The Thin Red Line

Starring:Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, James Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, John Travolta, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Don Harvey, Thomas Jane, Elias Koteas, George Clooney, Jared Leto, John Savage, Tim Blake Nelson, Mark Boone Junior, Norman Patrick Brown, Paul Gleeson (II), Gordon MacDonald
Director: Terrence Malick
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

One of the cinema's great disappearing acts came to a close with the release of The Thin Red Line in late 1998. Terrence Malick, the cryptic recluse who withdrew from Hollywood visibility after the release of his visually enthralling masterpiece Days of Heaven (1978), returned to the director's chair after a 20-year coffee break. Malick's comeback vehicle is a fascinating choice: a wide-ranging adaptation of a World War II novel (filmed once before, in 1964) by James Jones. The battle for Guadalcanal Island gives Malick an opportunity to explore nothing less than the nature of life, death, God, and courage. Let that be a warning to anyone expecting a conventional war flick; Malick proves himself quite capable of mounting an exciting action sequence, but he's just as likely to meander into pure philosophical noodling--or simply let the camera contemplate the first steps of a newly birthed tropical bird, the sinister skulk of a crocodile. This is not especially an actors' movie--some faces go by so quickly they barely register--but the standouts are bold: Nick Nolte as a career-minded colonel, Elias Koteas as a deeply spiritual captain who tries to protect his men, Ben Chaplin as a G.I. haunted by lyrical memories of his wife. The backbone of the film is the ongoing discussion between a wry sergeant (Sean Penn) and an ethereal, almost holy private (newcomer Jim Caviezel). The picture's sprawl may be a result of Malick's method of "finding" a film during shooting and editing, and in some ways The Thin Red Line seems vaguely, intriguingly incomplete. Yet it casts a spell like almost nothing else of its time, and Malick's visionary images are a challenge and a signpost to the rest of his filmmaking generation. --Robert Horton

Description

A powerful frontline cast - including Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Woody Harrelson and George Clooney - explodes into action in this hauntingly realistic view of military and moral chaos in the Pacific during World War II.

Customer Reviews:

Exquisite Cinema.......2007-05-29

Stunning. Director Terrence Malick brilliantly portrays the dichotomies of life and death, of humankind's dark, yet brilliant soul, and nature's beauty and indifference in this adaptation of the 1962 James Jones war novel. This cinematic masterpiece boasts extraordinary acting performances from a cast of actors including Nick Nolte, Adrien Brody and Sean Penn. Cinematography and soundtrack in this film are lush and beautiful, the camera work is astounding. "The Thin Red Line" is a sensual, rich and emotive journey through a South Pacific island jungle during the WWII battle of Guadalcanal.

Quite different angle on a war movie.......2007-05-20

I watched this movie late in the evening, after coming home from my son's 14th birthday party. My festive mood quickly turned responsive and contemplative. My son watched part of it too but fell asleep due to exhaustion. Thin Red Line is a fascinating view on a dark and cruel chapter of WWII, the bitter, relentless fight over Guadalcanal in the Pacific theater of war. What struck me most about this film is the fact that man's conflict is set against the overwhelming background of nature and the elements. Although the fighting is intense and without mercy, nature is in large part undisturbed by it and uninterested in the outcome. The fighting scenes are intersparsed by scenes of tranquility and peacefulness. American GI's and Japanses Imperial troops are both depicted as accidental heroes and victims. There are exiting vistas and images of nature, animals, sunsets and sundowns, clouds and the omnipresent jungle. You hear the rustling of the wind in the grass and the trees. Like it must have been for the soldiers most of the time. Although there are parallels with Saving Private Ryan, it is an altogether different approach. The acting is great. Especially Jim Caviezel's and Sean Penn's. The actors doing a cameo (John Travolta, Nick Nolte)in my view are far less convincing.
I recommend this movie to anyone who is bored by the average run of the mill war flick with brainless heroes who rampage through the movie shooting everything that moves without being hit or hampered by remorse. Mr Terence Malick did an excellent job. I look forward to his next movie, whatever that may be. An intelligent, philosophical and artful anti war-movie depicting the cruelty of man and the senselessness of human conflict in all its degrading details. I was truly impressed by it.

