THIN RED LINE, THE 313
for the entire movie but it was eventually scrapped in favor of eight dif fer ent
narrators.
Production
Some background footage was shot at Guadalcanal, the actual setting for the film,
but the island was malaria ridden and too rugged and remote to sustain a movie
crew, so most of the filming, which involved 250 actors and 200 crew members,
took place in the Daintree Rainforest and on Bramston Beach in Queensland, Aus-
tralia, about 1,000 miles southwest of Guadalcanal, across the Coral Sea. After
100 days in Queensland, filming the set piece battle for Hill 210, the shoot then
moved to the Solomon Islands for the next 24 days for the filming of jungle scenes.
The last three days of filming took place on the Pacific Ocean near Santa Catalina
Island (about 20 miles southwest of Long Beach, California). A mercurial director,
Malick often confused his actors, who couldn’t figure out what he was after in a
par tic u lar scene, or with the film as a whole. Co- producers Geisler and Roberdeau,
who had spent years nurturing the proj ect, had it worse; Malick banned them from
the production so he could operate without supervision or interference. The five-
month shoot wrapped at the end of October 1997. Post- production took another
13 months. By early March 1998, editor Leslie Jones had fashioned a five- hour
rough cut from cinematographer John Toll’s voluminous footage. Further cutting
by Malick’s trusted editor, Billy Weber, rendered a film three and a half hours long.
With Sean Penn’s assistance, Malick spent another three months cutting an addi-
tional 45 minutes, with the final cut coming in at a still- epic 170 minutes. Veteran
composer Hans Zimmer did the film score.
Plot Summary
U.S. Army Private Witt ( Jim Caviezel) has gone absent without leave (AWOL) and
lives with the natives of the South Pacific. He is eventually located and locked up
on a vessel by First Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn) of his com pany. The soldiers of
C- for- Charlie Com pany, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Divi-
sion, have been transported to Guadalcanal as backup in the effort to capture
Henderson Field and take the island from the Japa nese. Below decks of the Navy
transport, they warily anticipate the upcoming invasion. Topside, aging battalion
commander Lt. Col. Gordon Tall (Nick Nolte) converses with his younger supe-
rior officer, Brig. Gen. Quintard ( John Travolta), about the invasion and its impor-
tance for his own career. Soon thereafter, Charlie Com pany lands unopposed on
Guadalcanal and moves inland, only encountering natives and evidence of the Japa-
nese presence. They soon arrive at their objective: Hill 210, where a well- concealed
bunker at the top of the hill, bristling with machine guns, commands the
approaches. At dawn the next day, after a brief and ineffectual American artillery
barrage, Charlie Com pany attempts to capture the hill, covered in tall wind- blown
grass, but is repelled by concentrated, accurate gunfire. Among the first killed is
one of the platoon leaders, 2nd Lt. Whyte ( Jared Leto). During the battle, a squad
led by Sergeant Keck (Woody Harrelson) hunkers down behind a low ridge, safe