thin red line

[Greg Ursic]

Just came from the premiere of Thin Red line and had to say that I was
extremely disappointed. I didn't go expecting another "Saving Private
Ryan" but after the first hour i was begging for something. The movie
tried to abandon the visceral for the artistic: it failed miserably. If
I ever have to see another shot of sunlight streaming through the trees, or
listen to another pointless voiceover I will run out of the theater
screaming.
I did not care about any of the soldiers or what happened to
them and basically felt like I was robbed of 2 hours and 45 minutes of my
life.

that's my two cents.

[John Harkness]

Fone-ICQ wrote:

> It was a brilliant movie, and it is a pitty you did not feel that way. It
> was quite easy to comprehend and the caring nature of the lead character
> meant you surely cared for him. It showed war as it is, with confusion,
> noise, and horror. Far more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
> individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
> rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
> shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
> is idilic.
>
> Alex

If you think that without man, anyplace on earth is idyllic, then I do recommend
visits to the Mojave Desert in August or the High Arctic in January.

John

[Fone-ICQ]

It was a brilliant movie, and it is a pitty you did not feel that way. It
was quite easy to comprehend and the caring nature of the lead character
meant you surely cared for him. It showed war as it is, with confusion,
noise, and horror. Far more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
is idilic.

Alex

In article <771lqr$oq4$1...@nntp.ucs.ubc.ca>, ur...@unixg.ubc.ca (Greg Ursic)
wrote:

--
Use a telephone to send VOICE messages to ICQ users...

http://www.qcommand.com/icq/

[WHiles2312]

>
>If you think that without man, anyplace on earth is idyllic, then I do
>recommend
>visits to the Mojave Desert in August or the High Arctic in January.
>
>

Nature just is--beautiful or not. Idyllic or not. These are just subjective
human notions placed on the environment. In that regard, your statement
really doesn't mean anything.

BH

[Tess3]

On Thu, 07 Jan 1999 03:40:47 -0500 John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> wrote:

>
>
> Fone-ICQ wrote:
>
> > It was a brilliant movie, and it is a pitty you did not feel that way. It
> > was quite easy to comprehend and the caring nature of the lead character
> > meant you surely cared for him. It showed war as it is, with confusion,
> > noise, and horror. Far more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
> > individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
> > rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
> > shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
> > is idilic.
> >
> > Alex

That reminded me of, "Don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a
world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass and
a hare sitting up".
D.H. Lawrence.

Nat
--
Surf Usenet at home, on the road, and by email -- always at Talkway.
http://www.talkway.com

[LauraF2]

>ar more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
>individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
>rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
>shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
>is idilic.
>
>Alex

Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver film
because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while TRL
fell into art film cliches.

Lau...@aol.com
" I forgot my one line, so I just said what I felt" PW

ICQ# 27326264

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> lau...@aol.comnospam (LauraF2) writes:

> >ar more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
> >individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
> >rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
> >shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
> >is idilic.

What did you expect from Speilberg, intelligence?

> Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
> hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
> right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver film
> because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while TRL
> fell into art film cliches.

Bullshit.

WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Alex Crouvier]

Exactly. His Jerkiness is fast losing his argument.

[Alex Crouvier]

John Harkness wrote:
>
> Fone-ICQ wrote:
>
> > It was a brilliant movie, and it is a pitty you did not feel that way. It
> > was quite easy to comprehend and the caring nature of the lead character
> > meant you surely cared for him. It showed war as it is, with confusion,

> > noise, and horror. Far more realistic than SVP because it focused on what

> > individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
> > rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
> > shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
> > is idilic.
> >

> > Alex

>
> If you think that without man, anyplace on earth is idyllic, then I do recommend
> visits to the Mojave Desert in August or the High Arctic in January.
>

> John

They are idyllic in their own way
Remember what Penn says about "world"
THIN RED LINE defines its own universe, Your Jerkiness
Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN presents the Earth as Garden of Eden
until man with his misdirected passion, ambition, hatred,
misbehavior ruin it. THIN RED LINE continues in that
tradition. Well, it is not an action movie but u could always go
see SAVING PRIVATE RYAN when it makes its second run
and enjoy the incredible! the astounding! the pulse-pounding
action!

[John Harkness]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:

> > lau...@aol.comnospam (LauraF2) writes:
>
> > >ar more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
> > >individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
> > >rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
> > >shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
> > >is idilic.
>

> What did you expect from Speilberg, intelligence?
>
> > Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
> > hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
> > right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver film
> > because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while TRL
> > fell into art film cliches.
>
> Bullshit.
>
> WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".

Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?

John

[Alex Crouvier]

John Harkness wrote:

>
> WHiles2312 wrote:
>
> > >
> > >If you think that without man, anyplace on earth is idyllic, then I do
> > >recommend
> > >visits to the Mojave Desert in August or the High Arctic in January.
> > >
> > >
> >

> > Nature just is--beautiful or not. Idyllic or not. These are just subjective
> > human notions placed on the environment. In that regard, your statement
> > really doesn't mean anything.
> >
> > BH
>

> Which is what I was pointing out about the previous poster's remark.
>
> John

He was referring to your post, John. See?

[Peter Reiher]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
>
> > lau...@aol.comnospam (LauraF2) writes:
>
> > >ar more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
> > >individuals were thinking and suffering.

Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective
approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic? Especially
when the inner dialogs were so poetic and intellectual? I've spoken
to WWII vets who say that the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan"
was extremely realistic, and reminded them very much of their own
experience. Lots of other veterans have said so, too. I haven't
heard of one WWII vet as yet saying that the inner dialogs in "The
Thin Red Line" reminded them of what they were thinking or brought
them right back into the combat they experienced. If you think
Malick's version of WWII combat was more realistic than Spielberg's,
you have an odd definition of the word "realism," one that does not
encompass either the visual, aural, or emotional experience that
those on the scene attest to.

The fact is that the methods Malick used to stage his combat scenes
were very little different than those used for years and years and
years in WWII films. He used them far more effectively than most,
granted, but they were the same methods. They were never realistic
before, and they still aren't. Men still die sanitarily, by and
large. Maybe a little blood here and there, perhaps a look of pain,
maybe even one or two who genuinely suffer, but what Malick shows
us bears no relation to what a WWII battlefield actually looked like.
What Spielberg showed us did, according to the eyewitness accounts
of those who were there and their subsequent testimony after seeing
the film.

In my opinion, the look in the eyes of the medics who worked to save
a wounded man, only to have him suddenly die from a freshly inflicted
wound during the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" were far
more eloquent than all the philosophizing Malick gave us, and told
us far more about the realities of combat than Malick's constant
crosscutting to home front flashbacks.

> What did you expect from Speilberg, intelligence?

Are you aware that, when Stanley Kubrick received the DGA's Griffith
Award, his acceptance speech refered to one other director than
Kubrick himself and Griffith - Steven Spielberg? The reference was
to something Spielberg had told Kubrick, that the hardest part of
directing was getting out of the car, a sentiment that Kubrick agreed
with and thought intelligent enough to quote. Of course, as we all
know, Kubrick's intelligence and filmmaking talent pale next to
the godlike Malick's, so perhaps we shouldn't consider this important.

Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line,"
I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects. If I
were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd choose
Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's. All these "intelligent"
ideas that people seem to claim for "The Thin Red Line" strike
me as rather stale cliches or pretentious nonsense. Malick's
film works best when he shows us what's going on, what his characters
do and say, rather than when he takes anthropological excursions,
indulges in tedious flashbacks, gives us outtakes from "Wild Kingdom,"
or puts pseudo-intellectual babble into the minds of his characters and
forces us to listen in. There are good ideas somewhere deep in there,
but Malick buries them in a load of muck.
--
Peter Reiher
rei...@cs.ucla.edu
<http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/reiher>

[Peter Reiher]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
>

> WWII was not "necessary"

I responded separately to issues specific to "The Thin Red Line,"
but here I'd like a little clarification. Which camp do you belong
to, here:

The "Those Poor Misunderstood Fascists" camp?

The "I'll Sacrifice the Very Last Jew, Pole, Russian, Chinese, and
Any Other Non-American In the Glorious Cause of World Peace" camp?

Or the "It's All the Fault of Roosevelt/Churchill/Chamberlain/Woodrow
Wilson/Lloyd George/Clemenceau/Karl Marx/Disraeli/Napoleon/Thomas
Jefferson/Rousseau/Charlemagne/Marcus Aurelius/Julius Caesar, and If
Only They'd Been As Wise As I Am, We Could Have Avoided All This
Unpleasantness" camp?

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> writes:
> James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:

> > WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".

> Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?

>>>>

General Zukov.

Little American children are taught that WWI & WWII wouldn't have been
won without the U.S. butting its glorious head in...nope. Sorry. All make-
believe and fantasy. Try reading George Washington's Farewell Address.
Valid then. Valid now.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[John Harkness]

Peter Reiher wrote:

> James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
> >
>
> > WWII was not "necessary"
>

See his response to me in this thread. He's taking door number two,
Monty.

John

[John Harkness]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:

> > John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> writes:
> > James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
>
>

> > > WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".
>
> > Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?
>
> >>>>
>
> General Zukov.
>
> Little American children are taught that WWI & WWII wouldn't have been
> won without the U.S. butting its glorious head in...nope. Sorry. All make-
> believe and fantasy. Try reading George Washington's Farewell Address.
> Valid then. Valid now.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, since I'm not a little American child, I've never bought the idea that WWI could not have been won
without the Yanks.

Now I see your argument. You wanted Hitler stopped, but I wish we hadn't gotten our hands dirty.

And as to Washington's farewell address, you want to summarize?

What a maroon.

John

[D. Mcdevitt]

What is super funny about this first post here is how tries to make an
argument outside of the human experience, or the anthropic contingency, by
saying "visit the mojave desert..." etc. I guess he doesn't count the
visitor as a sentient entity. The second poster has it right, i think.
The truth is not out there, but the world is.. yeah, it just "is."

> > >
> > >If you think that without man, anyplace on earth is idyllic, then I do
> > >recommend
> > >visits to the Mojave Desert in August or the High Arctic in January.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Nature just is--beautiful or not. Idyllic or not. These are just subjective
> > human notions placed on the environment. In that regard, your statement
> > really doesn't mean anything.
> >
> > BH
>
>

[Alex Crouvier]

LauraF2 wrote:
>
> Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
> hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
> right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver film
> because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while TRL
> fell into art film cliches.

Honest and brave films usually never get recognized, child.

[Alex Crouvier]

Peter Reiher wrote:
>
>
> Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective
> approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic? Especially
> when the inner dialogs were so poetic and intellectual? I've spoken
> to WWII vets who say that the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan"
> was extremely realistic, and reminded them very much of their own
> experience. Lots of other veterans have said so, too. I haven't
> heard of one WWII vet as yet saying that the inner dialogs in "The
> Thin Red Line" reminded them of what they were thinking or brought
> them right back into the combat they experienced.

Reiher still persists on the notion that realistic battle sequence that
vets could relate to in war movie is the bar for excellence. I guess in
Mr Reiher's eyes and mind, every war movie is made solely for the vets,
that us poor faggod pinko leftists should only stand in sideline and nod
in solemn agreement.

> If you think
> Malick's version of WWII combat was more realistic than Spielberg's,

Reiher pounding his chest silly: this war movie has more realistic
battle sequence therefore it is better! Pppfftt, hahahahahahha.......

> you have an odd definition of the word "realism," one that does not
> encompass either the visual, aural, or emotional experience that
> those on the scene attest to.

Ooohh....

> The fact is that the methods Malick used to stage his combat scenes
> were very little different than those used for years and years and
> years in WWII films. He used them far more effectively than most,
> granted, but they were the same methods. They were never realistic
> before, and they still aren't. Men still die sanitarily, by and
> large. Maybe a little blood here and there, perhaps a look of pain,
> maybe even one or two who genuinely suffer, but what Malick shows

Why does visceral effect suddenly become more important than the
intellectual content of the film? SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a pastiche of
old war films, better war films and worse war films, and Kurosawa's
SEVEN SAMURAI (the craven Upham is probably modelled after the bumbling,
incompetent farmer Shohei who prove his heroism only later)

> us bears no relation to what a WWII battlefield actually looked like.
> What Spielberg showed us did, according to the eyewitness accounts
> of those who were there and their subsequent testimony after seeing
> the film.

OK, first 20 minutes, incredible! astounding! bloody! So? What about the
rest of the film? Boring! Bland! Hackneyed! Predictable!
Been-there-done-that! GI JOE! ATTACK! SGT ROCK! Go! Jingo!

> In my opinion, the look in the eyes of the medics who worked to save
> a wounded man, only to have him suddenly die from a freshly inflicted
> wound during the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" were far
> more eloquent than all the philosophizing Malick gave us

LOL!

> and told
> us far more about the realities of combat than Malick's constant
> crosscutting to home front flashbacks.

Yea, there is only one kind of war film, the one that resembles a GI JOE
serials
LOL!

> Are you aware that, when Stanley Kubrick received the DGA's Griffith
> Award, his acceptance speech refered to one other director than
> Kubrick himself and Griffith - Steven Spielberg? The reference was
> to something Spielberg had told Kubrick, that the hardest part of
> directing was getting out of the car, a sentiment that Kubrick agreed
> with and thought intelligent enough to quote. Of course, as we all
> know, Kubrick's intelligence and filmmaking talent pale next to
> the godlike Malick's, so perhaps we shouldn't consider this important.

This is such an inane argument. One filmmaker kissing ass another taken
as truism

> Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line,"
> I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects. If I
> were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd choose
> Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's.

LOL!

> All these "intelligent"
> ideas that people seem to claim for "The Thin Red Line" strike
> me as rather stale cliches or pretentious nonsense. Malick's
> film works best when he shows us what's going on, what his characters
> do and say, rather than when he takes anthropological excursions,
> indulges in tedious flashbacks, gives us outtakes from "Wild Kingdom,"
> or puts pseudo-intellectual babble into the minds of his characters and
> forces us to listen in. There are good ideas somewhere deep in there,
> but Malick buries them in a load of muck.

