Movies on War can be associated to the origin of the cinemas, and both are comparatively as old as each other. War has been a fundamental product in Hollywood, and such movies on war can be seen since decades, and they continue to be huge block-busters even in the contemporary world. The movies on war provide outline and structure to war, define war cultures, identify enemies, form objectives, and allow the audience to remotely get familiar with the danger and enthusiasm of the front line. In America, the movies on war were central to the global publicity campaigns waged during World War I and II. The importance of war movie to the cultural resourcefulness of war can be viewed openly in present cinema; however a few older cinemas such as The Thin Red Line (TTRL), and Saving Private Ryan, have made an Americanized version of wars a benchmark for American National Identity.
Analysis of The Thin Red Line.
In the list of the best war movies The Thin Red Line is considered as the greatest war movie ever made. The Thin Red Line written and directed by Terrence Malick that released on January 15, 1999 is both, philosophical and poetical, and depicts a strong anti-war sentiment. The movie suggests the complicated situation of war films in today’s culture, and takes up an identity as an epic of war, a film of vast sweep with great means and great presence . The Thin Red Line can be referred to the front line of war, however, I believe that the thin red line can be considered as a line stuck between rationality and irrationality, or the thin red line of heroes as the soldiers move on their feet throughout the movie.
The roles of the front line soldiers are played by Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin, who belong to various regiments such as the C Company, 1st Division, 27th Infantry and, 25th Infantry Division. The movie shows the Guadalcanal conflict, and the war onscreen carves a path to the existential battle illustrated deeply in these characters, who play the roles of American soldiers, and this movie unquestionably has one of the most remarkable group of actors ever gathered together.
Synopsis. Guadalcanal seemed to the initial step for America for the long pacific campaign, and it exposed the troubles and complications fighting the Japanese troupes. The war was a response from United States because of the attacks on the Pearl Harbor, which can be considered as the first offensive of World War II. The United States Marine Corps and Army were dispatched to the island of Guadalcanal with an objective to stop the expansion of the Japanese forces and secure an airfield that was critical for air support. Fighting a war required a huge number of infantry for which new inexperienced soldiers were recruited and trained to achieve the objective. Front line soldiers who had no experience of being weakened by sickness were very fortunate, less common, but far from unknown, was the experience of hunger and thirst worsening one’s plight .
The movie portrays the compact, deterministic and unattractive, relating to the lifelike descriptions of war with close explanations of soldiers’ feelings and impressions. The director captures the lives of these front line men in a very empathetic manner, giving prominence to all the tiny moves in and out of the field. The natural brilliance and the moving sentiments of these soldiers is captured in a mesmerizing way to make any audience nostalgic. On a war front, the rank of the soldier does not have much significance as all soldiers look indistinguishable from one another in both a filmic and auditory sense.
During their mission these soldiers discover the corpses of the tortured fellow soldiers, which can induce fear in them, however, keeping their objective in mind, they must move on to fulfil their thirst for revenge. These are common situations in lives of front line soldiers who see death on a regular basis. A scene depicts a few dogs eating some flesh, which looks like they are eating some animal or a bird, but in reality they are eating the corpses of the soldiers. Such situations can be demotivating for the new soldiers; however, they need to proceed further because of the goal they are determined for. Most of these soldiers experience the heat of war for the first time, with a desperation in them to be with their families as soon as possible. The morale of the soldiers keeps decreasing when they see casualties, and when their colleagues die in a different manner. The movie closely relates to depression, exhaustion, insanity, fear, and the curiosity of the soldiers to go back home.
“I killed a man. Nobody can touch me for it. I ain’t seen nothing”. This dialogue in the movie by one of the soldier reveals that he is unable to see anything around him due to the smoke created by the bombs and the guns, and in that dense smoke he fires gun shots continuously and kills a man, not knowing if he really killed the Japanese. The front line is always required to take and follow the orders of their captain, and it becomes more important for the captain to have leadership qualities, with good decision making skills. One remarkable move by the captain of these soldiers is depicted in the scene where the colonel orders the captain to advance further towards the Japanese, and the captain refuses to take his orders by saying, “I’ve lived with these men for two and half years, and I will not order them to their deaths”. Having such a leader does motivate the soldiers and displays the determination skills of the captain. The colonel gives orders from his office, but it is only the captain and the soldiers who know the correct situation in the war field and can decide on advancing further.
