It is the central argument of this paper that the rhetoric and language of the administration of war always appears to take on a life of its own and is separate from the lived experience of both the soldiers who fight in war and civilians who are caught up in it. In order to make this argument I will draw on Terrence Malick’s film ‘The Thin Red Line’, Simone Weil’s essay ‘The Iliad or the Poem of Force’ and a recent academic article concerned with describing the current US military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq alongside the tenants of ‘Just War’ theory and ethics. Weil writes, when speaking of the war described by Homer, that ‘Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to his victims; the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates. The truth is that no one really possesses it.’ (Weil 1963, 11) Force, for Weil, is the motivating factor and only protagonist behind war, it acts almost independently through the people whom is deforms and persuades to move in ways which are against their will. This paper will argue that this process can be seen vividly in ‘The Thin Red Line.’
The film describes a fictional account of a Pacific battle fought by American soldiers during World War II. It is concerned with an exposition of certain philosophies of life, as well as a visceral representation of the horrors of mid twentieth century war-fare. The movie makes use of a constant juxtaposition between internal monologue and actual life. Its opening shots feature shots of wildlife in a jungle while the voice of a soldier speaks of a lost oneness with nature and of a belief the a better way to live in the world would be to envisage nature as a whole of which humans are a part, rather than attempting to dominate it. This soldier is shown wandering around the jungle and interacting with local people who live where he has been stationed. Soon he is called into a meeting with a superior officer where he is told that he is going to re stationed and will be used as an stretcher carrier in order to aid the wounded in a coming battle. He tells the officer that he can take anything thing which is thrown at him and the officer responds, indignantly, by telling him that in this world, which is the only world that there is, the life of one single man isn’t worth anything. Already in these opening scenes Malick is keen to show the way in which objective circumstances come to rule the actions of people, although they themselves may maintain a psychic space away from them.
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"The Thin Red Line and the Individual at War".
The largest section of the film covers the battle itself in which American soldiers attempt, and eventually succeed, to take a fortified hill from Japanese soldiers. Throughout the course of this battle many soldiers lose their lives in brutal ways and bathetic ways. One particularly memorable scene involves someone accidentally pulling the pin on a hand grenade while it is still strapped to his belt and dying slowly from the resulting blast. Throughout the battles scenes Malick is keen to stress the distance between the patriotism of existing orders and the genuine courage of soldiers who resist them and therefore protect the lives of those that they care about. This is particularly emphasised when a character named Captain Staros refuses to take his men on the full frontal assault of a bunker, insisting that it is a suicide mission and that he cares too much about his friends to treat them as cannon fodder. It is clear that this decision will have dire consequences for Staros, however he refuses to back down. Malick clearly wishes to affirm this decision as he plays sentimental music and presents the superior officer giving the orders as deranged and power hungry. It is clear, however, that the official report will say that Staros conducted an act of cowardice in refusing to follow his orders and that he will probably be court marshalled for this offence.
Arguably the film’s most distressing and visceral scene features the soldiers from the company reaching the top of the ridge and proceeding to kill the Japanese whom they find encamped at the top. Malick makes use of fast camera work is keen to show both the inability of the either the Japanese or American soldiers to relate to each other as human beings, as well the mutual fear and regret in them as they go about fighting and killing. This scene is sound tracked once again to an internal monologue in which the same soldier from the start of the movie, who has by now come to form its spiritual heart, meditates on a great evil which is controlling people and which is separating them from nature and life. This nature and life is represented throughout the film in flash backs to his wife, playing on a swing and occasionally saying good bye to him. It is clear that Malick considers war to be a dehumanising process in which force acts through individuals and bends them to its external will.
It is likely that the official reports of the battle will speak of the bravery of the soldiers involved and of their valour. However, the film is keen to point to the fact that this narrative will stand at a disjunct the real experience of those who are involved. This is made particulary clear towards the end of the film in which the commanding officer informs one of his captains that he will be recommended several decorations as a result of his bravery and the officer replies by saying that he does not care about such things.
The tendency to abstract away from the particular horrors of war is as evident in the present as it was in the 1940s. If one looks at the rhetoric of the administrations responsible for military action in Afghanistan and Iraq it is clear that individuals are grouped into a universal in order to make an excuse for the official benefits of war. This relies on a conception of a ‘Just War’, which in turn relies on an international situation in which divided nations are held together by ideas of right and wrong. In his piece ‘The Bush Doctrine and Just War Theory,’ Dale T. Snauwert describes this situation in relation to the war on terror by saying that ‘to assert that international terrorism is immoral and illegal is to make a claim about the nature of the international system: it possesses an international moral and legal fabric.’ (Snauwert 2004, 126) Snauwert goes on to argue that this belief is a key factor in winning over public support for current military campaigns. The irony here, however, is that by asserting a moral structure to the world, one necessarily atomises the individuals involved and abstracts from their personhood. This is something which both Malick and Weil are keen to stress in their work. It is perhaps best summed up when, during the monologue spoken over the hill top massacre, the audience hears the speculation that perhaps everybody ‘is one big soul’ and that we are unable to relate to each other collectively due to the social conditions including, but not restricted to, direct warfare which we often find ourselves in.
In conclusion the argument of this piece is that both ‘Thin Red Line’ and the work of Simone Weil are concerned with a situation in which human beings are abstracted from their particularity and narratives are constructed which are unfaithful to real events. It would seem that this situation is one which cannot be divorced from the experience of both ancient and modern warfare.
- The Thin Red Lind. Dir. Terrence Mallick. Perf. Adiran Brody, Nick Nolte, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson. Twentieth Century Fox, 1998. Film.
- Snauwert, Dale. ‘The Bush Doctrine and Just War Theory’ in The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution. 6.1 Fall: 2004. 121-135. Electronic.
- Weil, Simone. The Illiad or The Poem of Force.’ in Simone Weil: An Anthology. London: Penguin, 2005.
