New York, March 26, 2024— Chelsea Music Festival celebrates its 15th season with nine evenings of concerts, conversation, and tastings with musicians, visual artists, chefs from June 21-29, 2024. This summer Festival, led by Artistic Directors Melinda Lee Masur and Ken-David Masur presents “Connecting the Dots,” which traces how music and art allows us to touch what seems intangible, repair what seems broken, and reimagine our interconnectedness with one another. The Festival will focus on the restorative powers of the arts as we examine ways that music and art both calm and reinvigorate the brain and nervous system. We will also explore together various neurological challenges and changes we can encounter in ourselves and our loved ones.
Festival concerts will explore these themes with World & US Premieres by Jacob Beranek (Charles Ives scholarship recipient), 2024 Composer-in-Residence Ania Vu (Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music), Tebogo Monnakgotla (Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music), Nicky Sohn (“Cool 100” by...
Festival concerts will explore these themes with World & US Premieres by Jacob Beranek (Charles Ives scholarship recipient), 2024 Composer-in-Residence Ania Vu (Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music), Tebogo Monnakgotla (Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music), Nicky Sohn (“Cool 100” by...
- 3/26/2024
- by Music MCM
- Martin Cid Music
The single features renowned musicians Aaron Parks, Joe Sanders, and Brian Blade.
04 August 2023 – Joshua Redman has released “Baltimore,” the second single to be revealed from the acclaimed saxophonist’s forthcoming Blue Note debut where are we due out September 15. One of two instrumental tracks on the album, “Baltimore” was written by the classically influenced songwriter Gabriel Kahane and is given a transcendent performance by Redman’s quartet featuring pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer Brian Blade.
where are we is a musical journey across the United States of America that also marks Redman’s first-ever album with a vocalist—the dynamic young singer Gabrielle Cavassa—who is featured throughout as heard on the album’s lead single “Chicago Blues,” a mash-up of Count Basie’s “Goin’ to Chicago” with Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago.” Redman will be touring the project across the U.S. and Europe following the album’s release.
04 August 2023 – Joshua Redman has released “Baltimore,” the second single to be revealed from the acclaimed saxophonist’s forthcoming Blue Note debut where are we due out September 15. One of two instrumental tracks on the album, “Baltimore” was written by the classically influenced songwriter Gabriel Kahane and is given a transcendent performance by Redman’s quartet featuring pianist Aaron Parks, bassist Joe Sanders, and drummer Brian Blade.
where are we is a musical journey across the United States of America that also marks Redman’s first-ever album with a vocalist—the dynamic young singer Gabrielle Cavassa—who is featured throughout as heard on the album’s lead single “Chicago Blues,” a mash-up of Count Basie’s “Goin’ to Chicago” with Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago.” Redman will be touring the project across the U.S. and Europe following the album’s release.
- 8/5/2023
- by Music Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Music
Branford Marsalis, Thomas Newman, Howard Shore, and Kris Bowers — what do they have in common, besides each being an accomplished composer, conductor, and/or recording artist in his own right? Within the past four years, they all produced a film score that didn’t even register as a blip on the Oscar radar. “Let Them All Talk” and “Pieces of a Woman” gained zero traction for 15-time Oscar nominee Newman and three-time “The Lord of the Rings” Oscar winner Shore. Bowers and Marsalis had respectively picked up momentum elsewhere on the awards circuit for “Green Book” (the eventual Best Picture winner) and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” (the eventual Best Makeup and Hairstyling winner), yet those two films’ Oscar fortunes couldn’t do anything to boost their chances in Best Original Score.
There’s no chalking it up to crowded fields, or voter bias. It all comes down to the rules: Prior to last Oscar season,...
There’s no chalking it up to crowded fields, or voter bias. It all comes down to the rules: Prior to last Oscar season,...
- 10/12/2022
- by Bill Desowitz
- Indiewire
Quixote by Bruce Baillie. Finished most likely in 1965, but sources place year range 1964-1967. In Visionary Film, P. Adams Sitney says the film was “revised” in 1967; while in his “Movie Journal” column, Jonas Mekas wrote that the “final version” of Quixote was screened in New York City in 1968. An article in the Film Culture triple issue 67-68-69 also makes the claims that the film was “finished” (year not given), then revised in 1967; with the final version finally reaching NYC in 1968.
The version of Quixote embedded above comes via Bruce Baillie‘s own YouTube account; and, according to some new end credits, is a digital remastering of the original.
