Monday, 14 December 1998

MOVIE OF THE YEAR

Citizen Kane. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Apocalypse Now. Raging Bull.

Add The Thin Red Line to that list of great genre-bending, bar-raising epics by true geniuses working at the top of their games. And then add this sidebar that I am most worried about today: Each of these films was misunderstood and abused by the critical establishment and the awards givers on their release. And years later all of these films were anointed by group after group and individual after individual who tried to pretend that they were always on the right side of the argument. If this happens to The Thin Red Line, it would be more than a funny note in the margins of some cinema studies text. It would be a tragedy.

The Thin Red Line is not for everyone. No truly great film is. With the most obvious example being broadcast television as a medium, the effort to reach people en masse demands concessions to mediocrity. It is an amazing skill indeed to be a populist genius. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are icons in this industry because they are the only two filmmakers who have consistently achieved this feat since the breakup of the studio system.

But Terrence Malick, like Scorsese, Coppola (when not working for hire), Kubrick and Welles, is working on another level. This is not the pretentious work of a filmmaker trying to be an "artist," straining our patience with effort to play the genius. This is a meditation on God and man and the best and worst of what we are. But it does have a structured narrative, however simple and tiny. Take Saving Private Ryan's magnificent attack on the beach. Make it your second act. Your first act is all the personal anticipation of the soldier's who will go on the attack. Your third act is the human repercussions of and reflections on the attack. The second act is the "traditional" war movie, but it's the rest that makes The Thin Red Line the most intimate film about war ever made.

You can argue that it's "not my kind of film." You can argue that "there's not enough action for me." You can argue that you prefer Saving Private Ryan. But if you know anything about film, if you are really paying attention to this movie, if you aren't lost in the fog of the 200 other films that you saw this year, you have to know that Malick deserves your absolute respect, if not your undying admiration.

And that's why I am going on about this on a Monday morning when I would usually be covering the weekend's box office numbers. Last Sunday, a not-quite-finished The Thin Red Line was screened in New York in order to be considered by the National Board of Review and other award-giving organizations. On Tuesday, the film was screened for the same purpose here in Los Angeles. I'm not privy to what happened in New York, but I can tell you that the reaction in L.A. was not only negative, but vicious. "Malick's never seen a leaf he didn't like." "It's the Heaven's Gate of the '90s." "It's Saving Private Ryan on acid."

When I saw the film Friday night, I was anxiously awaiting an over-inflated, way-too-long, troubled movie. What I saw was a film that got better and better and better with every frame. With every metaphor. And my rage began. It increased after a second screening Saturday night, which I went to in order to make sure that I wasn't somehow way off-base here. I wasn't. The film only got better.

To what depths has criticism fallen when the reaction to this film is to unsheath the knives and to prepare to kill this truly original work of art before it's even completely finished, much less released? (And, of course, these are the same people who are always going on about a lack of originality in studio films.) Have we all become so coarse that we rather slam something than embrace it?

The future of The Thin Red Line is now in the hands of a few select critics. No matter what you or I think of them individually, if this film is to survive the L.A. fun bunch, a number of the Big Boys of Criticism will have to step up to the plate. That means, Janet Maslin of the New York Times, Kenneth Turan of the L.A. Times, Siskel, Ebert and the magazine rackers, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, Richard Corliss of Time and David Ansen of Newsweek. Forget great critics like Andrew Sarris or Michael Wilmington. Or Jack Matthews, Jami Bernard, Peter Travers and Joe Morgenstern. They don't have enough juice to turn this tide. And no one of the Big Boys can do it alone. Maybe if a Spielberg and a Scorsese and other filmmakers stand up for Malick, they can help this movie turn the corner. (It would be a supremely selfless choice for Spielberg.)