Combat: up close and personal.......2007-05-02

I read James Jones' book many years ago, but found it a memorable account of the fighting on Guadalcanal. Director Terrence Malick did a masterful job of capturing Jones' essence in this film. The combat is sudden, brutal, unforgiving. Yet the cinematography is breathtaking. The juxtaposition of beauty and agony is gripping. An all-star cast seems a bit overdone in places, with big-name celebrities making only brief appearances at some rather odd intervals. The philosophical thoughts by some of the characters was an intriguing ingredient, but again, echoed Jones' writing. For war film junkies or WWII buffs, this is a must-see. For those who want their war fix in flag-waving, glorious hero style, this isn't for you.

Moral, spiritual depravity .......2007-04-05

Perhaps the most poignant aspect of 'The Thin Red Line' is that most of the Human Race -- more specifically, most Americans (I'm American) -- cannot comprehend the significance of this film. It's not that these people are intellectually incapable of understanding the subject matter, either; it's Humanistic and spiritual; the intelligence that most all Human beings possess. Objectivity amongst those (myself included) that posses the capability helps heightening the experience in several ways, but the bottom line is the absurdly important theme of this work of art (this is one film that labeling a "movie" would be demeaning and completely unsatisfactory) -- that theme is one of death. Films like 'Saving Private Ryan' are conducted with blatant conservatism and, truly, pale infinitely in philosophical significance. Not that Spielberg's vision was thoughtless or without merit, but it wasn't progressive in the way that Malick presents his convictions.

How one can see the film as pretentious or self-indulgent is truly beyond me, and I to attain the belief that it is also a matter of elitism, pathological symptoms of an inability to deal with the subject of non-existence. There are wonderfully smart people, too, that dismiss this film, which is why it's truly such a shame; these people have grown so much on an objective level, reaching brilliant levels of luminosity, but the nature of our currently disconnected, post-modern world, with its absolutely aggressive fight with our Human nature, has made us entirely unable to deal with the repercussions of it. Thus, these geniuses which so many of us truly are have been spiritually, subjectively suppressed to the point that that entirely different level of intelligence -- emotional, spiritual -- has been neglected. Now a days, especially, it's almost seen as stupid, which really boils my %#@U*(U%@) blood, because the social, Human consequences of this elitist mentality has served to provide a severe inferiority complex among those that do have spiritual ideals and, in their deepest self, know that they are right. They are dreamers whose dream has crawled desperately into the hole of isolation and despair. What's wonderful about 'The Thin Red Line', though, is that it so movingly brings out this hope within us by emphasizing the utterly horrific -- especially for the heroic, psychologically broken down individuals -- nature of war and suffering. It's the quintessential expression of the dichotomy between hate and love, good and evil, spiritual light and dark. And this is Malick -- truly one of the most important Human beings on the planet -- an Einstein of our day -- so everything is presented in the most realistic, least manipulative way possible -- in a WAY; Hans Zimmer's score parallels these themes and subtext, additionally, and it's one of the most emotionally powerful scores I've ever heard (this is Hans Zimmer, too; never before, nor since, has he dealt or composed a score with such amazing thought and intellect). At any rate, I say "in a way" because the ultimate, redemptive, religious theme of the film is that it is possible to attain levels of consciousness that we so ignore; it IS preachy, but only because Malick's presented philosophy is firmly rooted in an ultimate answer, or at the very minimum, expressing the POSSIBILITY of what we can become through free will and love, hope and faith.

