The Village Voice's lead film critic J. Hoberman won't be taking back his pan of "The New World" anytime soon, but the incessant online ruckus kicked up over Malick's masterwork -- on this blog and others -- has forced him to concede the powerful effect it has had on people. In this week's Voice, Hoberman acknowledges the "New World" phenomenon and quotes pro-Malick articles by several critics, including yours truly, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times, N.P. Thompson of "Movies Into Film," and Nick Pinkerton of "StopSmiling." The bad news is, the movie's box office gross stands at a paltry $12.2 million, less than 'Brokeback Mountain' ($75 million), 'Crash' ($53 million) and 'A History of Violence' ($31 million), and reviews have been, in Hoberman's words, "mildly favorable to mixed."
"But, as anticipated by the Voice Critics' Poll's ballot-crunching Passiondex, Terrence Malick's impressionistic retelling of the Pocahontas story was the movie that inspired the most fervent devotion," Hoberman writes. "Not everyone adores 'The New World,' but those cineastes who like it, really, really like it. The movie has not only admirers but partisans—it can only be truly loved by attacking those too blind to see the truth." 
The bad news is, the movie has limped through three critically underappreciated months, it has already vanished from most first-run theaters and it got only one Oscar nomination (cinematography) which it lost. By any marketplace measure, it is past its media sell-by date. The good news is, the passion displayed by the movie's partisans has forced naysayers to think harder about Malick's movie, wonder if they missed something and perhaps revisit it with fresh eyes (a good thing even if they still don't like it). And it has placed a new frame around "The New World" as it sails into the home video marketplace (not the best viewing circumstances, admittedly, but better than nothing).
Consensus is not fixed. Shout loud enough and long enough, and you can change it.
UPDATE: Dave Kehr, who thinks the "The New World" is malarkey, drubs it again a blog entry that references Hoberman's piece, chides "Movies Into Film" critic N.P. Thompson for attacking Malick's detractors, then revisits the movie via DVD screener and says (huge surprise) that he still dislikes it. "The film does not stand up particularly well to the threat of the small screen," he writes. "Diminished in size and physical impact, Malick’s restless whip pans seem less lyrical and expansive and more jittery and indecisive. Traditionally, a pan begins on one subject and moves to another, but Malick seems to have systematically eliminated those beginning and end points in his shots, leaving behind the blur of the contentless middle. Which, I suppose, is a fair description of everyday life, even in Jamestown, but somehow I think Malick had more in mind than that. The impression remains that the shots have been cut together pretty much as they landed, as if they’d been tossed out of a can like I Ching tokens." 
How patronizing can you get? Uncharacteristically, Kehr comes off sounding like one of those people who dismisses abstract art by saying, "My kid could do that." There is a conscious, musical, poetic strategy at work in Malick's movie, and it has been written about quite extensively, on the Web and in print, and it's not new, much less strange; in fact, it's a slightly adjusted version of the aesthetic Malick refined in three prior movies. As a critic, you can embrace it or reject it, but you can't deny it's there without sounding as if you weren't paying attention the first time, or the second time. (Hint: Malick's a Transcendental existentialist who annihilates time and just isn't into the whole closure thing; ya think his camerawork and editing might reflect that proclivity?) For further reading, peruse the links contained in "World travelling," listed below. Or read the entire Thompson article, rather than bailing out, as Kehr apparently did, after the opening paragraphs slagging critics who dismissed the movie. Thompson's piece, while nowhere near as comprehensive as the film deserves, does a superb job of describing how Malick's compositions, camera moves, edits, musical choices and sound design touches fuse to create specific emotional and rhythmic effects. Thompson has the gall to write about form, i.e., the movie itself --sound plus picture -- in plain language, with evidence to back up each assertion, rather than doing standard movie reviewer shtick, which consists of describing the plot, the characters and the genre, making a few clever remarks and calling it a day. He is a great critic who exemplifies what film criticism can and should be: a gateway to understanding not just what a movie says, but how it says it.
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OTHER MALICK POSTS ON THIS SITE INCLUDE:
* "World travelling." (links to Malick-related articles and web sites)
* "One World." (About the cult of admirers that had formed around the movie)
* "Just beautiful." (A review of the re-cut, and a description of the theatrical experience.)