Analysis of Saving Private Ryan
Saving Private Ryan; one of the best movies of all time depicting war in cinemas, as the audience feels the unique point about the film is the exhibit of the agony and suffering associated with the war, and the complete characteristics of warfare. The movie directed by Steven Spielberg, released in 1999 is a film that is centered on the horrifying tasks of a group of soldiers who risk their lives and death to save one man, Private James Ryan. There is a huge degree of violence in the movie, but it is completely critical as the movie is clearly made against the conditions of World War II that starts with D-Day, and significantly screens the combat of the Omaha beach. D-Day is commonly known as Operation Overload, which was an attack of Normandy on June 6, 1944. There were several deaths in World War II, and it is a more horrifying experience for the people who survived in WWII as they just cannot erase the troubling memories and images registered in their mind.
It is a demeaning background to know that the movie starts off with the front line armed soldiers who are thrown across the ocean, all trembling, craving and tossing up; generally, the soldiers were provided seasickness tablets or injections, and many stayed on sick. The complete movie is made on the basis of a real life situation that took place during World War II that takes on a group of soldiers who are willingly or unwillingly forced to participate in the harsh truths concerning humanity of war. The movie actually makes one realize that numerous young American soldiers grieved from World War II and that the combat made them wild.
The role of a captain played by Tom Hanks as John H. Miller, and his front line soldiers played by renowned artists; Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, and a few more, is a perfect star cast to one of the best war movies. The movie is about finding the lost paratrooper, acted by Matt Daemon as James Francis Ryan.
Synopsis. The movie Saving Private Ryan shows how the front line soldiers respond when confronted with the fierce truths of battle and how their thought process changes in their minds as they witness the horrifying devastation of life around them in order to save Ryan. These soldiers are completely pressurized by the war anxiety and their thinking capability entirely involves only one issue; the war. The initial scenes on the Omaha Beach are a lesson for the soldiers, to be attentive and proactive, because as soon as the landing ramp from the boat opens, all these front line soldiers come in contact with the bullets from machine gun fired from the solid permanent German bunkers constructed into the rock face overseeing the seashore. Flexibility and instant thinking allows these soldiers to jump over landing boats and the sides of the boat. Once they reach the beach they take shelter behind the wooden landing craft stumbling blocks and the cracked edges of the steel tank obstacles and block the line of attack to the beach.
The miserable part of the movie is when the U.S. War Department knows that three Ryan brothers are killed and they would need to inform about these deaths to their mother through telegram on the same day. Knowing about the loss of three out of four sons in war will be the worst day for any mother. It is indeed a great move by the Marshall in the department to place orders to find the fourth missing Ryan.
The movie definitely shows the veracity of war and also the significances and costs of WW II, or any other war. The movie is based on the historical true facts in relation with the invasion of Normandy. The attack was a huge challenge for the United States, which was actually needed to preserve the civilization and provide freedom for the suffering humanity. Throughout the movie, a feeling that always stays on in mind is that war can just be the only worst experience for a human being. The desperation and eagerness of the front line soldier to return to their homes is seen in most of the scenes, however, it is to be appreciated that it was the soldiers patriotism and their love for the people and country that kept them combating and jeopardizing their lives to find the missing paratrooper.
Comparisons between The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan
The damaging view, which is strengthened by political truth and past revision, still notifies the war cinemas of the present-day period. The Thin Red Line, and Saving Private Ryan, depict war as an essential battle that exists between humans, moral individuals and a faceless, fanatical, inhumane enemy. Saving Private Ryan portrays the war as a cluttered turmoil, the coastline scattered with bits and pieces of war equipment, and the camera focus that blurs the backgrounds, however, The Thin Red Line solidifies actions barely even in its look. TTRL is a space of fluctuating, or pointless violence coming from anywhere, but also of the effect of just waiting without seeing any action. The audience might consider these kinds of actions only in wars, but it is a learning for the new age war cinemas due to the auspicious inability to locate a transparent path to recount war in the present day.
Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan goes in direct confrontation against Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Both the movies are set during WWII, and include a huge star cast of well-known people in Hollywood, everyone with their story compete for screen space and time. The Thin Red Line connects the challenging sense of balance between the self-contained soldier fighting his individual inner-demons and fears, and the heroic opportunity of a battleground; so difficult to move out of it. The central theme of the movie is the unthinkable fear of feeling lonely in a place of peacefulness and magnificence, and the emotional footraces the soldierly machine must encounter while fighting an enemy on his own terrain. However, in Saving Private Ryan, the objective is politically charged to save the missing soldier. The soldiers seem to be completely involved in their mission, totally charged with their duty, and they realize their strength, and original friendships they begin with as they stick to their plot and move towards the enemy lines.