I have no intention of commenting on the value and brilliance of the filmic genius of Malick's creation, suffice to say his conveyance of all of this existential idea is only possible through an utter capability and talent that few have. That's the other thing -- I love directors like Cameron, Spielberg, etc, but they are ultimately so much less reflective and, in the larger scheme of things, important, because they are afraid, or possibly simply unable, to express film in it's highest form -- where narrative ultimately ceases to fall behind thought, philosophy, and truly powerful subtext. They fail to comment, at least in comparison, on the subjective experience of our Human existence; that's what separates Malick from these talented directors (on the other hand, colder, philosophical filmmakers such as Kubrick and Cronenberg and debatably near-equal in brilliance -- which is why I love them so -- but the generally despairing worldview -- at least morally, surely their themes revolve around hugely important Human issues such as individual, sexual evolution, death, mystery, etc, but they are generally far less hopeful in the end (I will state, however, that Cronenberg's 'The Fly' is one film that rivals my intimate connection to 'The Thin Red Line'; in its case, the possibility of such a powerful view of non-existence following death makes 'The Fly' almost more tragic in a way, because it is so utterly discomforting and sad).

I could go on and on, but I think I got across some of my convictions and beliefs, and more than anything -- Love -- towards this film, and I hate to dismiss the beauty of the cinematography and unrivaled acting by these amazing men, but I have limited space, and I get fatigued, too!

I'm not where I want to be in Life, spiritually, but I am growing. I love you all. Why does a part of me feel squeamish saying that? Because to so many of us it comes across as a pathetically gooey, sentimental, truthfully meaningless act. Love IS an act, of true respect and utter compassion, in its higher states, and the fact that we've dismissed that over time is arguably the biggest tragedy of our world. (and even if you stand by the notion that the particular vision and belief is an illusion -- a state never really partook in as a collective species -- you must also confront the fact that you are denying it as an ideal in itself, because it's so very possible you, too, consider that notion of heaven on earth the truest dream of all.

The World as Will and Representation.......2007-04-03

This is not a "war film" and it is not an "antiwar film." What Malick (a former philosophy student) has done is *use* the setting of modern warfare as a way of communicating the essence of Schopenhauer's metaphysics and ethics. Underneath the surface of the observable, individuated phenomena, the essence of the world is will: a non-individuated, passionate yet pointless destructive striving. The will is embodied in Nick Nolte, who lives to fight and win, while recognizing that his way is the way of "nature." "Look at those vines, Staros, swallowing everything. Nature is cruel." True insight into the nature of the will, however, leads to compassion for the suffering of others, since we are all One behind appearances, and renunciation of desiring (and its inevitable concomitants, conflict and suffering). The denial of the will is represented by Jim Cavaziel. According to Schopenhauer, if one recognizes the futility of willing but cannot achieve this state of complete ascetic denial, the only other alternative is to mitigate one's own suffering by keeping one's expectations as low as possible. This stance is embodied by Sean Penn. From the first, crucial dialogue between Penn and Cavaziel, the agenda of the film is placed before us: given that the world is as it is, should we cling to this world and despair, or should we turn away from it and transcend? As Penn says, "there's no world but this one." Cavaziel replies, "I've seen another world." *That* is what the film is about: a choice between mysticism and nihilism.

The film is not pro-war, because it assumes as Schopenhauer did, that moral justifications of war are always nothing more than rationalizations of a more fundamental need for violence. The film is not anti-war, because unlike all other anti-war films, it does not set up a contrast between a morally praiseworthy form of ordinary life and a morally repugnant form of activity created by and creating war. If war is an expression of the cruelty of nature, or reality itself, moral judgment of it makes no sense---one might as well condemn the jungle for being jungle. This goes some way toward explaining the peculiar detachment the film aspires to and achieves. The catastrophe the characters are caught up in is the world itself, and the film offers no adequate response to it than to serenely transcend it.

World War II Collection (The Thin Red Line/Patton/Tora! Tora! Tora!/The Longest Day)

Average customer rating:

ALL 4 FILMS ARE CLASSICS THAT I REALLY WANTED MAKING THIS SET A 'REEL' TREAT FOR ME!
Good package of war movies
Three Magnificent War Movies but One Appalling Fantasy
I'll tell you why...
Two bad movies for the price of five

World War II Collection (The Thin Red Line/Patton/Tora! Tora! Tora!/The Longest Day)
Starring: Martin Balsam , Sô Yamamura , Joseph Cotten , Tatsuya Mihashi , and E.G. Marshall
Director: Kinji Fukasaku , Toshio Masuda , and Richard Fleischer
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

