| The New World | |
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| Directed by | Terrence Malick |
| Written by | Terrence Malick |
| Produced by | Sarah Green |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Emmanuel Lubezki |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | James Horner |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | New Line Cinema (Worldwide) Entertainment Film Distributors (United Kingdom and Ireland)[1] |
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| Budget | $30 million[1] |
| Box office | $49.3 million[1] |
The New World is a 2005historicalromanticdrama film written and directed byTerrence Malick, depicting thefounding of the Jamestown, Virginia, settlement and inspired by the historical figuresCaptain John Smith,Pocahontas of thePowhatan tribe, and EnglishmanJohn Rolfe. It is the fourth feature film written and directed by Malick.
The cast includesColin Farrell,Q'orianka Kilcher,Christopher Plummer,Christian Bale,August Schellenberg,Wes Studi,David Thewlis,Yorick van Wageningen andJohn Savage. The production team includes director of photographyEmmanuel Lubezki, producerSarah Green, production designerJack Fisk, costume designerJacqueline West, composerJames Horner and film editorsRichard Chew,Hank Corwin,Saar Klein and Mark Yoshikawa.
The New World was a box-office failure even though it received many award nominations for Lubezki's cinematography, Kilcher's acting and Horner's score. The film was initially met with an only mildly positive critical response, although several critics later ranked it as one of the best films of the decade.
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In 1607,Pocahontas, the adventurous daughter ofChief Powhatan, and others from her tribe witness thearrival of three ships sent byEnglishroyal charter to found a colony in theNew World. Aboard one ship isCaptain John Smith, sentenced to death for mutinous remarks, but once ashore pardoned by CaptainChristopher Newport, leader of the expedition.
While the settlement's prospects are initially bright, disease, poor discipline, supply shortages, and tensions with local Native Americans, whom Newport calls "the naturals", jeopardize the expedition. Taking a small group upriver to seek trade while Newport returns to England for supplies, Smith is captured by Native Americans and brought before Chief Powhatan. After being questioned, the captain is nearly executed, but Pocahontas intervenes and he is spared.
Living as the Native Americans' prisoner, Smith is treated well, earning the tribe's friendship and respect. Coming to admire this new way of life, he falls deeply in love with Pocahontas, who is intrigued by the Englishman and his ways. The chief returns Smith to Jamestown with the understanding that the English are to leave the following spring, once their boats return.
Smith discovers the settlement in turmoil and is pressed into accepting the governorship, finding the peace he had with the Natives replaced by privation, death, and the difficulties of his new position. Smith wishes to return to Pocahontas but dismisses the idea, thinking of his time among the Native Americans as "a dream". The settlers dwindle throughout the brutal winter, and are saved only when Pocahontas and a rescue party arrive with food, clothing, and supplies.
As spring arrives, Powhatan realizes that the English do not intend to leave. Discovering his daughter's actions, he orders an attack on Jamestown and exiles Pocahontas. Repulsing the attack, the settlers learn of Pocahontas's banishment. The English sea captainSamuel Argall, while on a trading expedition up thePotomac River, convinces them to abduct Pocahontas from thePatawomecks as a prisoner in order to negotiate with her father in exchange for captive settlers, but not for their stolen weapons and tools. Opposing this plan, Smith is removed as governor and imprisoned, but renews his love affair after Pocahontas is brought to Jamestown. Captain Newport returns, freeing Smith and telling him of an offer from theking to lead his own expedition to find passage to theEast Indies. Torn between his love and his career, Smith decides to return to England. Before departing, he leaves instructions with another settler, who later tells Pocahontas that Smith died in the crossing.
Devastated, Pocahontas sinks into depression. Living in Jamestown, she is eventually comforted by a new settler,John Rolfe, who helps her adapt to the English way of life. She is baptized, educated, and eventually married to Rolfe and gives birth to a son,Thomas. She later learns Captain Smith is still alive, news to which she has a violent reaction; she finds herself rejecting Rolfe and retreats to her loyalty to Smith, thinking fate spared his life and they are to be reunited. Rolfe and his family are given a chance to travel to England. Arriving in London and sharing an audience with the king and queen, Pocahontas is overwhelmed by the wonders of this "New World".
She meets privately with Smith, who admits he may have made a mistake in choosing his career over Pocahontas. He says that what they experienced in Virginia was not a dream but instead "the only truth". Asked if he ever found his Indies, he replies, "I may have sailed past them." They part, never to meet again. Realizing Rolfe is the man she thought he was and more, Pocahontas finally accepts him as her husband and love. The couple make arrangements to return to Virginia, but Pocahontas falls ill and dies nearGravesend. Rolfe still decides to return to Virginia with Thomas.