The Thin Red Line can be considered as a movie of images. The movie challenges the valuable pictorial difficulty. In short, the movie can be related to philosophical or poetry of images. With TTRL the emotion of the soldiers battling in these war suffers, as their mortality slowly fades away with every kill and combat. However, with Saving Private Ryan, the movie is instinctive, challenging, though its quiet, it shows the depth of emotion of the soldiers and the characters that make it a really amazing cinematic experience. Saving Private Ryan has lot of quiet moments that makes it lose the grip of its deep emotional weight. This quietness is deliberately made to accommodate the important action sequences, and the violence that likely tips the balance in contrast to the narrow characters. To be united it is important that the soldiers keep chatting and talking and these scenes are well depicted in Saving Private Ryan as these soldiers move through the countryside with a thought of threat in them.
Saving Private Ryan permits a displacement from the temporal period of actual and inconclusive wars in the 1990’s to the heroic era of World War II . As both the movies belong to the war genre, the submachine guns, pistols, rifles and carbines used in both the movies are similar. For example the M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, M1911A1 pistol, the MK II Hand Grenade and the M1A1 Flamethrower.
Saving Private Ryan has one of the most remarkable, if not the best, action sequences in invasion for Normandy. The initial twenty five minutes are jaw dropping, tear-jerking, and overall amazing. However, on the other hand there is a lot of appreciation to nature in The Thin Red Line, which is depicted in the thought inciting shots of natural surroundings; clouds scorched red and gold by the sun, an alligator sneaking into the water, and the rays penetrating through a cover of tropical plants. TTRL deals with either the lead up to the war, the war itself, or the consequences of the war as the movie is about the war for a ridge between the Americans and Japanese. Saving Private Ryan does not build up suspense and edge of the seat thriller, like the way TTRL builds suspense and creates unseen situations, silent tension lets the spectators to be drawn into the flowing grass plains with these soldiers, many of whom are frightened past belief. TTRL is a thinking man’s war film, not radical like Saving Private Ryan.
The crucial combat between a film showing America’s completely focused arrival into the War in Europe, and the other one where the mental torture of persistent war in the Pacific. Both films are an accusation on the ineffectiveness and absurdity of war, and both demonstrate the methods in which a war strips away the humankind and civilization from each person, gradually, and with confidence. In TTRL as the Guadalcanal war heats up, various storylines from diverse perspectives are seen and heard, starting from the authoritative officer till the lowest rank. Front line soldiering could be as much a battle against fatigue as against the enemy . Both the movies demonstrate the fatigue, struggle, restlessness, and weakness carrying their regular items on their back along with the rifles, carbines, and guns, but considering their motivation to kill their enemies and achieve the objectives, the fatigue seems to be lost in their struggle. Even while meeting their objectives TTRL displays that humanity and mankind does exist towards the enemies.
Conclusion. Movies such as The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan ensure that the experiences and memories of veterans who struggled in World Wars turn out to be the most important portal through which access is gained to that universal, and extremely complex, historic event. The Thin Red Line will be viewed as a film of an auteur, its images of nature not naturally and spontaneously arising before us, but seen to be articulated for us by a strong creative voice, the images brought into being by cinematic universe .
The titles of these movies are symbolic of their ease of understanding. Saving Private Ryan is exactly what it illustrates, whereas The Thin Red Line is slightly indescribable. The Thin Red Line is an ersatz work, aware of fiction and aware of tradition, and only able to make itself seem traditionally a war film by declaring itself to be so . TTRL cannot be considered a completely epic as it is constructed, and Saving Private Ryan is about a war film as a construction rather than a direct and innocent expression of a national will about war. The other differences between both the movies are the complexity and influence of the message, whether emotional, theoretical or deep thinking, speed of the actions on the war field, and the difference in audience understanding for both the films.
Saving Private Ryan has been considered a benchmark movie for multiple reasons, basically for revolutionizing the war movie genre and giving it a genuine punch of carrying the movies on war forward. It is assumed that any war can be glorified, if the war is captured in form of a movie, which can be true to some extent. Both the movies provide some kind of learning from the experiences of the front line soldiers and the hardships of war, and the impact of war on an individual, their families and the nation. The movies also provide some education about humanity and mankind, and if analyzed in the right direction, it would be logical to express that wars must not exist at all.
Works Cited
Eberwein, Robert T. The War Film. Illustrated. Rutgers University Press, 2004. Print.
Johnston, Mark. At the Front Line: Experiences of Australian Soldiers in World War II. illustrated, reprint, revised. Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print.
