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Buy this cd at Amazon.com : $8.99, iTunes : €9,99 (or less)
Directed by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Actors: Deborah Kerr, Sabu (II), David Farrar
Release date: 1947 Genre: Drama War
Duration: 101 minutes Country: United Kingdom
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Reviews
Filmmusicsite.com editor score: 6/10
Review of Edmund Meinerts, submitted at 2009-09-27 21:59:33, score: 6/10
Now, before the Hans Zimmer fans begin to shout at me for that rating, let me assure you that I have been a Hans Zimmer enthusiast ever since I started collecting film music. However, my reviews ALWAYS concentrate on the entertainment value of a particular score. I listen to film music out of its natural context, the film. This has its problems, such as a piece stopping just when it really gets into a good rhythm, or the annoying "Mickey-mousing" that plagues otherwise excellent scores such as James Newton Howard's three Disney scores ( Dinosaur, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet .
The Thin Red Line is an admirable effort because of just how much effort Hans Zimmer actually put into writing it. It's a well-known fact that the German composer created several hours of music for Terence Malick's film. Even back then, in 1998-1999, Zimmer was striving to escape the Media Ventures box he had built himself with Backdraft, Crimson Tide and The Rock, because even though The Thin Red Line is a war film, it couldn't be further removed from those racy action scores.
The Thin Red Line is all string adagios, fluttery woodwinds, inaudibly deep drums and haunting vocals - but, except for one great exception (more on that later) has no themes to speak of. The endlessly shifting layers of harmony are beautiful in their own way, but they never really go anywhere, and make for a rather frustrating album experience, especially when bundled in eight-minute-plus suites such as "The Coral Atoll" and "The Lagoon" that drag on and on.
Two songs provide welcome relief to this brooding, moody atmosphere: "Stone in My Heart" is more upbeat, based on a string ostinato similar to those used more recently in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and is therefore more listenable. The second exception, "Journey to the Line", is far and away the album's highlight. It's the only piece on the album where Zimmer's typical French horns are allowed to explode into a singular burst of grand, neo-classical majesty, but when they do, it's almost worth the long wait, and it alone persuaded me to add an extra point. Even when compared to other Zimmer power anthems, this theme has an enormous amount of gravity that has rarely been heard before or after in film music.
All in all, I feel that Zimmer wholeheartedly deserved his Oscar nomination for this effort. As film music, The Thin Red Line is excellent. As an album, it has about eight to ten strong minutes amid fifty others of mood music that works in the background, but not in the fore. Those eight to ten minutes, though, are not to be missed.
Read other recent reviews by Edmund Meinerts: Inception , The Last Airbender, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Review of Andreas Lindahl, submitted at 2008-01-20 21:25:40, score: 10/10
Hans Zimmer's score for Malick's come back film The Thin Red Line couldn't be more different than his recent, huge score, with bold brass and choir, for The Prince of Egypt. Like John Williams' score for Saving Private Ryan this is music without brass fanfares and war drums. The Thin Red Line is not a score that tries to glorify the horrors of war, and make it exciting - and neither is the film the music is written for. There is not one single cue with traditional Zimmer action music on the soundtrack album. Actually the majority of the music is slow. Very slow. At first this made me a little disappointed, as I found it to be difficult to get into the music, and appreciate it. But after a couple of listenings the music started to come to life - to get a voice and a soul. And when I saw the film, and heard Zimmer's music in its intended element, I realized that this is perhaps one of the best score ever written for a war film.
While Saving Private Ryan was filled with solemn brass elegies, The Thin Red Line is very heavy on strings. Not big and sweeping, but more powerful, sad and dark, which gives the score a very beautiful, but perhaps a little depressing, sound. There are in fact many parts of this score that will make you remember and think of all the people killed in all the horrible wars in our, and bygone, time, and it's hard not getting the least depressed and moved under those circumstances. I wouldn't say that the music is especially thematic - often it is just a "wall of sounds" - but there are two themes that I can promise will make a long lasting impression on you. They're given their best renditions in the second ("The Lagoon") and third track ("Journey to the Line"). They are very long and beautiful, with melodies carried by the strings ("The Lagoon") and horns ("Journey to the Line"). While the first theme is sad and mourning the second theme will hit you in the stomach with it's desolate sound. This music was used when the American soldiers attack the Japanese camp, and that scene was infact the only time the movie really grabbed me, and all thanks to the music.
Zimmer makes use of asian instruments, like the Shakuhachi and the Koto, as well as vocal chants (not used in the film though) and ethnic choir music, performed in the film by the natives, to make some parts of the music somewhat related to the part of the world where the film takes place. "God U Tekem Laef Blong", for instance, is an exotic sounding choral piece, used in the film during the end credits. It's rather enjoyable, but at the same time it interrupts the flow of the more "seriuos" music, on the album.
Zimmer wrote several hours of music, and an abundance of different themes, even before Malick started to shoot the film. The director then played the music on the set, while filming, to get himself, and the rest of the crew and actors in the right frame of mind. This means of course that a lot of the music Zimmer wrote never was used in the film. And for some reason much of the music on the CD is never heard in the film, and vice versa. There are a couple of gorgeous themes, and choral pieces, heard in the film that are missing from the soundtrack album. I think that RCA could have handled this release a little better.
The Thin Red Line is one of those score that needs to be experienced in the film to get really appreciated. Let's take Saving Private Ryan as an example again. I never really understood how brilliant that score was, until I saw the film, and heard the music along with the pictures it was written for. The same goes with The Thin Red Line.
Read other recent reviews by Andreas Lindahl: The Rock, The Phantom of the Opera, Peter Pan
Tracks
1. The Coral Atoll (8:00)
2. The Lagoon (8:36)
3. Journey to the Line (9:21)
4. Light (7:19)
5. Beam (3:44)
6. Air (2:21)
7. Stone in my Heart (4:28)
8. The Village (5:52)
9. Silence (5:06)
10. God U Tekem Laef Blong Mi (1:58)
11. Sit Back and Relax (2:06)
Total duration: 58 minutes
Awards Oscars: Best Music, Original Dramatic Score (Nominee)
Trailers and others The music of this soundtrack was used in:
Pearl Harbor (Trailer)
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