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Topic: A Message For H Rocco & MLWare From Howard L:
Marc Flake
Oscar® Winner
What bothered me about THIN RED LINE was that it was essentially a Vietnam movie. Your regular WWII grunt didn't lie back in the sawgrass speculating on the meaning of life while his buddies were getting shot up. That happened in the late sixties and early seventies.The generation that fought WWII (the only true fight between good and evil) went to do a job. They fought and died for a wide variety of reasons, but they did not doubt why they were there. It was very clear in their minds that if they didn't stop totalitarianism, it would take over their homes and families.
Too many movies are wasted by writers/directors trying to figure out why people fight in wars. It's really very simple, you kill the other guy or he kills your or one of your friends.
And this is why Saving Private Ryan is a better WWII movie than Thin Red Line. SPR was flawed in many ways besdies the deus ex machina ending. The Upham character made me sick. This sniveling little coward didn't do his job and ended up costing the lives of three people. The he goes and shoots an unarmed prisoner to acheive his redemption.
I confess I haven't read Thin Red Line in a couple of decades, and I don't remember whether or not the movie is faithful to the book -- I'm betting it's not. However I did read a lot of the SPR source material. And it was pretty faithful to the combat experience related there.
As for the Pacific -- there are alot of great stories out there, but the best aren't on the beaches, they're out in the ocean in steel ships. There's the Naval Battles for Guadalcanal, which included the worst defeat ever inflicted on the USN, what some say was a cowardly retreat by a US admiral and a spectacular night surface action between battleships. There was the Action off Samar in which six 300-foot destroyers with nothing bigger than five-inch guns charged a mighty Japanese fleet led by the Yamato with its 18-inch guns in order to save the soldiers stuck on the beaches at Leyte (the Japanese inexplicably turned away after the determined assault, in which three USN ships were sunk).
I don't know that any movie can adequately explain the combat experience on an individual level. It's basically fighting down your fear by doing your job. In most cases, your job is to be an efficient killing machine, or to be part of one.
Marc
[This message has been edited by Marc Flake (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-27-2000 09:14 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
"Your regular WWII grunt didn't lie back in the sawgrass speculating on the meaning of life while his buddies were getting shot up."From what little I've seen or read about the flick, it seems to me it was never meant to be taken literally so much as literately. But I know you know that. Anyway, this is what Serling would have called the Fifth Dimension; reach into the corner of a man's mind and display that part of him that yearns for understanding, then face reality at the end. Some may liken this technique to what went on in Basketball Diaries with that now-infamous scene of slow-motion mass murder made to run like glorious ballet.
posted 03-28-2000 05:44 AM PT (US) MWRuger
Oscar® Winner
I can’t say that I really like Thin Red Line that much. While I felt that it captured the idea of periods of boredom punctuated by sharp stabs of terror, the GI’s didn’t seem very real. Most of what I have read points to GI’s interested in the following things; Sleep, Food, Sex, Booze, Cigarettes and Survival, not “What are we doing here?”. If they asked this question, I think would been something like “How the F**k did I get myself into this mess. I should’a went into the Navy. Those Bast**ds got it easy, plenty of food and a place to sleep.As far as being true to James Jones novels, I think that the one thing that people really miss about his work is that it isn’t really about war at all. It is more about people and how they act when all the rules suddenly go away. How much of their pre-war character survives contact with chaos.
In regards to it primarily being a naval war: I agree that the Pacific Theater hinged on maneuver, but you can’t win the war without taking the islands back. It was much more than ships fighting long range, each groping for the unseen enemy. I don’t think the troops on Guadalcanal who died defending it or who died retaking saw it as anything other than a personal fight for survival. It was a very dirty war of mud and blood. Tropical disease and insects that left huge pock marks on soldiers. Equipment and clothing, not designed for such a tropical climate, quickly would begin to fail.
On the scale of the Holocaust: It is not merely the numbers, staggeringly huge as there are, that make it so memorable. It is the methodical, industrial nature of the extermination. It is the industrial revolution put into to service of slaughter that makes us remember. It is the questions that it raises as well. Why did they do it when they must have known that it was going seriously hamper the war effort? They had to cannibalize most of the rolling stock cars in Europe to perform the transports. They had to imprison and kill some of the most productive members of German society. It is it senseless and ruthless nature that we can’t ever forget.