But in the end, it won't be enough if "opinion makers" are embarrassed when the tide does turn on this film. And it will. Let's fix this mistake before it happens. If you are critic who has seen the movie and had a problem with it, see it again. If you are a critic who hasn't seen the movie, don't buy into the anti-hype. And if you are, as most of you are, just people who love movies, look past those of us who want to form your judgements for you. Even me. (Especially me.) There are few films worth opening your heart to in any given year. Few films that aspire to reach for more than a couple of hours of entertainment. The Thin Red Line is one of those films. Don't let "them" take it away from you before you've even decided whether it was worth the trip.

WEEKEND REVIEW, JR.: Despite what seemed to be decent word of mouth on Star Trek: Insurrection, the film had what would have to be called a disastrous weekend. Not that $22.4 million is often sneezed at, but the weekend trajectory was rather grotesque -- a $9 million Friday was followed by $7.4 million on Saturday and a $6 million estimate on Sunday. That's what happens to a really troubled film. Now, Star Trek does have its obsessive base that must see a film on opening day. But an 18 percent drop-off on Saturday (a day on which there is usually an 18 percent increase or more) means that Paramount didn't get much farther with their marketing than that primary fan base. (And by the way, reader John E. hit the movie's gross dead on the nose.)

The other newcomer, Jack Frost, managed $7 million. There's nothing I can say about this film that I haven't already said, so why say more? The rest of the Top 10 was generally uninteresting. Psycho did take a 62 percent hit, as predicted by one reader, falling to $3.8 million. Elizabeth fell 35 percent and has yet to get a boost from any critics' awards. And one reader reported sell-outs for Rushmore in its one New York theater, which indicates that word is getting out.

THE SECOND SET OF AWARDS: The Los Angeles Film Critics Association decided on its awards Saturday and Saving Private Ryan was their best movie of 1998. Can't get more obvious than that! As you might guess from my earlier comments, The Thin Red Line was not even in the running. (I certainly don't want to degrade Mr. Spielberg's achievement in any way. It was the best studio film of the year. Until Malick's.) Ian McKellen became the odds-on favorite Oscar winner by winning two straight awards for Gods and Monsters. Joan Allen rolled along as a likely Oscar nominee with a Best Supporting Actress win for Pleasantville.

The group split Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor awards between popular buzz choices of the moment (Fernanda Montenegro in Central Station and Billy Bob Thornton in A Simple Plan) and long shots of great value (Ally Sheedy in High Art and Bill Murray in Rushmore and Wild Things). The group also reached out, I think valiantly, to Warren Beatty and Jeremy Pisker for their Best Screenplay award for Bulworth and to Elliot Goldenthal for his music for The Butcher Boy. The New York Critics Circle is next.

READER OF THE DAY: Dimitri wrote in about the travails of Caleb Deschanel (THB 12/12): "First, I couldn't agree more on the talent of this amazing cinematographer and director -- he's truly amazing. However, this isn't the first time recently that he's been canned from a major job. If you recall, he was fired from Titanic after finishing the modern-day Nova Scotia sequences. It's interesting to note the reasons given in the book Titanic and the Making of James Cameron. Essentially, though Deschanel's work was very good, he's now an assured veteran cinematographer (and sometimes director) as well, and he basically butted heads against someone who had his own firm visual ideas as well. The book noted that he might tend to work much better on projects where he can set the visual tone. Now, all of a sudden, he's gone from a film where the director is a former cinematographer. History repeating itself? Maybe..."

RESPONSE OF THE DAY: I was told another story about the potential cause of the firing this weekend. It seems that Jan DeBont's temper was the reason that Don Burges (Oscar nominee for Forrest Gump) walked off the Twister set. He was replaced by the stoic and mellow and brilliant Jack Green. In other words, all the evidence points to personality conflicts and not work conflicts. But what's new with that?

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E ME: I've kind of left you all hanging as far as responses go, as you haven't seen The Thin Red Line. But, tell me how you feel about the state of criticism these days. Fair or foul? Self-indulgent or revelatory? Siskel or Ebert?