* "They Are All Equal Now" (on Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon," a cooler cousin of Malick's films).
* "Live from Jamestown: the Oversoul" (a quote from Emerson's "History" that reminded me of Malick)
* "5 for the day: Contrapuntal narration" (with particular emphasis on Malick)
* "Voices in your head" (in which I attack Malick's critics, and further explore his use of narration)
* "There is only this...all else is unreal." (a review of the original, longer theatrical cut)
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Another look
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55 comments:
I liked his article; I thought it was actually very generous, considering how he might have responded.
I think it's pretty clear, given CRASH's win at the Oscars, how most people like their art: big and loud and dumb. There's hardly any room for the likes of Malick... it's obvious he's going to suffer the same fate with the general public as did Tarkovsky or Bresson. I can only hope he chooses to make more films in the few years he has left. The idea of him doing Q or TREE OF LIFE just boggles my mind.
Or MOBY DICK, as I suggested in the comments section of one of my umpteen million NEW WORLD blog entries. (Dig Hoberman name-checking the Pequod. Think he was giving Malick a suggestion?)
PS -- a belated addition to the Altman blog-a-thon, way tangential but worth a look. A couple of old black and white TV clips of Leonard Cohen are posted here.
That link comes to me by way of regular poster Mr. Burt Reynolds. A wealth of knowledge, that man.
That Voice article is odd. Has Hoberman ever published anything like it? Do you think he regrets his original review?
H-5: I wouldn't presume to judge. But the article does leave that impression. Towards the end, particularly, he seems to sincerely wish that he felt the same affection for it as some of the people who've embraced it with such fervor.
Every critic makes bad calls once in awhile. I wouldn't call this an apology -- he trots out that tired old Humbert Humbert routine to let everyone know that -- but it does seem a tacit admission that he dismissed it too lightly the first time, and it made some people think less of him.
Now that I reread it, it is a strange article. I am not entirely sure what to make of it.
Could I be so impudent as to request you write a post at some point that deals with the politics of "The New World" at greater length? And by politics, I do not, of course, mean the 'politics' of its reception, etc, but some of what it's actually getting at about colonialism, race, and so on. The movie is so aesthetically exhilirating that I feel like a bit of a pill for bringing it up, and I don't want to play PC police or anything like that.
But I have seen reviews that dismiss it variously as Rousseauvian in its noble savagery, as an apologetic for the English, as a glorification of Pocahontas' transformation into Rebecca (P/R), etc. I didn't myself read it that way, but I'm not familiar with the facts of the story. Perhaps I'd be outraged or discomited to learn that Malick had made some questionable changes. Dunno.
My own thoughts on the film's politics are divided, because part of what I love about the film -- what I would call its optimism -- is also part of what I think is "questionable," politically. That is, the film portrays (at least in the recut version) a moving sincerity in the colonists' 'city on the hill' vision of America as an untouched land; I'm thinking of John Smith's voiceover polemic about honest labor and various pronouncements by Capt Newport, etc. Now, the movie does a lot to undercut this. It certainly shows the violence of the settlers, a good number of whom are stupid and mean. Malick does not shy away from the costs of their vision.
Yet Malick seems also to embrace this vision as the movie ends with the mixed race son of P/R and John Rolfe in a very hopeful way. Overall, I left the theater with a feeling that America is an amazing, wonderful place of possibility, race mixing, and hope, tinged with a small amount of regret at the cost to others -- perhaps a small enough amount that the main function of that regret is to make the hope available to us all the sweeter.
Now, I don't think every film dealing with Jamestown needs to be a polemic against genocide or a pessimistic tale about infinite oppression. But I do think that this kind of optimism about America and what it represents is available to me all the easier for my being a white guy. I don't know what I'd think about this movie and the powerful hope it contains if my own personal experiences had contained more experiences of America as oppression for me and opportunity for others. I suspect I'd take a more cynical look at the poster for the movie and ask, "do I really want to see a movie that turns the statutory rape of a young Native American girl into a fable about the meaning and specialness of America?"
In other words, I guess my question is: How is that 'The New World' is not only indisputably one of the greatest movies I've seen in a long time AND a movie that turns the [fictional] statutory rape of a young Native American girl into a fable about the meaning and specialness of America?