[This message has been edited by MWRuger (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 07:54 AM PT (US) Marc Flake
Oscar® Winner
The intimate stories of the Pacific Theater took place on the islands. Compared to the rather massive attacks in Europe, these operations were smaller in scale. Even the nature of the fighting was more individual, except for the massed banzai charges of the early campaigns.I guess I lean more to the epic version of war. And I anticipate that WWII will supplant The West as the defining mythos for the USA. I miss the epic war movies and long for a new one. I've been following "Pearl Harbor" and expect to be disappointed -- besides, how many times do we have to re-tell the "Day of Infamy" when there are so many other stories to tell from this conflict?
Marc
posted 03-28-2000 08:18 AM PT (US) H Rocco
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Ah, I see Ruger beat me to it: yes, the Holocaust was the first INDUSTRIAL atrocity of its kind (although trench warfare in WWI, deployment of poison gas, etc. -- Hitler was gassed in combat in WWI, you know -- these were pretty clear previews).James Jones wasn't, objectively, a very good writer from a craftsman's point of view, but he did have an uncanny ability to pin down motivation and behavior. His daughter characterized him as someone who would give you a straight answer no matter what, and that's what I find valuable about his fiction -- he doesn't pull his punches. (He doesn't pull his adjectives either -- never met one he didn't like, it seems, and if just one will do, then you can bet he'll use three. Grouped. In a row.) The short novel "The Pistol" is an interesting, little-regarded part of his canon; so also the non-combat novel, the barely disguised, bizarre roman-a-clef "Go To the Widow-Maker."
Bill Mauldin's "Up Front," complete with at least a hundred reproductions of his "Willie & Joe" one-panel cartoons, is also an invaluable document of the European Theater, arguably made extra-user-friendly through the illustrations. James Jones also wrote the text for a lavishly illustrated book "WW2," more of a straight documentary/history work than his novels.
posted 03-28-2000 09:21 AM PT (US) MWRuger
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I have a collection of Bill Maudlin's "Up Front" strip and it is pretty darn good. Certainly the troops liked it. Bet it scared the hell out of people on the home front!
posted 03-28-2000 09:59 AM PT (US) Mark Hatfield
Oscar® Winner
Hello.I couldn't resist on this one. For the record, I am FAR more interested in this type of off-topic thread than in yet another hand-wringing about release dates for the scores to movies that have yet to be filmed.....
Chris --
I agree with you completely that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK was the best movie of that trilogy, and for the reasons you cited. I dearly love all three of the movies - for different reasons - but in my book, the original was perfect in every way. The "Desert Chase" scene has been discussed before on this board, but I think that outside of it's impact and style, the best thing to say about that sequence (or most any other in ROTLA) is that it WAS NOT merely an action set-piece. It spoke to the determination of the character (one that we tend to view as an American Archetype: the scraggy, scrappy Regular Joe Who Just Gets It Done) and the importance of keeping this object of power out of the wrong hands. Have you ever noticed the unusual and out-of-fashion reverence which is accorded God in these movies (or religion in general, in the case of TOD)? The first movie had the courage to try to show us the manifest Hand of God - I think it succeeded brilliantly, both with the small touch of the Ark burning the symbol of "ownership" off, and with the climax that references the demise of Lot's wife - a feat that few movies attempt and precious few attain. I also love the "THIS is the cup of a carpenter" line in LAST CRUSADE: an acknowledgement not only of Jesus' power (in the movie-specific choice that had to be made), but of his essential simplicity and humility as a man among us. Neat. Anyway, ROTL is simply my favorite movie of all time & I think that Kasdan's imbuing the characters with lives and agendas has as much to do with that as the thrills contained in the story. And yes, there is no way Indy would really take up with the vapid Kate Capshaw character!
