The New World
Dir: Terrence Malick
2005
**
I have a huge problem with Disney’s Pocahontas.
Pocahontas, real name Matoaka – later Rebecca Rolfe – was an exploited child.
She was said to be have been between 10-12 years old when John Smith claimed
her, so every time I see one of my young nieces – or any young girl – wearing a
Disney Pocahontas dress or playing with a Pocahontas doll, I shudder with
disgust, knowing that a big company is rewriting a nasty piece of history to
sell stuff to innocent youth. Pocahontas was snatched as a child to be the
sex-slave of an older man who had been at sea for many months. John Rolfe may
well have loved her, but she was ripped from her home, exploited and died at a
young age. She grew up in paradise and died in Gravesend of all places. She is
not a ‘Disney Princess’. So when in 2005, the great but elusive Terrence
Malick, who had made four fine films at that point – decades apart, announced
that he was going to make a film about the founding of the Jamestown
Settlement, it was met with excitement and jubilation. His 1998 epic The Thin
Red Line was brilliant, a film well worth waiting twenty years for, and the
fact that we only had to wait seven years for his next felt like a dream come
true. However, as wonderfully dreamlike it was and how beautiful it looked, The
New World represented the film whereby Malick’s legendary status was
shattered. It looked like a perfume advert but wasn’t anywhere near as
entertaining. One man’s ‘dreamlike’ is another mans ‘whishy-washy’, sure the
colours popped right out of the screen but there was no depth to it. It felt
like being given some fruit juice that says it is free from colour and
additives, only to discover it glows in the dark. And your lips fall off. It’s
not very often something can be so beautiful-looking and also so nauseating
(although an ex-girlfriend springs to mind – meow). It’s a million times more
watchable than Malick’s later films; To The Wonder and Knight of Cups, but I
found it hard work all the same. I’m not sure Colin Farrell was best cast as
John Smith, although I’m not sure anyone could be accused of really acting in
the film. Q’orianka Kilcher is the best thing about the film, her performance
of Matoaka is an impressive debut and I respected the fact that she was only 12
when she played the part as she was in real life. I think the only other actors
you could accuse of good performances are Christopher Plummer, David Thewlis
and Eddie Marsan. Christopher Plummer’s part was cut to ribbons and when he
discovered that one of his characters most important speeches had been reduced
to background noise he vowed never to work with Malick again. Thewlis’ talents
were wasted yet again and Marsan’s brilliant scene was only seconds long. I
will say that I respect the rules that Malick imposed on himself and
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki; No artificial lights, no crane or dolly shots
- just handheld Steadicams, everything to be shot in the subjective view, all
shots in deep-focus (foreground and background visible and focused), camera crew
encouraged to shoot unexpected things that might happen/catch their eye that
instinct tells them they should film and no shot deemed to have visual strength
shall not be used. The problem is however, that as Emmanuel Lubezki later
admitted. Most of these rules were broken, artificial light was used often and
there are plenty of shallow-focus shots. Malick was sent a bottle of champagne
from Kodak, after they learned that he was the first director to use over one
million feet of their film stock. Great for Kodak, but for me this is a sign of
terrible direction. Christian Bale later spoke of Malick’s directing style and
said he wanted to test the director and see what he’d do if he just walked out
of a shot. Apparently Malik just followed him and there were crew members
everywhere running away and jumping into bushes. Malick filmed the movie around
an already completed score (rather than the other way round) and almost all of
the dialog had to dubbed in post-production because Malick – the director! –
could be heard talking in the background. This greatly respected and
mysteriously elusive director seemed to be something of a charlatan. I’ve got a
lot of time for the experimenters and the eccentrics but The New
World is the work of an amateur director and a brilliant
cinematographer. Could Badlands, Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line have been
luck? He got in trouble for his timekeeping during Days of Heaven and didn’t
work again for twenty years, but everything he’s made since The New World has
been samey, ‘dreamlike’ and about as nauseating as it gets. Calvin Kline should
sue.