In the book Canyon Cinema, author Scott MacDonald reprints a letter written by Baillie published in the May 1965 issue of Canyon Cinema’s Cinemanews newsletter in which Baillie discusses the filming of Quixote. He writes about traveling through Nevada; Montana; Alberta,...
The version of Quixote embedded above comes via Bruce Baillie‘s own YouTube account; and, according to some new end credits, is a digital remastering of the original.
In the book Canyon Cinema, author Scott MacDonald reprints a letter written by Baillie published in the May 1965 issue of Canyon Cinema’s Cinemanews newsletter in which Baillie discusses the filming of Quixote. He writes about traveling through Nevada; Montana; Alberta,...
- 7/10/2017
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Huppert and Dépardieu get metaphysical as separated parents mourning their son
Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu star as the long-separated parents of a dead son who meet in Death Valley to honour his last request. Shortly before he committed suicide, Michael wrote letters to both, promising that he would reappear one last time to them. The metaphysical element of the story is less persuasive than the uneasy familiarity in the relationship that Huppert and Depardieu craft. The colour palette of bleached bone whites and brilliant blues, and the haunting music of Charles Ives add to the odd, mesmerising atmosphere.
Continue reading...
Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu star as the long-separated parents of a dead son who meet in Death Valley to honour his last request. Shortly before he committed suicide, Michael wrote letters to both, promising that he would reappear one last time to them. The metaphysical element of the story is less persuasive than the uneasy familiarity in the relationship that Huppert and Depardieu craft. The colour palette of bleached bone whites and brilliant blues, and the haunting music of Charles Ives add to the odd, mesmerising atmosphere.
Continue reading...
- 8/14/2016
- by Wendy Ide
- The Guardian - Film News
If you are a fan of traditional stop-motion animation, there’s a good chance you’ve seen some of the delightfully bizarre work of the Quay brothers. Stephen and Timothy, identical twins from Philadelphia, made their mark after directing several breathtaking animated shorts in Europe, creating disturbing worlds inhabited by decaying, hand-made puppets that often reference esoteric works of literature, music, and art. Unmistakable in their idiosyncratic visions, their unique style became a staple in art house cinema and influenced a generation of filmmakers and animators. While much of their work was difficult to find outside the festival circuit or the occasional museum retrospective, that’s changed with a new, pristine Blu-ray release of their collected shorts distributed by Zeitgeist films.
Featuring their breakthrough film Street of Crocodiles, a collection of their MTV-commissioned shorts Stille Nacht, and their most recent works, Through The Weeping Glass and Unmistaken Hands, as well as many more,...
Featuring their breakthrough film Street of Crocodiles, a collection of their MTV-commissioned shorts Stille Nacht, and their most recent works, Through The Weeping Glass and Unmistaken Hands, as well as many more,...
- 12/1/2015
- by Raffi Asdourian
- The Film Stage
The Conversation is a new feature at Sound on Sight bringing together Drew Morton and Landon Palmer in a passionate debate about cinema new and old. For their inaugural piece, they will discuss Tom Tykwer’s film, Run Lola Run (1999).
Landon’s Take
Amongst the many films included in 1999’s “year that changed movies,” Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run seems an essential text. Fifteen years ago, the film blew through national and arthouse borders, presenting an exhilarating image of an approach to filmmaking free from formal restraint or linear narrative logic. An engrossing exercise in style, Tykwer’s breakthrough film seemed to simultaneously beat Hollywood at its own game of fast-paced entertainment, integrate music video aesthetics harmoniously into the machinations of feature filmmaking, and present an art film thoroughly interested in film as an art form looking toward the 21st century, free from the modernist concerns that previously united festival-friendly European exports.
Landon’s Take
Amongst the many films included in 1999’s “year that changed movies,” Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run seems an essential text. Fifteen years ago, the film blew through national and arthouse borders, presenting an exhilarating image of an approach to filmmaking free from formal restraint or linear narrative logic. An engrossing exercise in style, Tykwer’s breakthrough film seemed to simultaneously beat Hollywood at its own game of fast-paced entertainment, integrate music video aesthetics harmoniously into the machinations of feature filmmaking, and present an art film thoroughly interested in film as an art form looking toward the 21st century, free from the modernist concerns that previously united festival-friendly European exports.
- 1/10/2015
- by Drew Morton
- SoundOnSight
The composer Elliott Carter, one of the most important figures in contemporary classical music, died Monday at the age of 103. A protégé of Charles Ives who was profoundly affected as a teenager by attending the New York premiere Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring, Carter began composing his own works in a neoclassical style, ranging from the ballet Pocahontas to creating incidental music for Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater. He later said he felt constrained while working in his 1930s period, unsure whether it was right to challenge audiences with the more forbidding, avant-garde music he longed to do while ...
