FWIW, there've been reports that Benicio Del Toro will be play Guevara.

That is interesting. It is suprising though that with the breadth of talent that Latin American cinema offers that they haven't persuaded someone closer to the material to direct something like this.

Unfortunately, this means he has shelved The Moviegoer for now.

Should be interesting to see how he handles Pocahontas and her eventual conversion to Christianity and her marriage to John Smith.

I wonder if this will end up another historical epic with 21st century morality mixed in.

EDIT: I think I might want to explain that last statement. I'm tired of seeing these so-called movies where they take extreme liberties with actual historical events and mess with even the basic facts of the why (why did John Smith go over to America? why did Pocahontas go back with him?) and the situations surrounding it.

(Perhaps this is a partial response to what Disney did with this character - it's a reason why I quit watching the newer Disney animated films spanning throughout the rest of the 1990's - Pixar films excluded.)

Clint M wrote:
: Should be interesting to see how he handles Pocahontas and her
: eventual conversion to Christianity and her marriage to John Smith.

Yeah, given Mallick's rambling oh-what-the-hell,-we-can-always-add-wishy-washy-narration-in-post approach, it is strange to see him tackle not just one but TWO historical subjects -- I guess we won't be hearing cries of "accuracy! accuracy!" with regard to THESE projects.

Hmmm, I find myself flashing back to Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God now.

QUOTE

Unfortunately, this means he has shelved The Moviegoer for now.

Wow. I didn't know this was in the works. Coincidentally I am re-reading that right now for some reason, I would have serious reservations about seeing it filmed, there are a few ironies about that.

I thought Malick was through with Hollywood after The Thin Red Line when Fox would not let him release his rumored 4 or 5 hour cut?

I know there was some interview or article that said this... perhaps it was just a rumor.

From AICN:

[quote]Steven Soderbergh will replace Terrence Malick as the director of CHE, based on the life of Che Guevara, to star Benicio Del Toro. Production is expected to begin in South America in August 2005, and he will supervise the writing of a new script. The producers also hope that Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt, Ryan Gosling and Franka Potente will remain involved if their schedules allow them to be in South America next year.[/quote]

Small casting update from Cinescape:

Cinescape wrote:
: The film's story will present its own take on the Pocahontas love story between
: Smith and the Indian princess.

Ah, so it's going to be a revisionist legend, and not an interpretation of history, then.

http://www.powhatan.org/pocc.html

Our first glimpse of Colin Farrell as John Smith...

The official website for The New World is now up. The trailers don't seem to be available, but there is a shot-by-shot option that can be viewed. Definitely looks like a Malick film, from these shots.

Scheduled to hit theatres Nov. 9.

Actually Tim, the trailer has been up for a few weeks, now:

http://tinyurl.com/6heqf

I'm hoping the slick, New Agey feel is trailer-imposed.

We cannot allow this thread to evade the withering scorn expressed here. You go, kenmorefield!

Oh, and incidentally, Pocahontas did not marry John Smith. She married John Rolfe -- who, incidentally, was the first man to successfully turn tobacco into a commercial crop, or something like that. (So much for the Disney version, where John Smith says, "Hey, look, she can show us how to grow ... CORN!")

I'm no Colin Farrell fan, but I'm modestly excited about seeing The New World next fall. The trio of Christian Bale, David Thewlis, and Christopher Plummer will make for a great supporting cast, methinks.

At the same time, though, the latest trailer (which played before War of the Worlds) seemed to showcase a couple of skirmishes/battles between the colonists and Indians. I thought the point of the story was that Pocahontas prevented that sort of thing (though I'm just going by the accepted myth, and haven't really read up on the subject).

I'm excited for this film. We visited the Jamestown colony last summer and there was mention of the filming done there on our tour. I'm confident that to the extent the trailer (which I recently saw) gives off a Last of the Mohicans/Dances With Wolves vibe, it's a deliberate attempt to market the movie to the genera populace like those other films, with the underlying assumption that Malick fans and cinephiles will expect something dissimilar in the finished, complete product and won't stay away.

