The New World: A Terence Malick Masterpiece!

The New World: A Terence Malick Masterpiece.

By

James P. Zaworski

I think that the meeting of two cultures is a fascinating phenomenon. In the history of humankind, this meeting has happened time and again. One such meeting occurred between the English settlers of Jamestown and the Powhatan Native Americans in 1607.
The contrasting ambitions and prospects of the English settlers and the Powhatan and other Native American peoples who live in harmony with their environment are the two general themes of the film. How these themes are spun in the realm of the fabric of history, psychology, and anthropology, through wonderful film making, is the true subject of this film. In a larger sense, this is not a history movie. It is a movie about the human condition, the human feeling, the human experience through the medium of a historical event. In at least his last two films, this has been Malick’s theme.

The Plot.

The film follows the course of the English attempt to settle a colony in the New World.
This place turns out to be Jamestown. We start out with views of the wilderness of Virginia, tall pines, cypress swamps, marshes, forests and meadows. The English ships are coming over in an early settlement attempt to the colony of Virginia. It is a wild and untamed land to the British eyes, and one that needs to be “tamed”. As the settlers wade ashore, they find a land of plenty, with huge oysters ripe for the picking, and vast resources of timber and fish.

The Captain (played by Christopher Plummer), sets up and establishes the colony boundaries, and we get to see that even at the approach of the great ships, the Native Americans, represented here by the Powhatan, are fully aware of this intrusion into their territory.

John Smith (played by Colin Farrell), is about to be hanged for some infringement of the rules made during the passage, and is pardoned by the Captain in charge of the venture, and since Smith is the only member of the colonials who has had military training, and he is put in charge of exploring the area. Specifically, there are rumors of a “great chief” who lives upstream, and it is Smith’s task to take some men along on an expedition to make introduction and to establish trading relations with him.


In the mean time, the natives are very curious about the newcomers, and vice versa. They appear and disappear, but are ever gentle and curious. A great number finally come to meet with them and to satisfy their curiosity, do some trading, and maybe a little harmless stealing. Among them are a beautiful and young girl, very playful and wonderfully free spirited, who often is seen playing with her brother close in age. This is Pocahontas, the daughter of the chief of the Powhatan.

The Captain departs for England, and the colony is left in charge of a rather jealous and zealous man who is rather envious of Smith. After initial contact with the Powhatan, a stockade style fort is erected around the settlement, as Smith goes off upriver with some of the locals (in chains), in tow as guides.

Everything then proceeds to go wrong for Smith. First of all, he is wearing armor in full, with sword and pistol. They set off in a dugout, and when they depart the boat, they get separated and one by one disappear from Smith’s side. He is then lost in a cypress swamp, and is attacked, and captured and brought to the great chief of the Powhatan .

He is stripped of his iron clothing and brought to bear before the chief and the elders and shaman of the Powhatan. This strange and bewildering situation seems to be going badly for Smith, and he is about to be put to death when the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, throws herself onto him and to “spare his life”.

The chief agrees, and orders his daughter to learn the ways and language of the newcomers, and to instill upon them that they are not really welcome in the territory of the Powhatan, and that he expects them to leave the following spring, after the winter.

Smith becomes an honorary member of the tribe, and learns many of the ways of the Powhatan. He sees how they live in great harmony with nature, and their society is very peaceful and gentle. He learns this through the teaching of Pocahontas, and soon the two fall deeply in love with one another.

The plot thickens as Smith returns to Jamestown, where he finds the settlers living in squalor and near starvation, in stark contrast to the plenty that the natives enjoy. Smith is accused of treachery by the jealous and newly elected “president” of Jamestown, but this man is killed when trying to arrest and have Smith hanged.

Smith is then elected to the post of president, and grimly presides over the declining colony, who have resorted to occasional cannibalism. Pocahontas comes to the rescue, bringing game and corn in plenty, as well as corn seeds for the coming spring planting.

The colony then continues on into the spring and early summer, planting gardens. The Powhatan, who have lived peacefully with the intruders up until now, find out that the newcomers have no intention of leaving. They arrange and organize a great war party to attack the colony and drive them into the sea. A great and violent battle ensues with heavy losses on each side. The result is a stalemate, with neither side gaining the advantage.

Smith is deposed as leader, and the plot is hatched to capture Pocahontas and hold her as hostage for ransom or some other form of blackmail. This advantage is pressed by the enemies of the Powhatan, and they are forced from their seat of regional geographic power and influence.

The captain returns, and Smith returns to England, with specific instructions to tell Pocahontas that he has died, two months after his departure.

This happens, and she is devastated. Living among the English settlers, she is literally beside herself with grief, and finally is noticed by a young English gentleman, who takes a fancy to her, and is kind to her. After some time, she accepts his affections, though very reluctantly. In her eyes, she has been widowed by the love of her life, and is totally devastated.

They get married, and she eventually accepts the new gentleman as husband, bears a child, and they are living quite happily in their own cabin outside of the stockade settlement when she hears rumors that Captain Smith is indeed alive and well. A dagger of despair again enters her heart, as she realizes she is married to two different men at once, through no fault of hers.

