The movie opens with Willard stuck in a hotel room in Saigon, waiting and wishing for a mission. As he narrates the film, he says, "and for my sins they gave me one." He is assigned by General Corman a mission in which he is to track down a renegade colonel deep in the jungle and ‘terminate his command’ . The colonel has a sanctuary in Cambodia where he has an army of Montagnard tribesmen who both worship and despise him. Then you view more characters as the story goes one, one of whom is Colonel Kilgore who seems oblivious to war and seems to look at it as just another job. He only agrees to get the boat into the river after he discovers that the water at the mouth of the river is excellent for surfing.
Willard and a boat crew start up the river and from them you can see Willard's mood change the farther they go, he becomes more distant and brooding. He realizes that Kurtz has discovered the madness and futility of war just like what he, too, is discovering. Besides the end of the film where he exclaims “The Horror. The Horror,” The movie ends with Willard throwing down his machete and then the Montagnard tribesmen throw down their weapons more or less symbolism for the end of war. This is probably one of the best war movies ever made. It shows the absurdity and futility of war and, as Kurtz discovered, what it takes to win a war, yet it elements of true war film but is not a true war story because of the morals, symbolism and definitions of what is good and evil.
The difference between these movies and what can be constructed as a true war story is that there definitions of what can be done in a movie and whereas in a war, there are so definitions. All in all, there can be stories and films which come close to telling a true war story, but there can never be one. O’Brien said it best;
“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.”
When one takes into account what a true war story is, it can be understood why it is never made and why people choose the fantasy over the facts. They seek the release and they look at something that would make them feel good and uplifted, not depressed and hopeless. There never was a true war story made in Hollywood and as long as there is a craving for entertainment and fictional stories, the factual ones will never be told.
I didn't like "The Thin Red Line" at all. Too much of the kind of introspection that real soldiers simply do not indulge in. Most have only one thing on their mind - getting out alive. Soldiers go through three phases in battle. "It can't happen to me," - during which they will do the most stupid (or heroic, depending on your point of view) things because they honestly believe they can't die. "It can happen to me" - during which they're almost useless and will take no chances at all. "It will happen to me," - during which they become fatalistic and also become far more effective. All this stuff about the morality of war is for film makers and their audiences - it rarely occurs to the men doing the fighting.
#2 by James, Sep 16, 2007
Thin Red Line was a good war movie. however, you have to look at what is real and what is fiction. War stories are not always what you see on TV.
#3 by Franklin Oswald, Sep 17, 2007
It seems as thought there is no telling what is a real war story. The truth of the matter is that if it makes you feel good then chances are that it is just hollywood material.