I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the US and its history in actual fact just is a complex and unique mix of emancipatory hope and genocidal reality, and the film in many ways represents that mix without including a critique of it. But my thoughts on this quite unformed, and I'd very eager to hear yours.
...and I haven't even really touched on any issues about the portrayal of Native Americans, noble savagery, etc. I didn't feel this complaint myself in seeing the film, but I guess some activists have protested the film (?), and I'd be curious to heat the complaints.
Wow! I am just reading your comment, Ben, as I get ready to go into the office, and I couldn't begin to answer it properly in the ten minutes I have left. Look for a response later in the day. In the meantime, I hope others will weigh in.
You get really close to the heart of the matter when you write, "I suspect it has something to do with the fact that the US and its history in actual fact just is a complex and unique mix of emancipatory hope and genocidal reality, and the film in many ways represents that mix without including a critique of it." I think the critique is there, very strongly. But I don't think Malick allows that critique to overwhelm the inherent optimism he feels when contemplating the fact of existence. The two emotional strands are parallel and equal. One never overwhelms the other. This complexity, this central contradiction, can be confusing when we're used to seeing simpleminded movies that insist that we decide, by the end of the narrative, how to feel about the movie's subject. Malick catches his characters and their societies in the act of evolving, and dares say the process is never finished. That's a simple but revolutionary sentiment, uniquely American, yet somehow not simpleminded. It's true to both political and emotional fact. It's true to how life is actually lived, as opposed to how Hollywood filmmakers typically distort it in the name of being either mindlessly rah-rah "Go America!" or mindlessly Leftist Depressive.
The short version: I don't think the "shining city on a hill" aspect is really there to the degree that some critics have claimed. I think to some degree the elation of Malick's filmmaking, and his elation at the mere fact of being alive, has been mistaken for elation over the European invasion of the New World and its subsequent conquering and absorption. To be very very brief for now -- I promise to revisit this subject later today -- THE NEW WORLD is of a piece with Malick's other films, which also deal in immense and in many ways tragic subjects yet do not permit themselves to succumb to fashionable cynicism. To name just one other Malick film, in DAYS OF HEAVEN there is an acute awareness of exploitation of the poor by the rich, of workers getting ground up by the economic system (literally -- remember all those shots of whirring thresher blades headed toward animals in the field), immigrants packed into Chicago slums and boxcars and field housing and the like. The whole narrative is centered on a poor man contriving to get his girlfriend (posing as his sister) to marry a rich man so they can have his house some day. Yet despite these elements, which 99 out of 100 filmmakers would play up and permit to overwhelm all else, Malick puts it all in cosmic perspective, stressing (here comes that word again) the elation of being alive no matter who you are or how dire the circumstances are. He's not dismissing any of the horrible circumstances he shows us. In fact he shows them vividly and honestly. But he also insists that we can be aware of injustice AND be glad to be alive, and recognize that even for those against whom injustice has been perpetrated, elation at the simple fact of existence is still possible.
This is why I love Malick. Nobody else is so wise about the realities of human civilization without becoming cynical. No adolescent despair here. Virtually alone among filmmakers, he reminds us again and again that no matter how horrendous things get, it is nearly always better to be alive than dead, and that humans are immensely adaptable, resilient creatures. This last fact is the essence of THE NEW WORLD, I think, and when I get a free moment at the office, maybe I'll hit it again at length.
Hoberman says, "Yet, if nothing else, the response to The New World reflects the collective utopian yearning still bound up in the movies—and the religious fervor this particular film has generated is fascinating, not least to an agnostic like myself."
Do you think there is any sort of precedent for this, or is there something comparable to today’s Blog-o-sphere showing its rapturous grass roots support?
Hoberman says: "Should The New World garner a real cult, it would hardly be the first commercial failure to do so. The Rocky Horror Picture Show had an actual opening back in 1975 before it was revived as the ultimate midnight phenomenon. Every decade since has produced at least one example: Blade Runner, Showgirls, and Donnie Darko were all flops that found their audiences at late-night weekend screenings."
With all due respect to Hoberman, a critic I respect and admire, is what's happening with THE NEW WORLD even comparable to the cult showings of ROCKY HORROR and the attempted cults surrounding SHOWGIRLS and DONNIE DARKO?
It's too early to say, really -- but it's an interesting thought.
