>>FYI: CONFUSING SCRIPT AHEAD. FOR ADVANCED WRITERS ONLY.<<
MY THREE THOUGHTS:
1) THE SCRIPT. A screenplay is often described as a blueprint, a map, or a plan.
Its purpose is to outline what the final product, i.e., the film, will look like.
On the range from 10 (set-in-stone; very planned) to 1 (loose recipe; least planned), this Terrence Malick script is around a -3 (a sketch; will be discarded).
This will not be surprising if you know Malick's work.
However, I, who knew very little, found it irritating.
2) THE PROCESS. Malick has been described as a "screen poet," "intuitive," "spontaneous," a "truth seeker" rather than a film director.
I think he is more interested in process than the end product:
And we sat there for five or ten minutes while he got different angles of this bird flying through the sky, you know, but that’s how, it was like the script didn’t really matter to him, the story didn’t matter, although we shot the script and we shot the story, the movie didn’t really resemble the script by the time he finished editing it. ... [I]t seemed like he was gathering moments, just taking them with him and then he’d get back and say “Let’s turn this into a movie.” —Actor John C. Reilly on The Thin Red Line3) THE SCRIPT AGAIN. So what did I learn?
First, Malick scripts are an entirely separate category in my mind. I'm not surprised that they might be discarded during shooting. But the story too? That unsettles me.
Second, the scenes from this script that stuck with me were the simple ones.
In the scene below, Tella is a soldier shot in the chest and gut.:
ex. "Slipping one arm under the Italian's knees and the other under his shoulders, he lifts.
TELLA: Aaa-eeeee! Put me down! Put me down! You're breaking me in two! Put me down! You'll kill me! You son of a bitch! You fucker! You bastard! I told you to leave me alone! You shiteater! Stay away from me!
Turning his head away and closing his eyes, he begins his desperate, wailing, piercing scream agin. Five yards above them on the slope a line of machine gun BULLETS slowly stitches itself across from left to right. With sudden, desperate inspiration, Welsh leaps across the prostrate Tella and begins rummaging in the dead Medic's belt pouches.
WELSH: Here! Tella! Take these! Tella!
Tella stops screaming and opens his eyes. Welsh tosses him two morphine syrettes he has found and begins to attack another pouch.
TELLA: More! More! Gimme more! More!
Welsh tosses him a double handful he has found in the other pouch and then turns to run. But something stops him. Crouched like a sprinter at the gun, he turns his head and looks at Tella one more time. Tella, already unscrewing the cap from one of the syrettes, is looking at him feelingly, his eyes wide and white.
TELLA: Goodbye! Goodbye, Welsh!
WELSH: Goodbye, kid.
It is all he can think of to say. For that matter, it is all he has time to say, because he is already off and running. Bullets WHIR by his head. He runs and runs and then he falls headlong over the little crest and just lies there, half-dead from exhaustion.
STEIN: Sergeant, I saw the whole thing through the glasses. I want you to know I'm mentioning you in Orders tomorrow. I'm recommending you for the Silver Star. I can only say --
WELSH: Captain, if you say one word to thank me, I will punch you square in the nose. Right here. If you ever so much as mention me in your fucking Orders, I will resign my rating two minutes after, and leave you to run this pore, busted-up outfit by yourself. If I go to jail. So fucking help me."
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: In the Malick process, the script's typical purpose is thrown out the window. This is both freeing, but also confusing, if you don't know what is going on.
The Thin Red Line (1998)(2nd draft, 10/3/96)
by Terrence Malick
Based on the novel by James Jones
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