I look at your blissful ignorance and shallowness with a sense of wonder

[D. Mcdevitt]

> >
> > WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".
>
> Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?
>

> John
> >
In case you'd like to know, for all the simpleton "one cause, one effect"
wanks out there who think Hitler soley responsible for everything leading
up to the war, I'd like to point out just one detail among many to weaken
that position. For example the Sino-Japanese conflict was already at a
heated pitch in 1937, and US relations with japan were already crumbling.
Before WW2 started the japanese sunk a US warship. Why? well the
japanese were ocupying parts of china they felt were legitimately theirs
while the US were sort of in cahoots with England, albeit a little
reluctantly to protect British Imerialism in China. Now you decide who is
evil, who is good, who needs to die, who claims victory... Its rather
complicated and it always will be. As Thomas Pynchon says, War never ends
its just that, at certain points in time, more people die.

[D. Mcdevitt]

>
> Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective
> approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic? Especially
> when the inner dialogs were so poetic and intellectual? I've spoken
> to WWII vets who say that the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan"
> was extremely realistic, and reminded them very much of their own
> experience. Lots of other veterans have said so, too. I haven't

Call me stupid, but nobody seems to question the obvious next step of
so-called filmed realism. So lets say SPR had the most realistic battle
scenes ever filmed. I don't understand then what the benefit of such
praise is. Is it honorable in and of itself to "remind" veterans of what
it was like? Or to give the general populace an "idea" of what battle was
like. To put it another way, what is the the end result supposed to be
when we watch a realistic portrayal of something? Pity? Sympathy or
Empathy? Catharsis? Guilt? If so then I'm sorry, I have to chalk all of
that down to distraction, as in such portrayals are distractions from an
issue that may need serious discussion and exploration.
Please note, this is not a defense of Malick's film; I have not seen
it. But I did see SPR and the various reactions I saw in people reminded
me of the usual split camp bickering you find between politicians; not a
coherent thought in the room. And when all is said and done the two
arguments are quite often the idiots who say "if it weren't for us we'd
all be speaking german right now," and those wanks who think the US was
the root every problem in WW2. All I can say is, the roots of the
conflict are deep, the facets are many, the people on all sides are
humans, and movies can NEVER be real. Why not buy surround sound
speakers, a widescreen TV and a popcorn maker for your home system so when
SPR comes out on video, the visuals, the THX sound, all of it, will be
more real than you watching it on that puny VCR/TV 13" combo you have.
See the problem?

> Award, his acceptance speech refered to one other director than
> Kubrick himself and Griffith - Steven Spielberg? The reference was
> to something Spielberg had told Kubrick, that the hardest part of
> directing was getting out of the car, a sentiment that Kubrick agreed
> with and thought intelligent enough to quote. Of course, as we all
> know, Kubrick's intelligence and filmmaking talent pale next to
> the godlike Malick's, so perhaps we shouldn't consider this important.

Kubrick and Speilberg are good friends who respect eachother's creative
drives. The example you cite is in no way a Kubrickian endorsement of
SPR. And anyway the "argument by authority" tactic (ie, kubrick
supporting speilberg) always holds little weight in the end.

[Peter Reiher]

D. Mcdevitt wrote:
>
> >
> > Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective
> > approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic?

> So lets say SPR had the most realistic battle

> scenes ever filmed. I don't understand then what the benefit of such
> praise is.

Let's get down to brass tacks. If you read memoirs of some Vietnam
veterans, or listen to them speak, one common theme about why they
chose to go to war (those who weren't drafted) is that they had an
unrealistic idea of what war was like. Where did they get it? Thank
you, John Wayne (and many others). One solid, real benefit of more
realism in war scenes is that it doesn't hide the horrors of war
from those who might be fighting it.

Which also has nothing to do with the question of which is more
realistic. You're arguing the value of realism, not which film
does it better.

> Is it honorable in and of itself to "remind" veterans of what
> it was like?

Well, a lot of veterans say that it has helped them psychologically
to face their memories. For the first time, my wife's father spoke
to his family about his experiences in WWII, and how he felt about
them. Is that honorable? I don't know, but it sounds helpful.

> Or to give the general populace an "idea" of what battle was
> like. To put it another way, what is the the end result supposed to be
> when we watch a realistic portrayal of something? Pity? Sympathy or
> Empathy? Catharsis? Guilt? If so then I'm sorry, I have to chalk all of
> that down to distraction, as in such portrayals are distractions from an
> issue that may need serious discussion and exploration.

I strenuously disagree. Unless one understands the reality of what
one is discussing, not just the abstract principles and intellectual
rationalizations, "serious discussions" are just so much hot air.

> All I can say is, the roots of the
> conflict are deep, the facets are many, the people on all sides are
> humans, and movies can NEVER be real.

Yes, and . . .? Are you arguing that realism has no place or
value in films?

> Kubrick and Speilberg are good friends who respect eachother's creative
> drives. The example you cite is in no way a Kubrickian endorsement of
> SPR.

No, but the question is whether Spielberg makes intelligent movies,
not what Kubrick thinks of "Saving Private Ryan."

And anyway the "argument by authority" tactic (ie, kubrick
> supporting speilberg) always holds little weight in the end.

But far more than the argument by emphatic assertion that so many
of those who view "Saving Private Ryan" (and all of Spielberg's films)
as simplistic messes usually rely on. Hey, if I'm choosing being
the argument being based on Kubrick approving of Spielberg and
Alex Crouvier saying he sucks, it ain't no contest.

[Dashiell Christopher]

Peter Reiher wrote:

Twaddle.  I could understand an argument that it's a more effective

approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic?  Especially

when the inner dialogs were so poetic and intellectual?  I've spoken
to WWII vets who say that the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan"
was extremely realistic, and reminded them very much of their own
experience.  Lots of other veterans have said so, too.  I haven't

heard of one WWII vet as yet saying that the inner dialogs in "The
Thin Red Line" reminded them of what they were thinking or brought

them right back into the combat they experienced.  If you think

Malick's version of WWII combat was more realistic than Spielberg's,

you have an odd definition of the word "realism," one that does not
encompass either the visual, aural, or emotional experience that
those on the scene attest to.

There seems to be a lot of secondary or tertiary proof to back your argument.  In the long run, or even the short, this proves to have little weight.  Still, I'd argue over your definition of realism.  By championing the first hand accounts of vets you've met or read about, coupled with what you perceive to be a more totalizing and real effect of war on film (offered in SPR), than you are propagating a sense of realism that is based solely on the most phenomenological experience that film can offer (the closest you can get to a "total cinema", a cross between Merleau-Ponty and Rudolf Arnheim).

Moreover, why would you bring other media into play?  Visual?  There are a stunningly large variety of works and styles spanning the entire history of the visual arts that fall under the rubric of realism (aesthetic, tactile, thematic, conceptual...)  The same is true for music.  The oddest of them all, however, is your mention of an emotional experience.  By whom?  Certainly not the characters within the film.  At no time does SPR delve into what the characters were really thinking or feeling before, during, or after a battle.  It doesn't care.  SPR operates on a highly superficial base, were the ends justify the means.  This is what we cherish: America.  This is what takes to secure it:  The bulk of the film (the opening sequence in particular).  And this is how I honor it:  "Am I a good Man?"  The major problem with SPR is that it assumes the answer to three questions without any ambiguity or complexity.  TRL eschews these assumptions by in large, and offers characters who are complex and morally ambiguous.  Their motivations are completely internalized.  They fight this battle, the war, for different reasons altogether.  Their own.

Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line,"
I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects.  If I
were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd choose
Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's.

That's your opinion but based on your evidence, it seems highly specious to me.  Perhaps, rather than intelligent, how about visceral or immediate?  Still, those terms are open for debate.  But, they are nevertheless more appropriate in your case, than intelligence.

All these "intelligent" ideas that people seem to claim for "The Thin Red Line" strike me as rather stale cliches or pretentious nonsense.

Stale?  Cliche?  And, SPR's plot and characters aren't?  Incredible.  I won't go into the coded meaning of a person dismissing an oblique work with a phrase such as "pretentious nonsense", so I'll leave it at that.

Malick's film works best when he shows us what's going on, what his charactersdo and say, rather than when he takes anthropological excursions,indulges in tedious flashbacks, gives us outtakes from "Wild Kingdom,"or puts pseudo-intellectual babble into the minds of his characters andforces us to listen in.  There are good ideas somewhere deep in there,but Malick buries them in a load of muck.

I'd say, take a second and think about why the director would include scenes such as those, rather than dismiss than a superfluous.  It may not be easily available and on the surface like SPR, but to recognize that "there are good ideas somewhere deep in there" and not try and figure those out, is a disservice to you and the film.

DC

[Peter Reiher]

Alex Crouvier wrote:
>
> Peter Reiher wrote:
> >
> >
> > Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective
> > approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic?

> Reiher still persists on the notion that realistic battle sequence that

> vets could relate to in war movie is the bar for excellence.

No, Reiher is arguing that if you want to measure realism, you should
measure it against reality. If you don't agree with that, it explains
an awful lot.

> > The fact is that the methods Malick used to stage his combat scenes
> > were very little different than those used for years and years and
> > years in WWII films. He used them far more effectively than most,
> > granted, but they were the same methods. They were never realistic
> > before, and they still aren't. Men still die sanitarily, by and
> > large. Maybe a little blood here and there, perhaps a look of pain,
> > maybe even one or two who genuinely suffer, but what Malick shows
>
> Why does visceral effect suddenly become more important than the
> intellectual content of the film?

It doesn't. However, both are legitimate parts of cinema. Spielberg's
film excelled in visceral effect, and had some good intellectual
content. Malick's film had moderate visceral effect and muddled
intellectual content.

>SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a pastiche of
> old war films, better war films and worse war films,

No, it isn't. Gee, arguing the way you do is easy.

>and Kurosawa's
> SEVEN SAMURAI (the craven Upham is probably modelled after the bumbling,
> incompetent farmer Shohei who prove his heroism only later)

No, because Upham never proves any heroism. He's a coward start to
finish.

> > us bears no relation to what a WWII battlefield actually looked like.
> > What Spielberg showed us did, according to the eyewitness accounts
> > of those who were there and their subsequent testimony after seeing
> > the film.
>
> OK, first 20 minutes, incredible! astounding! bloody! So? What about the
> rest of the film? Boring! Bland! Hackneyed! Predictable!

I wouldn't go that far, but certainly the remainder of the film was
a big step down from its opening.

> > In my opinion, the look in the eyes of the medics who worked to save
> > a wounded man, only to have him suddenly die from a freshly inflicted
> > wound during the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" were far
> > more eloquent than all the philosophizing Malick gave us
>
> LOL!

Seen "The Thin Red Line" yet, or are you still arguing from ignorance?

> This is such an inane argument. One filmmaker kissing ass another taken
> as truism

As opposed to Mr. Crouvier shouting "Spielberg sucks! Spielberg sucks!"
with no reasonable arguments why. Hey, if I'm working from authority,
Kubrick rules and you don't.

> > Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line,"
> > I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects. If I
> > were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd choose
> > Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's.
>

> LOL!

Seen "The Thin Red Line" yet, Mr. Crouvier?

> I look at your blissful ignorance and shallowness with a sense of wonder

Seen "The Thin Red Line" yet, Mr. Crouvier?

If not, blissful ignorance is a term far more applicable to you.

[D. Mcdevitt]

On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Peter Reiher wrote:

>
> Let's get down to brass tacks. If you read memoirs of some Vietnam
> veterans, or listen to them speak, one common theme about why they
> chose to go to war (those who weren't drafted) is that they had an
> unrealistic idea of what war was like. Where did they get it? Thank
> you, John Wayne (and many others). One solid, real benefit of more
> realism in war scenes is that it doesn't hide the horrors of war
> from those who might be fighting it.

Very true that popular imagery from past and present has falsly shaped our
visions of the world. But You'd be daft to think that SPR is the first or
best way to educate people on the horrors of war. Taking SPR as a whole,
and not just the battle scenes, i'd say SPR romanticizes war just as
much as any other film merely by making it "engaging," "heart pounding",
"tear jerking". Besides, the opening scene in SPR is about as far from
realism as I can imagine. It's stylized beyond comprehension. If he
wanted realism he could have made a 20 hour film of nothing but sodliers
marching with maybe a few shots fired, nothing spectacular, no music, no
augmented sound effects, no special lenses or film. Closer.

>
> Which also has nothing to do with the question of which is more
> realistic. You're arguing the value of realism, not which film
> does it better.

I know I am. And as I mentioned, I haven't seen TRL so I can't very well
argue its merits and flaws can I?

>
> > Is it honorable in and of itself to "remind" veterans of what
> > it was like?
>
> Well, a lot of veterans say that it has helped them psychologically
> to face their memories. For the first time, my wife's father spoke
> to his family about his experiences in WWII, and how he felt about
> them. Is that honorable? I don't know, but it sounds helpful.
>

Sure. Anything to get people talking. That's valid

> > Or to give the general populace an "idea" of what battle was
> > like. To put it another way, what is the the end result supposed to be
> > when we watch a realistic portrayal of something? Pity? Sympathy or
> > Empathy? Catharsis? Guilt? If so then I'm sorry, I have to chalk all of
> > that down to distraction, as in such portrayals are distractions from an
> > issue that may need serious discussion and exploration.
>
> I strenuously disagree. Unless one understands the reality of what
> one is discussing, not just the abstract principles and intellectual
> rationalizations, "serious discussions" are just so much hot air.
>

And where does the line of reality start? Who sez so? The book Gravity's
Rainbow is a WW2 novel with no battle scenes in it at all. Yet in manages
to examine a whole slew of political, cultural, and pychological aspects
of the war. And, BTW, the book ain't mired in realism. So where does the
reality of the Normandy invasion begin? with the troops, or the officers
sending the troops to war, or the enemy, or the civilians or....?

> > All I can say is, the roots of the
> > conflict are deep, the facets are many, the people on all sides are
> > humans, and movies can NEVER be real.
>
> Yes, and . . .? Are you arguing that realism has no place or
> value in films?
>

I think realism is quite effective. The problem is when it is constantly
wielded by the status quo to promote their authoritative version of
reality. In my mind the most powerful works of realism, books anyway, are
coming from Africa, and a lot of mid century Irish Fiction. Post-Colonial
literature in general. American realism is hard to swallow these days,
though some good stuff is out there.

