The Thin Red Line Brief Information

The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American war film written and directed by Terrence Malick. Based on the novel by James Jones, it tells a fictionalized version of the Battle of Mount Austen in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It portrays soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, played by Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin. The title echoes a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy", from Barrack-Room Ballads, in which he calls foot soldiers "the thin red line of heroes", itself a reference to the stand of the 93rd Regiment in the Crimean War.

The film marked Malick's return to filmmaking after a 20-year absence. It features a large ensemble cast, including performances and cameos by notable actors, including Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly and John Travolta. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran five hours. By the final cut, all footage of the performances by Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Jason Patric, Viggo Mortensen, and Mickey Rourke had been removed. The film was scored by Hans Zimmer, John Powell and Klaus Badelt, and shot by John Toll. Principal photography took place in Australia in the state of Queensland.

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