My history lessons are a little foggy, but I don't think Pocahontas and John Smith were ever a "thing". I believe she was very young, like 12 yrs. old when they met. And if memory serves, John Smith was a short red-head who really whipped these guys into shape and was rather disliked for his methods. "If you don't work, you don't eat" was the policy at Jamestown and many of the men who came over were wealthy and didn't feel that they had to work.

If I'm confusing my early American settlers let me know.

No, you're right. She was quite young. I think her name translates as something like "playful one," and there were some stories about her being rather flirtatious.

There's been a sizeable release date change for The New World. Instead of opening in November, it will now go limited on Christmas Day and open wide much later, on January 16th. I wonder what the strategy behind this movie is. I can't imagine the box-office performance improving at all as a result of the move.

Huh. I guess that partly explains why it wasn't among the premieres in Toronto.

I'd also guess that the Christmas day release plus the January wide release date is just a way of fishing for Oscar. It's not like January is a big box-office month by typical Hollywood standards.

Does anyone know if Malick has final cut? I hope this isn't a sign that the studio is intervening in some way.

I just realized that we already had a thread on Malick's Che Guevara film here.

As for The New World ... wasn't Christian Bale, who I spotted in the new trailer for this film, in the Disney version of the Pocahontas story, too?

Yes, Peter, he was. Along with Mel Gibson.

Does anyone know if there is still a movie called The New World in existence?

Yes, and apparently Grace Hill Media is helping to promote it.

Dude, the trailers are everywhere, and have been playing for months!

Not in the universe of trailers available to me. I saw one trailer before The Constant Gardener, and that's been it. I'm worry the film has been Weinsteined somehow.

Russ wrote:
: I'm worry the film has been Weinsteined somehow.

Well, since it's a New Line film, not a Miramax film, there's no need to worry about THAT.

Still no MPAA rating. I'm not sure if Malick is gunning for PG-13 audience-friendliness, or an R for potential violence. I guess we'll see.

Methinks it's time someone changed this thread's title to The New World, since we already have a thread on the other film and we don't have any other thread on this one.

- - -

'New World' Heads to Colonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg is rolling out the red carpet for Hollywood's newest rendition of the old story of Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas. "The New World," a big-budget movie about the settling of Jamestown in 1607, will make its East Coast debut Dec. 21 at Kimball Theatre. . . . Director Terrence Malick filmed scenes at Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, and nearby locations. Officials hope "The New World" will boost tourism in Jamestown as "The Lord of the Rings" did in New Zealand. Both films are from New Line Cinema.
Associated Press, November 12

Repeating recommendation that the thread title be changed ...

I just got a note about the junket for this film, which takes place in a couple weeks, and while I do not yet know if I will be going, I do note that the "talent" scheduled to be there are all actors -- Malick himself is not in the roster.

Is he one of those "reclusive" types, then?

This thread's title has been nagging at me. If it isn't changed to The New World soon, I'm going to start losing sleep at night.

Peter, have you come to any conclusions about the junket? I'm hoping you go, (although I realize that would be easier said than done! ). This is a film that I'm really interested in hearing more about.

Have I come to any conclusions about the junket? You mean, giving it four stars out of five before I've gone to it, stuff like that?

It seems there's a pretty good chance I might go. There's also going to be a screening of this film just down the road from my place in about one hour, but I came down with a really bad bout of stomach flu yesterday and, while it seems to have abated, I'm a little nervous about stepping outside.

Reuters and the Associated Press report that Colin Farrell has checked into a treatment centre for exhaustion and medication dependency. Great, that means he won't be at the New World junket this weekend. And Malick won't be there either. Granted, the film is hard enough to market as it is, being, well, a Malick film. But do they have to make it so hard?

And I was so looking forward to asking Farrell about the Tree of Life rumours ...

Slant's critics agree: The New World is the best film of 2005.