> > Kubrick and Speilberg are good friends who respect eachother's creative
> > drives. The example you cite is in no way a Kubrickian endorsement of
> > SPR.
>
> No, but the question is whether Spielberg makes intelligent movies,
> not what Kubrick thinks of "Saving Private Ryan."
>
> And anyway the "argument by authority" tactic (ie, kubrick
> > supporting speilberg) always holds little weight in the end.
>
> But far more than the argument by emphatic assertion that so many
> of those who view "Saving Private Ryan" (and all of Spielberg's films)
> as simplistic messes usually rely on. Hey, if I'm choosing being
> the argument being based on Kubrick approving of Spielberg and
> Alex Crouvier saying he sucks, it ain't no contest.
>

His arguments can be puerile, yes.

Darby

[Magic7Ball]

Peter Reiher wrote in message <3695086A...@cs.ucla.edu>...

>James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
>>
>> > lau...@aol.comnospam (LauraF2) writes:
>>
>> > >ar more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
>> > >individuals were thinking and suffering.
>

>Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective

>approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic? Especially

>when the inner dialogs were so poetic and intellectual? I've spoken
>to WWII vets who say that the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan"
>was extremely realistic, and reminded them very much of their own
>experience. Lots of other veterans have said so, too. I haven't
>heard of one WWII vet as yet saying that the inner dialogs in "The
>Thin Red Line" reminded them of what they were thinking or brought
>them right back into the combat they experienced. If you think
>Malick's version of WWII combat was more realistic than Spielberg's,
>you have an odd definition of the word "realism," one that does not
>encompass either the visual, aural, or emotional experience that
>those on the scene attest to.

SVP will never be a real movie because war is not fought between icons.

>The fact is that the methods Malick used to stage his combat scenes
>were very little different than those used for years and years and
>years in WWII films. He used them far more effectively than most,
>granted, but they were the same methods. They were never realistic
>before, and they still aren't. Men still die sanitarily, by and
>large. Maybe a little blood here and there, perhaps a look of pain,
>maybe even one or two who genuinely suffer, but what Malick shows

>us bears no relation to what a WWII battlefield actually looked like.
>What Spielberg showed us did, according to the eyewitness accounts
>of those who were there and their subsequent testimony after seeing
>the film.
>

>In my opinion, the look in the eyes of the medics who worked to save
>a wounded man, only to have him suddenly die from a freshly inflicted
>wound during the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" were far

>more eloquent than all the philosophizing Malick gave us, and told

>us far more about the realities of combat than Malick's constant
>crosscutting to home front flashbacks.
>

>> What did you expect from Speilberg, intelligence?
>

>Are you aware that, when Stanley Kubrick received the DGA's Griffith

>Award, his acceptance speech refered to one other director than
>Kubrick himself and Griffith - Steven Spielberg? The reference was
>to something Spielberg had told Kubrick, that the hardest part of
>directing was getting out of the car, a sentiment that Kubrick agreed
>with and thought intelligent enough to quote. Of course, as we all
>know, Kubrick's intelligence and filmmaking talent pale next to
>the godlike Malick's, so perhaps we shouldn't consider this important.

This is equivalent to Kubrick walking in a park and petting a dog on its
head.

>Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line,"
>I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects. If I
>were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd choose

>Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's. All these "intelligent"

>ideas that people seem to claim for "The Thin Red Line" strike

>me as rather stale cliches or pretentious nonsense. Malick's

>film works best when he shows us what's going on, what his characters
>do and say, rather than when he takes anthropological excursions,
>indulges in tedious flashbacks, gives us outtakes from "Wild Kingdom,"
>or puts pseudo-intellectual babble into the minds of his characters and
>forces us to listen in. There are good ideas somewhere deep in there,
>but Malick buries them in a load of muck.

Why not sit down and start thinking about them instead of basic ideas
that were spoon-fed to you in SVP?

[Alex Crouvier]

Peter Reiher wrote:
>
> No, Reiher is arguing that if you want to measure realism, you should
> measure it against reality. If you don't agree with that, it explains
> an awful lot.

Huh?
You seem to be championing the level of realism as the stick to measure
a film's greatness. I don't think anyone who watches enough films can
atetst to that. APOCALYPSE NOW is surrealistic. Would you use the
argument that it is a worse film because it doesn't portray war in
documentary-like verisimilitude? Come on, Reiher. D.McDevitt opines:

> Call me stupid, but nobody seems to question the obvious next step of

> so-called filmed realism. So lets say SPR had the most realistic battle

> scenes ever filmed. I don't understand then what the benefit of such

> praise is. Is it honorable in and of itself to "remind" veterans of what
> it was like? Or to give the general populace an "idea" of what battle was

> like. To put it another way, what is the the end result supposed to be
> when we watch a realistic portrayal of something? Pity? Sympathy or
> Empathy? Catharsis? Guilt? If so then I'm sorry, I have to chalk all of
> that down to distraction, as in such portrayals are distractions from an
> issue that may need serious discussion and exploration.

Excellent point, McDevitt!

[Sky Hirschkron]

>Hitler is vastly underrated
You sick nazi fuck!

[ICEsycil]

>I thought the review of TRL in EW was
> right on the money when it said that SPR >was the more honest and braver
>film

Your going to justify your opinion by quoting EW...wasn't TRL on the second top
10 of the year list (by Lisa Schwartzbaum) in EW. Owen Gleiberman also gave
"Heat" a B-, and "Heat" IMO is the best action film of the 90's. Actually
Peter Travers (who IMO is a much better critic) put TRL as #5 on his list, and
didn't even include SPR. I'm not an SPR hater, I think it is a good film, but
not nearly as good as TRL, Platoon, or Apocalypse Now. Basically it's a
handful of extremely powerful scenes (the opening and closing battle sequences,
the captured German soldier, the little french girl, jewish man shouting
"Juden" to German soldiers) strung together by 2nd rate dialougue and cliched
characters. I almost laughed out loud when I saw Ed Burns with Brooklyn, NY on
the back of his jacket. And don't get me started about those insufferable
grave scenes that belong in Patch Adams, not a war film.

[LauraF2]

icesycil wrote:

>Your going to justify your opinion by quoting EW...wasn't TRL on the second
>top
>10 of the year list (by Lisa Schwartzbaum) in EW

Yep, tied for #5 on LS's list with Saving Private Ryan. TRL didn't appear on
OG's list but SPR was #1.

> Actually
>Peter Travers (who IMO is a much better critic) put TRL as #5 on his list,
>and
>didn't even include SPR.

The same Peter Travers who defended Batman and Robin and panned The Killer (
I'll never forgive him, lol).
The point is this is all in our IMHO, but I'll be curious to see which
film, if either, will still be talked about in 50 years.

[LauraF2]

Alex Crouvier wrote:

>LauraF2 wrote:
>>
>> Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,

>> hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was

>> right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver
>film

>> because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while
>TRL
>> fell into art film cliches.
>
>Honest and brave films usually never get recognized, child.
>
>
>
>

Gee, thanks for sharing your deep insight.

[John Krempasky]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote in message
<9oal2.6591$W_.40...@news1.teleport.com>...

>> John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> writes:
>> James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
>
>

>> > WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on
"heroism".
>
>> Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?
>
>>>>>
>

>General Zukov.
>
>Little American children are taught that WWI & WWII wouldn't have been
>won without the U.S. butting its glorious head in...nope. Sorry.

Dilettantes with no knowledge of military history are known for embarassing
themselves talking about things they know nothing about.

It's conceivable the Entente would have won WWI with NO US involvement, but
take out the US completely and it certainly increases the chance Germany
wins..it was a VERY near-run thing in early 1918. The Germans really DID
almost win. Even though it took quite some time to get large numbers of US
troops into combat, they did play a role (much smaller than the British and
French) of throwing back the final German offensive. More importantly, the
knowledge that hordes of Americans were just around the corner was a massive
morale boost and a source of hope during the dark days of the German Spring
offensive.

I posit that had the US not declared war in 1917, Germany would have
defeated the French and British forces on the continent in 1918, "winning"
World War I.

And people go too far extending the perfectly valid points that: 1) The
Soviet contribution to defeating Hitler is vastly underrated in the West and
2) That the US single-handedly defeated Hitler is silly

to the moronic third point that 3) The U.S. was irrelevant to the European
war.

This is bullshit. Had the US played NO role whatsoever in WWII, it seems
fairly clear to me that the Axis would have won. The Japanese would have
eventually attacked the Soviet Union, for one thing, upon seeing the US was
not coming in. Don't see how the Soviets survive that AND the Germans.

If you support the contention that with no US involvement the
British/Soviets still would have won, there is little doubt that defeating
Germany would have EASILY taken an additional 2-3 years. Without the US
the British could not have possibly re-invaded France. The Soviet Military
was ENORMOUSLY dependent on American material.....not in the "sexy"
things...the Soviets built most of their own combat aircraft, and almost all
of their tanks (they asked us to stop sending them since theirs were better)
but virtually all their trucks were American (freeing the entire Soviet
automotive industry to make tanks), all their telegraph wire, high-octane
aviation fuel, almost all of their radios, all the "little things" that make
a force far more effective.

The majority of the Luftwaffe was tied up in the West by the American
daylight offensive; had it only been the British air force far more of the
LW would have been able to fight in the Soviet Union (as it was, after the
US entered in a big way, the Luftwaffe fought outnumbered on the Eastern
Front 10-1 or more.)

And a significant number of German divisions were tied up in the West by the
US/British forces, forces that, had it only been the British as a threat,
would certainly have been on the Eastern Front.

[John Krempasky]

D. Mcdevitt wrote in message ...

Besides, the opening scene in SPR is about as far from
>realism as I can imagine.

So what part of Omaha Beach did you land on?

The one thing about the opening scene is it IS a bit short. It took most of
the day to get off the beaches and onto the cliffs. Also it's a bit low of
heavy artillery (a bit of a failing of the whole film) which, in general,
kills more troops than anything else in war.

But, valid artistic license, I think.

It's stylized beyond comprehension. If he
>wanted realism he could have made a 20 hour film of nothing but sodliers
>marching with maybe a few shots fired, nothing spectacular, no music, no
>augmented sound effects, no special lenses or film.

I don't believe there is ANY music at all in the Omaha Beach Sequence. And
I would gather that the sound effects of landing on Omaha Beach would be
fairly intense. I'm not certain what you mean by "augmented."

A 20 hour film of soldiers marching would be realistic in showing the
reality of soldiers marching, not landing on Omaha Beach.

[John Krempasky]

Alex Crouvier wrote in message <369556...@geocities.com>...

>Reiher still persists on the notion that realistic battle sequence that

>vets could relate to in war movie is the bar for excellence. I guess in
>Mr Reiher's eyes and mind, every war movie is made solely for the vets,
>that us poor faggod pinko leftists should only stand in sideline and nod
>in solemn agreement.

That would be nice, though I doubt you can keep your traps shut long enough.

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> "John Krempasky" <jo...@dmv.com> writes:
> James_...@88.teleport.com wrote in message
> <9oal2.6591$W_.40...@news1.teleport.com>...
> >> John Harkness <j...@netcom.ca> writes:
> >> James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:

> >> > WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on
> "heroism".

> >> Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?

> >General Zukov.

> >Little American children are taught that WWI & WWII wouldn't have been
> >won without the U.S. butting its glorious head in...nope. Sorry.

> Dilettantes with no knowledge of military history are known for embarassing
> themselves talking about things they know nothing about.

Mirror, mirror...

> It's conceivable the Entente would have won WWI with NO US involvement, but
> take out the US completely and it certainly increases the chance Germany
> wins..it was a VERY near-run thing in early 1918. The Germans really DID
> almost win. Even though it took quite some time to get large numbers of US
> troops into combat, they did play a role (much smaller than the British and
> French) of throwing back the final German offensive. More importantly, the
> knowledge that hordes of Americans were just around the corner was a massive
> morale boost and a source of hope during the dark days of the German Spring
> offensive.

> I posit that had the US not declared war in 1917, Germany would have
> defeated the French and British forces on the continent in 1918, "winning"
> World War I.

And a big SO WHAT? If you'd use that gray stuff between your ears, you'd
readily realize that if Germany had won WWI, there more-than-likely wouldn't
have been a WWII. Viola...that pip-squeek island that Anglophiles slobber
over would have been cast into the dust-bin of history seventy years sooner.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> "John Krempasky" <jo...@dmv.com> writes:
> D. Mcdevitt wrote in message ...

> >Besides, the opening scene in SPR is about as far from
> >realism as I can imagine.

> So what part of Omaha Beach did you land on?

>>>>

Stupid comment from a knee-jerk shit-for-brains.

A movie isn't "reality" and can never, ever be "reality".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[fury]

LauraF2 wrote in message <19990107120319...@ng-cc1.aol.com>...

>
> Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
>hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
>right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver
film
>because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while
TRL
>fell into art film cliches.
>

>Lau...@aol.com
> " I forgot my one line, so I just said what I felt" PW

you're right_nature_is violent, but man is violent by choice. a decision is
made to hurt, true nature is arbitrary. there is no such thing as a
"necessary" war, which is one of the points of "the thin red line"

[LauraF2]

fu...@mindspring.com wrote:

>LauraF2 wrote in message <19990107120319...@ng-cc1.aol.com>...
>
>>
>> Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
>>hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
>>right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver
>film
>>because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while
>TRL
>>fell into art film cliches.
>>
>>Lau...@aol.com
>> " I forgot my one line, so I just said what I felt" PW
>
>
>you're right_nature_is violent, but man is violent by choice. a decision is
>made to hurt, true nature is arbitrary.

Which is why man is much more interesting and profound than nature.

>there is no such thing as a
>"necessary" war, which is one of the points of "the thin red line"

I'm glad Malick was able to come up with such a bold deep insight ;-)

Lau...@aol.com
" I forgot my one line, so I just said what I felt" PW

ICQ# 27326264

[D. Mcdevitt]

>
> D. Mcdevitt wrote in message ...
> Besides, the opening scene in SPR is about as far from
> >realism as I can imagine.
>
> So what part of Omaha Beach did you land on?
>

> The one thing about the opening scene is it IS a bit short. It took most of
> the day to get off the beaches and onto the cliffs. Also it's a bit low of
> heavy artillery (a bit of a failing of the whole film) which, in general,
> kills more troops than anything else in war.