- 11/7/2012
- avclub.com
New York (AP) — Classical composer Elliott Carter, whose challenging, rhythmically complex works earned him widespread admiration and two Pulitzer Prizes, died Monday at age 103.
His music publishing company, Boosey & Hawkes, called him an "iconic American composer." It didn't give the cause of his death.
In a 1992 Associated Press interview, Carter described his works as "music that asks to be listened to in a concentrated way and listened to with a great deal of attention."
"It's not music that makes an overt theatrical effect," he said then, "but it assumes the listener is listening to sounds and making some sense out of them."
The complex way the instruments interact in his compositions created drama for listeners who made the effort to understand them, but it made them difficult for orchestras to learn. He said he tried to give each of the musicians individuality within the context of a comprehensible whole.
"This...
His music publishing company, Boosey & Hawkes, called him an "iconic American composer." It didn't give the cause of his death.
In a 1992 Associated Press interview, Carter described his works as "music that asks to be listened to in a concentrated way and listened to with a great deal of attention."
"It's not music that makes an overt theatrical effect," he said then, "but it assumes the listener is listening to sounds and making some sense out of them."
The complex way the instruments interact in his compositions created drama for listeners who made the effort to understand them, but it made them difficult for orchestras to learn. He said he tried to give each of the musicians individuality within the context of a comprehensible whole.
"This...
- 11/6/2012
- by AP
- Huffington Post
When I was growing up, New York 's best (now long-defunct) classical radio station, Wncn, played only American composers' music each Fourth of July. With the classical world dominated by Europeans, this was a welcome and educational corrective. In the history of American music, independence wasn't achieved until the 20th century; 19th century composers such as John Knowles Paine and George Whitefield Chadwick studied in Europe and blatantly imitated European models. Listening to their music "blind," few would guess they were Americans. There was Revolutionary War-era vocal writer William Billings, but his originality was more a lack of proper technique. Continuing Wncn's tradition, here's a look at true American classical. music.
There is a bit of chauvinism in this article, as "American" here refers not to all the Americas (North, Central, and South) but rather the colloquial usage in the United States to mean that country's residents (hence, the Mexican Carlos Chavez,...
There is a bit of chauvinism in this article, as "American" here refers not to all the Americas (North, Central, and South) but rather the colloquial usage in the United States to mean that country's residents (hence, the Mexican Carlos Chavez,...
- 7/4/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
In response to the presently on-going Bernard Herrmann series at Film Forum in New York honoring the composer's centennial, presented here is a selection of short soundtrack music cues by the composer, with brief observations, and information regarding their availability on CD, LP or other formats.
1. “Snow Picture” from Citizen Kane (1941)
It’s amazing to think that Bernard Herrmann scored his first film for Orson Welles, and his last for Martin Scorsese, thirty five years later (he died in his sleep, the evening after finishing the recording sessions for Taxi Driver). This very short cue begins during the Thatcher Library scene, with the Inquirer reporter, Thompson (William Alland), pouring over an immense volume, as the film transitions from over-the-shoulder shot to close-up pan across Thatcher’s handwritten recollections, into a flashback punctuated by a sudden burst of light and music. This musical movement through memory is achieved in less than thirty seconds.
1. “Snow Picture” from Citizen Kane (1941)
It’s amazing to think that Bernard Herrmann scored his first film for Orson Welles, and his last for Martin Scorsese, thirty five years later (he died in his sleep, the evening after finishing the recording sessions for Taxi Driver). This very short cue begins during the Thatcher Library scene, with the Inquirer reporter, Thompson (William Alland), pouring over an immense volume, as the film transitions from over-the-shoulder shot to close-up pan across Thatcher’s handwritten recollections, into a flashback punctuated by a sudden burst of light and music. This musical movement through memory is achieved in less than thirty seconds.
- 10/30/2011
- MUBI
The composer best known for his work with Alfred Hitchcock would have been 100 today. Jim Fusilli in the Wall Street Journal: "Bernard Herrmann may be best known for his memorable contributions to classic films, including his rousing overture to North by Northwest, the shower scene in Psycho, the romantic themes of Vertigo, the eerie electronic music in The Day the Earth Stood Still and the desolate blues of Taxi Driver. He might have preferred to be celebrated for his opera Wuthering Heights, symphonies and cantatas such as Moby Dick, and other concert works. According to the film composer John Williams, Herrmann's greatest ambition was to be recognized as a conductor. Nonetheless, Herrmann's lasting legacy remains his work in the entertainment industry… No other composer so consistently enriched the audience's understanding of a character's emotional and psychological state."