About the combat mentality:
I know a little something about this, as others who post here do. I cannot speak for the folks involved in WWII (or any theater, really, save for those that I saw); however, I find it HIGHLY unlikely that the 90th percentile of enlisted folks engaged in the very specific kind of existential crises outlined in THE THIN RED LINE. Whoever posted above is largely correct: in combat, the miasma of fear and anger is mastered by focusing on staying alive and doing your job; in down time or peace, the pressure of service and ennui attendant is generally solved in the Booze/Fight/Sex vein. Of COURSE, there are introspective and philosophical folks serving their country - it is, after all, drafting from the human race - but they are really NOT the norm. Particularly during the times of The Draft (and in the Combat Arms job descriptions that are depicted in the movies), what you are really talking about is young men who are away from home for the first time, without having had the chance to learn maturity through observation and socialization, and without the benefit of a lot of schooling. Not, on the whole, a group given to deeper searching of self, believe me. I am NOT casting the "dim, dull, simple" pall on all who served - Good God, *I* served, and would like to think of myself as a reasonably complex man! - but quite frankly, folks, Infantry & Artillery & Armor (in the Army) have the lowest testing-score requirements of the Military Occupational Specialties precisely BECAUSE it isn't hard to teach someone to fire a weapon. If (in time of war) the fella has the demonstrated intelligence to have graduated college, he has a better-than-fair chance of being diverted elsewhere (or to Officer Training School) provided he is not a discipline problem.In re-reading what I wrote above, I see that it is possible for me to sound like the elite intellectual. I'm not an elitist (and Joan & Rocco can tell you that I'm no intellectual!). I am DAMNED PROUD to have served, and with some of the purest and bravest souls that God ever saw fit to put on this earth. I am not "above" it all, either; I shot, got shot at, fought, drank, and spent much energy in the pursuit of female companionship. But the folks that I served with really would LOL at THE THIN RED LINE's everyone-is-a-philosopher thing. When the ballon goes up, you just don't have time for it; when you have some down time, these (rarely articulated) doubts are sublimated with the Booze/Fight/Sex dynamic.
An interesting movie, but not a realistic one. For all of it's Good vs. Evil machinations of plot, PLATOON comes closest to the common experience (and maybe the deeply flawed FULL METAL JACKET catches some of the inner death, and absurdity). From my experience, anyway.
NP: HOOK 2CD Boot 5/5* And a special thanks to John Tasik, whose insight on this movie and music has changed my approach to the material in much the same way that the PAPILLION article in FSM last year did.
posted 03-28-2000 01:09 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Hatfield:But the folks that I served with really would LOL at THE THIN RED LINE's everyone-is-a-philosopher thing.
An interesting movie, but not a realistic one. [/B]Greetings, Senator. On these 2 statements y'all have me scratching my head as I did with Marc above. Was this movie meant to
be taken "realistically"? Was it not directed utilizing an ethereal, poetic approach?[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 02:20 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
I just gotta jump in here and say:I LOVE THIS THREAD!
I haven't had anything of any significance to contribute, so I've kept quiet and listened to the rest of you. This has been a wonderful, informative and even exciting conversation!
Keep it up, fellas, I'm rapt!posted 03-28-2000 02:59 PM PT (US) John Maher
Oscar® Winner
Personally (and professionally), I think you're all nuts! By the way wasn't "Saving Private Ryan" that really loud, sort of annoying, seemingly endless movie about going in after somebody? And where absolutely nothing else happened? That one?
posted 03-28-2000 03:02 PM PT (US) Mark Hatfield
Oscar® Winner
Hiya, Howard.You're completely right: THE THIN RED LINE was an attempt at a poetic approach to something that beggars any poetic aspirations (in my experience, anyway). I guess that my problem with it is borne both out of the need to take the subject matter VERY seriously, and that the characters we are introduced to are not realistic (for the reasons mentioned above).
It's not that it is not an interesting approach! I just didn't find it to be terribly valid. While there is much to recommend the movie (for me, the cinematography and score alone warranted the cost of the ticket), I just feel that it misses its mark. The singular or personalized approach to something so large and grotesque has been done better before - again, PLATOON & FULL METAL JACKET come to mind, and are not without philosophical moments themselves. All of my rambling from my earlier entry is well condensed in Sheen's voice-over (letter to Dad?) in PLATOON where he comments on the bravery of the "lowest common denominator".
As to the validity of a poetic approach to war: I really do believe that those I saw live & die would laugh at some of the detailed internal monologues present in THE THIN RED LINE. If SPR was attempting to remind us of the horrors faced by a war young people tend to know or care little about, and FULL METAL JACKET & APOCALYPSE NOW were commenting on the madness and absurdity of war, what exactly is TRL trying to say? Who was it made for? People who were in it would tell you that it is not terribly accurate in the behavior and motivations of its "grunts"......so my thought is that it was an attempt to project for all of the educated and war-free just what THEY might feel like in a war. Interesting, as I've said; but ultimately pointless, since the conflicts are fought (and thought) differently than is portrayed. Like so much of life ( childbirth, physical trauma, divorce, terminal illness ), war is impossible to quantify for those who have not experienced it. Ever seen a mother roll her eyes when someone who has not given birth attempts to compare some other pain that they have experienced to childbirth? Similar dynamic. The person asking or comparing is not trying to upset anyone, just personalizing the experience......and while it can be a nice attempt, analogy is really not valid.
All above hot air is IMHO, of course. Looking forward to seeing you in Detroit, Howard!