At that time, they are summoned to England to the court of King James, where she is to be presented to the royal couple and to be an ambassador of sorts of native peoples, now considered to be subjects of the British crown.

She does so brilliantly, dressing up in the latest lavish fashion of the day. Still haunted by the love she has for Smith, her husband summons him to visit, and hopes that her heart will be stilled by this final meeting. It is and she finally accepts her own husband at last.
However, she catches sick and dies.


What I Like About New World.

Writing and the Plot.

This movie was a specially written and adapted version of this time in history by Director Terence Malick himself. The plot is interesting, bold, and with the twist in the middle. That twist is that Pocahontas does not end up with Smith, that she marries somebody else at the behest and deception of Smith.

The historical account of Smith comes directly from his own mouth, and most historians question his veracity. The story of Smith and Pocahontas have been woven into the fabric of American folklore and legend, but the time was perhaps ripe for a little revisionist look at the story.

Directing, Editing, Cinematography.

Terence Malick has done something like four feature length films in his thirty plus years of doing film. I’ve been to see two of them in the theater, this one and Thin Red Line. Both movies are breath taking in their visual aspects, in scope, and in the great contrasting themes of man and nature, the depths of the psyche, human nature, and the constant questioning of life and the self examination that comes with philosophy and introspection. Intertwine these concepts and themes with a broader look at human cultures and societies, and you get a wonderful perspective from which to make a sweeping film. That’s what this is.

The Actors and Acting.

Q’Orianka Kilcher plays Pocahontas. She is Quechuan/Peruvian Native American, and German/Swiss in her ethnicity. She is an absolute beauty and a wonderful natural to play “the playful one”, Pocahontas. I loved her portrayal of this woman of legend and history, and the camera absolutely loves her (as Malick does as well, it seems). This is her debut performance in a feature role, and I think she did a very excellent job of it. Look for more from this raving beauty as she matures and perfects her craft.

Colin Farrell plays John Smith. He does a good job as well of acting this part, although half of the time he plays the oft too recurring role of “tortured ponce”. I couldn’t help but see him as Alexander the Great again. I think he is a bit over rated, but he does an adequate job in this film.

Christopher Plummer plays in this film, albeit briefly. He has played so many roles and made so many cameos in his career, his part lends a certain legitimacy to the film as well. He does a good job acting his part.

August Schellenberg plays the chief Powhatan, and he always seems to play the role as some important native chieftain, in this film or in films like Black Robe (http://www.epinions.com/content_32970083972). He does a fine acting job here as well.

Wes Studi is also in the film, and plays the shaman of the tribe. This actor always plays some interesting, and usually “bad guy”, character in Native American films. He was “Magwa” in Last of the Mohicans, and played the Pawnee raider in Dances with Wolves, and has more recently been seen in the Tony Hillerman film adaptations as Officer Leaply in such stories as Coyote Waits, recently seen on PBS. Studi plays a more benign role her, that of the medicine man who is sent with Pocahontas to England. He does a good job playing the “cultural ambassador” of his people, as he gazes at the ordered gardens of the British royals.

The Scenery.

Malick takes the ball and runs with it here, as he does in Thin Red Line. Oh man, you get a view of some of what the North American continent looked like at the time of European colonization. That is, pristine wilderness! Cypress swamps, the Atlantic Ocean, storms, trees, meadows of lush grass, vast and tangled forests, animals and bird life, swamps and marshes, and the harmonious existence of native peoples living in tune with, and part of, their environment. I wish Malick would do nature films too!

The Themes:

The dominant themes in this film are: Man in Harmony with Nature/Man in Disharmony with Nature; Society in Harmony/Society in Discord and The “Clash of Cultures” and Love and Honesty/Truth and Deception.

The meeting of two different cultures can be seen from the perspective of one culture, or from the other culture, but rarely are the two different perspectives compared and contrasted and made apparent in a two hour and a half long film. This film attempts to do that, with a bit of a slant towards the native perspective, which is cool with me. I love how Malick compares and contrasts the native peoples who live in harmony with nature, rarely fight with one another, and have plenty and no need for greed as it were, with the greed of the British, who have moral right and God on their side, yet are ravaged by the realities of trying to survive in a new environment, whilst quarrelling amongst themselves.

But, your eyes open beyond the beautiful visions of love and harmony when there is violence, suddenly and shockingly swift in its manifestation from both groups. Human nature is laid bare as a common thread binding us all, common to culture and showing that we are all capable of, on the one hand, of beautiful expressions of love, tenderness, caring, sharing, and the like, and on the other hand, of terrible expressions of violence, hate, disrespect, greed and selfishness. Malick does a wonderful job laying these out on the table for us all to look into the collective mirror and shrink away from.

All in all, I really enjoyed this film! I get the feeling that Malick could just lay on the ground and film pine trees all day just as eagerly as he filmed Q’Orianka all day. I think the movie is an important one, and while it is not the best film out there, it is certainly a deeper film in content and meaning than most as well. I give it five stars out of five. But hey, I’m an anthropologist who likes these sorts of films.