Here's the link.

I'm getting really excited by these early reviews.

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: Slant's critics agree: The New World is the best film of 2005.

Huh.

Dang, I wish I could actually SAY something about this film. But rules are rules. No opinions, yet.

Suffice to say, though, that Malick repeats enough of his noble-savages-swimming-in-the-water footage from The Thin Red Line to make me think of the repeated (some might say repetitive) use of horse imagery and leaves-rippling-underwater imagery in Tarkovsky films. And as with that film, so with this; I wonder how much of it was planned and how much of it was just sort of cobbled together in an editing room. Which is not to say that either approach to filmmaking is necessarily more valid than the other, of course...

Oh, and the James Horner score is fairly restrained -- for Horner, at least. In fact, I never in a million years would have guessed that Malick would team up with a composer like Horner, of all people -- so it came as a bit of a shock to me when, about five or ten seconds into the opening credits, I heard a motif that made me think, "Hey, this must be James Horner!" And sure enough, it was. (Then again, I wonder how many of the orchestral bits were Horner and how many were among the classical cues listed in the closing credits...)

Oh, Jeff, how I wish you could be here for this junket.

After the screening, there were a fair number of people griping about how long and elliptical the film was, and there was also at least one guy insistently arguing that, to people who eat nothing but Snickers, a meal of real food will of course be off-putting. And then there was the person who seemed perplexed over the question of how to review the film, which she figured had its good points, given that the "average" reader or moviegoer might need some "warning". (She also openly wondered her if hesitation to endorse the film reflected badly on her -- "Have I just watched a lot of trash?" -- and another person replied, in essence, that no, no, the problem was with the film, not her.)

And that was just among the Grace Hill types.

I, of course, can't divulge my own view of the film for another week or so. Sigh. But suffice to say I'm glad I saw it a second time, because it clarified certain things for me. (And when I mentioned that I had already seen the film a week or two ago, a few people said, "And you saw it AGAIN!?")

I think I'm going to enjoy the discussion that comes out of this movie. :" border="0" alt="twisted.gif" />

Half of me wishes I had been there. This debate would have been a great example of Christian responses to film for my book.

The other half is glad I was spared the aggravation.

I don't know whether you intended this or not, but describing their reactions makes me even more eager to see this film.

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: The other half is glad I was spared the aggravation.

Oh, you would have had at least two other allies!

Including, BTW, a guy from Relevant who is also preparing a piece on Malick's films for CT. It was kind of weird, actually -- Camerin from CT was there, and this other guy was there, and I was there (but for the Canadian papers, not for CT, this time), yet you, the guy who is actually going to REVIEW this film for CT, WEREN'T there!

The roundtable interviews were an interesting mix, BTW. Neither Malick nor Farrell were at the junket, but Malick's producer was there to give the film her best pitch (and, not surprisingly, she couldn't say a thing about the Che Guevara film or Tree of Life), and the 15-year-old actress who plays Pocahontas told us she had never ever done a roundtable interview before but working with Malick was really cool, and Wes Studi (who plays Pocahontas's uncle) actually CRITICIZED the film on several levels (partly, but not entirely, because most of the stuff that had interested him in the role ended up on the cutting-room floor; then again, apparently there's a longer, three-hour version in the works for the inevitable DVD), and Christian Bale was thoughtful and positive about the whole thing and keen to discuss his research into the role.

More details to come ...

: I don't know whether you intended this or not, but describing their reactions makes me even more eager to
: see this film.

Dude, you're a Malickphile. I know just MENTIONING the film in your presence will make you even more eager to see it.

BTW, I was very happy to see that, for once, they were handing out free copies of the soundtrack, which I liked both times I saw the film (it's recognizably James Horner, but in a more restrained, less hack-ish mode). But -- arrgh -- the soundtrack album does NOT include the classical-music pieces that Malick uses several times in the film. I would have liked to have ALL that music in one tidy package.