NP: GHOST STORY 4.5/5*
posted 03-28-2000 03:32 PM PT (US) MWRuger
Oscar® Winner
Howard:
I can appreciate the attempt at the poetic, but for me realism is a vital ingredient. I need to able to believe in these characters to get emotionally involved.Suspension of disbelief is difficult to achieve when the bulk of the characters seem alien to the environment that they are in. This is why even though SPR does have a few problems (only a real nit picker or a historian might recognize the incidents as having occurred on a different part of the beach) in this regard, it more accurately captures the mood and spirit.
One of the interesting points about WWII is that it was the last war where we drafted men over the age of 25. This meant that you could have a vast array of experiences and knowledge on the field. That is why when Tom Hanks gives his speech about doing what he has to get home really works for me. It made the character's live.
John Maher: I can see why you might say that. But I submit to you that if that is all you saw, then you need to see it again.
This was a movie that tried to show what WWII was like. With the passing of the WWII generation coming to pass, most of us have only experienced one of the defining moments of the 20th century from War movies where machine gunners never open up on LSTs and GI's die by falling face first onto devastating wounds that the audience never sees. Try looking at it from that perspective.
WWII was the last general war. It horrified the world in way that WWI should have but didn't. The industrial might of the world turned to killing. I think that the atomic bomb was not the only reason we have tried to shy away from conflicts that could become more general.
[This message has been edited by MWRuger (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 04:12 PM PT (US) Wedge
Oscar® Winner
The advent of industrial power turned towards killing has been a VERY powerful locus in human history -- and it's made more of an impact in film than many people realize. Look at Star **WARS**. The Death Star represented the atom bomb on a galactic scale.And why do you think the whole concept of the Galactic Empire was so terrifying to Lucas? Many seem to be eating sour grapes over the Prequel films, but I'm not. Lucas is making his statement clear. Could the story of the Clone Wars have come at a more opportune time? And look at the hints from Episode One -- an army of mechanics, conrolled by greedy industrialists, manipuated by a megalomaniac, determined to wipe out a minority populace. HMMMMM ... The next two films are going to show the cogs of industry turned towards genocide (of the Jedi,) mark my words! Lucas is a lot more canny than people give him credit for.
PS - Mark -- that's "John Takis," just in case your spelling wasn't a typo.
posted 03-28-2000 06:13 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
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If Lucas is that canny, then WHY does he insist upon having Jar Jar Binks in the next film no matter what?I do appreciate his story, but the way he's telling it is getting a bit stale.
posted 03-28-2000 06:40 PM PT (US) MWRuger
Oscar® Winner
Hmmm... Don't know if I can go that far Wedge. Lucas' story is a little too simplistic in painting its villians to have much connection with the real world.I liked Phantom Menace, but to me it was pure Saturday Matinee stuff. Even the title and chapters are call back to that. I don't think Lucas has any deep messages other than have fun.
Still, he might surprise me.
(However, he has got to cut down on all the wretched marketing. Darth Maul and Jar-Jar toothpaste? Com'on! To me, that says he would rather own that vast industrial state than point out is potential evils!)
posted 03-28-2000 06:40 PM PT (US) Wedge
Oscar® Winner
Don't look for Lucas's genius in his broad, sweeping gestures -- that's where he always sticks the kiddie material (although the good stuff DOES shine through at the important parts.) Look for Lucas in the understatements. On the surface, "Phantom Menace" IS a simple throwback to the good ol' days. But the darker, more serious undertones ARE there -- subtle enough to fly right over the heads of many.
posted 03-28-2000 06:51 PM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
Phantom Menace is so clearly infatuated with chinese mythology, design, narrative, choreography, Lucas oughta dump his whole cast and start over with Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen, Maggie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Tony Leung Kar Fai, Francoise Yip, Sammo Hung, and Chow Yun Fat as a fallen Jedi (and bring back Ray Park, and throw in Jeffrey "Six String Samurai" Falcon, and Robert De Niro as a Jedi Master). Make Star Wars more like Iron Monkey. Let Yuen Wo Ping direct. Get a real writer. Make it subtitled. Cut back on the damned computers. We like FILM!
posted 03-28-2000 07:03 PM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
Michael (Ware-daimyo),you speak as though you still believe Mr. Lucas, however he chooses to describe himself, is anything remotely resembling a filmmaker, or ever could be again. I think you know better.