THE NEW WORLD has fervent admirers in the face of dismissal / the movie is a flop. Maybe Hoberman is on to something, though, with the BLADE RUNNER comparison. It was a flop, it developed a cult of fans, and has endured far longer than most other films of its era -- even going beyond moviedom and influencing fashion and pop taste.
It remains to be seen what kind of ripple effect, if any, THE NEW WORLD will have. It could simply be what it is: a great and important film that deserves to be seen, and has people banging the drum in the hopes others will see it.
Is the old saying true: you can bring a horse to water but ya can't make it drink?
Look at CRASH (sorry, Matt). It is a movie I dislike profoundly, and yet I wouldn't have bothered to go see it if two friends hadn't been wide-eyed and stunned by it. ("It's like a punch in the gut," one said -- which is a pretty accurate description. Like a punch to the gut, it shows a failure of the imagination in dealing with bigger problems. But I digress...)
CRASH developed an audience because people were banging the drum saying it was important. It is now described as "the little movie that could".
Putting aside the difference in quality between CRASH and THE NEW WORLD -- are they really any different?
I throw this question out for debate.
Here's my two cents.
The big difference I see, according to Hoberman and probably Matt, is that NEW WORLD fans are possessed by a kind of awe-struck religious fervor -- whereas CRASH is a knee-jerk liberal reaction to the flavor of the month.
But here's a similarity: people who love CRASH are really irritated with me for not liking it. I mean PRETTY PISSED. I'm sure Matt has been called a racist jerk-off too. Go figure. I ask again: How is this different than some of the reactions in defense of THE NEW WORLD, which at their worst boil down to, "If you don't like it, you're an idiot!"
Jeremiah writes: "The big difference I see, according to Hoberman and probably Matt, is that NEW WORLD fans are possessed by a kind of awe-struck religious fervor -- whereas CRASH is a knee-jerk liberal reaction to the flavor of the month...But here's a similarity: people who love CRASH are really irritated with me for not liking it. I mean PRETTY PISSED. I'm sure Matt has been called a racist jerk-off too. Go figure. I ask again: How is this different than some of the reactions in defense of THE NEW WORLD, which at their worst boil down to, "If you don't like it, you're an idiot!"
Well, I'd like to think that THE NEW WORLD is simply a greater, more sophisticated work, an example of filmmaking at a much more rarified level, where CRASH is more of a button pusher. But Roger Ebert, who's no slouch at analyzing how movies work when hee's so inclined, did a creditable job of defending it aesthetically in a lengthy exchange with LA Weekly critic Scott Foundas. Does this come down to a simple case of "My religion is better than yours?"
I don't think so -- back in 1990, for instance, there was a national fervor for "Ghost," which propelled it onto the list of all time top grossing movies, while Scorsese's "Goodfellas," which has surely survived and thrived and perhaps become more firmly ensconced in our moviegoing unconscious, stalled at around $60 million at the U.S. box office. "Crash" isn't a "Ghost" level hit, and you know my relatively low opinion of it, but some smart people swear by it. (A good friend of mine wrote me an email just yesterday to say she loved "Crash" but didn't want to get into a defense of it on this site because she knew she'd be wasting her breath.)
I don't know the answer to this either. I feel certain I'm right in prizing "The New World" over "Crash," but the deeper you delve into questions of subjective affinity, the more mysterious and undefinable things get, and the more angrily people argue with each other. This discussion reminds me of those old world maps drawn in the age before Europe had discovered the Americas: the known world is rendered in great detail, but after a certain point you reach the edge of it, and all you can do is draw a little dragon and write the words, "Here be monsters."
I hadn't read Hoberman in years, so I had to chuckle when I clicked on the article and Lo! there was another reference to "Flaming Creatures". It was like I had never left.
It sounds like Hoberman is teetering, but lacks the gravity just yet to land firmly with both feet. So he tosses some stuff up for everybody.
1. Oscar shunned it.
2. But Oscar often shuns the great.
3. It didn't make money, ha!
4. Wait, sometimes great films don't make money.
5. A heads-up to hip Voice readers, so that a cultural mini-phenomenon doesn't catch them unawares.
6. Get a load of those zany cultists.
7. Cultists are scary sometimes.
8. MZS is at least "benignly inclusive" (Hey, it's not like you excommunicated Odienator when he farted in church.)
9. Maybe there is something more to this after all, I remember when I was more passionate about film.
10. Cult movie= Rocky Horror midnight camp. WTF? Hard to imagine the Sick and Twisted Players doing TNW, but maybe they could pull it off.