World War II | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

Action & Adventure | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( W ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

World War II Collection - Battlefront Europe (The Big Red One Two-Disc Special Edition / The Dirty Dozen / Battle of the Bulge / Battleground / Where Eagles Dare)
WWII 60th Anniversary Collection (The Guns of Navarone/From Here to Eternity/The Bridge on the River Kwai) (Includes Collectible Scrapbook)
Midway (Collector's Edition)
WW II 60th Anniversary Collection (Das Boot/Anzio/Caine Mutiny/Dead Men's Secrets) (Includes Collectible Scrapbook)
A Bridge Too Far

ASIN: B00004TS0M
Release Date: 2000-11-07

Amazon.com

The Thin Red Line (1998)
In recluse director Terrence Malick's 1998 comeback vehicle, the battle for Guadalcanal Island offers an opportunity to explore nothing less than the nature of life, death, God, and courage. Let that be a warning to anyone expecting a conventional war flick; Malick proves himself quite capable of mounting an exciting action sequence, but he's just as likely to meander into pure philosophical noodling. This is not especially an actors' movie, but the standouts are bold: Nick Nolte as a career-minded colonel, Elias Koteas as a deeply spiritual captain who tries to protect his men, Ben Chaplin as a G.I. haunted by lyrical memories of his wife. The backbone of the film is the ongoing discussion between a wry sergeant (Sean Penn) and an ethereal, almost holy private (newcomer Jim Caviezel). In some ways The Thin Red Line seems vaguely, intriguingly incomplete, yet it casts a spell like almost nothing else of its time, and Malick's visionary images are a challenge and a signpost to the rest of his filmmaking generation. --Robert Horton

Tora! Tora! Tora!
"Sir, there's a large formation of planes coming in from the north, 140 miles, 3 degrees east." "Yeah? Don't worry about it." This is just one of the many mishaps chronicled in Tora! Tora! Tora! The epic film shows the bombing of Pearl Harbor from both sides in the historic first American-Japanese coproduction: American director Richard Fleischer oversaw the complicated production, wrestling a sprawling story with dozens of characters into a manageable, fairly easy-to-follow film. While Tora! Tora! Tora! lacks the strong central characters that anchor the best war movies, the real star of the film is the climactic 30-minute battle, a massive feat of cinematic engineering that expertly conveys the surprise, the chaos, and the immense destruction of the attack. --Sean Axmaker

Patton
One of the greatest screen biographies ever produced, this monumental film runs nearly three hours, won seven Academy Awards, and gave George C. Scott the greatest role of his career. Scott embodies his role so fully, so convincingly, that we can't help but be drawn to and fascinated by Patton as a man who is simultaneously bound for hell and glory. Filmed on an epic scale at literally dozens of European locations, Patton does not embrace war as a noble pursuit, nor does it deny the reality of war as a breeding ground for heroes. Through the awesome achievement of Scott's performance and the film's grand ambition, Patton shows all the complexities of a man who accepted his role in life and (like Scott) played it to the hilt. --Jeff Shannon

The Longest Day
The Longest Day is Hollywood's definitive D-day movie. More modern accounts such as Saving Private Ryan are more vividly realistic, but producer Darryl F. Zanuck's epic 1962 account is the only one to attempt the daunting task of covering that fateful day from all perspectives. From the German high command and front-line officers to the French Resistance and all the key Allied participants, the screenplay by Cornelius Ryan, based on his own authoritative book, is as factually accurate as possible. The endless parade of stars (John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Sean Connery, and Richard Burton, to name a few) makes for an uneasy mix of verisimilitude and Hollywood star-power, however, and the film falls a little flat for too much of its three-hour running time. But the set-piece battles are still spectacular, and if the landings on Omaha Beach lack the graphic gore of Private Ryan, they nonetheless show the sheer scale and audacity of the invasion. --Mark Walker

Description

Contains: *Thin Red Line, The *Tora! Tora! Tora! *Patton *Longest Day, The

Customer Reviews:

ALL 4 FILMS ARE CLASSICS THAT I REALLY WANTED MAKING THIS SET A 'REEL' TREAT FOR ME!.......2006-10-21

FIRST THOUGHTS: 4 EXCELLENT WAR FILMS ON DVD THEMATICALLY COMBINED INTO 1 SET

This set came to me as a gift from one of my sons about 4 years ago. He found it at Sam's Club and he paid about 30 dollars. Each one of the films included are films I really wanted so the set has been a 'reel' treat for me.