The film ends with images of the young adult Pocahontas and her young son happily playing in the gardens of their English estate. Rolfe, in avoice-over, reads a letter addressed to their only son about his deceased Native American mother, who is heard to say, "Mother, now I know where you live," with concluding images of nature in the New World.
Terrence Malick began work on the script forThe New World in the late 1970s.[4] AfterThe Thin Red Line, Malick worked on a film aboutChe Guevara and his failed revolution inBolivia. When financing had yet to come through, Malick was offered the chance to directThe New World and left the Guevara project in March 2004.[5] Production onThe New World was underway by July of that year.[6]
The New World was the first collaboration between Malick and cinematographerEmmanuel Lubezki. The film was notable for its emphasis on authenticity, from location, settings and costumes to the casting of Native American actors and extras who were trained byBlair Rudes, professor oflinguistics atUNC-Charlotte, to speak a form of theextinctPowhatan language (a type ofVirginianAlgonquian) reconstructed for the film by Rudes.[7] Some footage was also filmed atHatfield House in Hertfordshire, England.[8]Principal photography wrapped after three and a half months in November 2004.[6]
The film was originally set to be released in November 2005, but release had to be postponed. Malick was still editing the footage he had shot. He is well known for editing his films up until the last minute,[9] often trimming his films and leaving entire characters out of the final print, as is the case withThe Thin Red Line. In early December, a 150-minute version was shown to critics for awards season consideration. It was released for a week from Christmas to New Year's Day in two theaters each in Los Angeles and New York to qualify for theAcademy Awards.
For the film'swide release, which began on January 20, 2006, Malick re-edited the film, cutting it to 135 minutes, but also adding footage not seen in the first release. He altered some of the film's extensive voiceovers to clarify the plot. Substantial changes were made to the first half-hour of the picture, seemingly to speed the plot along.[10]
| The New World | ||||
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| Released | January 24, 2006 | |||
| Label | WaterTower | |||
| James Horner chronology | ||||
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| Source | Rating |
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| SoundtrackNet | |
Themusical score forThe New World was composed byJames Horner. He worked first from the script and then from edited scenes. As the film was re-edited, more changes to the score were required. Because Malick's editing was extensive and involved reordering or dropping passages or inserting sequences, much of Horner's score was not used.[11] For the final version, Malick used sections of Horner's music along with the prelude toWagner'sDas Rheingold,Mozart'sPiano Concerto No. 23, and other pieces. Horner andGlen Ballard wrote and recorded the song "Listen to the Wind", sung byHayley Westenra, for the closing credits, but this too was unused.[12]
OnRotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 63% based on 191 reviews, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Despite arresting visuals and strong lead performances,The New World suffers from an unfocused narrative that will challenge viewers' attention spans over its 2 1/2 hours."[13] Review aggregatorMetacritic gave the film a score of 73 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[14] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale.[15]
Roger Ebert awarded the film a full four out of four, arguing that "what distinguishes Malick's film is how firmly he refuses to know more than he should...The events in his film, including the tragic battles between the Indians and the settlers, seem to be happening for the first time."[16] He also lauded Malick as a "visionary".Mick LaSalle of theSan Francisco Chronicle hailed the film as "a masterpiece",[17] while others such asTy Burr ofThe Boston Globe,[18]Peter Travers ofRolling Stone,[19]Richard Corliss ofTime,[20] andDavid Ansen ofNewsweek[21] gave positive reviews.
On the other hand,Stephen Hunter ofThe Washington Post faulted the film for being "stately almost to the point of being static",[22] whileJoe Morgenstern ofThe Wall Street Journal criticized it as "sluggish", "underdramatized", and "emotionally remote".[23] While its release was timed for consideration for the awards season, it was nominated only for theAcademy Award for Best Cinematography forEmmanuel Lubezki at the78th Academy Awards.
