Week 6: Film Appreciation: Thin Red Line

For this week. The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American war film which tells a fictional story of United States forces during the Battle of Mount Austen in World War II. The Thin Red Line by director Terrence Malik . In accordance to the title of assumptions and contributions of semiotics, this movie is a rich "source",so to speak, of said content.The story of Thin Red Line is about a group of men that was brought in as aid soldiers to join the marine unit that was in desperate need of help, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer and
eventually build essential discoveries about themselves throughout the vicious World War II battle of Guadalcanal. In this movie, The first 10 minutes of the movie, there is more happening in this opening sequence than just an introduction to the film’s characters and storyline, We get a taste of how the rest of the film will flow. The Thin Red Line is essentially a character study of the way war affects a company of men who have never stepped foot in a war zone before. The opening scene is a dreamy representation of the calm before the storm. The opening scene shows the love and peace such as love from a mother to her child, love between two lovers, a love between one and your God. We can know that by seeing through the activities, attires (props) and human behaviors from the beginning in the first 10minutes of the film as the starting point throughout the whole story line. The reason I would say I get to identify on who is the main character is just by his extraordinary and outstanding looks.

One of the relationship between the characters and the scene that I have observed would definitely relate to the relationship between Colonel Tall, played by Nick Nolte, and Captain Starros, participated by Elias Koteas. This relationship focus on the question of loyalty, a clash between loyalty to the orders of one's superiors and loyalty to the men beneath one's command. In those moments lies the subtlety of a man questioning the ugliness of war and the ideals he has been brought up to embrace. There is a vast difference between the way he communicates with the locals and the way the other privates and their superiors interact with each other. Where he is in that one moment is a picture of serenity,of a simple paradise without the harshness of modern day life,what more in a discipline and rigid military regime. From the voice over , we can get know that the poem is about wars