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The Thin Red Line Analysis

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The Man in a Soldier
A crocodile slips into the murky, algae-covered waters just before a voice with philosophical thoughts ponders “the war in the heart of nature.” Soon after, a chorus from the heavens provides a hymn to signify the peace among the natives of this unknown land. But the year is 1942 and the world is at war. How can there be any peace? The opening scene for The Thin Red Line by Terrence Malick sets the stage for what is to come: an anti-war film with philosophical questions posed by the men inside the soldiers of Charlie Company.
However, these philosophical questions seemed to fly right over my head and were too abstract to be effective. I decided to watch The Thin Red Line to have an understanding of the events of the Guadalcanal Campaign. What I received was a semi-immersive experience of war. The angle of some of the scenes made it feel as if I was right there with the company in the tall grass trying to fight back the enemy. But these events of combat seemed to act as a secondary focus of the film. The main focus always seems to turn itself back on the quote mentioned earlier, “the war in the heart of nature.” In 1998, The Thin Red Line and another film titled Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg came out to showcase the Pacific Theater and the European Theater, respectively. The imagery created for a wounded soldier in Saving Private Ryan would be scenes of agony filled with blood. The Thin Red Line contrasts this imagery and focuses on nature
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