What I'm pointing out is the irony between the level of technology
required to simulate a supposedly realistic scene. Do not underestimate
the power such illusion can hold over a viewing audience. I am not wholly
immune to it and neither are you. If I can go to a film like Terminator 2
(when I was 15) and feel a tear welling in my eye as Arnie lowers himself
into the molten steel, something is seriously askew. Emotions are drawn
out of us with very standard devices. Nobody cries when watching somone
elses home videos (rare exceptions I suppose). A filmmakers first task is
to manipulate the images into an ultimately false narrative for the
benefit of the audience. If SPR's battle is so fucking real why didn't
99% of the audience leave the theatre, as I'm sure we would all do in a
real war. Please do give me crap about "educating us on the horrors of
war"; you loved being there, you saw it twice, you'd see it again. Just
like the pathetic guilt you had during Schindler's List, when you stumbled
from the theatre saying, "oh its a good film but I just couldn't see it
again...very powerful but in that bad way you know", when really, you
haven't done shit to further the cause of human rights any more than you
did before you saw the film. Guilt, Catharsis, pity = excuses. (Forgive
me if this sounds like a personal attack, the 'You' refers more to a
general audience)

>
> But, valid artistic license, I think.
>
>
> It's stylized beyond comprehension. If he
> >wanted realism he could have made a 20 hour film of nothing but sodliers
> >marching with maybe a few shots fired, nothing spectacular, no music, no
> >augmented sound effects, no special lenses or film.
>
> I don't believe there is ANY music at all in the Omaha Beach Sequence. And
> I would gather that the sound effects of landing on Omaha Beach would be
> fairly intense. I'm not certain what you mean by "augmented."
>

An oversight on my part. Its been a while since I saw SPR. But the film
as a whole certainly falls into these traps.

> A 20 hour film of soldiers marching would be realistic in showing the
> reality of soldiers marching, not landing on Omaha Beach.

If the whole films would have been two hours of the Normandy beach landing
I might have applauded Speilberg for showing an ounce of daring. people
would leave because they were no longer entertained, lots of people. The
form of the films should match the content, the subject of the film. But
no..

DM

[Peter Reiher]

Dashiell Christopher wrote:
>

> There seems to be a lot of secondary or tertiary proof to back your
> argument. In the long run, or even the short, this proves to have
> little weight.

Why? What evidence do you have for the counterproposition?

> The oddest of them all, however, is your mention of an
> emotional experience. By whom? Certainly not the characters within
> the film. At no time does SPR delve into what the characters were
> really thinking or feeling before, during, or after a battle.

I find this an amazing statement. You use a great deal of material
in the previous paragraphs to try to suggest you have a great deal
of experience and depth in various approaches to art, yet you then
claim that Spielberg's film doesn't tell us what the characters were
thinking, so there is no emotional experience. A nearly mind-boggling
argument.

It's a rare film that successfully conveys emotions through actual
description of a character's thoughts. "The Thin Red Line" tries to
do so, and fails miserably. While by no means tremendously successful
at it, "Saving Private Ryan's" attempts to show us the interior life
of its main character indirectly work far better.

> It
> doesn't care. SPR operates on a highly superficial base, were the
> ends justify the means.

A highly simplistic and superficial reading of the film. How does
the behavior and fate of Pvt. Upham fit into this reading? How
about the treatment of the captured German soldier?

> TRL eschews these
> assumptions by in large, and offers characters who are complex and
> morally ambiguous.

Or, alternately, characters who are ciphers and muddily drawn.

> Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red
> Line,"
> I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects.
> If I
> were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd
> choose
> Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's.
>
> That's your opinion but based on your evidence, it seems highly
> specious to me. Perhaps, rather than intelligent, how about visceral
> or immediate?

No, I'll stick with intelligent. The themes that people have actually
managed to dredge up for "The Thin Red Line" are poorly developed in
that film, almost to the point of being cliched. "Saving Private
Ryan" very clearly lays out the costs of war and suggests reasons one
should or should not fight it, anyway. That's more intelligent than
shots of tropical birds suggesting the beauty of nature untouched by
man, or sequences with Melanesians suggesting a fall from the grace
of Eden.

> All these "intelligent" ideas that people seem to claim for
> "The Thin Red Line" strike me as rather stale cliches or
> pretentious nonsense.
>
> Stale? Cliche?

You betcha. Let's take two solid examples. (Your article, while
well written, is rather short on specifics.) Spoilers for "The Thin
Red Line" follow.

First, all those nature shots. This is a tremendous cliche. Lewis
Milestone managed to capture everything Malick had to say here, and
more, with the single shot of the butterfly at the end of "All Quiet on
the Western Front." Since then, it's been practically a commonplace to
juxtipose the beauties of nature with the horrors of war. How about
Malick's attempts to include the savagery of nature, as well? Check out
the tiger scene in "Apocalypse Now" and tell me Coppola didn't get there
first. (Or, more probably, thirtieth.)

Second, the frequent flashbacks to one of the central character's
wife. Now, given his obsession with his wife, and that he has been
presented as being almost totally motivated by his feelings for his
wife, what's the stalest, oldest, most cliched thing that could
possibly happen? You got it, he'll get a Dear John letter. And
what's the stalest, oldest, most cliched way to show him getting a
Dear John letter? You got it, a shot of him reading the letter while
a voiceover from his wife relays the contents. That's what Malick
has up his sleeve here. Stale and cliched, indeed, to an extent that
was almost jaw-dropping.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally trashing Malick's film. There's
some great stuff in there. What I'm attacking are the rather
inconsistent approachs of some critics and viewers to this film,
as compared to "Saving Private Ryan." Far too clearly, a lot of
these comments have more to do with who made the film than with
the film's content, and a lot of them have more to do with visual
style than actual content.

> Malick's film works best when he shows us what's going on,
> what his charactersdo and say, rather than when he takes
> anthropological excursions,indulges in tedious flashbacks,
> gives us outtakes from "Wild Kingdom,"or puts
> pseudo-intellectual babble into the minds of his characters
> andforces us to listen in. There are good ideas somewhere
> deep in there,but Malick buries them in a load of muck.
>
> I'd say, take a second and think about why the director would include
> scenes such as those, rather than dismiss than a superfluous.

I have. I do understand many of his reasons for doing things. (And,
from what I've read, no one but Malick will ever understand them all.)
But I still believe they don't work.

[Peter Reiher]

Alex Crouvier wrote:
>
> Peter Reiher wrote:
> >
> > No, Reiher is arguing that if you want to measure realism, you should
> > measure it against reality. If you don't agree with that, it explains
> > an awful lot.
>
> Huh?
> You seem to be championing the level of realism as the stick to measure
> a film's greatness.

Now, where did you get that idea? If it's from anything I wrote,
please point it out. Someone posted a claim that "The Thin Red Line"
used a more realistic approach than "Saving Private Ryan." I argued
the reverse. Neither of us argued that realism is the sole measuring
stick of a film's quality.

> I don't think anyone who watches enough films can
> atetst to that. APOCALYPSE NOW is surrealistic. Would you use the
> argument that it is a worse film because it doesn't portray war in
> documentary-like verisimilitude?

Of course not. "Apocalypse Now" intentionally takes a surrealistic
approach to war (especially the Vietnam War). The occasional arguments
attacking the film because it wasn't realistic are foolish arguments.
But, on the other hand, if one were to argue that one of the virtues
of "Apocalypse Now" is that it gives us a realistic picture of what the
Vietnam War was really like, then one is on shaky ground.

[Peter Reiher]

fury wrote:
>
> LauraF2 wrote in message <19990107120319...@ng-cc1.aol.com>...
>
> >
> > Nature is violent:

> you're right_nature_is violent, but man is violent by choice. a decision is
> made to hurt, true nature is arbitrary. there is no such thing as a

> "necessary" war, which is one of the points of "the thin red line"

Please defend that contention from internal evidence of the film.
If "The Thin Red Line" is truly arguing that the battle it depicted
(and WWII as a whole) was unnecessary, then obviously there must be
content in the film showing the futility of the events, suggesting
that the battles fought need not have been fought and that equally
good or better things would have happened had they not. What are
the shots, scenes, characters, dialog, that argue those points in "The
Thin Red Line?"

Part of the problem with discussions of "The Thin Red Line" is that
it sufficiently dense and obscure that it's relatively easy to
claim a lot of different themes and meanings for the film. Fine,
but just saying so ain't enough. You've got to point out your evidence.

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> lau...@aol.comnospam (LauraF2) writes:

> fu...@mindspring.com wrote:

> >there is no such thing as a "necessary" war, which is one of the
> >points of "the thin red line"

> I'm glad Malick was able to come up with such a bold deep insight ;-)

>>>>

Which is more than Spielberg managed to do...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Mark.J.Desocio]

On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, D. Mcdevitt wrote:

>If the whole film ["Saving Private Ryan"] would have been two hours of

>the Normandy beach landing I might have applauded Speilberg for showing
>an ounce of daring. people would leave because they were no longer
>entertained, lots of people. The form of the films should match the
>content, the subject of the film. But no..
>
> DM

Excellent point; great post.

[Alex Crouvier]

Dashiell Christopher wrote:

>
> Peter Reiher wrote:
>
>
> All these "intelligent" ideas that people seem to claim for
> "The Thin Red Line" strike me as rather stale cliches or
> pretentious nonsense.
>
> Stale? Cliche? And, SPR's plot and characters aren't? Incredible.

Told you. THIN RED LINE seems unconventional to him so by default his
flat-earth thinking chooses the cartoonish simplicity (in terms of
thematic exploration) of action advneture war flick like SAVING PVT
RYAN.

> I won't go into the coded meaning of a person dismissing an oblique
> work with a phrase such as "pretentious nonsense", so I'll leave it at
> that.

Reiher probably still thinks that sun still revolves around the Earth.

[Alex Crouvier]

Peter Reiher wrote:
>
>
> No, I'll stick with intelligent. The themes that people have actually
> managed to dredge up for "The Thin Red Line" are poorly developed in
> that film, almost to the point of being cliched. "Saving Private
> Ryan" very clearly lays out the costs of war and suggests reasons one
> should or should not fight it, anyway. That's more intelligent than
> shots of tropical birds suggesting the beauty of nature untouched by
> man, or sequences with Melanesians suggesting a fall from the grace
> of Eden.

The cost of war? Hmmm, have we heard that before in past war films?
Hmmmm...many times before. Maybe SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is the cipher you
were referring to. RYAN's interesting theme is Upham but this is such a
sideline sub-plot that is never front-center in the film. SPR is about
the senselessness and sacrifice of war --spin, repeat, cycle, re-cycle
throughout. Boring.

[LauraF2]

James_...@88.teleport.com contributed the following:

>> >there is no such thing as a "necessary" war, which is one of the
>> >points of "the thin red line"
>
>> I'm glad Malick was able to come up with such a bold deep insight ;-)
>
>>>>>
>
>Which is more than Spielberg managed to do...
>

Spielberg isn't interested in philosphizing on screen. Thank god, cause it
isn't his strength. Speilberg is a storyteller, and a damn good one too..

[Alex Crouvier]

Peter Reiher wrote:

>
> Alex Crouvier wrote:
> >
> > Huh?
> > You seem to be championing the level of realism as the stick to measure
> > a film's greatness.
>
> Now, where did you get that idea? If it's from anything I wrote,
> please point it out. Someone posted a claim that "The Thin Red Line"
> used a more realistic approach than "Saving Private Ryan." I argued
> the reverse. Neither of us argued that realism is the sole measuring
> stick of a film's quality.

Read your post again, Reiher. You seemed to strongly imply that the
realism of SPR IS the strength of the film. So a film portrasy war
realistically, but more importantly what does it say about war? Nothing
new. Spielberg is a cipher of old movies.

> Of course not. "Apocalypse Now" intentionally takes a surrealistic
> approach to war (especially the Vietnam War). The occasional arguments
> attacking the film because it wasn't realistic are foolish arguments.
> But, on the other hand, if one were to argue that one of the virtues
> of "Apocalypse Now" is that it gives us a realistic picture of what the
> Vietnam War was really like, then one is on shaky ground.

Fair enough. For once, you sound reasonable. But I still feel your
argument AGAINST THIN RED LINE is, uh, pretty thin. (Read above)

[Jeffrey Davis]

Alex Crouvier wrote:
>
> Fair enough. For once, you sound reasonable. But I still feel your
> argument AGAINST THIN RED LINE is, uh, pretty thin. (Read above)

Your argument reminds me of the Sidney Smith line about never reading a
book before reviewing it since it prejudices one so.

--
Jeffrey Davis <da...@ca.uky.edu> Lots Available

[D. Mcdevitt]

Just a note,

Alex C, I have to apologize... a few posts ago I made and offhand comment
about your arguments being puerile without cross checking my facts. I
mistakenly identified some passage of drivel as one of your arguments and
jumped from there. Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, what harm can be done here? We're all faceless voices, with thick
skins and words as our ammo. NG's are the best arena for even the most
cowardly to strike. Sometimes it gets too easy to lash out, forgetting
civility, seeing as how the consequences are few. Cheers.

Darby

**********************************************************************
* Darby McDevitt * mcde...@u.washington.edu * Other Pertinent Stuff *
**********************************************************************
"What is there to say? Pure and simply this: When a bachelor of philosphy
from the Antillies refuses to apply for certification as a teacher on the
ground of his color, I say that philosphy has never saved anyone. When
someone else strives and strains to prove that black men are as
intelligent as white men, I say that intellegence has never saved anyone;
and that is true, for, if philosphy and intelligence are invoked to
proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the
extermination of men." -Frantz Fanon

[Alex Crouvier]

Peter Reiher wrote:
>
>
> Please defend that contention from internal evidence of the film.
> If "The Thin Red Line" is truly arguing that the battle it depicted
> (and WWII as a whole) was unnecessary, then obviously there must be
> content in the film showing the futility of the events, suggesting
> that the battles fought need not have been fought and that equally
> good or better things would have happened had they not. What are
> the shots, scenes, characters, dialog, that argue those points in "The
> Thin Red Line?"

It's bacause Malick respects his audience (we the audience do the
contemplation on our own volition) not the way Spielberg spoonfeeds the
audience with sentiments, important message and social-political
significance like we are his many adopted kids. Patronising. The
message, themes, subjects in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN are so obvious, even a
trailer park would pat himself on the back: "Oh, Jeez, I have seen a
really intelligent film!"

LOL.

It is an Oscar bait, Reiher. And for that, mass deaths are necessary to
carry the duty. TITANIC, BRAVEHEART, SCHINDLER'S LIST --all Oscar
winners that equate explicit mass deaths and violence with Importance.
The Academy is of course too dumb to realize that BRAVEHEART is more
fiction than truth. PRIVAT ERYAN has buttons ready to be pushed by
Stevie all over it. Defending a pandering escapist meister like as if he
is our foremost cinematic historian is like using Howard Stern as the
Icon of First Ammendment.