NP: GREAT MAJIN ENRAGED (Akira Ifukube) (directed by Kenji Misumi -- now there's a fellow that in his short life never lost his way as a craftsman -- of course he never attained the heights of someone like Mr. Lucas, either)
posted 03-28-2000 07:38 PM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
I liked Phantom Menace more than Star Wars 1 and 3. Lucas is a conflicted fellow, no doubting that. Weirdo. Last year it seemed a bunch of guys named George, Stanley, Oliver, David, Andy, and Larry put out expensive home movies, but at least theirs were more interesting than the ones everyone pretends to like better.[This message has been edited by mlw (edited 28 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 08:13 PM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
Tried to watch Sidney Pollack's The Yakuza. TV hack. Takakura Ken was cool. Then I ripped open a brand-new copy of Frankenheimer's The Challenge. Sweet. I think I'll keep it to myself.
posted 03-28-2000 08:21 PM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
THE YAKUZA is wretched -- a stupid, fake, poorly written and constructed mess. THE CHALLENGE isn't really better written (John Sayles or no), but is so well directed, it winds up being sensational.Backing up a bit: The credits on THE YAKUZA deliberately bill all the Japanese actors last-name-first, as they are in Japan. But that's not how we think of them here. It's KEN TAKAKURA, not Takakura Ken; KEIKO KISHI, not Kishi Keiko; etc. etc. etc.
Kozo Okazaki, a terrific cameraman, photographed both THE YAKUZA and THE CHALLENGE (one thing I like about Frankenheimer is that when it comes to cinematographers, he prefers to work with local talent -- and his vision is so specific that it always looks the same no matter WHO he picks). I must say that Okazaki's work on the two Hollywood films is WAY less interesting or beautiful than his best work in Japan (e.g. the otherwise tedious samurai picture GOYOKIN, directed by Hideo Gosha, 1968, starring Tatsuya Nakadai and Tetsuro Tanba -- awesome, awesome to look at. Boring, boring to watch, but otherwise quite beautiful, beautiful, I promise, promise. Also sports a relatively ordinary score by Masaru Sato.)
There is an excellent review of THE CHALLENGE in a recent CULT MOVIES magazine that I could refer you to. If nothing else, remember that three of the original SEVEN SAMURAI appear in this picture (all on the same team! Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba -- the fat one -- and Seiji Miyaguchi -- the unbeatable one.)
Also, the evil guy in the movie, Atsuo Nakamura, was the first victim of the bloodsucking chick in the original VAMPIRE DOLL (Toho, 1970). (Bloodsucking chick turned up earlier as the alien-possessed chick with the bloody earrings in DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, also Toho, 1968.)
Best performances in THE CHALLENGE are probably from the two Asian-Americans, Clyde Kusatsu (previously in Frankenheimer's BLACK SUNDAY) and the hilarious Calvin Jung ("They're queer for swords over here!")
Goldsmith's amazing score for this movie needs no further boosting from me. (The late British composer Roy Budd said THE CHALLENGE was his all-time favorite Goldsmith score. It's not my ALL-TIME favorite, but it's way way way up there.)
[This message has been edited by H Rocco (edited 29 March 2000).]
posted 03-28-2000 08:41 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
"Star Wars Episode ONE : The Phantom Menace" is easily the most ambitious animated cartoon ever made!
I am in awe of the artistry that was employed in creating "The Phantom Menace", in spite of the fact that I really didn't like it very much.
I LOVED "Star Wars" and "The Empire Strikes Back"...but George has been sleeping at the switch ever since...
posted 03-28-2000 09:32 PM PT (US) joan hue
Oscar® Winner
I was just plain bored in The Phantom Menace. I got up, went to
the lobby, and walked around for a few minutes, something I never
do in a movie. It wasn’t that I was so inundated with special effects;
it was that Lucas forgot something essential for any movie-acting.
The stars delivered lines as flat as squashed bugs. Even Liam Neeson,
one of my favorites, seemed totally detached from his role. I may
rent the video just to pay attention to the music, something I didn’t
notice as well as I should have because I was so jaded by the leveling
of positive expectations. Maybe a revisit will cure my virus of ennui.NP Under Seige II just finished 2/5
posted 03-28-2000 10:34 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
Hot air, hell! Mr. K's right, this is good stuff.MW, Marc & Mark--thank you for responding. I read y'all loud and clear. It must be something akin to hearing about this movie that's about rival gangs defending their turf and all, going to the theatre and then seeing these tough guys sing and dance pirouettes all over the west side of Manhattan. Riiiiiight. Anyway, my curiosity's peaked and I am going to try to rent TRL this weekend.