IN A NUTSHELL: SAVE $17. ON THIS SET VERSUS PURCHASING INDIVIDUAL TITLES FROM AMAZON

Within a nice outer slipcase you get 4 classic DVDs in their normal DVD packaging and wrappers. These are all releases that you can purchase seperately, but it is a little less costly to get the set. 'Patton' is a 2-DISK set that sells for $14.98 from Amazon, 'Tora Tora Tora' is $12.98, 'The Longest Day' is an edition no longer available directly from Amazon, but several Amazon sellers are offering it New from $15.98, and 'The Thin Red Line' is $9.19 directly from Amazon. It comes to over $53. plus shipping [depending on whether you get all the titles from Amazon or from vendors]. If you buy this set the shipping is free [over $25.] In essence, one can save $17. [as of today] buying this set rather than buying the individual titles, which is significant as these are not promotional DVDs and do in fact have all the 'special features' available on the individual titles.

***** THE TITLES *****

* 'THE LONGEST DAY'
* 'PATTON'
* 'THE THIN RED LINE'
* 'TORA TORA TORA'

Good package of war movies.......2005-07-20

The Longest Day is one of the best war movies ever made. And Tora 3 is a much better depiction of the attack on Pearl Harbor than that stupid Ben Affleck movie.

The Thin Red Line can be a tough one to accept. I had to watch it a few times before I liked it.

Three Magnificent War Movies but One Appalling Fantasy.......2004-02-11

It is up to the viewer to decide what is fact and what is fiction or what is utter and complete fantasy. But in my Opinion, The Longest Day, Patton and Tora Tora Tora are renowned war movies, 'The Thin Red Line' is not.

Maintaining a very slow pace throughout its three and half hours lenght, in the 'Thin Red Line' more Japanese soldiers are shown surrendering in the few hours of combat depicted than actually did the first three years of the Pacific war! (If you do not believe me, look up Tarawa, New Guinea, Marshall Islands, and Iwo Jima for example.) And of course the Americans are shown almost to last as the inhuman beasts and the Japanese as noble Samurai.

Following in the tradition of the racist epic 'Birth to a Nation', movies like the Thin Red Line and Pearl Harbor are rewriting ouf history. For example, in Pearl Harbor the Japanese are depicted as being justified in attacking, when actually the United States stopped selling the Japanese oil because they were allies with Hitler, making war on China, and had just invaded French Indochina.

I'll tell you why..........2004-02-08

To answer another reviewer's question: Why would you buy this set when you can get the individual films cheaper? You can't buy the individual films cheaper.

The version of "Patton" in this set is the 2-disc Special Edition, which is out of print except for in this set, and selling for more than the price of this entire set on auction sites.

So save some money, get the 2-disc version of Patton, and get three other great WWII films for free (essentially).

Two bad movies for the price of five.......2002-12-13

Let's face it...the Thin Red Line is the most boring war movie ever made. Tora Tora Tora is very outdated, and although it does show the attack upon Pearl Harbor from the Japanese perspective, it is very much outclassed by the newer movie, "Pearl Harbor,"

Average customer rating:

Exquisite Cinema
Quite different angle on a war movie
Combat: up close and personal
Moral, spiritual depravity
The World as Will and Representation

The Thin Red Line - DTS
Starring: Kirk Acevedo , Penelope Allen , Benjamin Green , Simon Billig , and Mark Boone Junior
Director: Terrence Malick
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Drama | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

Anti-War Films | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

DTS | Fully Loaded DVDs | Features | DVD | Video

( T ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Days of Heaven
Badlands
Enemy at the Gates
We Were Soldiers (Widescreen Edition)
Platoon (Collector's Edition Steelbook)

ASIN: B00005221N
Release Date: 2001-01-23

Amazon.com essential video

Description

Customer Reviews:

Exquisite Cinema.......2007-05-29

Quite different angle on a war movie.......2007-05-20

Combat: up close and personal.......2007-05-02

Moral, spiritual depravity .......2007-04-05

The World as Will and Representation.......2007-04-03

WWII Collection (The Thin Red Line / Patton / The Longest Day / Tora! Tora! Tora!)

