Skip to main content

The New World

By

I found Terrence Malick's The New World very well done, and interesting in that he appeared to cull his story from the diaries of Pocahontas/Rebecca, John Smith and John Rolfe, giving the story a deep personal feeling not often seen in movies.  I also thought that Pocahontas was beautifully portrayed by Q'orianka Kilcher. The cinematography was breathtaking and really did capture the sense of a "New World," before Jamestown came to efface the landscape.

Comments

  1. NYT PerduMarch 10, 2010 at 7:24 AM

    Couldn't agree more about the virtues of that movie, was entranced throughout, and not just because it was photographed near where I grew up. (It even brought my single imdb entry correcting their spelling of the Chickahominy River) and the tale/characters were familiar. It was great to see the SF Chronicle main reviewer put it way up there on his list of movies of the decade (OK, so the decade wasn't over last year but everybody and his bro. was writing such things, so...)

    Malick's movies--at least, this one and "Days of Heaven"--can make me feel a strong sense of "what's been lost." Haunting, both of 'em.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonMarch 10, 2010 at 1:10 PM

    I've always liked Malick. I consider him one of the most conscientious filmmakers. His films could be a little more hard hitting, but I very much like the way he "explores" his cinematic terrains.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

O Pioneers!

By
It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer.  Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions.  I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters.  Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs.  Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77.  I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not.  Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi
12 comments
Read more

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Colonel

By
Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud.  -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!
240 comments
Read more