Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

War films - The Thin Red Line

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    War films - The Thin Red Line

    Given we are in a week in which we are encouraged to focus and reflect upon war can I suggest "The Thin Red Line" by Terrence Malick. It's an amazingly rich, beautiful and thoughful piece of art on the topic of war.

    "The Thin Red Line" is akin to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, whilst a movie such as "Saving Private Ryan" is akin to something like Lady Gaga's Bad Romance.

    #2
    War films - The Thin Red Line

    ... whereas a film like "All Quiet On The Western Front" is like a mash-up between "Crossroads" by Bone-Thugs-N-Harmony, the second movement of Gorecki's third symphony, and "Back In the UK" by Scooter.

    What on earth is your simile supposed to indicate?

    Comment


      #3
      War films - The Thin Red Line

      The Thin Red Line is the worst film ever made. Fact.

      Comment


        #4
        War films - The Thin Red Line

        And I've seen "Enemy Mine."

        Comment


          #5
          War films - The Thin Red Line

          The Thin Red Line is a masterpiece. It really is.

          Comment


            #6
            War films - The Thin Red Line

            Really? Really really?
            I found it unbearably pretentious and full of the sort of abject earnestness that makes 5th form drama classes so horrid. It was also so stupifyingly dull that when the actual war scenes did happen I was too comatose from endless scenes of Jim Caveizel mooning meaningfully into the middle distance, for them to engage me in any way at all. I would recommend it as a trigger for meditation or self-hypnosis, if only the script weren't so knuckle-gnawingly awful that's it almost impossible not to scream at the screen.

            Comment


              #7
              War films - The Thin Red Line

              I like the slowness of it with sudden bursts of death and horror, and all that green, and you don't know where they're going, and it's all very confusing.

              I think that was the point.

              Comment


                #8
                War films - The Thin Red Line

                No, Saving Private Ryan is like "Connection" by Elastica. Decent enough intro, then the rest is utter shit.

                Comment


                  #9
                  War films - The Thin Red Line

                  hobbes wrote:
                  The Thin Red Line is the worst film ever made. Fact.
                  Presumably you haven't seen Manos: The Hands of Fate or Creeping Terror?

                  Comment


                    #10
                    War films - The Thin Red Line

                    I find The Thin Red Line to be exceptionally tedious and slow. I really don't have the patience for it.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      War films - The Thin Red Line

                      It's beautiful. It's about experience and emotion and finding a thread of visual connection between horror and beauty and about how to make art out of these things and I realise that now it's me that's unbearably pretentious but there you go.

                      I've said this before & I'll no doubt say it again but the gore & the immersion in horror & all that at the start of SPR is what makes the film one of the worst ever made, because of the hideous obscene manipulative devious layer it adds to the otherwise run of the mill cryptofascistic glorification of American values blah blah that the rest of the film is.

                      (When I say worst films I always try to distinguish between worst for reasons like being dishonest, or having malign influence, or being cynical, in this kind of way, than the general shoddily made laughable Ed Wood style definition, because by that turn, 90% of films are the worst films ever made)

                      Comment


                        #12
                        War films - The Thin Red Line

                        Why on Earth... wrote:
                        No, Saving Private Ryan is like "Connection" by Elastica. Decent enough intro, then the rest is utter shit.
                        And even that was nicked from a Wire song...

                        Comment


                          #13
                          War films - The Thin Red Line

                          It's beautiful. It's about experience and emotion and finding a thread of visual connection between horror and beauty and about how to make art out of these things and I realise that now it's me that's unbearably pretentious but there you go.
                          But therein lies the problem. It was done artlessly and without and subtly at all. It was 5th form symbolism.
                          I mean, it practically screamed "LOOK! LOOK WHAT WE DID THERE! DID YOU SEE?! THAT WAS FUCKING ART, THAT WAS!"

                          It couldn't have been more painfully contrived if Caveizel had stopped at the end of every scene, turned to the camera and instigated a discussion about the method of acting.
                          This is almost always the problem with big budget films. They don't trust the audience to get it, so they lay it on with a trowel.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            War films - The Thin Red Line

                            I don't think I thought there was much symbolism, really, though, I kind of thought that was the point.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              War films - The Thin Red Line

                              I'll freely admit, the distorting effect of time may be affecting my recollection. I only saw the film once at the cinema. Although recalling that experience, the idea of watching it again for a critical reappraisal feels me with existential horror.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                War films - The Thin Red Line

                                haha. Let's have a Thin Red Line party.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  War films - The Thin Red Line

                                  We could just neck half a dozen tamazepam each. It would be much the same.

                                  (That's no reflection on your company which is consistently good and in no way similar to abusing barbiturates.)

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    War films - The Thin Red Line

                                    heh. maybe they'd stop me griping about nonsense at least.

                                    Comment

                                    Working...
                                    X