Average customer rating:

WWII Collection (The Thin Red Line / Patton / The Longest Day / Tora! Tora! Tora!)
Starring: Eddie Albert , Paul Anka , Arletty , Jean-Louis Barrault , and Richard Beymer
Director: Ken Annakin , Bernhard Wicki , and Darryl F. Zanuck
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

World War II | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

Action & Adventure | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( W ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Midway (Collector's Edition)
Battle of the Bulge [HD DVD]
Ben-Hur (Four-Disc Collector's Edition)
The Dark Crystal
The Bridge on the River Kwai

ASIN: B0006419M8
Release Date: 2000-11-07

Description

Contains: *Thin Red Line, The *Tora! Tora! Tora! *Patton *Longest Day, The

Average customer rating:

Exquisite Cinema
Quite different angle on a war movie
Combat: up close and personal
Moral, spiritual depravity
The World as Will and Representation

The Thin Red Line
Starring: Kirk Acevedo , Penelope Allen , Benjamin Green , Simon Billig , and Mark Boone Junior
Director: Terrence Malick
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Drama | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

Anti-War Films | Military & War | Genres | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $7.49 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( T ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Days of Heaven
Badlands
Enemy at the Gates
We Were Soldiers (Widescreen Edition)
Platoon (Collector's Edition Steelbook)

ASIN: 6305438218
Release Date: 2000-11-07

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Exquisite Cinema.......2007-05-29

Quite different angle on a war movie.......2007-05-20

Combat: up close and personal.......2007-05-02

Moral, spiritual depravity .......2007-04-05

The World as Will and Representation.......2007-04-03

George Clooney The Collection (One Fine Day, Solaris, Thin Red Line)

Average customer rating:

5 minutes -- that's it.

George Clooney The Collection (One Fine Day, Solaris, Thin Red Line)
Starring: George Clooney , Natascha McElhone , Viola Davis , Jeremy Davies , and Ulrich Tukur
Director: Steven Soderbergh , Michael Hoffman , and Terrence Malick
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

DVDs Under $9.99 | Today's Deals in DVD | Special Features | DVD | Video

( G ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Three Kings
Drew Barrymore Celebtiry Pack (Never Been Kissed / Fever Pitch / Ever After)
George Clooney: An Illustrated Story
Out of Sight (Collector's Edition)
Ocean's Eleven (Widescreen Edition)

ASIN: B000EXDS6Q
Release Date: 2006-06-06

Description

This pack contains 3 George Clooney movies in one slipcase.

Disc 1: One Fine Day Disc 2: Solaris Disc 3: Thin Red Line

Customer Reviews:

5 minutes -- that's it........2006-08-19

Don't buy this pack if you think Clooney has a major part in Thin Red Line. He's only in the film for 5 minutes. That's it. The movie is great--don't get me wrong. But this is not a "DEAL" if you're thinking Clooney Trilogy.

Heroes of War Collection - Soldier's Stories (Men of Honor / Courage Under Fire / Tigerland / The Thin Red Line)

Average customer rating:

Heroes of War Collection - Soldier's Stories (Men of Honor / Courage Under Fire / Tigerland / The Thin Red Line)
Starring: Denzel Washington , Meg Ryan , Lou Diamond Phillips , Michael Moriarty , and Matt Damon
Director: Edward Zwick , George Tillman Jr. , and Terrence Malick
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

Action & Adventure | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Drama | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

Military & War | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

( H ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Heroes of War Collection - Frontline Combat (Halls of Montezuma, Decision Before Dawn, D-Day the Sixth of June, Guadalcanal Diary)
Heroes of War Collection - Navy Battles (The Enemy Below, The Frogmen, Morituri, Sink the Bismarck!)
Flyboys (Widescreen Edition)
Flags of Our Fathers (Widescreen Edition)
Patton

ASIN: B000EMGJG8
Release Date: 2006-05-23

Description

Episode Description: GiftSet Includes the Following Titles:

Amazon.com

This serious-minded but flawed effort at bringing James Jones's later World War II novel to the screen might have languished in film vaults had reclusive director Terence Malick not resurfaced with a newer version, the likely spur to this video release. This first attempt, lensed in 1964, offers glimpses of what may have attracted Malick to the project.