I'll probably end up disagreeing with him, but Rex Reed cracks me up today:

The New World is about Pocahontas. Now there’s a subject the entire civilized world is dying to sink its teeth into. Peggy Lee sang the whole story in 30 seconds: “Captain Smith and Pocahontas / Had a very mad affair / When her daddy tried to kill him / She said, ‘Daddy, oh don’t you dare / He gives me fever …. ” The end. The movie is two and a half hours of paralyzing tedium.

I'm a bit surprised that the film is "PG-13" (for intense battle scenes). I was beginning to get more of an "R" vibe from the trailers.

Peter, you've got me a bit confused. I'll be interested to read your full commentary. I'm hoping the film is worth seeing, because I'm starting to get more excited.

And I will again reiterate that we should rename this thread "The New World". Please?

Jeff wrote:
: I'm a bit surprised that the film is "PG-13" (for intense battle scenes). I was beginning to get more of an "R"
: vibe from the trailers.

Really? Why? What was there in the trailers that gave that impression?

FWIW, the producer said at the junket that she didn't care for explicit sex and violence, and she said it was a conscious decision to make the fight scenes pretty non-bloody.

It just seemed to me that all the clubbings/shooting/intense music would yield a more violent end product. The trailers reminded me of the Troy teasers, actually.

Hey Jeff, since Alan isn't renaming this thread, perhaps you could...?

This was in today's Studio Briefing:

- - -

Movie Reviews: 'The New World'
The top per-theater earner was New Line's The New World, which opened on Christmas day in three theaters in New York and Los Angeles. It took in an estimated $10,333 per theater on its first day, Sunday. No estimates were provided for Monday. The film, director Terrence Malick's take on the romance between Pocahontas and John Smith, has initially received some rhapsodic reviews. "The New World is a work of breathtaking imagination, less a movie than a mode of transport, and in every sense a masterpiece." raved Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times. "In Mr. Malick's telling, Pocahontas is a woman whose story has the reach of myth and the tragic dimension of life," wrote Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. Jami Bernard in the New York Daily News was equally profuse in her praise for the film, writing: "Malick is a writer-director of extraordinary vision who is like an endangered species. Sightings of him are rare. The New World is only his fourth movie in 32 years, and it's up there with Days of Heaven in terms of ravishing visuals and a story that bundles the fate of its powerfully conflicted characters with that of the land they vainly try to tame." Jan Stuart in Newsday commented that the movie "blows centuries of dust and schoolkid romanticism from the oft-mythologized tale of Pocahontas and the English settlers, relaying old news with an abundantly poetic and visually startling point of view that makes us feel as if we're bearing witness for the very first time." But Lou Lumenick in the New York Post was not among those poetically transported by the film, concluding, "This lavish coffee-table-book of a movie gradually reveals itself as an uninvolving, crashing bore."

- - -

I haven't read these reviews themselves yet, but I wonder if all this gushing about Malick's "extraordinary vision" takes into account the way the theme of this film could easily be mistaken for the same sort of trite "noble-savages-good, civilization-bad" or "pre-discovery-America-Eden, post-discovery-America-fallen" message that we've seen in countless other stories of this sort (including Disney's cartoon).

I'm not saying Malick IS as simple or dismissable as that. But based on some of the things that have been written about this film, he does make it easy to be interpreted along those lines.

Peter, can you comment on this one yet? It has been released in some places apparently, after all.

I'm still hoping that this will end up being one of the year's best movies, but we'll see. After all, it may turn out to be an ultra-PC tree-hugging flick like the Disney Pocahontas cartoon. From what I've read, it may be something more akin to Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans , though consequently I hope that it has a more interesting story and better character development.

Hey Jeff! Ask Stef how much he loves Last of the Mohicans.

It's one of my all time favourite films.

One of your favorites? Well, I can certainly agree that it's pretty good, and I loved the cinematography/acting. But I don't think I'd put it way up top on my favorites list; BTW, do we have a thread for Mohicans?

