I. Introduction

In this chapter (the last of this scope) I turn my attention to the narrativizing of the world in its own image through the metaphysical figure of nature. My aim is to find the numerous threads and analyze the intricate workings of this figure as it unfolds throughout an entire film, The Thin Red Line (Malick, USA, 1998). To know what to look out for in this case and how to read the various permutations of this complex figure will require the lenses of theory (including those theories which I have developed up to this point) in addition to the vision of philosophy, one that sees film as doing philosophy—otherwise the metaphysics of nature can go no further than the poetics of “wind in the trees.”

The figure of nature functions in films which are, of course, set in nature but, more than that, are set on sending us back to nature through paradise's backdoor. This is nature understood not only as the beauty or poetry of the world in its own image, but the poignancy of the world in its own past image—the way the world was. Here the world of the film has gone on retreat, modern technology is packed and sent away, civilization is left in its own dust. From this perspective, even the city is riddled with cracks through which nature comes back to reclaim it, making the cinematic city into a montage of mud and cement, trees and buildings, sky and smog, green and gray colors. Of course, this return to nature still takes a view of nature that risks dominating it the way humans have always dominated it.