Film Review: The Thin Red Line

Authors

James Morrison, Claremont McKenna CollegeFollow

Document Type

Review

Department

Film Studies (CMC), Literature (CMC)

Publication Date

1999

Abstract

In Malick's new film, his first in 20 years, this tension is gone. The Thin Red Line, based on James Jones' 1962 novel of World War II, pursues the strains of ardent feeling of the director's earlier work but, without seeming to renounce it, forsakes the irony. The core of the film follows an American battalion's fight against the Japanese for a hill at Guadalcanal, and although this core provides dramatic grounding for the movie, it is flanked at both ends, beginning and end, by stretches of storytelling so fragmentary, so mercurial, they're nearly abstract.

Comments

Brief excerpt from content is used in lieu of an abstract.

Rights Information

© 1999 The Regents of the University of California

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Recommended Citation

Morrison, James. Rev. of The Thin Red Line, dir. Terrence Malick. Film Quarterly 53.1 (Fall 1999): 35-38.