Apocalypse Now and Thin Red Line

I’ve been enjoying Malick’s The Thin Red Line and thought I’d compare it with Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Nothing elaborate or formal; just some notes.

Both are war films, and both involve the jungle. But they’re quite different. Still, I can’t help wondering whether or not Malick has learned from Coppola’s staging of the jungle. To be sure, Malick’s film is much more IN the jungle than Coppola’s, but I can’t help but think that anyone who’d see Apocalypse Now would be influenced by the Chef & Willard jungle tiger sequence. Not in any direct and deliberate way. It’s just that when you’ve SEEN that sequence in Apocalypse Now you can’t help but see the jungle in that way. On the other hand, all those shots of the sun filtering down through the trees in a misty air, those are Malick’s.

Both films involve a (human) sacrifice, though with different valence. Coppola’s Kurtz is sacrificed to rid the national soul of bad blood while Malick’s Witt is sacrified, well, that others might live, and perhaps to validate THE LIGHT as well. There’s nothing in Coppola’s film doing the work of The Light in Malick’s; nor is there anything in Malick’s film doing the work of a largely invisible directorate of four star general clowns. It’s not obvious to me whether this difference is metaphysical or merely a contingent matter of thematic choice.

Malick treats war as a fact of human life, as a fact, perhaps, of the cosmos at large. Deal with it. Coppola treats war as the product of cumulative human corruption. Deal with it.

And deal with it they have. Superbly, each in his way.