their discussion of how Malick pared the original 5-hour cut of the film (which, according to them, was plot-heavy, expository and filled with dialogue) into its current form, which is essentially a silent film layered with voiceover. Apparently Malick watched the assemblies with the soundtrack out, listening instead to Green Day. Who knew Terrence Malick liked Green Day?
Deleted Scenes: These fourteen minutes of deleted scenes show what a different movie The Thin Red Line could have been: they're basically straightforward dialogue and action scenes, with little or no voiceover or music. One of the events that actually happened to James Jones that he put into the novel -- he was surprised by an enemy soldier while taking a crap, and managed to kill him -- turns out to have been filmed after all. Another scene shows George Clooney displaying some fine actorly chops.
Kaylie Jones: James Jones' daughter talks about her father and the writing of The Thin Red Line in an illuminating featurette.
Newsreels: Ten 2-minute newsreels from 1942 talk about the American involvement in the Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal in an incredibly gung-ho, Celebrate Our Boys fashion. It's an amazing counterpoint to the film.
Melanesian chants: Audio-only feature on the native chants used in the film.
Trailer: Watch this after you've seen the film, since like most trailers it completely gives everything away.
Top reviews from other countries
More of a search into the human soul than your typical war film- instead master director Terrence Malick uses the setting of war, man's most destructive device, to explore the nature of mankind.
Hugely memorable and moving film, and one of my favourites. The acting is tremendous, the cinematography breathtaking and the score is Hans Zimmer's best to date.
If you want a film to make you reflect, I urge you to give this a chance to wow you.