Seperation of Light and Dark within The Thin Red Line


War has many casualties. These casualties reach further than just the loss of human life. One thing that is seldom considered is the impact of on landscape of the battlefield. In Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998), the physical impacts on both soldier and environment are shown but taken even further to see the mental and spiritual impacts that war has its actors and nature. This sprawling war film is both epic in scope and in technical prowess. This film was the ending of twenty years of silence from Malick, who poured everything he had into this film, from writing the script (A first draft had over 300 pages) to spending over a year in post-production editing down the footage, removing entire main actors, plotlines, and countless scenes to whittle it down from the first cuts five hour runtime.

The Thin Red Line takes place on the island of Guadalcanal, a Pacific island controlled by the Japanese that the Allies ran a months long campaign to take over due to its pivotal placement in the Pacific theater. The film focuses on the frontline soldiers who had to traverse the jungle terrain while avoiding the constant barrage of enemy fire. With an enormous ensemble cast, the film displays a wide array of human emotion and varied reactions to the terrors of war. These are everymen, thrown into a chaotic world they could never prepare for. Malick underscored the everyman aspect of these soldiers by downplaying the star system of Hollywood, cutting some stars entirely from the final film, and limiting other top billed stars to mere cameo level roles.

Visually, the film shows violence not in blood or bodies, but in the natural impact. Explosions are visualized with destroyed vegetation and animals being harmed to show not only the impact this war had on human lives, but the aesthetic and spiritual qualities of the natural environment. This is where Malick is able to strike up the most contrast. By focusing on the sublime beauty of this island environment and interpolating it with the brutal chaos of warfare, he is able to draw a line between the natural order and man’s impact on it. This natural order Malick focuses on is the sublime mystery of the world that man is placed within. The film opens with a crocodile, partially concealed in the water, showing the mysterious dangers already present within nature without man adding to it with his war machine. Creation and destruction have become intertwined in this jungle battlefield. This idea is echoed in the final voice-over of the film, “Darkness and light, strife and love, are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face?” This is the question we are left to ponder, and one that permeates further rewatchings of the film. At least in Malick’s eyes, it seems like the answer is yes. Like the Yin and Yang, darkness and light work together even as opposites and coagulate into one driving force, pushing forward human development and our experiences.

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