journeytotheline

The cue on the score release (9:21)

Now it begins with the clicking rhythm that suggests a ticking clock with high and low woodwinds. There's a very interesting build up in it that starts of with just primarly string bass (that's the lower kind) until it reaches a higher level with upper strings, which evoke a very sorrow and mournful atmosphere. The slow, calm handling of the build up is perhaps much stronger than when it would have been played faster. Just as with Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, I prefer the slower, original intention of Barber that reaches deeper and obviously longer in your soul. Than this build up in Journey reaches a most incredible and unforgettable powerful climax, an explosion of both the French horn as well as a electronic burst and rather low-key taiko drum use. In this climax one may recognize something that Zimmer uses quite often; one that burst out with swelling sounds for a considerable short period of time while after that fading away. The explosion last for a roughly little but 40 seconds, but that's all the time it will need you to get some definite goose bumps. Than the very rhythm and instrumentation of the opening is again utilized, but soon developed or changed to a much lighter approach of minimalism. The melody from strings is used as a wave going up and in down to fade out into a final extended wave.

Journey to the Line, what's there to say about this magnicifent piece of score by Hans Zimmer? Well a great deal actually. I'll ellaborate on the cue on cd, its use in the film and other score surrounding this music. Let me first say that director Terence Malick had a certain long montages in his mind and so Zimmer had composed a piece that could carry that. Because of the very large amount of scoring footage, there's no guarantee that Journey to the Line was meant the way as presented on the RCA Victor release, but there is great amount of confidence that that version comes close.

The cue in the film:

Litutenant Colonell Tall is prepared to take on Hill 210 and succeeds in leading his C-Company. He wants to continue moving forward now they have some time of victory on their hand. Lots of dead bodies and smog is shown. Journey to the Line starts as we see Fife looking at a corpse, followed by sequences where both the Americans as well as the Japanese prepare for battle. The ticking clock is heard in higher volume than as you're used to on the cd, because of the reason this is film, and there is more sound than just the music.
The company is seeking through the forest and fog, where the inevitable confrontation begins to errupt. This slaughter continues in the small village and the cue progresses towards the climax while we already see a lot horrifying images of killings. Until now the cue is just the same as heard on the score release cd. The orchestra plays the crescendo that reaches its highpoint, the climax, but before that happens fairly loud taiko drums also helps out. This is the major difference between the cue here and in on the album. The bells and taiko drums also play at much higher grounds as on the cd. So the main difference is roughly everything is played less louder in volume on its album version. At first the whole fight between the two armies especially shows how brutal man can be, while the music after the climax does work more on the actual reactions of both sides on the cruelty, which is a much stronger keypoint if you ask me. Lots of focus on wounded soldiers, some of them crying out their longs, the whole situation full of despair and pain, all wounded. The spectator is an eye-witness of this all, in a very isolated way. Zimmer's score does take over the entire longs sequences with his cue, making the emotional impact relie most on images and music. It shouldn't leave you unshaken behind as the tragedy strikes upon your soul. The higher pitches strings suggest, throughout the film by the way, the most ethereal feeling you could imagine. And of a result it puts you there, down there in the battlefield as one of these soldiers.

After this private Witt's voice over continues and the strings of Journey continue, but different from the album version. This minimalism is much shorter and continues with an entirely different melody.The voice over goes as follows:

''This great evil, where does it come from?
How did it steal into the world?
From what seed, what rout did it grow from?
Who's doing this?
What's killing us, obbing us of light and life?
Mocking us with the sight of what we've might have known?
Does our ruin benefit the earth? (minimalism part of the cue begins to develop around here)
Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine?
Is there darkness in you too?
Have you passed through this night?

At this certain point we get a piece of dialogue between an American soldier and a Japanese one for a few moments and than the Jap looks up the sky at the vultures in the sky. When this occurs an different Journey film version has definitely ended with a short pause, followed by a part of ''The Unsawered Question'' by Charles Ives is used. That particular part was originally written with questioning people's existence in his mind. The brass used there does to be very confusing in a way. But I leave that over to everyone's own interpretation by quoting First Sergeant Welsch in one of his voice-overs:

''One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there's nothing but unanswered pain. But 's got the final word. It's laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird feels the glory, feels something smiling through him.''

Well this quote might just more allude to a certain point where a bird is actually shown dying while the company is enduring heavy enemy fire.

The significance of Journey to the Line and variations in the film

First of all the title The Thin Red Line itself refers to the saying that ''There's only a thin red line between the sane and the mad''. So the cue does become a quite important musical theme in the film. The theme is heard throughout the film, yet without the ticking clock. When Caviezel is placed in a cell onboard the marine ship in the beginning of the film, that's when we first hear it. On the mission of Tall the theme is shed throughout the movement in the hills or in the forest. Because each moment a soldier can go entirely mad. And so much of the film centers around the taking of the particular hill and territory behind that hill. Having said that, the theme should have a most for filling version for this crucial point in the film, which it did get. Of course the score and its use in this film is very much similar to many other filmscores that just have this one gorgeous piece, that transforms into a very present theme, cut for a lot of sequences. While generally I simply can begin to loose interest when a score does nothing else than provide another rendition of the theme, there's nothing wrong at all with it in TRL.

Journey to the Line in the Pearl Harbor Trailer

Many say Pearl Harbor is a horrible film, and agree in a certain way. But the first trailer,
oh yes the trailer, that one got many people enthusiastic.The cue fits in so sublime with the images of plains flying over for the attack on the harbour.That was simply placed there to take your breath away.

Hans Zimmer:

''The good thing is that I didn't even realize it was used for the trailer. I didn't even see the trailer until way down the road. I'm always surprised by the reaction I get to The Thin Red Line - just because I know it's good, but not many people have heard it.''

''The best publicity that The Thin Red Line ever got was when Jerry Bruckheimer put it on the trailer to Pearl Harbor. Everyone wanted to know what that music was, and Bruckheimer did more for The Thin Red Line than Fox ever did for that movie.''

Alike scores, influences

This question I ask in relation to the minimalism in filmscores that seems to have become quite often used the last few years. Nickie Glennie Smith composed a piece called 'Look Around You' for We Were Soldiers that sounded quite similar, perhaps Journey was used as temp who knows. But recent developments showed that much more war movies restrain themselves much more, so do the scores, from which We Were Soldiers is not a good example. Much, much closer is for example Adagio for Strings in Platoon and the score by George Delerue. This one and Carmine Coppola's Apocalypse Now score both share a much alike poignant quality of The Thin Red Line in atmosphere. But in close relation to Journey Apocalypse may be forgotten, while adding another title: Akira Kurosawa's Ran. In that film music composed by Toru Takemitsu underscores another one of those large battles sequences, where all other sounds except for music are dismissed.

Journey to the Line performed live

You can read about what Zimmer thought of the performance and more info on the TRL related issues of the Live Concert on this page.