In November 2009,Time Out New York ranked the film as the fourth best of the decade, saying, "The particular power of thistone poem comes from how quietly resigned both characters are to their fates, as if they sense a guiding hand in their every action. The final passages of Malick'sidyll, after Pocahontas takes a fateful ocean journey, are the finest work of his career, most notably in his portrayal of the princess's death and transfiguration—a shattering five-minute sequence that never fails to move."[24] In January 2010, Mick LaSalle of theSan Francisco Chronicle designated it the number one film of the decade:
Terence Malick's one-of-a-kind film, about the life of Pocahontas and the dawn of American history, contains some of the best filmmaking imaginable – some of it beyond imagining. I have seen it at least five times and have no idea how Malick knew, when he put it all together, that the movie would even make sense. It's difficult to write a great short poem. It's difficult to write a great long novel. But to write a great long poem that's the size of a great long novel – one that makes sense, doesn't flag and is exponentially better than the short poem or the long novel ever would have been – that's almost impossible. Malick did it. With images.[25]
The French film magazineCahiers du cinéma ranked the film as 9th place in its list of best films of the decade 2000–2009.[26] Film and television criticMatt Zoller Seitz has said it is his favorite film.[27]
InThe Guardian, John Patterson writes thatThe New World "doesn't have fans, just fanatics":
This decade hasn't been up to much, movie-wise, but I am more than ever convinced that when every other scrap of celluloid from 2000-2009 has crumbled to dust, one film will remain, like someOzymandias-like remnant of transient vanished glory in the desert. And that film isThe New World, Terrence Malick's American foundation myth, which arrived just as the decade reached its dismal halfway point, in January 2006. ...The New World is a bottomless movie, almost unspeakably beautiful and formally harmonious. The movie came and went within a month, and its critical reception was characterised for the most part by bafflement, condescension, lazy ridicule and outright hostility. ... Its siblings are to be found throughout movie history and across all national and stylistic boundaries, from the silents toJean-Luc Godard,James Benning andStan Brakhage, or inWinstanley andBarry Lyndon. Its cultural hinterland is made up not just of other movies, but ofBuddhism,ethnography andnaturalism, Wagner, Mozart and the structural forms of classical music, Malick's enthusiasm for bird-watching, and a helping ofHeidegger andKant ... It is both ancient and modern, cinema at its purest and most organic, its simplest and most refined.[28]
In a contribution toThe cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic visions of America, film scholarMark Cousins writes, "By the end ofThe New World, it seemed to me, I had experienced something like aBach'sMass in B minor or a poem byPercy Bysshe Shelley. It was about rapture and the end of rapture. It showed me seeing. It made me sensible."[29]
In a 2016 international critics' poll conducted by theBBC,The New World was voted the 39th-greatest film since 2000.[30]
Most scholars agree that there was no romantic relationship between Pocahontas and Smith. She would have been 12 years old in 1608 when they were said to have first met.[31][32] The film also depicts Pocahontas's marriage with Rolfe as being more peaceful and socially accepted than it was historically.[33]
| Awards/Awards Body | Cast/crew member | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards[34] | Emmanuel Lubezki | Best Achievement in Cinematography | Nominated |
| ALMA Awards[35] | Q'orianka Kilcher | Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture | Won |
| Broadcast Film Critics Association[36] | James Horner | Best Composer | Nominated |
| Q'orianka Kilcher | Best Young Actress | Nominated | |
| Chicago Film Critics Association[37] | Emmanuel Lubezki | Best Achievement in Cinematography | Nominated |
| Q'orianka Kilcher | Most Promising Performer | Nominated | |
| Mar del Plata Film Festival[38][39] | Emmanuel Lubezki | Kodak Award | Won |
| Terrence Malick | Best Film | Nominated | |
| National Board of Review[40] | Q'orianka Kilcher | Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actress | Won |
| Online Film Critics Society Awards[41] | Q'orianka Kilcher | Best Breakthrough Performance | Nominated |
| Emmanuel Lubezki | Best Cinematography | Nominated | |
| James Horner | Best Original Score | Nominated | |
| San Diego Film Critics Society Awards[42] | Emmanuel Lubezki | Best Cinematography | Won |
| Washington DC Area Film Critics Association[43] | Q'orianka Kilcher | Best Breakthrough Performance | Nominated |
| Young Artist Awards[44] | Q'orianka Kilcher | Best Performance in a Feature Film (Comedy or Drama) – Leading Young Actress | Nominated |
A third, 172-minute version, dubbed "The Extended Cut", was issued by New Line onDVD in October 2008.[45] It contains new scenes and expansions to other scenes. The 135-minute and 172-minute cuts are widely available on DVD worldwide, with the 172-minute cut also released onBlu-ray. The 150-minute version was released commercially only twice—as a Digital Download briefly available to buyers of the US "Extended Cut" DVD in 2008, and on DVD in Italy as part of Italian distributor Eagle Pictures's 2-disc set, containing both the 150-minute and 135-minute versions of the film.
On July 26, 2016, all three cuts were released on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States byThe Criterion Collection with the 172-minute extended cut from a new 4K digital restoration supervised by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and director Terrence Malick.[46]
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