Jeff wrote:
: I'm still hoping that this will end up being one of the year's best movies, but we'll see. After all, it may turn out
: to be an ultra-PC tree-hugging flick like the Disney Pocahontas cartoon.

Well, thematically, I don't think Malick and Disney are too far apart -- Pocahontas frequently addresses her "mother" (possibly her birth mother, possibly her Earth mother) in her voice-overs, and John Smith is certainly portrayed as a utopian who sees only the sunny side of the Natives. But whether Malick himself actually SHARES Smith's utopian view of Native Americans is an interesting question.

People often talk about the way Malick sets his stories in "Eden" types of settings, and in this film Malick even throws in a shot of a snake, right around the time things begin to go bad, IIRC. Those who romanticize the Noble Savage will tend to say that North America used to be Eden and the Europeans were the Serpent who ruined everything. The question is whether Malick himself is one of those who romanticize the Noble Savage. He certainly seems to WANT to do that; the Natives live in grass and trees and go for visually-poetic swims, and John Smith goes on and on about how there is supposedly no jealousy among the Natives, but the Europeans turn it all to mud and greed when they build a fort and call it Jamestown. Then again, at the junket, the producer pointed to a couple of visual elements that may undermine the utopianism of Smith's voice-over. But those elements are pretty darn subtle, compared to the more in-your-face elements of cannibalism and raving religious fanaticism, which seem to be uniquely European characteristics.

However, Malick pulls away from Disney somewhat by including one element that was absolutely missing from the Disney film. Namely, Malick includes John Rolfe, the tobacco farmer who set up the first successful agricultural business in America (tobacco!), married Pocahontas (who converted to Christianity and was christened Rebecca), and eventually took her to England to meet the King and Queen. As played by Christian Bale, Rolfe is a warm and sensitive husband, and everything about him seems pretty positive. But I have read at least one review which implies that Pocahontas is corrupted somehow by assimilating into European civilization. (FWIW, I myself would argue she isn't, especially given the note on which the film ends.) The same review also notes that Pocahontas's uncle, who is used to living among wild trees, doesn't know what to make of the carefully sculpted trees that he sees in England; but where the critic sees the European trees as a corruption of nature, I see them as a beautiful thing in their own right, and indeed I see them as a sign that civilization at its best ISN'T always as dank and muddy as what we see in Jamestown.

: From what I've read, it may be something more akin to Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans . . .

Um, it's been years since I saw that one, but I wouldn't make that comparison -- there's no big action scenes or heart-rending romances in the conventional sense, just the usual beautiful nature shots and wan voice-overs that you usually get in Malick films.

Indeed, Malick is not very interested in drama, and he zips by some of the key plot points without doing any of the things filmmakers usually do at those points to underscore the action. There is a scene where one man kills another man, thus creating a power vacuum at the fort, and instead of giving us the usual close-ups and medium shots that ram home for us the fact that a betrayal and a mutiny has just occurred, Malick just sort of lets it happen in the distance in a wider shot and then cuts away to something else, and the first time I saw the film, it took me a little while to realize that the one man had actually been killed -- I finally figured it out a few scenes later when I realized I hadn't seen him again since that scene. (Needless to say, I made a point of watching this scene more carefully the second time around.) You could probably point to other scenes, too, where Malick really isn't all that interested in explaining what the characters do or how they get from A to B.

What Malick IS interested in is the visual poetry, and he does this very well. He also makes excellent use of Wagner and some other classic composers -- none of whom, alas, are on the soundtrack CD. I especially like his use of music and images in the scene where the three ships arrive at Jamestown (though it isn't called that yet, obviously) for the first time.

I'll also give Malick points for allowing each of his three main characters to have unique points of view, even in their voice-overs. That alone makes this a better film than The Thin Red Line, where the voice-overs seemed to merge all too easily into one big aimless stream-of-consciousness (kind of like how that one character mused that we are all just part of one big soul...).