Let me throw a side bone at ya: No question that the bottom line on the battlefield is kill or be killed, that's all she wrote. And that's the difference between a Joyce Kilmer, for instance, writing poetry based on his WW1 experiences AFTER the war vs. a Terence Malick writing visual poetry and underlining Jones' verbal prose that occurs DURING. But then isn't Kilmer no less a dreamer? his work no less futile?
[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 29 March 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 29 March 2000).]
posted 03-29-2000 10:09 AM PT (US) MWRuger
Oscar® Winner
Howard,I would say that Kilmer was writing about his personal experiences and you are always aware that these are based on his experiences and perceptions. Terence Malick is communicating his perceptions of someone else’s thoughts and memories. He is already removed from the source material by time. Add to that the fact that he never lived through this like Kilmer did (Well except for the fact that Kilmer didn’t actually make it.).
posted 03-29-2000 10:43 AM PT (US) John Maher
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MW - I don't believe that I could watch SPR again. It found it so tedious, the first time through. As the son of a man who served in WWII (was at Pearl Harbor when they were attacked), I have always been drawn to WWII films. They are among my favorites. It was with tremendous excitement and anticipation, that I went to see SPR, during its opening weekend. I couldn't have been more underwhelmed and unimpressed. I know that men died horribly during WWII, and I know that many films avoided the graphic depiction of this; but if you were making a film called "Secretary", wouldn't it be pretty boring to only have her boss dictate letters, and watch her type them? After you saw her do it once, you would have gotten the point. SPR was like an Al Pacino performance. All hammy and over the top, not subtle and repetitious and boring. I find myself feeling that way about a lot of Spielberg's films.
posted 03-29-2000 11:06 AM PT (US) Marc Flake
Oscar® Winner
One posting, two subjects.First, if I ever sat down and watched TRL again, I would focus on the characters of the colonel (Nolte) and the captain. Of all the characters in the film, they seemed the most real.
I know a lot of people thought the colonel was an a$$0, but he was really a very efficient commander. I especially liked the confrontation with the captain, where Nolte asks exacly how many casualties would be acceptable to acheive an objective.
Second, I, too, was deeply disapointed by SPR. Being a big fan of WWII films, I think I was looking for something on a grander scale. To me, our WWII mythos is about the enormity of the task and how we as a people were able to measure up to it. That wasn't my only problem with the movie, just the biggest one. What I liked about it was the attitude that: Okay, we take this machine gun nest, so we can take the bridge, so we can hold the town, so we can drive to the Rhine, so we can win the war . . . and go home.
Marc
posted 03-29-2000 12:03 PM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
Mr. Flake, you nailed what was my favorite aspect of THE THIN RED LINE: the conflict between Nolte and Elias Koteas. The only thing Malick kind of screwed up was the anti-Semitic subplot in Jones' novel -- Koteas' character was Jewish in the book, and a big part of his character's conflict had to do with mistrust in him, due to that fact. Malick cut that out entirely, making Stein into Staros (I believe Malick himself is of Greek descent, which is no doubt what motivated him).Was he entirely wrong? I'm not sure; some people I know believe that Malick should have kept that, but perhaps it would have been something difficult to literalize in a movie, as Jones was able to in the book. (Malick half-desperately vetted all his changes to the text through Jones' widow Gloria, who approved of everything and thought it was a fine representation of her husband's work. I agree -- as strange a riff as much of it is [that endless prologue in the islands, which isn't in the book], it's the only decent film made of a Jones novel, and I include the ridiculous, bowdlerized 1953 version of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY in that estimation.)
Nolte and Koteas were playing characters who were very much on the same page -- who could be right? Who could be wrong? What Malick was brave enough to show us was that both of them were doing the best job they possibly could, and they were both handicapped just by the fact that both were human. War is all too often, all too fundamentally HUMAN an endeavor -- with all the screwups and digressions and behaviors that that entails. I think THE THIN RED LINE shows this better than SAVING PRIVATE RYAN does ... PRIVATE RYAN's script is ultimately a weird hodgepodge, elevated principally by so MANY craftsmen who were fundamentally better than the material (Spielberg and his actors and so on -- I wonder why Spielberg so often tries to make it look like "one" guy writes his movies, when in fact he's as promiscuous about changing screenwriters as anyone else in the business. Still, we get single-writer credits on more of his movies than those of most other A-list directors. Besides Robert Rodat, who gets sole credit, RYAN was worked over by Frank Darabont, Steven Zaillian and John Milius -- and I wouldn't be surprised if there were others.)
