“Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all?”
Terrence Malick’s 1998 feature The Thin Red Line (the film from which the above screenshot and quote were taken) marked the auteur’s return to filmmaking after a nearly 20-year absence. The film, though an adaptation of James Jones’ semi-autobiographical novel about the Battle of Mount Austen during WWII, yields themes that, in true Malick fashion, have less to do with the brutality of war and more to do with basic human emotion. This naturalistic approach to filmmaking has resulted in some of the warmest, most inherently breathtaking projects of all time — an impressive feat for a director who places much of the weight of the film on sweeping, symbolic visuals.
This particular set of songs has been with me in one form or another since 2011. Aurally, they offer many of the same sensations as the visual aesthetic of a Malick film, mustering up raw feelings of nostalgia and truth. As the weather dips below freezing, “Stay Golden” provides some much-needed warmth — like the orange haze of a late-summer afternoon. Here, much like Malick, the story doesn’t necessarily matter. All that matters is the journey it takes you on.
Dive in, below.