[Alex Crouvier]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
>
> > lau...@aol.comnospam (LauraF2) writes:
> > fu...@mindspring.com wrote:
>

> > >there is no such thing as a "necessary" war, which is one of the
> > >points of "the thin red line"
>
> > I'm glad Malick was able to come up with such a bold deep insight ;-)
>
> >>>>
>
> Which is more than Spielberg managed to do...

That's right. You are right. He is right, Reiher.

[mara...@discoverymail.com]

Why do modern "antiwar" movies have to rely on flashbacks and sentimental
monologues to make their point when the late Vic Morrow could do it all with a
look?

Rest In Peace, "Sarge"---
Alvin

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own

[Wag The Frog]

Alex Crouvier wrote in message <369681...@geocities.com>...

>
>It is an Oscar bait, Reiher. And for that, mass deaths are necessary to
>carry the duty. TITANIC, BRAVEHEART, SCHINDLER'S LIST --all Oscar
>winners that equate explicit mass deaths and violence with Importance.
>The Academy is of course too dumb to realize that BRAVEHEART is more
>fiction than truth. PRIVAT ERYAN has

<SNIP>

Privat Eryan?
I get it!!!!!
Whohoooooo!!

--
Wag T. Frog
---------------------------------------------------------
Remove "SPAMSUX" from address to reply.
---------------------------------------------------------
"We are DIVX - The 'V' is silent."

[Alex Crouvier]

Jeffrey Davis wrote:
>
> Alex Crouvier wrote:
> >
> > Fair enough. For once, you sound reasonable. But I still feel your
> > argument AGAINST THIN RED LINE is, uh, pretty thin. (Read above)
>
> Your argument reminds me of the Sidney Smith line about never reading a
> book before reviewing it since it prejudices one so.

:=|

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> "Wag The Frog" <Crai...@SPAMSUXworldnet.att.net> writes:
> Alex Crouvier wrote in message <369681...@geocities.com>...

> >It is an Oscar bait, Reiher. And for that, mass deaths are necessary to
> >carry the duty. TITANIC, BRAVEHEART, SCHINDLER'S LIST --all Oscar
> >winners that equate explicit mass deaths and violence with Importance.
> >The Academy is of course too dumb to realize that BRAVEHEART is more
> >fiction than truth. PRIVAT ERYAN has
> <SNIP>

> Privat Eryan?
> I get it!!!!!
> Whohoooooo!!

>>>>

Look at your keyboard, dickhead, "e" is right next to "r". But if you use a
pencil grasped between your teeth to type out your pathetic little messages
to a world that could care less...I suppose that this would be a big deal.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> mara...@discoverymail.com writes:

> Why do modern "antiwar" movies have to rely on flashbacks and sentimental
> monologues to make their point when the late Vic Morrow could do it all with a
> look?

>>>>

Simple - "modern" war films (any film which accurately depicts war is
automatically "anti-war" and assuming you mean WWII) are done by
guys who weren't actually there.

Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Platoon had very few if any flash-
backs.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[D. Mcdevitt]

I have to blink a few times here too... I haven't read a SINGLE bad
review of TRL yet. Lessee, The Seattle Times likes it, The Stranger and
the Seattle Weekly (our two biggest free weekly papers) both liked it
(better than SPR...), The New Yorker liked it, Public Radio International
liked it... This poster is probably reading a USA today review, or
newsweek, People or EW. I hate to be a little elitist but the latter
mentioned are magazines with such a huge circulation they're opinions have
GOT to be bland, middle of the road, safe and obvious. Otherwise, whoops,
lost readership!
Most of the reviews find flaws with the film sure. But they are all
positive marks.

Darby

On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Anthony Poole wrote:

> What reviews are you reading? Mallick just won the Best Director award from
> the NY CRITICS. Are you talking about Jeanne Wolf or TIME here?
> Ronald J. Whalen wrote in message <3697EB...@cti-md.com>...
>
> >Nevertheless, I ain't gonna see Thin Red Line, a few bad reviews aren't
> >bad but this film has gotten the level of bad negative film reviews
> >alongside a recent WB movie.
>
>
>
>

[Peter Reiher]

> >Nevertheless, I ain't gonna see Thin Red Line, a few bad reviews aren't
> >bad but this film has gotten the level of bad negative film reviews
> >alongside a recent WB movie.

I'm not "The Thin Red Line's" biggest defender, but I don't agree
at all that this is a turkey to be avoided. There are some first-rate
elements in this film, and I'm not talking about just cinematography.
Most of the middle 100 minutes of this film is exceptional, anchored
by fine performances by Nick Nolte and Elias Koteas, which are as good
as any performances I've seen this year. It's definitely a film that
should be seen by anyone who takes film at all seriously.

[Dashiell Christopher]

Peter Reiher wrote:

Dashiell Christopher wrote:
>

> There seems to be a lot of secondary or tertiary proof to back your
> argument.  In the long run, or even the short, this proves to have
> little weight.

Why?  What evidence do you have for the counterproposition?

My opinion, period.  You seem to rely (in the review of TRL and your subsequent posts defending it) heavily on other people's opinions to validate your own.  In the end, all we have to go on is our opinions and the weight of our arguments and convictions.

>  The oddest of them all, however, is your mention of an
> emotional experience.  By whom?  Certainly not the characters within
> the film.  At no time does SPR delve into what the characters were
> really thinking or feeling before, during, or after a battle.

I find this an amazing statement.  You use a great deal of material
in the previous paragraphs to try to suggest you have a great deal
of experience and depth in various approaches to art, yet you then
claim that Spielberg's film doesn't tell us what the characters were
thinking, so there is no emotional experience.  A nearly mind-boggling
argument.
 

What?  The speech by Hanks about getting home?  The speech by the medic?  What about these seriously stilted "oscar moment" speeches tells more about their motivations than the ruminations offered in TRL?  Besides, my point about SPR was directed at its thematic concerns (patriotism and its costs and sacrifices) - the only concern, I contend, the film really cares about.

It's a rare film that successfully conveys emotions through actual
description of a character's thoughts.  "The Thin Red Line" tries to
do so, and fails miserably.  While by no means tremendously successful
at it, "Saving Private Ryan's" attempts to show us the interior life
of its main character indirectly work far better.

I guess this just boils down to a strong difference in opinion.  That you believe so strenuously in SPR's attempt to delve into the personal lives of the soldiers is certainly your opinion, and I respect your convictions, but I fall on the other end of the spectrum.  I think SPR fails miserably on this account.

> It doesn't care.  SPR operates on a highly superficial base, were the
> ends justify the means.

A highly simplistic and superficial reading of the film.

My point exactly.  The film has little depth.  The film does not reward a nuanced response, despite my close reading of it.  I've seen it four times, each time looking at different aspects of the film.  What do you see worthy of valorization?  The score?  The mise-en-scene?  The acting?  The thematics of the film ( of which I find the most to talk about).  The editing and the meanings created through the editing process ( of which there is little beyond action and pacing).  Historical accuracy?  Contemporary relevancy?  What?  I find it pretty thin.  By in large, the films compromises its complexity in order to appeal to the lowest common denominator.  I found the film mildly entertaining, but ultimately very unsatisfying.

How does the behavior and fate of Pvt. Upham fit into this reading?  How
about the treatment of the captured German soldier?
 

Good questions.  I found the Upham character to be fairly generic.  A  hollow surrogate for the audience, for Spielberg himself, or as an inversion of the heroic protagonist (forcing the audience to ponder what side they fall on).  IMO, the film should have been Saving Private Upham; where the soldiers risk everything to find that the man they were sent to save was a coward.  That would have be interesting and given the film the complexity to show its characters' struggle with the point of the war and their purpose within it.

> TRL eschews these assumptions by in large, and offers characters who are >complex and morally ambiguous.

Or, alternately, characters who are ciphers and muddily drawn.

O.K.  Your opinion which I respectfully disagree with.

>      Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line,"
>      I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects.  If I
>      were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd choose
>      Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's.
>
> That's your opinion but based on your evidence, it seems highly
> specious to me.  Perhaps, rather than intelligent, how about visceral
> or immediate?

No, I'll stick with intelligent.  The themes that people have actually
managed to dredge up for "The Thin Red Line" are poorly developed in
that film, almost to the point of being cliched.   "Saving Private
Ryan" very clearly lays out the costs of war and suggests reasons one
should or should not fight it, anyway.

I agree totally (with everything except for intelligent)!  You mention the thematics of the film to underline why you find it to be intelligent.  I'll say it again...what else is there?  A theme that you agree with cannot be the sole indicator of intelligence.  Especially, if the film does not deal with the thematics in an interesting or thoughtful manner.  I'd suggest that the thematics of SPR were and continue to be a part of the national consciousness before the film came out.  Is it intelligent or worthwhile to reinforce a theme that is widely undisputed within the national mythology anyway?  Wouldn't it be prudent, creative, or interesting to repackage this mythology in a new and complex manner cinematically?  Does SPR seem revolutionary to you in this respect.  Don't you find it to be a pastiche of previous war films?

That's more intelligent than shots of tropical birds suggesting the beauty of nature untouched by man, or sequences with Melanesians suggesting a fall from the grace of Eden.

I didn't find that to be the case personally, but if you see them that way, then maybe I can see why you would see them as superfluous.  TRL isn't DoH; despite some surface similarities.

>      All these "intelligent" ideas that people seem to claim for
>      "The Thin Red Line" strike me as rather stale cliches or
>      pretentious nonsense.
>
> Stale?  Cliche?

You betcha.  Let's take two solid examples.  (Your article, while
well written, is rather short on specifics.)  Spoilers for "The Thin
Red Line" follow.

First, all those nature shots.  This is a tremendous cliche.  Lewis
Milestone managed to capture everything Malick had to say here, and
more, with the single shot of the butterfly at the end of "All Quiet on
the Western Front."

I'll agree that that was a gorgeous shot; but the symbolism of that scene does not, for my money, match well with the scenes in TRL.  The metamorphic qualities symbolized by the butterfly in AQOTWS matches better with the pre-war anxieties in a film like The Rules of the Game:  The rabbit scene.  I'd say the nature scenes in TRL are more Darwinian in nature and says more about the motivations that drive different animals (in all their guises) to slaughter each other.

Since then, it's been  practically a commonplace to
juxtipose the beauties of nature with the horrors of war.  How about
Malick's attempts to include the savagery of nature, as well?  Check out
the tiger scene in "Apocalypse Now" and tell me Coppola didn't get there
first.  (Or, more probably, thirtieth.)
 

I'd say this comparison is closer in nature (no pun intended).  Still, I found Malick's scene's more interesting and befitting the tone of the film.  Apocalypse, while at times brilliant, was a much more incoherent vision of war (still not convincing despite the incoherent qualities of The Vietnam War).  Thank god that it had the fulfilling structure of Conrad to keep it afloat.

Second, the frequent flashbacks to one of the central character's
wife.  Now, given his obsession with his wife, and that he has been
presented as being almost totally motivated by his feelings for his
wife, what's the stalest, oldest, most cliched thing that could
possibly happen?  You got it, he'll get a Dear John letter.  And
what's the stalest, oldest, most cliched way to show him getting a
Dear John letter?  You got it, a shot of him reading the letter while
a voiceover from his wife relays the contents.  That's what Malick
has up his sleeve here.  Stale and cliched, indeed, to an extent that
was almost jaw-dropping.
 

I found the scenes with his wife to be touching.  Touching, that is, until he received that letter.  The worst part of the film by far.  You are certainly right about that.  Still, I found the framing of his character, isolated among the trash and decay of rusting materials to be a good use of mise-en-scene.  Î would have, if I had to have the Dear John scene, shot the scene in the same framing device, but shot it in a long shot and deep focus with no dialogue, no sound at all.  The voice-over was totally unnecessary and, yes, cliched.  It would have sufficed to have the scene with the wife outside the barracks standing pensively while the "other man" walked towards her in the background <cut> followed by the scene I just described.  But, hey, that's my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally trashing Malick's film.  There's
some great stuff in there.  What I'm attacking are the rather
inconsistent approachs of some critics and viewers to this film,
as compared to "Saving Private Ryan."  Far too clearly, a lot of
these comments have more to do with who made the film than with
the film's content, and a lot of them have more to do with visual
style than actual content.
 

And, I don't find SPR to be totally worthless either.  But, the valorization of the film had little or nothing to do with its cinematic excellence.  Rather, it reaffirmed what most people believe very deeply in this country.  John Harkness' review of TRL pondered the possibility of these film's directors switching scripts and what the outcome would have been.  I'd have to say that that makes for an interesting thought.

Spielberg still would have made a compromised and populist film.

DC

P.S.  I found some of your defense of SPR and criticism of TRL more compelling and convincing than either you initial review of TRL or SPR itself.  Thanks for the thoughts.
 
 

[fury]

Peter Reiher wrote in message <36964447...@cs.ucla.edu>...