Jones's story focuses on two American soldiers during the Guadalcanal campaign, the newlywed draftee Private Doll (Keir Dullea) and Sergeant Welch (Jack Warden), the hardened veteran. Doll is determined to survive whatever the cost, disobeying orders if it will improve his chances; Welch is dutiful yet calculating, resorting to deliberate acts of madness to toughen up his troops by showing them war's own absurdity by example. The clash between the private and the sergeant thus becomes the core to the film, focusing on the "thin red line" between sanity and insanity and depicting how that line blurs for both protagonists.

As directed by veteran Andrew Marton (55 Days in Peking), the film is at its best during sweeping battle sequences capturing the gritty horror of hand-to-hand combat, as the Americans try to take an impregnable wall of caves held by the Japanese enemy. Less successful are portentous scenes and dialogue that underscore this evident parable with a heavy hand; there's a self-conscious art film spin that misfires.The original black-and-white Cinemascope negative shows wear and tear, and early copies betray serious problems in their optical transfers. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews:

The Thin Red Line between good and bad acting.......2006-07-16

I thought I remembered this as being a good movie when I was a kid. Upon seeing this movie again, some thirty-five years later; I was wrong. The acting is terrible and the story has more than a few technical flaws that really irked me. Such as the soldiers with no grenandes hanging from their web gear (they magically appear during the battle scenes), or only one BAR in the entire company, and no one wearing bandoleers of ammo for their M-1 rifles. And one of the biggest faux's was the use of German MP-40's (9mm subguns) by both the Americans and Japanese (In the Pacific War?).

A cheaply made movie (technically speaking) for only the psychological impact. I guess I'm just used to more realism than was displayed in this movie. If you've ever seen bad acting when a soldier is getting shot - a la "Hell Is For Heroes," then you're really going to laugh at the way guys die in this movie. Ugh! I'm donating my video to the local library.

Hard Hitting GI Film.......2006-07-14

This was a film that was not affraid to be controversial. While not a great work, it was typical of war films being made about WW2 in the late 50s, early 60s. Some of these films were not affraid to look at the more gritty, nasty aspects of combat. It is significant in a lot of these films the strain often shown between commanding officers and their men. In this case the blood and guts quality of the CO versus his subordinate. The US army of the time often didn't have much time for sentimentality. Films like this were willing to show that.

The combat scenes are intense for their time, but not overly graphic. Its interesting that the army is portrayed here instead of the Marines. Most Pacific war flicks usually portray the Marines versus the Japs. Here we see what the army often had to do after the Marines moved on to another island.

This is a hard hitting film for its time, with little real plot other than the strains and stresses of combat on the various characters. The 1998 re-make was probably a more vague and poetic film. Certainly its scenery is much more vivid than what you get here. Its also a lot slower moving! The music is a tense score from English composer Malcom Arnold whose work is evident in many films of this period. This is your classic B&W war film for the time it was made in. Take it or leave it!

Better than Malick, but still not Jones........2003-06-07

The Thin Red Line (Andrew Marton, 1964)

Andrew Marton (King Solomon's Mines, The Longest Day) took on James Jones' best, and biggest, novel some thirty-four years before Terence Malick did. After the desecration Malick released, I resolved I had to see Marton's version as soon as I could, because surely, nothing could possibly be worse than Malick's. I was right... but not by much.