"His life had the dramatic arc of a great 20th-century maestro: expulsion from Juilliard,...
"His life had the dramatic arc of a great 20th-century maestro: expulsion from Juilliard,...
- 6/30/2011
- MUBI
Feb. 21
7:00 p.m.
Atlas Building 223 University of Colorado at Boulder
1125 18th St. 320 Ucb
Boulder, Co 80309
Hosted by: First Person Cinema
The First Person Cinema series didn’t have to go very far to find the featured filmmaker at this event. Phil Solomon has been a film history, aesthetics and production professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1991.
For this screening, Professor Solomon will show his recently restored 1983 film What’s Out Tonight Is Lost, a single-channel triptych version of his 2010 American Falls installation piece, and an excerpt from his most recent work-in-progress The Uncanny Valley.
What’s Out Tonight Is Lost is a silent 16mm, 8-minute meditation on the treacherous navigation through the hazy cloud of memory. Faceless figures dance in repetitive motions while outside vehicles cross fog-laden landscapes. Heavily saturated in dark hues, the snippets of time edited together hang with a heavy coldness, as if...
7:00 p.m.
Atlas Building 223 University of Colorado at Boulder
1125 18th St. 320 Ucb
Boulder, Co 80309
Hosted by: First Person Cinema
The First Person Cinema series didn’t have to go very far to find the featured filmmaker at this event. Phil Solomon has been a film history, aesthetics and production professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder since 1991.
For this screening, Professor Solomon will show his recently restored 1983 film What’s Out Tonight Is Lost, a single-channel triptych version of his 2010 American Falls installation piece, and an excerpt from his most recent work-in-progress The Uncanny Valley.
What’s Out Tonight Is Lost is a silent 16mm, 8-minute meditation on the treacherous navigation through the hazy cloud of memory. Faceless figures dance in repetitive motions while outside vehicles cross fog-laden landscapes. Heavily saturated in dark hues, the snippets of time edited together hang with a heavy coldness, as if...
- 2/19/2011
- by screenings
- Underground Film Journal
In the golden days of radio the great symphony orchestras of the world broadcast over short and long wave bands, creating pockets of listeners all over the globe. In isolated Japan in the 1940s the young composer Toru Takemitsu learned the ways of Western music from the Armed Forces radio network. In Maine, Charles Ives listened to the premiere of his 2nd Symphony, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, over the radio. When FM came in after the Second World War, sound quality improved, but the since the range of FM is limited to line-of-sight, those millions of listeners lucky enough to get an ionosphere bounce from New York to Vermont or Chicago to Colorado were left in silence. The advent of the long-playing record took the thrill and necessity away from live broadcasts, and radio audiences shrank. Then came the golden age of...
- 9/5/2009
- by Gerald Sindell
- Huffington Post
It's a safe bet that more than just shell-shocked critics will take the time to see this remarkable film twice -- at least twice.
How big a hit Fox has depends on the fickle public's word-of-mouth, with many hurdles to overcome in the marketing. But its big, brooding, warlike nature -- asking the big questions and not finding easy answers -- May Foster the rare confluence of reality and art that makes "The Thin Red Line" an uncannily timed movie phenomenon.
After a 20-year-absence, enigmatic filmmaker Terrence Malick ("Days of Heaven") has realized a 10-year dream project -- based on the 1962 novel by James Jones -- and delivered a breathtaking cinematic experience, one very different than this year's other celebrated World War II film. Indeed, those expecting "Saving Private Ryan" will be surprised by the unconventional structure, sometimes slow pacing and heavy use of voice-overs but not by the bloody battles, which are graphic and complex enough to rival those in Steven Spielberg's award-winning hit.
There's no easy way to encapsulate the nearly three-hour plot and do right by every striking scene or memorable character. Likewise, the themes and Malick's directorial choices will be subject to much debate, more so than in any film this year. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was a mystery to many, and so will be "The Thin Red Line", but its reputation could soar over time.
Filmed previously in 1964 with Keir Dullea and Jack Warden, in a much abbreviated version, "The Thin Red Line" is the story of C-for-Charlie Company, U.S. infantrymen fighting the Japanese in the crucial campaign on the island of Guadalcanal in August 1942. Jones' brilliant novel follows several dozen characters through the landing, marching, fighting and "off-lining" of these GIs, with many dying in a series of clashes on the windy hills of the island's interior.