>fury wrote:
>>
>> LauraF2 wrote in message
<19990107120319...@ng-cc1.aol.com>...
>>
>> >
>> > Nature is violent:
>
>> you're right_nature_is violent, but man is violent by choice. a decision
is

>> made to hurt, true nature is arbitrary. there is no such thing as a

>> "necessary" war, which is one of the points of "the thin red line"
>

>Please defend that contention from internal evidence of the film.
>If "The Thin Red Line" is truly arguing that the battle it depicted
>(and WWII as a whole) was unnecessary, then obviously there must be
>content in the film showing the futility of the events, suggesting
>that the battles fought need not have been fought and that equally
>good or better things would have happened had they not. What are
>the shots, scenes, characters, dialog, that argue those points in "The
>Thin Red Line?"
>

>Part of the problem with discussions of "The Thin Red Line" is that
>it sufficiently dense and obscure that it's relatively easy to
>claim a lot of different themes and meanings for the film. Fine,
>but just saying so ain't enough. You've got to point out your evidence.
>--
> Peter Reiher

the thing is pete, that the movie has no answers, it's only questions. what
you get from it is based on your own experiences. we know what we're in for
from the opening shot. the croc/gator submerging into the swamp. we're about
to enter a dark murky place, the human mind. witt, awol in the village, look
at the way he observes the people, with fascination. he would rather be here
than fight. of course who wouldn't. all of witt's (who is the heart and soul
of the movie) musings comment on the fact that this war, any war, is wrong
because all we're doing is fighting our self. hence his line "what if we're
all just one soul, one man with many faces". welsh, the loner, who
constantly chastises witt, not for behavior, mind you, but for his belief in
finding beauty in the insanity, yet at the same time being jealous of it,
hence his act of putting witt on burial detail, instead of a harsher
sentence. he envies witt's view, because he wishes he had it, but he doesn't
know how, so he decides to put him even closer to the death (if that's
possible) in order to break him. so he keeps witt close to him and even
seeks him out later at the barracks. he wants witt's light around him.
staros's refusal to send his "sons" into battle because he can't condone
sending them to their death. he prays every night asking god for
forgiveness, yet also asking god to help him make the right choices. and yet
having no qualms leaving them behind to die. the battle on the hill is
foreshadowed by the shot of the baby bird, crushed by a soldier's boot and
struggling to stand upright. left behind to die when it should be beginning
it's life. no war-no human war-bird might have lived longer. same with the
soldiers.
i could go on. i haven't even gotten to bell and his wife, fife and his
constant fear. i mean, you did see the movie right? but to me the ultimate
argument is in the use of it's stars. they come and go, and we tend to
forget who was who, they rarely have time to make an impact. by using big
stars and then making them transitory, i think mr malick was trying to make
the point that none of them have any individual worth. they're easily
forgotten. much like war-we forget about-we don't want to think about it.
the brave soldiers who fought and died in every war are forgotten by the
public. how big is the veteran's day parade where you are?
when it comes down to SPR and TTRL, it comes to down to their directors. one
is a photographer, one is a painter. one gives us a very detailed record of
what occurred. the other sees the scene and gives his impression of what
occurred. SPR may be the more visceral of the two, but TTRL is the more
haunting and IMO the more lasting film.

[Anthony Poole]

What reviews are you reading? Mallick just won the Best Director award from
the NY CRITICS. Are you talking about Jeanne Wolf or TIME here?
Ronald J. Whalen wrote in message <3697EB...@cti-md.com>...

>Nevertheless, I ain't gonna see Thin Red Line, a few bad reviews aren't

[Wag The Frog]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote in message ...

>> "Wag The Frog" <Crai...@SPAMSUXworldnet.att.net> writes:
>> Alex Crouvier wrote in message <369681...@geocities.com>...
>
>> >It is an Oscar bait, Reiher. And for that, mass deaths are necessary to
>> >carry the duty. TITANIC, BRAVEHEART, SCHINDLER'S LIST --all Oscar
>> >winners that equate explicit mass deaths and violence with Importance.
>> >The Academy is of course too dumb to realize that BRAVEHEART is more
>> >fiction than truth. PRIVAT ERYAN has
>> <SNIP>
>
>> Privat Eryan?
>> I get it!!!!!
>> Whohoooooo!!
>
>>>>>
>
>Look at your keyboard, dickhead, "e" is right next to "r". But if you use a
>pencil grasped between your teeth to type out your pathetic little messages
>to a world that could care less...I suppose that this would be a big deal.

Don't fight your true feelings any longer you big sexy thang....
I love you too!!!!

[rjwh...@cti-md.com]

In article <36968...@139.134.5.33>,

"Anthony Poole" <anthon...@bigpond.com> wrote:
> What reviews are you reading? Mallick just won the Best Director award from
> the NY CRITICS. Are you talking about Jeanne Wolf or TIME here?

No, I'm talking about Stephen Hunter and Rita Kemply of The Washington Post,
both panned the film. Hunter in print and Kemply on the radio and look no
further than Charles Taylor's review of the film at the Salon Magazine.com
website. Taylor in his film review call The Big Dead One says it's cliched
and a self-indulgent throwback to the 70's. Taylor says Malick is just like
Kubrick in that he disregards both character, logic, plot, and emotion in his
story but instead wants the audience to oohhh and ahh at how great a
filmmaker he is. He also blames Thin Red Line as a bad movie alongside The
Shining and Blade Runner and Heaven's Gate which will convince Hollywood (the
studios, executives, film audience, critics) that Hollywood can never make a
great movie. Plus, Taylor says anyone who loves or likes the movie is an
idiot and only love it because Malick is a filmmaker from the 70's and even
they admit it's flaws and the only reason they love it is because they think
by loving Malick's new movie, the era of great 70's filmmaking will return.
But, Taylor goes on to say Malick's movies were pretty bad to begin with and
we should instead focus on modern-day filmmakers like Steve Soderbergh, Sam
Raimi and George Miller, and John Boorman and watch films like theirs instead
of Malick's.

[Tom Cervo]

> SPR was the more honest and braver film
>> > because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved,
>while TRL
>> > fell into art film cliches.
>>
>> Bullshit.
>> WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".

>Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?

>John

The point's been made often enough that anyone can make an antiwar movie about
World War I or Viet Nam--it takes a little more intellectual honesty to make an
antiwar movie set in World War II--the equivalent of the books written by James
Jones or Norman Mailer.

Sam Fuller and Don Siegel managed the trick. Spielberg, even while avoiding the
war that was the defining issue of his generation, can't even be honest about a
"good" war.

[Dashiell Christopher]

rjwh...@cti-md.com wrote:

> No, I'm talking about Stephen Hunter and Rita Kemply of The Washington Post,
> both panned the film. Hunter in print and Kemply on the radio and look no
> further than Charles Taylor's review of the film at the Salon Magazine.com
> website. Taylor in his film review call The Big Dead One says it's cliched and
> a self-indulgent throwback to the 70's. Taylor says Malick is just like Kubrick
> in that he disregards both character, logic, plot, and emotion in his story but
> instead wants the audience to oohhh and ahh at how great a filmmaker he is. He
> also blames Thin Red Line as a bad movie alongside The Shining and Blade Runner
> and Heaven's Gate which will convince Hollywood (the studios, executives, film
> audience, critics) that Hollywood can never make a great movie. Plus, Taylor
> says anyone who loves or likes the movie is an idiot and only love it because
> Malick is a filmmaker from the 70's and even they admit it's flaws and the only
> reason they love it is because they think by loving Malick's new movie, the
> era of great 70's filmmaking will return. But, Taylor goes on to say Malick's
> movies were pretty bad to begin with and we should instead focus on modern-day
> filmmakers like Steve Soderbergh, Sam Raimi and George Miller, and John Boorman
> and watch films like theirs instead
> of Malick's.

Thanks RJ. You've saved me the agony of reading the reviews of a total idiot.
Kudos for your synopsis of his *stunningly worthwhile* review. Is he as erudite
as you make him out to be?

DC

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

> tomc...@aol.com (Tom Cervo) writes:

> The point's been made often enough that anyone can make an antiwar movie about
> World War I or Viet Nam--it takes a little more intellectual honesty to make an
> antiwar movie set in World War II--the equivalent of the books written by James
> Jones or Norman Mailer.

> Sam Fuller and Don Siegel managed the trick. Spielberg, even while avoiding the
> war that was the defining issue of his generation, can't even be honest about a
> "good" war.

>>>>

Excellent point. Spielberg felt compelled to lard on ersatz emotions in SPR,
just as he did in SL. Rather than let the material speak for itself, he had to
pound the Very Important Message home by excess.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Alex Crouvier]

James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:
>
> Excellent point. Spielberg felt compelled to lard on ersatz emotions in SPR,
> just as he did in SL. Rather than let the material speak for itself, he had to
> pound the Very Important Message home by excess.

And I am convinced that Spielberg could (and would) never grow up.
SCHINDLER'S LIST has indelible images, powerful moments and utter
brilliance, the film displays an unrelenting focus of an artist at work.
Then the bussssinesssssssman emerged through the "One more people"
finale and the complete misfire of returning to color for the
self-glorifying "Please love us Jewish people" coda.

[fury]

rjwh...@cti-md.com wrote in message <776s8n$l3r$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...

>In article <36968...@139.134.5.33>,
> "Anthony Poole" <anthon...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>> What reviews are you reading? Mallick just won the Best Director award
from
>> the NY CRITICS. Are you talking about Jeanne Wolf or TIME here?
>

Taylor says Malick is just like
>Kubrick in that he disregards both character, logic, plot, and emotion in
his
>story but instead wants the audience to oohhh and ahh at how great a
>filmmaker he is.

i got to that line in the review and stopped, because i realized i was
reading the mad ravings of a lunatic.

[Tom Cervo]

>And I am convinced that Spielberg could (and would) never grow up.
>SCHINDLER'S LIST has indelible images, powerful moments and utter
>brilliance, the film displays an unrelenting focus of an artist at work.
>Then the bussssinesssssssman emerged through the "One more people"
>finale and the complete misfire of returning to color for the
>self-glorifying "Please love us Jewish people" coda.

I was at a book fair i 1982 and heard Tom Keneally talk about Oscar Schindler.
I read the book twice, and I didn't see that book on the screen. I left the
theatre thinking that Speilberg had left many of the good bits out, to make
room for his fictions.
Keneally has written film scripts, and good ones. He's a much better writer
than Speilberg is a director; judging from "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith"
he's a better scriptwriter as well.
Keneally spent some of his youth in a seminary. He is accustomed to dealing
with issues of good and evil. In "Schindler's List" he seems to have tried to
deal with good as a mystery as deep and unfathomable as evil is thought to
be--and evil as a void of soul. Goeth is nothing, a void; Schindler is the
mystery man. When he drives away from the camp in the tailored concentration
camp uniform (another of Keneally's cinematic details) the survivors are still
wondering why he did it. A good man, yes . . . but something more.
I don't think Speilberg is equipped to deal with anything this profound. He's
an able filmmaker but you don't watch his stuff to find insights into the soul.
I look at "Ryan" and see Rick Jason and Vic Morrow in a bloodier episode of
"Combat", and not one of the ones Altman did.

[Kill Switch]

fury wrote:

read the review, its good for some laughs

[mara...@discoverymail.com]

> I look at "Ryan" and see Rick Jason and Vic Morrow in a bloodier episode of
> "Combat", and not one of the ones Altman did.

Actually, Jason and Morrow did it better.....

Alvin.

[D. Mcdevitt]

>
> I'll bet the Chinese will be glad to hear about the Japanese occupying
> "parts of China...legitimately theirs". :)

now come on. You are deliberatly misleading the argument by leaving out a
segment of my quote. I specfically stated that it was the in the Japanese
national interest to occupy china, and I was not legimatizing it as a
civil, moral or ethical action.

> Presumably when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour or carried out the rape
> of Nanking they only did so because these were also "legitimately theirs".

Perhaps. That doesn't mean I don't think such an act was despicable.

> And of course Hitler only occupied Czechoslovakia and Austria, and invaded
> Poland, because he felt these to be "legitimately" German also.

No, in fact he convinced the people of germany that the rest of the world
wanted to see Germany subjugated and that only as a military power could
germany come back into full economic foce. One ideology leads to another,
slowly, and people will back it. He convinced the Germany that europe and
America were legeitimate threats. When the economy of a nation is
improving by bounds, most people will tend to think the nation is on the
right track. Case in point, oil prices in the Middle East, when they get
too high, we go kick ass, right? But on the other hand I do applaud
america's national interests in securing the Republic of Ireland/northern
Ireland conflict. It all gets down to how its handled and why. Same goes
for the conflicts in Sarejavo, (as badly as it was handled.)

>
> In other words the Germans and the Japanese were only doing what comes
> naturally. (Whereas when any actions on the part of the (inferred: nasty)
> British to stop them were all [presumably] part of some (inferred:
> obnoxious) attempt to "protect British Im[p]erialism".

If you are trying to mitigate the image of suffering and disaster that
Imperialsim/colonialism has birthed -European, Japanese, etc- by your smug
deconstruction of my sentence then I pity you. French colonized Algeria in
the first half of this century was subject to some of the most brutal,
destructive colonialism of this century, the damage of which can be seen
still today, despite the french having been tossed out.

> I can't help wondering what the former inmates of Auschwitz would say
> about "who is evil, who is good, who needs to die" being "rather
> complicated".

Oh you can't? actually. I question your implication that the victims of
Nazi death camps would so easily turn around and decide "who needs to
die." Perhaps they had more compassion and forgiveness than you might
think. Probably not, but isn't it a comment on our present thinking
process? And besides this is one segment of the larger political upheval
that was WW2, and it was this larger entity that I was calling
complicated.

> All in all you see to be saying: Germany and Japan should have been
> allowed to carry on their occupying, and the imperialist British and their
> American stooges should have kept their noses out of other people's
> legitimate business.

Now I know you are smarter than this. I was offering up an estranged POV
which I was not asking anyone to morally endorse. Sometimes it benefits
the human race when we can imagine the other side for a while. I think
you do yourself a disservice, when you reduce the "enemy" into this 100%
concentual, voluntary military machine, hell bent on desroying all foriegn
people, plants and animals. I finally saw the 'thin red line' and thought
the film was very fair to both sides of the conflict. I can
simultaneously condemn the war, root for our soldier's safety, decry the
Japanese war mongers, hope that the Japanese soldiers are subdued safely
and understand that the Japanese soldiers are probably just as
unethusiastic about their war as we are. I can contain contradiction. It
brings up the thought: With as many people that were drafted in vietnam,
to the north vietnamese, it didn't matter who wanted to be there, and who
even agreed with the war. It only registered that there were americans
there with guns in their hands.
On the faces of a few Japanese soldiers in TRL, one could easily
discern that behind them, behind the Japanese front, there had been a Nick
Nolte equivalent, threatening them onward.

Darby

[Peter Reiher]

Stephen Souter wrote:
>
> In article <36954F76...@cs.ucla.edu>, Peter Reiher
> <rei...@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
> > Let's get down to brass tacks. If you read memoirs of some Vietnam
> > veterans, or listen to them speak, one common theme about why they
> > chose to go to war (those who weren't drafted) is that they had an
> > unrealistic idea of what war was like. Where did they get it? Thank
> > you, John Wayne (and many others). One solid, real benefit of more
> > realism in war scenes is that it doesn't hide the horrors of war
> > from those who might be fighting it.
>
> Come now, that would be like justifying hack-&-slash realism in horror
> films on the ground that doing so "doesn't hide the horrors" from those
> might one day find themselves caught up in a murder.

