Trivia for
The Thin Red Line (1998) More at IMDbPro »

• The original cut of the film was just under 6 hours in length. Over a million feet of film was shot.
  
  
• Hans Zimmer, the composer on the film along with John Powell (who provided additional music) composed over four hours of music on this film, presumably for the original director's cut of the film. However, when director Terrence Malick re-cut the film down to its current running time of 170 minutes, he chose only a few select pieces of music from Zimmer's and Powell's musical contributions, along with original source music and that's what ended up in the theatrical edition of the film.
  
  
• Three actors from Casualties of War (1989) are in this film: Sean Penn, John C. Reilly and Don Harvey. Although they are all higher in rank in this film, Reilly and Harvey are once again under Penn's command.
  
  
• In the final narration by Train (John Dee Smith), he says, "Darkness and Light. Strife and Love. Are they the workings of one mind, the features of the same face?" This is a slight misquote of William Wordsworth's Prelude: Book Six, lines 636-8: "Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light / Were all like workings of one mind, the features / Of the same face".
  
  
• While most of the character names are consistent in all three versions, the Captain's name is not: it's Stein in the novel, Stone in the 1964 film, and Staros in the 1998 version.
  
  
• Before pre-production began, director Terrence Malick walked on foot across the entire southwest, stopping periodically to call producers Robert Michael Geisler and Grant Hill to talk about the meaning of the film.
  
  
• In the script, the part of Cpl. Fife (Adrien Brody) was one of the meatiest, although he barely speaks a line in the finished film.
  
  
• Producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau fell out with director Terrence Malick during pre-production. By the time they were filming, their relationship had so deteriorated that Malick barred them from visiting the set.
  
  
• The piece of music playing in the scene with the captured Japanese soldier is called "The Unanswered Question" by Charles Ives.
  
  
• Terrence Malick changed Elias Koteas's character's name so late in the production that the costume can be seen with the name Stein on it, not Staros.
  
  
• In the film's script, much of the characters' speech and much of the narration are actually lines taken from the James Jones novel "From Here to Eternity". For example, Witt frequently speaks the words of Private Pruitt, and Sergeant Welsh speaks the words of Sergeant Warden.
  
  
• Average Shot Length = ~7.9 Seconds. Median Shot Length = ~8.4 seconds.
  
  
• Edward Norton was offered a role in the film but turned it down.
  
  
• Several lines of dialogue are sampled in the song "Eye for an Eye" by UNKLE.
  
  
• Billy Bob Thornton recorded a narration for the three-hour-plus epic under the supervision of director Terrence Malick. However, the final print of the film has voice-overs by eight of the main characters in the film; none of the narration from Thornton is in the final print. In addition, several other stars who filmed scenes were left on the cutting-room floor, including Bill Pullman, Gary Oldman, Lukas Haas, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke.
  
  
• The movie was almost not made. Sony Pictures dropped plans to produce it because of fears that it couldn't be made for its then $45-million budget. Fortunately, Fox Pictures came to the rescue by providing most of the cash.
  
  
• Terrence Malick shot for 100 days in Australia, 24 in the Solomon Islands and three in the United States.
  
  
• Prior to the film's release, producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau allegedly violated a confidentiality clause they had signed by giving an interview to Vanity Fair about their long involvement with Terrence Malick and the film. Malick was upset by this. Geisler and Roberdeau had to sign another agreement stating they would not attend the Oscars ceremony. If they violated that agreement, their names would be stripped from the film and video credits.
  
  
• Producers Robert Michael Geisler and John Roberdeau, who were feuding with Terrence Malick, said they would attend the Oscars ceremony. Malick said if they were going to attend, he would stay home. None of them attended the Oscars. The movie won no awards.
  
  
• Music Editor Lee Scott and Francisco Lupica, the creator and performer of the Cosmic Beam, provided the haunting "metalic" sound to the films score. What sounds like a large distant bell is actually the Cosmic Beam.
  
  
• James Jones got the title of his book from the poem "Tommy" by Rudyard Kipling, Kipling's commentary of how "society" looks down on the military until "society" needs to be defended. A couplet that contains the line is, "Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' 'Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?'/But it's 'Thin red line of 'eroes' when the drums begin to roll,"
  
  
• Nick Nolte, as Lt. Col. Tall, says to Capt. Staros on the dawn of the day of the attack, "Eos rhododoctoros . . . rosy-fingered dawn." He uses the second part of that line, "Rosy-fingered dawn" again in a later movie, The Good Thief (2002/I).
  
  
• The majority of soldiers' names are only one syllable long: Tall (Nick Nolte), Fife (Adrien Brody), Witt (James Caviezel), Gaff (John Cusack), Welsh (Sean Penn).
  
  

• SPOILER: The Japanese soldier that shoots Witt at the end of the movie is saying "Surrender, It's you who killed my friends, but I have no desire to kill you. You are surrounded, please surrender".
  
  

Related Links