Thoughts during The Thin Red Line

Tonight I decided to dive into Terrence Malick's 1998 WWII film. After a while of watching (this is a three-hour movie) it is clear that this is an excellent war film. The storyline pulls from a novel, but nonetheless it stays fairly pure and cinematic. A couple of things struck me. Firstly, I put this movie on not to solely experience the movie, nor to learn anything about life or reality from the movie, but to learn something about film. Exploring Malick's body of work is a project in deepening my understanding of this artistic medium, a project in learning about human art using a medium that I love. This becomes complicated though when, more than many other art media, film usually tries to craft an experience of reality for the viewer, thereby concealing its artistry. In experiencing most poetry one can hardly escape the art -- it is front-and-center. In film often it's the reality that is central. I realized, tangential to this, that my experience as a filmgoer and recreational critic in the past has largely been focused on not the very technical components of a film but the experience for the viewer, and the writing and characters. I have interpreted films from a very human perspective, focusing on sensory and emotional experience, the reality constructed. I know very little about artistic technique in film -- editing, camera, etc. So when The Thin Red Line doesn't give me very much in the way of new, innovative film experience, I'm left searching for artistic techniques I don't have the eye to identify. Indeed, unlike recent Malick films, The Thin Red Line does not give a novel, singular experience. It's just a good war film -- a very good war film, with ensemble acting and good direction. If one has seen Apocalypse Now from the '70s and Full Metal Jacket from the '80s one knows about philosophy and vulnerability in war cinema -- masculine films with feminine reflection and pathos. What does The Thin Red Line contribute? Well, maybe it's just very good.
I don't have much reason to continue watching -- I need to be learning about the art of film, and since that which I normally focus on (experience, writing, human realities) isn't novel, and I don't have the knowledge to draw much from technique in this film, all I'm doing is watching the reality and not the art, which I think is nothing but mildly destructive to my own experience of reality. I like this film, and I respect it. I respectfully withdraw.