No, it wouldn't. And isn't. Folks like Philip Caputo have publically
stated that they had a misguided view of war from the movies, and
American society clearly approved of the war movie antics of John
Wayne, Audie Murphy, and others. I'm not just making this up, it's what
many Vietnam vets actually said about their motivations and
expectations. Few people will ever be caught up in a murder, but,
if we don't try hard to prevent it, tragically many people will be
caught up in wars.

> In case you have forgotten, films like SPR was works of *fiction*, not
> documentaries on the art or practice of war. They are there to entertain,
> not teach. To argue for realism on the grounds you do is pure pretension.

Bullshit. A word I don't use that often, but it's perfectly appropriate
here. From Aristotle onward, it's been recognized by those who actually
think about art that it doesn't merely entertain, it effects people.
If you think it's pretentious to talk about that, then you live on
a very, very superficial level. If you accept that it's true that
even Hollywood films have their effects on real lives of real people,
then why is it pretentious to discuss how the degree of realism in
such films does (or does not) amplify or modify that effect? If you
had any serious arguments that the realism in the opening sequence
of "Saving Private Ryan" (or other examples of the use of realism
in films, such as, say, Italian Neo-Realism in "The Bicycle Thief")
was ineffective or counterproductive, I'd have more respect for your
position.

In the particular case of "Saving Private Ryan" (and, for that matter,
"The Thin Red Line"), it's obvious that the director (and the writer,
and the other major creative contributors) were *not* just interested
in producing an entertainment. Malick isn't talking, since he rarely
does, but Spielberg has publically stated, on numerous occasions,
that he didn't make "Saving Private Ryan" to provide audiences with
a WWII thrill ride.

> > Well, a lot of veterans say that it has helped them psychologically
> > to face their memories. For the first time, my wife's father spoke
> > to his family about his experiences in WWII, and how he felt about
> > them. Is that honorable? I don't know, but it sounds helpful.
>
> It sounds more as if nobody bothered to ask him.

Wow, how amazing! You know more about my father-in-law than I do,
than my wife does, than my wife's sisters do! I am truly amazed.
You know that when my wife told me that her father would never talk
in detail about his experiences in WWII, that she was lying! You
know that when, at Thanksgiving, he said that he was finally able
to talk about his experiences that it was due to this film, that
he was lying! And you know that all the other veterans saying the same
things are lying, too!

No wonder you put so little value on realism in film. You seem to
put little value in realism in reality. If it doesn't support your
rhetorical point, it can't be true.

> Just to put the matter in perspective, it's been more than 50 years since
> the end of WWII. If after all that time some veterans still could not
> "face their memories", and all it took to help them "psychologically" was
> one film that made them relive those memories, it's a wonder the
> psychiatric profession haven't cottened on to the technique sooner and
> produced their own ultra-realistic WWII movie to show to veterans in their
> care.

Which shows how little you know about how veterans dealt with WWII.
The WWII veterans were expected to come back and fit in, without
problems. Sure, some were obviously in great trouble psychologically
(see "Let There Be Light," by John Huston, which was suppressed by
the US gov't because it didn't want the public thinking about
psychological damage caused by the war . . .), but the belief was that
for most of them, the war experiences should have little or no effect.
It wasn't true, but it's what society expected, and the vets did their
best to meet those expectations. As a result, we never really
appreciated the sacrifices they made. And who knows how much mental
and physical suffering resulted?

> It's also questionable whether "facing memories" is necessarily a good
> thing. Forgetting them is often a more pleasant release for those
> afflicted. Reviving unpleasant memories may accomplish no more than to
> revive nightmares that had been long forgotten.

I am again amazed at how much more you know about this than do the
people who actually have had the experiences. If you want an effective
counter-argument, go find quotes from vets who saw "Saving Private
Ryan" (or, for that matter, "The Thin Red Line") and say that they're
sorry they did so. They are available, though they're dwarfed by
those from veterans who are glad they did.

[Evelyn C. Leeper]

In article <369CEC1F...@cs.ucla.edu>,

Apropos of almost nothing in this discussion, this triggered something:

In "Maya Lin: A Clear Strong Vision," we see footage of veterans
talking about the [then] proposed Vietnam Veterans Memorial during the
hearings to decide its form and how they felt offended by it, how it
was a disservice to veterans, etc.,

What I *really* wanted was for the filmmaker to go back to those same
people ten years after the Memorial had been built and ask them their
opinions then.

Does anyone have any data on this? (Data, as in research, in this
group? Who am I kidding? :-) )
--
Evelyn C. Leeper | evelyn...@geocities.com
+1 732 957 2070 | http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
"If everyone in Congress who has ever had an affair resigned, I have a feeling
Barney Frank would have the place to himself." -Ailsa Murphy

[Stephen Souter]

In article <%D6l2.6305$W_.39...@news1.teleport.com>,
James_...@88.teleport.com wrote:

> > lau...@aol.comnospam (LauraF2) writes:
>
> > Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
> > hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
> > right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver
> > filmbecause it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved,

> > while TRL fell into art film cliches.
>
> Bullshit.
>
> WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".

"Not necessary" in what sense?

That Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, and the Japanese should have been allowed
to carry on their conquests unimpeded or that WWII was "avoidable"?

For example, instead of standing up to Hitler & Stalin over Poland
Chamberlain & co should have let them have it, much as they let Hitler
have Czechoslovakia & Austria. (To paraphrase the old peacenik slogan:
better german than dead.)

Or when Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, instead of declaring war should the US
have sued for peace?

--
Stephen Souter
s.so...@edfac.usyd.edu.au
http://www.edfac.usyd.edu.au/staff/souters/

[Stephen Souter]

In article
<Pine.A41.4.05.990107...@homer06.u.washington.edu>, "D.
Mcdevitt" <mcde...@u.washington.edu> wrote:

> > >
> > > WWII was not "necessary" nor did it have some sort of lock on "heroism".
> >

> > Hmmm. And you would have stopped Hitler how?
> >
> > John
> > >

> In case you'd like to know, for all the simpleton "one cause, one effect"
> wanks out there who think Hitler soley responsible for everything leading
> up to the war, I'd like to point out just one detail among many to weaken
> that position. For example the Sino-Japanese conflict was already at a
> heated pitch in 1937, and US relations with japan were already crumbling.
> Before WW2 started the japanese sunk a US warship. Why? well the
> japanese were ocupying parts of china they felt were legitimately theirs
> while the US were sort of in cahoots with England, albeit a little
> reluctantly to protect British Imerialism in China.

I'll bet the Chinese will be glad to hear about the Japanese occupying
"parts of China...legitimately theirs". :)

Presumably when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour or carried out the rape

of Nanking they only did so because these were also "legitimately theirs".

And of course Hitler only occupied Czechoslovakia and Austria, and invaded

Poland, because he felt these to be "legitimately" German also.

In other words the Germans and the Japanese were only doing what comes

naturally. (Whereas when any actions on the part of the (inferred: nasty)
British to stop them were all [presumably] part of some (inferred:
obnoxious) attempt to "protect British Im[p]erialism".

> Now you decide who is
> evil, who is good, who needs to die, who claims victory... Its rather
> complicated and it always will be. As Thomas Pynchon says, War never ends
> its just that, at certain points in time, more people die.

I can't help wondering what the former inmates of Auschwitz would say
about "who is evil, who is good, who needs to die" being "rather
complicated".

All in all you see to be saying: Germany and Japan should have been

allowed to carry on their occupying, and the imperialist British and their
American stooges should have kept their noses out of other people's
legitimate business.

--

[Stephen Souter]

In article <36954F76...@cs.ucla.edu>, Peter Reiher
<rei...@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

> D. Mcdevitt wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective
> > > approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic?
>
> > So lets say SPR had the most realistic battle
> > scenes ever filmed. I don't understand then what the benefit of such
> > praise is.

>
> Let's get down to brass tacks. If you read memoirs of some Vietnam
> veterans, or listen to them speak, one common theme about why they
> chose to go to war (those who weren't drafted) is that they had an
> unrealistic idea of what war was like. Where did they get it? Thank
> you, John Wayne (and many others). One solid, real benefit of more
> realism in war scenes is that it doesn't hide the horrors of war
> from those who might be fighting it.

Come now, that would be like justifying hack-&-slash realism in horror
films on the ground that doing so "doesn't hide the horrors" from those
might one day find themselves caught up in a murder.

Or for that matter having "realism" in sex scenes on the ground that
first-timers had an "unrealistic idea" of what sex "was like" and needed a
movie or two to "educate" them.

In case you have forgotten, films like SPR was works of *fiction*, not
documentaries on the art or practice of war. They are there to entertain,
not teach. To argue for realism on the grounds you do is pure pretension.

> Which also has nothing to do with the question of which is more
> realistic. You're arguing the value of realism, not which film
> does it better.
>
> > Is it honorable in and of itself to "remind" veterans of what
> > it was like?

>
> Well, a lot of veterans say that it has helped them psychologically
> to face their memories. For the first time, my wife's father spoke
> to his family about his experiences in WWII, and how he felt about
> them. Is that honorable? I don't know, but it sounds helpful.

It sounds more as if nobody bothered to ask him.

Just to put the matter in perspective, it's been more than 50 years since

the end of WWII. If after all that time some veterans still could not
"face their memories", and all it took to help them "psychologically" was
one film that made them relive those memories, it's a wonder the
psychiatric profession haven't cottened on to the technique sooner and
produced their own ultra-realistic WWII movie to show to veterans in their
care.

It's also questionable whether "facing memories" is necessarily a good

thing. Forgetting them is often a more pleasant release for those
afflicted. Reviving unpleasant memories may accomplish no more than to
revive nightmares that had been long forgotten.

[snip]

> > All I can say is, the roots of the
> > conflict are deep, the facets are many, the people on all sides are
> > humans, and movies can NEVER be real.
>
> Yes, and . . .? Are you arguing that realism has no place or
> value in films?

Are you arguing for more realistic gore in horror films or more realistic
(aka more explicit) sex in romance films?

[Stephen Souter]

In article <3696AD79...@cs.ucla.edu>, Peter Reiher
<rei...@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

> I'm not "The Thin Red Line's" biggest defender, but I don't agree
> at all that this is a turkey to be avoided. There are some first-rate
> elements in this film, and I'm not talking about just cinematography.
> Most of the middle 100 minutes of this film is exceptional, anchored
> by fine performances by Nick Nolte and Elias Koteas, which are as good
> as any performances I've seen this year. It's definitely a film that
> should be seen by anyone who takes film at all seriously.

Er, is that a suggestion that a TRL be seen for art's sake (as opposed to
entertainment's sake)? :)

[pet...@ms.com]

In article <77isqr$1...@nntpa.cb.lucent.com>,
ele...@lucent.com wrote:
> In article <369CEC1F...@cs.ucla.edu>,

> Peter Reiher <rei...@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> >
> Apropos of almost nothing in this discussion, this triggered something:
>
> In "Maya Lin: A Clear Strong Vision," we see footage of veterans
> talking about the [then] proposed Vietnam Veterans Memorial during the
> hearings to decide its form and how they felt offended by it, how it
> was a disservice to veterans, etc.,
>
> What I *really* wanted was for the filmmaker to go back to those same
> people ten years after the Memorial had been built and ask them their
> opinions then.
>
> Does anyone have any data on this? (Data, as in research, in this
> group? Who am I kidding? :-) )
> --
>

Kinda - watch Bruce Willis at the end of In Country or read the
description of that character in the novel by Bobbi Anne Morrison.
The character really was based on her father and, IMO, the emotions that
the Wall and the names on cause are real, too.

It *is* the most visited memoril of any in Washington.

HTH
Pjk

[Evelyn C. Leeper]

In article <77l53c$6d1$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <pet...@ms.com> wrote:
> In article <77isqr$1...@nntpa.cb.lucent.com>,
> ele...@lucent.com wrote:

> > In article <369CEC1F...@cs.ucla.edu>,

> > Peter Reiher <rei...@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > Apropos of almost nothing in this discussion, this triggered something:
> >
> > In "Maya Lin: A Clear Strong Vision," we see footage of veterans
> > talking about the [then] proposed Vietnam Veterans Memorial during the
> > hearings to decide its form and how they felt offended by it, how it
> > was a disservice to veterans, etc.,
> >
> > What I *really* wanted was for the filmmaker to go back to those same
> > people ten years after the Memorial had been built and ask them their
> > opinions then.
> >
> > Does anyone have any data on this? (Data, as in research, in this
> > group? Who am I kidding? :-) )
>

> Kinda - watch Bruce Willis at the end of In Country or read the
> description of that character in the novel by Bobbi Anne Morrison.
> The character really was based on her father and, IMO, the emotions that
> the Wall and the names on cause are real, too.

This isn't quite what I meant.

I know that many are strongly affected (in a favorable way) when they
visit the Wall.

What I was wondering was whether the specific people who had been so
adamant against it in the hearings had changed their minds.

(Sort of like George Wallace specifically changing his mind about
segregation et al, and saying so. Please do *not* interpret this as
equating his earlier views with those of people who objected to the
design of the monument--I'm looking for a specific example of a given
individual changing his mind and this is what came to me.)

[kr...@stic.net]

I love to debate. Debates allow you to defend your understanding, or
obtain insight and expansion to the limitations
of what you can perceive. I am hoping that you can enlighten me on
what I missed in this movie, because I still feel
disappointed, and cheated by the filmmaker. I'll try not to compare
this film to AN, P, or SPR which are probably
more realistic and/or certainly more entertaining films.

What did Malick cut out? What! You must have read the book right? It
certainly appears that you viewed the
whole 6 mundane hours of this effort. Did the book or uncut version
include long repetitive tedious descriptions of
the forest chapter after chapter with a story? Did Malick cut out
most of the character and story creating dialog, but
kept the 2 hours worth of bland scenery (forest and creek) shots in
the film. What a compromise for reel count
limitations or new concept in story telling. If there were more
important scenes, it seems that the director/editor
would have put them on the available reel space instead of the cutting
room floor. Dune ran into similar limitations,
but the director/editor still was able to maintain the essence of the
story and characters somewhat to make it
entertaining. It would only seem logical that an intelligent film
maker confronted with constraints on the length of a
film, would cut out the less significant parts, i.e. long bland,
meaningless, insignificant endless tours of beaches,
forests, and grasslands with brainless questions of reality and
include the interesting parts. It doesn't seem logical that
the editor abandoned the story for what ended up on the screen. I
think we got the cream of the crop that this
storyteller, director, or editor had in the can.