Marton focused on some different points in The Thin Red Line than Malick did (including, surprisingly, a glancing reference towards the book's homosexual themes), but in the end, there's still way too much missing for this to be a good adaptation of Jones' gorgeous, sprawling novel of the Battle of Guadalcanal. Marton focuses, as any decent adaptation would have, on the conflict between Private Doll (Keir Dullea of 2001: A Space Odyssey) and Sergeant Welsh (the omnipresent Jack Warden). Someone, however, should have mentioned to screenwriter Bernard Morton (Earth vs. the Flying Saucers... nuff said) that when you're already desperately trying to concatenate a six-hundred-page (in eight-point font) novel into just over an hour and a half, you don't write in extra confrontations between the two main characters or you lose sight of the rest of the novel (in this case, well, the four days of battle of Guadalcanal, which get about ten minutes of screen time). And yet still, in a film an hour shorter than Malick's, Marton managed to squeeze in the whole book rather than just the first half. Astounding.

Dullea, never the best of actors, well earned Noel Coward's "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow" jibe. There were some directors, Kubrick among them, who were capable of turning Dullea's oddly featureless face to their advantage. Marton is one of them. Dullea, by virtue of his complete indistinguishability from your basic eighteen-year-old American preppy, becomes a sort of everyman, while the easily-recognizable Warden is a character all to himself. (Jones fans, take note: one of the movie's true weaknesses is that it explores Welsh's "property" ideas even less than does Malick's movie.) This in itself creates an additional tension in the movie, which in some places it sorely needs. But in the end, both Marton's and Malick's attempts to being The Thin Red Line to the screen both failed for the same reason: the source material won't stand for it. Far too much of the book is internalized and doesn't translate well to the screen, leading to isolated dramatic scenes (needless to say, Marton and Malick focused on many of the same points of high drama offered in the novel) in seas of slow, uninteresting sitting in the jungle and waiting.

Still, if you were as disgusted by Malick's heretical retelling as I was, this is worth a rental. It's not the movie it should have been (when someone finally does he Thin Red Line correctly, it will, deservedly, be as lauded as was From Here to Eternity), but it's a step farther in the right direction than Malick got. **

A lesson for directors.......2000-12-12

Watch this outdated, macho, adolescent film and then watch Malick's 1998 remake. Watch how the exact same dialogue in the exact same scenes come out corny and inflected here and then watch the sublime subtlety of the new version. Dullea and Warden are wonderful, but overall this is just melodramatic pap.

An underestimated film.......1999-12-14

I worked on this film in 1966 as camera operator for Director of photogrphy Manuel Berenguer ASC. Mr. Berenguer got an Oscar nomination for the best B/W foreing film.Been aware of the difficulties we went through in the actual filming, for which the audience is oviously not aware, and seen the final result on the screen, I'm convinced that this version from Marton is far better than the last version.Is very unfortunate that the DVD copies does not by far mach the original release print, picture and sound quality.

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose (March 17, 1999)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

( C ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Description

In a rebroadcasted interview that originally aired March 8, 1999, Sir Ian McKellen discusses his Oscar-nominated role in "Gods and Monsters", his perspectives on acting, and his career working with some of the leading figures in films and on stage.||Then, in an interview that originally aired Jnuary 5, 1999, Nick Nolte, Oscar-nominated for "Affliction", talks about his World War Two movie "The Thin Red Line", his collaboration with Terrence Malick, and the process of filmmaking.

Average customer rating:

Exquisite Cinema
Quite different angle on a war movie
Combat: up close and personal
Moral, spiritual depravity
The World as Will and Representation

The Thin Red Line [Region 2]
Starring: Kirk Acevedo , Penelope Allen , Benjamin Green , Simon Billig , and Mark Boone Junior
Director: Terrence Malick
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Action & Adventure | Genres | DVD | Video

( T ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

Days of Heaven
Badlands
Enemy at the Gates
We Were Soldiers (Widescreen Edition)
Platoon (Collector's Edition Steelbook)

ASIN: B00004TBT2

Amazon.com essential video

Customer Reviews:

Exquisite Cinema.......2007-05-29

Quite different angle on a war movie.......2007-05-20

Combat: up close and personal.......2007-05-02

Moral, spiritual depravity .......2007-04-05