Blaine: Terrence Malick made a name for himself when he directed movies like “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven” during the 70s and those were the only movies he made. After his 1978 film, “Days of Heaven”, Terrence Malick hadn’t made another movie in the past twenty years. Why? I don’t know. Terrence is known to be a mysterious filmmaker. He's someone who keeps a lot of things to himself but he's a brilliant artist. The movies Terrence makes these days, like “Tree of Life”, “Knight of Cups”, “Song to Song” and “The New World”, they hardly have any dialog. You just see these moving images that are beautifully shot. Terrence’s films have a photographic quality to them.
The actors he hires to be in his films don't know who they are playing or what they are supposed to do while they are on set. They don’t know what they are doing until Terrence tells them how everything is going to go. He'll just say a few things of what he wants to see and that's it. From the sound of it Terrence Malick is not much of a talker, but he knows what he is doing.
Terrence Malick’s third feature became “The Thin Red Line”, based on the novel by James Jones. Now this film does have dialog in certain scenes. The way “Thin Red Line” was shot is what I love the most about it.
A lot of people loved the way Terrence wrote the screenplay because it described things perfectly. There were times Terrence would be pouring out what he wanted to see while making “The Thin Red Line”.
A lot of the actors who were in "The Thin Red Line" had seen Terrence Malick's first two features and that was one of the reasons they wanted to be involved with the project. "The Thin Red Line" has an ensemble of well known actors. Terrence didn't want any stars in the film, he just wanted actors who looked like they fit in the film, but this project got a lot of attention from actors who were becoming big or already big. Actors like to explore new genres and I think that's another reason they wanted to be in "The Thin Red Line". There were actors who just had it and passed their audition. Some actors have small parts, some shorter than others. Like Jared Leto, you only see him for a minute or two, then his character ends up dead. George Clooney, he doesn’t show up until the end of the film. The main actors of “The Thin Red Line” are Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Elias Koteas, Ben Chaplin and Dash Mihok.
During the audition process, the actors had to be convincing that they could play war veterans. Some showed the drama a soldier goes through while being in battle. They all did an amazing job and the casting director believed they were all going to have successful careers as actors. The casting director likes to feel something while watching actors audition. Of course not every actor who auditioned got to be in "The Thin Red Line".
There was a lot going on in Terrence Malick’s head on how this movie was going to look as they were shooting. There were scenes that had dialog, but the dialog would get cut out in the editing room because the scene worked better as silent. John Toll the cinematographer would be shooting non stop whether the weather was cloudy or sunny. Mainly the director and the cinematographer will wait for that perfect kind of weather they need for a scene, but Terrence could see a scene three different ways and he could just cut it together with another scene that fit with it perfectly because the weather on it would match. Terrence was always trying out things differently for a scene. He would write a scene differently the night before they actually shot it. Terrence loves to write, he would write down notes from time to time and give it to the actor he was directing and the actor understood what he wanted. Everyday there was something new for the actors. They didn’t know what to expect until Terrence gave instructions.
“The Thin Red Line” was shot in Queensland, Australia. The actors would run up these hills all the time and the camera would be on a crane. The camera would be everywhere focusing on those soldiers as they were going up grassy hills. There’s a lot of tall grass covering those hills and the soldiers have to hide beneath it, so the enemy doesn’t see them coming. The camera stays with those actors as they are down on that grass. The wind will blow the grass and it will be moving with the soldiers.
The actors had to run up a hill forty times. There are shots where the camera will get a full view of the landscape and it’s cool how at first focuses on one soldier and then the crane rises and all of a sudden you see more of them on the right side of the frame and then as it rises you see the soldiers on the left side too.
It took a lot to set up scenes, like setting up the shot for one. There’s one crane shot that is forty five seconds and it took two days to shoot.
Other times the camera would be in front of the actors facing their side and they had to keep up the pace with it or follow it.
There’s one crane shot swooping through the hill as the soldiers are running through it and bombs are going off. The camera would swoop in everywhere in different scenes.
Other times, the camera would focus on a soldier in front or behind them and be moving with the soldiers pacing. ‘
There are scenes where it cuts to different angle shots.
One of the soldiers has a fiancee, played by Miranda Otto, waiting for him back at home and every time it flashes back to her there’s a great shot. For one there’s three different angle shots of her on a swing. It starts off by showing the green grass and her shadow, then Miranda enters the frame on a swing. Then it cuts to her swinging way out, then cuts to an upside down shot.
My rating on “The Thin Red Line” is five out of five stars
Music by Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, The Lion King, Interstellar)