Malick immediately puts his stamp on the material with a nearly dialogue-free 10-minute opening sequence that introduces AWOL Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel) living in "paradise" with Melanesian villagers. The themes of showing how the fighting affects nature and how nature affects the soldiers are likewise introduced by first seeing this calm before the chaos.
A self-assured loner who misses his comrades and rejoins the war, Witt goes on to survive the horrific battles in the film's central section and continues to ponder the nature of man and war -- at one point a dead Japanese face, half-buried in the jungle muck, stares at him and talks as if it has already returned to the earth.
While there are Tolstoyian ambitions here, Malick is so unconcerned with routine drama and the battle scenes are so visceral that the film never feels unduly egg-headed, although some are bound to find it too pretentious, too demanding, too long, just too damn elegiac. The next-to-last argument could made, but it's not a serious flaw.
As for the rest of the film's superb cast, with one or two exceptions, there aren't enough superlatives to do justice to the work on display. 1st Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn) is a humorless cynic that like all his fellows gets the "white-eyed" look of terror in combat. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) dreams of his wife back home, with Malick cutting to his sensual memories in one gambit that's somewhat overworked.
Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas) is the lawyer-turned-worried warrior who commands the men against entrenched Japanese positions and, in his bravest act, defies his superior, Lt. Col. Tall (Nick Nolte). A mad dog one minute and a decisive leader the next, Tall is one of Nolte's greatest roles, and his performance is tremendous. In a one-sided exchange with battle-tested Capt. Gaff (John Cusack) and when he relieves Staros of his command, Tall personifies the impersonal, savage thought processes that destroy or forever mark the average soldier.
Many more characters and performers stand out, particularly gung-ho Pfc. Doll (Dash Mihok), ill-fated Sgt. Keck (Woody Harrelson) and devastated-by-the-slaughter Sgt. McCron (John Savage). Used in reserve but effectively are John Travolta as a regal brigadier general -- in scenes with Tall on the tense troop transport before the soldiers make their unopposed amphibious landing -- and Adrien Brody as company clerk Cpl. Fife. George Clooney's brief moments as the new company captain near the conclusion is the one instance of the all-star approach coming up short.
Shot mainly in the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland, Australia, "The Thin Red Line" is a visual knockout -- from cutaways to indigenous animals and vegetation to the grimy, numbed faces of the survivors -- with John Toll's cinematography surpassing his Oscar-winning work on "Legends of the Fall". Likewise, the soundtrack is a marvel of craftsmanship, mixing the booms of bombs exploding and wind moving through the grass with works by Gabriel Faure, Charles Ives, Arvo Part and Hans Zimmer's meaty score.
THE THIN RED LINE
20th Century Fox
Fox 2000 Pictures presents
Phoenix Pictures in association
with George Stevens Jr.
A Geisler-Roberdeau production
Writer-director: Terrence Malick
Producers: Robert Michael Geisler, John Roberdeau, Grant Hill
Executive producer: George Stevens Jr.
Director of photography: John Toll
Production designer: Jack Fisk
Editors: Billy Weber, Leslie Jones
Costume designer: Margot Wilson
Music: Hans Zimmer
Casting: Dianne Crittenden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Pvt. Witt: Jim Caviezel
1st Sgt. Welsh: Sean Penn
Pvt. Bell: Ben Chaplin
Capt. Staros: Elias Koteas
Lt. Col. Tall: Nick Nolte
Pfc. Doll: Dash Mihok
Capt. Gaff: John Cusack
Sgt. Keck: Woody Harrelson
Sgt. McCron: John Savage
Running time -- 170 minutes
MPAA Rating: R...
How big a hit Fox has depends on the fickle public's word-of-mouth, with many hurdles to overcome in the marketing. But its big, brooding, warlike nature -- asking the big questions and not finding easy answers -- May Foster the rare confluence of reality and art that makes "The Thin Red Line" an uncannily timed movie phenomenon.
After a 20-year-absence, enigmatic filmmaker Terrence Malick ("Days of Heaven") has realized a 10-year dream project -- based on the 1962 novel by James Jones -- and delivered a breathtaking cinematic experience, one very different than this year's other celebrated World War II film. Indeed, those expecting "Saving Private Ryan" will be surprised by the unconventional structure, sometimes slow pacing and heavy use of voice-overs but not by the bloody battles, which are graphic and complex enough to rival those in Steven Spielberg's award-winning hit.