NP: DOGORA (Akira Ifukube) (just ended)
posted 03-29-2000 12:16 PM PT (US) mlw
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One of my Shaolin teachers uses her family name first (Wu --- ---) so I'm used to seeing it that way. I'm fairly not anal about typing things in proper or in incorrect usage. I'll do whatever feels best at that time. If I want to say Takakura Ken I'll say Takakura Ken. Bruce Lee-- that's Li Shao Lung. I've been hanging with a Japanese lately who's been teaching me about all sorts of things especially Osaka. I never use his last name.Thin Red Line was about travelogue photography of plants, trees, birds, grass, sun-dappled leaves, and a bunch of actors mooning about like they've been reading a lot of Emerson. Some film director making yet another Great Statement About War. Hans Zimmer's usual sonic enema. I liked it very much, but it was about two decades too late.
SPR-- I'm really tired of the subject (see the frikkin bible-length thread Howard referred to earlier). The best American film since The Godfather. Sluiced the blood off the American Way of life and revealed it as just another figure of speech. The only one good enough to stand up to Renoir and Kurosawa. The most hardcore annihilating piece of film and I couldn't care less about the make-up effects. Totally rapes that poor guy's Ralph Waldo Emerson bullsh-t. There's your Thin Red Line by Malick, a weak collection of poetic observations in a context that renders them meaningless. SPR cuts the rationalisation from the subject and leaves everything said about that war as the PR and justification processes they are. Nothing is worth that carnage. The general just wants an excuse to use his favorite Lincoln speech in a pompous condolence letter. Ryan needs to be saved for PR. This being a Spielberg flic all that self-justification and rationalisation is dealt with empathetically rather than completely cynically-- it's probably a necessity. Anybody who printed that this was a lame John Wayne cliche movie is a complete idiot. Genre is a form of capturing events in sequence on film, form is the essence of the craft. Many films have been made on the subject of WWII. All of them purport to present a filmaker's idea of truth. Milestone, Kubrick, Stone, Fuller, all used the classic patrol movie form, none of them got hammered for it. Spielberg joined the classical tradition of war genre film by doing it as the most vivid and realistic recreation of combat committed to film, that still follows a narrative pattern in the interest of revealing clues to human nature in war. Almost everyone on the internet and in slick magazines like Film Comment pretends to believe this is nothing at all. I have yet to see evidence that Stanley Kubrick or Oliver Stone or any serious director over thirty, disrespected this movie. Reinventing the war genre is still only half the issue. Spielberg goes deeper. Veterans told him that if he was just going to make another grand statement valorising war without respecting the experiences of those men who survived it, few of whom EVER spoke of that experience, then they had nothing to say to him. Saving Private Ryan was the first gesture of respect to those people. The despised prologue and epilogue with the veteran at the cemetary, always ridiculed as "sentimental", is actually just de-styled, and brought to the level of mundane reality, the level of real people, matter-of-fact. The man's eyes are ablaze with his private knowledge-- if that is sentimentality, almost every twenty two year old Michael Bay fan on the net must have experiences beyond the comprehension of every human being on the planet. The "bookends" are purposely ordinary in contrast to the the main body of the film and the director's most comprehensive feat of filmmaking to date, as if to say, all this technical playacting is nothing compared to one combat veteran's reality. Spielberg has the ability and the wisdom to throw all of it away in the interest of clearing the obvious-- it's just a movie, cannot be anything more. You would have to go back to Kurosawa to see this type of truth vs illusion self-interrogation, but it's been in Spielberg movies all along (he is still Roy Neary). Bushido ethics suggest you place yourself in the service of community, self-less and with great humility without sacrificing strength. I don't know of any other movie maker that lives up to this.
[This message has been edited by mlw (edited 29 March 2000).]
posted 03-29-2000 02:02 PM PT (US) mlw
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Something just made me think of Phil Hartman in Small Soldiers--
"I think World War II is my FAVORITE war!"Thank the rajah for Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor. Be sure to get those action figures and video games!
posted 03-29-2000 02:15 PM PT (US) H Rocco
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Mr. Ware, as usual I agree with you more than I don't -- but it still remains that PRIVATE RYAN is a movie that only succeeds because of the genius of Spielberg. The script derives from nothing except an absurdly fanciful premise. THE THIN RED LINE, on the other hand, is based on the real thing. Come on now -- nothing like PRIVATE RYAN ever actually happened. It's amazing that Spielberg and co. were even able to make the thing look as credible as it is. Whereas: whatever his faults and self-indulgences as a director (and they are considerable), Malick had access to the source, and the script is (as far as I know) only his own. Jones was the real thing, and for all his convolutions of the material, Malick basically evoked the right things (and many of the wrong ones, true.)By contrast: Who is Robert Rodat? Just one more overpaid, overpraised latter-day boomer who's nostalgic for an age he could never know, and would probably have a hard time living through were he catapulted back. (I could say the same about Spielberg, except I really do believe he's brilliant, and, once again, PRIVATE RYAN is a better movie than it deserves to be because of his input.)
