"A Hidden Life" Leadup - "The Thin Red Line"
In 1973 and 1978, Terrence Malick created two hits in the New Hollywood era: Badlands and Days of Heaven. In both of these films, Malick finds his characters searching for Eden in the midst of the vast American western landscape. Both films follow a man running from his sins. Both films are gorgeously shot with probing voiceover from the perspective of the female collateral in the lives of broken men. Both were critical hits, the latter of which was nominated for 3 Academy Awards (winning one for cinematography). They were two of the most acclaimed films of the 1970s. Then Malick disappeared for 20 years.
Malick has taken on a near-mythic persona as a private and philosophical recluse. He does not do interviews, he doesn’t promote his films, and he’s nowhere to be found by the public eye. It’s rumored that he lived in Paris during this time. Malick then returned as mysteriously as he disappeared with the 1998 release of the World War II film, The Thin Red Line.
The film released the same year as Steven Spielberg’s patriotic WWII blockbuster, Saving Private Ryan. If Spielberg’s movie honored veterans and their patriotic fight in war, Malick does the exact opposite. Malick chooses to pierce through the interior of a soldier’s psyche into their very soul. And not only the soul of a soldier but the soul of humanity itself. The opening line of the film (spoken of course in voiceover) sets the tone for the thematic elements that Malick explores, “What’s this war in the heart of nature?”
The human experience is filled with both unspeakable horror and transcendent beauty and happiness. This is the war Malick is interested in. Soldiers on both sides are portrayed with much more grey than black and white. It’s not good guys vs. bad guys. It’s certainly not about the greatness of the American military. What’s even deeper than the war between horror and happiness is the war between humans and nature. Malick continues to shoot breathtaking footage of nature, specifically the light coming through trees in the opening scenes. The eye of the camera lingers on the beauties of creation as much as the horrors of human war. The juxtaposition between idyllic nature and bloody screams is striking. That’s precisely the point of the film.
The film follows several characters and Malick is notorious for cutting entire characters and actors out of the film in post-production. Jim Caviezels’s character Witt emerges as the protagonist. His voiceover is philosophical, inquisitive, and nostalgic for his home and lover. Witt goes AWOL at one point and is living amongst the natives in the South Pacific, who welcome him and a fellow soldier. Here, there is no war and seemingly no cares. It is a paradise—an Eden in the midst of darkness. Malick continues his auteurist theme of the search for Eden through the longings of Witt.
Why is this hidden paradise so hidden and rare in the modern world? One soldier asks himself, “This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?” Perhaps the darkness that hid Eden and killed paradise is a darkness within everyone. Is WWII or any other war a fight to reclaim Eden? No. Another soldier says, “Wars don't ennoble men, it turns them into dogs, poisons the soul.” There is no nostalgic admiration of veterans here. War does not create heroes but poisons people—soldiers and civilians alike.
The longing of Witt is far greater than a longing for WWII to end and for peace to be restored to the South Pacific. He desires not only Eden, but immortality. In one of the more poignant scenes, Witt reminisces about his mother’s death. He says, “I remember my mother when she was dyin', looked all shrunk up and gray. I asked her if she was afraid. She just shook her head. I was afraid to touch the death I seen in her. I couldn't find nothin' beautiful or uplifting about her goin' back to God. I heard of people talk about immortality, but I ain't seen it. I wondered how it'd be like when I died, what it'd be like to know this breath now was the last one you was ever gonna draw. I just hope I can meet it the same way she did, with the same... calm. 'Cause that's where it's hidden - the immortality I hadn't seen.”
Witt is caught in between where he is and where he longs to be. He is a surrogate for all of humanity. We desire Eden and “home” just beyond our grasp.