There's no easy way to encapsulate the nearly three-hour plot and do right by every striking scene or memorable character. Likewise, the themes and Malick's directorial choices will be subject to much debate, more so than in any film this year. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was a mystery to many, and so will be "The Thin Red Line", but its reputation could soar over time.
Filmed previously in 1964 with Keir Dullea and Jack Warden, in a much abbreviated version, "The Thin Red Line" is the story of C-for-Charlie Company, U.S. infantrymen fighting the Japanese in the crucial campaign on the island of Guadalcanal in August 1942. Jones' brilliant novel follows several dozen characters through the landing, marching, fighting and "off-lining" of these GIs, with many dying in a series of clashes on the windy hills of the island's interior.
Malick immediately puts his stamp on the material with a nearly dialogue-free 10-minute opening sequence that introduces AWOL Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel) living in "paradise" with Melanesian villagers. The themes of showing how the fighting affects nature and how nature affects the soldiers are likewise introduced by first seeing this calm before the chaos.
A self-assured loner who misses his comrades and rejoins the war, Witt goes on to survive the horrific battles in the film's central section and continues to ponder the nature of man and war -- at one point a dead Japanese face, half-buried in the jungle muck, stares at him and talks as if it has already returned to the earth.
While there are Tolstoyian ambitions here, Malick is so unconcerned with routine drama and the battle scenes are so visceral that the film never feels unduly egg-headed, although some are bound to find it too pretentious, too demanding, too long, just too damn elegiac. The next-to-last argument could made, but it's not a serious flaw.
As for the rest of the film's superb cast, with one or two exceptions, there aren't enough superlatives to do justice to the work on display. 1st Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn) is a humorless cynic that like all his fellows gets the "white-eyed" look of terror in combat. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) dreams of his wife back home, with Malick cutting to his sensual memories in one gambit that's somewhat overworked.
Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas) is the lawyer-turned-worried warrior who commands the men against entrenched Japanese positions and, in his bravest act, defies his superior, Lt. Col. Tall (Nick Nolte). A mad dog one minute and a decisive leader the next, Tall is one of Nolte's greatest roles, and his performance is tremendous. In a one-sided exchange with battle-tested Capt. Gaff (John Cusack) and when he relieves Staros of his command, Tall personifies the impersonal, savage thought processes that destroy or forever mark the average soldier.
Many more characters and performers stand out, particularly gung-ho Pfc. Doll (Dash Mihok), ill-fated Sgt. Keck (Woody Harrelson) and devastated-by-the-slaughter Sgt. McCron (John Savage). Used in reserve but effectively are John Travolta as a regal brigadier general -- in scenes with Tall on the tense troop transport before the soldiers make their unopposed amphibious landing -- and Adrien Brody as company clerk Cpl. Fife. George Clooney's brief moments as the new company captain near the conclusion is the one instance of the all-star approach coming up short.
Shot mainly in the Daintree Rainforest in Queensland, Australia, "The Thin Red Line" is a visual knockout -- from cutaways to indigenous animals and vegetation to the grimy, numbed faces of the survivors -- with John Toll's cinematography surpassing his Oscar-winning work on "Legends of the Fall". Likewise, the soundtrack is a marvel of craftsmanship, mixing the booms of bombs exploding and wind moving through the grass with works by Gabriel Faure, Charles Ives, Arvo Part and Hans Zimmer's meaty score.
THE THIN RED LINE
20th Century Fox
Fox 2000 Pictures presents
Phoenix Pictures in association
with George Stevens Jr.
A Geisler-Roberdeau production
Writer-director: Terrence Malick
Producers: Robert Michael Geisler, John Roberdeau, Grant Hill
Executive producer: George Stevens Jr.
Director of photography: John Toll
Production designer: Jack Fisk
Editors: Billy Weber, Leslie Jones
Costume designer: Margot Wilson
Music: Hans Zimmer
Casting: Dianne Crittenden
Color/stereo
Cast:
Pvt. Witt: Jim Caviezel
1st Sgt. Welsh: Sean Penn
Pvt. Bell: Ben Chaplin
Capt. Staros: Elias Koteas
Lt. Col. Tall: Nick Nolte
Pfc. Doll: Dash Mihok
Capt. Gaff: John Cusack
Sgt. Keck: Woody Harrelson
Sgt. McCron: John Savage
Running time -- 170 minutes
MPAA Rating: R...
- 12/21/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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