Write what you know, Michael. It's painfully apparent that none of the many scribes on PRIVATE RYAN, except probably Milius -- but which parts did he do? he hasn't quite said -- knew much about what they were saying.
posted 03-29-2000 02:17 PM PT (US) mlw
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except the Fighting Sullivans got a nice little heroic reimagining. And WWII is always made into a billion things it could never be. Wish fulfilment. Just like a movie.I read Thin Red Line by Jones but failed to connect it with the movie. Don't know, could just be something I'll never understand. A Viet Nam veteran I know was totally pis-ed with the movie, but he liked the novel. You could draw it out for weeks.
I'm sure it's accidental that scripts get to be good. Hard to nail anything down in transit. Perfection is an impossibility.
[This message has been edited by mlw (edited 29 March 2000).]
posted 03-29-2000 02:21 PM PT (US) Howard L
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TRL has now been secured for a weekend viewing courtesy of da library. For free, too. Will respond with the inevitable long-winded review on Monday...which is a lot sooner, no doubt, than the messagees with theirs re Wonder Boys (MAJOR hint).
posted 03-31-2000 10:18 AM PT (US) H Rocco
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Hint noted, Mr. L. The MLW-Daimyo has already passed up WONDER BOYS once in favor of Jet Li and hot-looking chicks in line. At this point, I'm going to wait for it to hit the four-dollar house on 50th between 8th and 9th -- I'm quite sure it WILL appear there shortly, since it's not really setting the boxoffice on fire. I DO intend to see it. It looks quite intelligent, which I'm sure is part of the reason it's not doing better.What an odd vector Curtis Hanson's career has taken. Does anyone else remember his curious, gritty mid-1980s telefilm CHILDREN OF TIMES SQUARE? A curious paraphrase of OLIVER TWIST, very well acted by a cast mainly comprised of then-unknowns (except for Howard Rollins Jr., hair-raising in his Fagin-type role).
Actually as I think of it, Hanson's ENTIRE career has been one long bizarre series of vectors. Remember LOSIN' IT, the Tom Cruise sex comedy (before either were stars), photographed -- poorly -- by of all people GILBERT TAYLOR (of DR. STRANGELOVE and STAR WARS fame)? Shelley Long! Frontal nudity! Jackie Earle Haley! Who knew Hanson would ever wind up winning a (writing!!!!) Oscar. Sometimes this business just cracks me up.
posted 03-31-2000 12:56 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
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What cracks ME up is the way Howard drops a hint...and then tells you he's dropped a hint.I hope he never gets hold of an anvil.
posted 03-31-2000 01:28 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
Well, what would you have me say--"GET ON THE STICK YA MORONS"?Thin Red Line, for me, proved to be one of those I'm-glad-I saw-it-but-once-is more-than-enough-thank-you experiences. Cinematography, gorgeous; score, who gives a damn. The voiceovers indeed seemed out of place in the sense it had the feel of philosophical ying yang after the fact being inserted during the fact. The opening and end frames of Saving Private Ryan gained much more respect in my eyes after this. The whole business of individuality yearning to break free from individuality suppressed had me thinking of Pruitt, Maggio & Co. from the one Rocco hates and I like. Am I not correct that the Nolte character/Starros conflict was also being played out via Penn character/Witt? When Witt told Penn "I'm twice the man you are" it later had me thinking that they all did their duty; Nolte was a resentful man who perfomed his duty, Penn also; Starros & Witt both dared to question their superiors while Witt became the hero only after the Dear John letter had him adopting an "I have nothing to live for" attitude. So who was the most noble? Didn't matter, ultimately all of them did what they were there for, which is the bottom line. Compare that to Upham in SPR as mentioned previously.
The maddening use of tight close-ups had me thinking too much of Joshua Logan. I mean it may have made sense if you want to get directorial and make the audience feel the claustrophobic nature of war and all, but it's sheer to hell to sit through cinematically speaking. What a relief when things opened up once they went hand-to-hand! For all it had to say I think the movie could have been shortened considerably.
To summarize my feelings of the movie: You can take it or leave it.
[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 03 April 2000).]
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