Were you ever in the service, or are you another one of those who are
just living off the freedom and sacrifices the
rest of us provided? Have you ever been there or at least served.
Do you know what it is like to be shot at, to
shoot back, to hump a rifle, keep it clean so it works when you need
it. To count on it. To struggle humping all your
food, ammo, and necessities on your back, eat rodents, drink out of
rivers and creeks. Actually use a compass to
get from point A to B? To repel down into a canyon in the dark? To
kill something and look at it, watch it as it
struggles till it dies? None of those experiences were there. This
movie did minutely and briefly show a little war
fright on the captured japs after a battle, but that's it and that
part wasn't ground shattering. This movie sucks. It
does not entertain, nor enlighten the pain, despair, grief, fear,
terror, confusion, and horrific consequences of finding
yourself in the insanity of a battle or war. Not speaking for myself,
everyone is not a Taoist, elementary school
philosopher, practices zazen or deciphers koans. The child like
questions in the voice overs were that of an imbecile
on acid attempting to understand the world. There would be no more
hope of enlightenment from this film than that
of a blind man attempting to experience a sunset. I and many of my
friends anticipating this movie discovered a
documentary of a bivouac with a couple of weak anticlimactic war
scenes included. None of which were more
exciting that a paint gun battle. Where were the emotions, the
confusion, the reassessment of personal/religious
values, the questioning and intelligent observations with theoretical
make sense answers to the mad insanity of war?

I must capitulate and say that your are right about the cutting. This
film disaster (what I viewed) with a good
narrator, should have been cut down to thirty somewhat interesting
minutes of story telling. Thirty minutes of story
telling was all this film had to offer.

In a purely business sense, a thin red line will only stand for the
lack of profits the film makers suffer at the box
office. This film will flop and lose money. It may be liked by some
critics who also admire a blank canvas to that of
what life is truly made of.

If this is the best movie you have seen in a while, you really need to
get out more, much more. If you liked this
movie it's only because you never been exposed, or can stand to
witness the real thing.

Those are my thoughts, I hope the spelling now meets your
expectations. By the way do you have the 6 hour
version? Where can I see it?

Kim On Thu, 07 Jan 1999 16:29:09 -0800, Peter Reiher
<rei...@cs.ucla.edu> wrote:

>Alex Crouvier wrote:

>>
>> Peter Reiher wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Twaddle. I could understand an argument that it's a more effective
>> > approach (I don't think it was, myself), but more realistic?
>

>> Reiher still persists on the notion that realistic battle sequence that
>> vets could relate to in war movie is the bar for excellence.
>
>No, Reiher is arguing that if you want to measure realism, you should
>measure it against reality. If you don't agree with that, it explains
>an awful lot.
>
>> > The fact is that the methods Malick used to stage his combat scenes
>> > were very little different than those used for years and years and
>> > years in WWII films. He used them far more effectively than most,
>> > granted, but they were the same methods. They were never realistic
>> > before, and they still aren't. Men still die sanitarily, by and
>> > large. Maybe a little blood here and there, perhaps a look of pain,
>> > maybe even one or two who genuinely suffer, but what Malick shows
>>
>> Why does visceral effect suddenly become more important than the
>> intellectual content of the film?
>
>It doesn't. However, both are legitimate parts of cinema. Spielberg's
>film excelled in visceral effect, and had some good intellectual
>content. Malick's film had moderate visceral effect and muddled
>intellectual content.
>
>>SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a pastiche of
>> old war films, better war films and worse war films,
>
>No, it isn't. Gee, arguing the way you do is easy.
>
>>and Kurosawa's
>> SEVEN SAMURAI (the craven Upham is probably modelled after the bumbling,
>> incompetent farmer Shohei who prove his heroism only later)
>
>No, because Upham never proves any heroism. He's a coward start to
>finish.
>
>> > us bears no relation to what a WWII battlefield actually looked like.
>> > What Spielberg showed us did, according to the eyewitness accounts
>> > of those who were there and their subsequent testimony after seeing
>> > the film.
>>
>> OK, first 20 minutes, incredible! astounding! bloody! So? What about the
>> rest of the film? Boring! Bland! Hackneyed! Predictable!
>
>I wouldn't go that far, but certainly the remainder of the film was
>a big step down from its opening.
>
>> > In my opinion, the look in the eyes of the medics who worked to save
>> > a wounded man, only to have him suddenly die from a freshly inflicted
>> > wound during the D-Day sequence of "Saving Private Ryan" were far
>> > more eloquent than all the philosophizing Malick gave us
>>
>> LOL!
>
>Seen "The Thin Red Line" yet, or are you still arguing from ignorance?
>
>> This is such an inane argument. One filmmaker kissing ass another taken
>> as truism
>
>As opposed to Mr. Crouvier shouting "Spielberg sucks! Spielberg sucks!"
>with no reasonable arguments why. Hey, if I'm working from authority,
>Kubrick rules and you don't.

>
>> > Having seen both "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line,"
>> > I'd say that both are flawed films with powerful aspects. If I
>> > were choosing one for overall intelligence, though, I'd choose
>> > Spielberg's film, rather than Malick's.
>>

>> LOL!
>
>Seen "The Thin Red Line" yet, Mr. Crouvier?
>
>> I look at your blissful ignorance and shallowness with a sense of wonder
>
>Seen "The Thin Red Line" yet, Mr. Crouvier?
>
>If not, blissful ignorance is a term far more applicable to you.

[Mustafa Amanatullah]

The point is this is all in our IMHO, but I'll be curious to see
which
> film, if either, will still be talked about in 50 years.

Both. I'm confident of that eventuality, though that doesn't mean much.
SPR was more than just a routine action film with extra guts and The
Thin Red Line was more than bubble-headed bad poetry with nature doco
shots.
Having both films come out on the heels of each other is like receiving
two fantastic gifts--it's surprising how many out there are unable to
appreciate that.
I do hope that the next 50 years will not be so kind however toward
certain people who let iron-bound political beliefs--whether
Conservative or Liberal--as well their own gnomish predjudices, do their
film reviewing for them. May you all become quarrelsome old farts whose
knee caps fall off at dinner parties.

IA, with apologies to J.Cleese.

[Robert Whelan]

In article <19990107120319...@ng-cc1.aol.com>, LauraF2 wrote:
>>ar more realistic than SVP because it focused on what
>>individuals were thinking and suffering. IE, it looked INSIDE, rather than
>>rely on visual effects to SHOW you what was going on. The superb wildlife
>>shots were there to remind us that minus man (and war), anyplace on Earth
>>is idilic.
>>
>>Alex

>
> Nature is violent: carnivores, parasites, virus, earthquakes, tornados,
>hurricanes, fires, floods and man. I thought the review of TRL in EW was
>right on the money when it said that SPR was the more honest and braver film
>because it recognized the necessity of WW2 and the heroism involved, while TRL
>fell into art film cliches.

TTL showed that nature was violent. Crocodiles, snakes, malaria.
SPR was the more dishonest film because it painted War, though horrible
in spots, as having high points of entertaining "payback". TTL was
more honest because it didn't provide entertaining "payback" scenes.
Compare SPR's opening beach scene and the taking of the hill in
TTL. Which is more honest about the horror? In which do you know
the faces of the soldiers being killed and maimed? TTL, even if
we didn't know many of the soldiers in detail, we knew them by sight,
by the long development section prior to landing. IN SPR they were
just cannon fodder for Spielberg's "brave" realism, realisim that
was mere pre-emptive imitation of the Malick film. The Malick
film didn't present us with a meaningless, though gross scene
of a soldier picking up his arm (meaningless because the soldier
was faceless) or the jokey "I'm a moron let me take off my helmet"
scene, or the jokey "Our hands are clean for dinner" atrocity
scene. Compare Spielberg's atrocity scene to the Malick scene,
and tell me which is more realistic and convincing.

[Robert Whelan]

In article <36A84B...@worldnet.att.net>, Mustafa Amanatullah wrote:
>The point is this is all in our IMHO, but I'll be curious to see
>which
>> film, if either, will still be talked about in 50 years.
>
>Both. I'm confident of that eventuality, though that doesn't mean much.
>SPR was more than just a routine action film with extra guts and The
>Thin Red Line was more than bubble-headed bad poetry with nature doco
>shots.

SPR was a bit more than just a routine action film. It had an agenda.
I fervently hope, though, that it's agenda does not dominate the
political scene and consciousness of the country, and that it is
forgotten.

I quite agree with you about Malicks' film.

Robert W.

[James_...@88.teleport.com]

>>>>

SPR - underneath the BANG-RIP-BOOM is basically a "Harrah! For the Red-
White-And-Blue" film. Underneath TTRL there's no jingoism what-so-ever.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Mark.J.Desocio]

On 23 Jan 1999, Mustafa Amanatullah wrote:

> The point is this is all in our IMHO, but I'll be curious to see
> which
> > film, if either, will still be talked about in 50 years.
>
> Both. I'm confident of that eventuality, though that doesn't mean much.
> SPR was more than just a routine action film with extra guts and The
> Thin Red Line was more than bubble-headed bad poetry with nature doco
> shots.

> Having both films come out on the heels of each other is like receiving
> two fantastic gifts--it's surprising how many out there are unable to
> appreciate that.
> I do hope that the next 50 years will not be so kind however toward
> certain people who let iron-bound political beliefs--whether
> Conservative or Liberal--as well their own gnomish predjudices, do their
> film reviewing for them. May you all become quarrelsome old farts whose
> knee caps fall off at dinner parties.
>
> IA, with apologies to J.Cleese.

But how much of what we call today "the classics" WEREN'T what you call
"iron-bound political beliefs"? Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" was
considered communist propaganda, as were the works of Dickens, Sinclair
Lewis, Carl Sandburg and Upton Sinclair (himself a politician on the
socialist ticket). Hemingway's early work so challenged the establishment
that the U.S. Postal Service threatened the Pulitzer Prize committee that
if they awarded a Pulitzer to Hemingway, they would refuse to deliver his
books! What did the Pulitzer people do? They refused on both occasions to
award it to anybody! (The postal service was THE primary agent of
censorship in the U.S. for a long while.) From "Huckleberry Finn" to
"Catch 22" to "The Invisible Man," "The Waste-Land" to "The Great Gatsby"
and "On the Road," these were works of art highly critical of existing
society, and thus were very controversial - never gaining what one would
call "mainstream acceptance" until long after their existence.

Salvador Dali and Picasso's art & art theories were wrapped up in
anarchist and socialist political belief. In film, many of the early
filmmakers were very liberal, and it reflected mightily in their work -
from gay Cocteau, to surrealist Bunuel - not to mention all of the social
satirists like Lang, Ophuls, etc., and the Neorealists (who were
eventually forbidden by the Italian govn't from making films). A film like
"Double Indemnity" (and other noir films) is still as biting a critique of
American society as it was when first made. See it again: it has the
impact of recent masterpieces such as "In the Company of Men" or "Fargo."

If Spielberg is to have a place 50 years from now, it'll be off on the
sidelines with other mainstreamerers, like Capra and DeMille movies,
Disney cartoons like Pinocchio and Dumbo, as well as other likeminded
filmmakers like Joe Dante and Rob Reiner. (Except, IMO, for "Duel" and
"Jaws" - the only great spielberg films.)

[MasonBarge]

>TTL showed that nature was violent. Crocodiles, snakes, malaria.
>SPR was the more dishonest film because it painted War, though horrible
>in spots, as having high points of entertaining "payback". TTL was
>more honest because it didn't provide entertaining "payback"

Agree 100%. All the ending of SPR needed was Audie Murphy. American soldiers
running in front of groups of German soldiers, bulletproof, blowing up tanks
with firecrackers, etc. Idiotic.

Another "honesty" factor -- TRL showed the Japanese soldiers sympathetically,
grieving over lost comrades, freaking out, just like the Americans. I thought
it was a very strong point.

- Mason Barge
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea. If this is tea, please bring me
some coffee." -- Abraham Lincoln

[MasonBarge]

>I'll be curious to see
>which
>> film, if either, will still be talked about in 50 years.

TRL is going to die and be forgotten. Its aspirations are higher than SPR's
and it is brilliant in a number of ways, but it was simply a poor job of
putting it all together. It simply isn't entertaining enough for a lot of
repeat viewing, and on the small screen you are going to lose the sensational,
awesome beauty of the nature shots.

While SPR has a cohesive plot and good guys who struggle and eventually win.

[Andrew]

MasonBarge <mason...@aol.com> wrote:
:>I'll be curious to see

:>which
:>> film, if either, will still be talked about in 50 years.

: TRL is going to die and be forgotten. Its aspirations are higher than SPR's
: and it is brilliant in a number of ways, but it was simply a poor job of
: putting it all together. It simply isn't entertaining enough for a lot of
: repeat viewing, and on the small screen you are going to lose the sensational,
: awesome beauty of the nature shots.

: While SPR has a cohesive plot and good guys who struggle and eventually win.

Yeah, how about that Spielberg, making a film about World War II in
which the allies win? Maybe had Demi Moore made it the Nazi's could
have one.

Andrew
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew andr...@bizave.com
Visit Andrew's Portland, Oregon Web Site: http://www.bizave.com

[Mustafa Amanatullah]

> But how much of what we call today "the classics" WEREN'T what you call
> "iron-bound political beliefs"?

Quite a few--and those you mention go under that category.
There are a lot of forgotten films and novels out there which dealt with
the same issues--but in a far more strident, more obvious way.
To present "iron-bound political beliefs" is to present bad agitprop,
which most of the pieces you cited stayed away from.
Your citing of Dickens is most interesting, since he was indeed critical
of society--but you forget that he was also every bit of a populist
catering to mass audience tastes as Spielberg is.(Though as you say, far
more critical of societal conditions.)
You are right in saying that a vast amount of true art was highly
critical of society and denied mainsteam acceptance for quite some time.
But no rule is absolute, and the above is no exception--there have
always also been works of art that quickly gained popular acceptance.
I don't know where Spielberg will be 50 years from now. There is a great
chance you may be right. But one should not rule out the resemblances
between Spielberg and mass audience favorites like Griffith(Whom
Spielberg does somewhat resemble--in both the good and bad aspects) and
Hitchcock(Who went from being merely labeled an ultra-commercial
entertainer to one of the great artists during his own lifetime.)
And on the other hand, perhaps 50 years from now, Spielberg will be
remembered as a hack with bad taste. (Which he has in unhealthy
quantities.)
IA