11. Ha! He gets to Kael first- pushes button- activates Kael shield.
12. Regroups, looks at the myth again for some easy points.
13. Imperfect? I'd say TNW is closer to perfect.
14. Best news in the piece, the upcoming collectors dvd.
15. Those crazy cultists again. The great hunter takes aim, and as he pulls the trigger, he thinks to himself " but I admire their purity".
16. Looks for escape hatch.
17. Closes with avian poetry.
There is no reason to shout. Be patient. Don't rush him. In 10-15 years he'll be mentioning TNW in every other column.
I don't know if you read James Bowman's takedown, but it starts with his reminiscence of the "Elvira Madigan" cult during his youth, of which he took part. Seems he is past that now. His review was dismissive with some affection, wrong-headed when dealing in terms of historical accuracy, and absurdly reductive on the Elvira angle: classical music+ pretty pictures= attractive emptiness+ imagination of young turks filling the void. Still, it made me wonder if there might be a generational aspect to all this somehow. How old is Hoberman? What did he think of Elvira Madigan?( I haven't seen it) How many critics over, say their mid-fifties reviewed TNW positively?
Dave: You ask, "How many critics over, say their mid-fifties reviewed TNW positively?" I don't know the ages of every critic writing today, but of the ones with any sort of profile, the only one over 50 who loved it was Armond White. Armond had much love for the new cut, with very minor reservations, but never mentioned the previous cut in NYPress except to dis it for being Eurocentric, and did not put THE NEW WORLD on his Top 10 list.
Beyond that, I don't know. Maybe it is a youth thing. I'm in my late thirties, plus my hair is grey and I am losing it. Does that count as young?
One more over-50 critic who loved it: Roger Ebert, who gave the re-cut 4 stars.
This youth-vs.-the-world angle might be the wrong avenue. I think this might be more about aesthetic preference than age, and I am not convinced the two are always connected.
Since everything turns out to be genetic now, I'm still waiting for the day when opinions and subjectivity turn out to be part of people's genetic codes. There's already plenty of anecdotal evidence for this, with the whole red state/blue state thing.
I feel with the whole issue of subjectivity and opinion that Matt talks about above like there’s been some kind of switch away from a rhetoric of persuasion and toward a rhetoric of defense. Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like the whole function of criticism – the nurturing of subjectivity, the elaboration of a personal perspective, etc. – is getting swallowed up in the "I'm right"/"No, I'm right" Ann Coulter culture that we're living in. Did the Siskel/Ebert thumbs up/thumbs down start this? I feel like Crash (at the risk of hijacking back to a different thread) has become some kind of movieland equivalent of arguing about Bush, this kind of I loved it/I hated it and that's that (as in Matt's post about his friend above).
If we're in a culture that's about people saying "I yam what I yam and that’s that," then something about the whole point of criticism as a rhetoric of persuasion and an art of subjectivity is lost – and then it really is just reduced to I-agree-or-I-don't, everyone's-got-an-opinion, etc. And I think there's something about Crash itself that reflects this whole culture. But I haven't quite put my finger yet on what that is.
This is most definitely not a youth-vs.-the-world thing, even if one couldn't find too many over-50-critics willing to embrace THE NEW WORLD. I'm sure one can find untold millions of younger moviegoers who hated TNW. If it was a youth-vs.-the-world thing, I suspect the movie's box office might have been a lot better.
I also think it's silly to compare TNW to films such as DONNIE DARKO. In a lot of those cases you're talking about films which were either dumped into theaters (DD), or initially panned by critics (BLADE RUNNER). TNW, while it might not have been too widely critically acclaimed, had a lot going for it, not to mention a studio that really, really wanted it to do well and spent some money on it, too. Plenty of major critics loved it, even if their enthusiasm didn't reach Seitz-ian proportions. On 800 screens, if this film was going to connect with a mass audience, it would have.
I think really this is a case of auteurism in its purest form. Either you groove on Malick's aesthetics or you don't. I wish TNW resulted in lots of people discovering Malick's work for the first time, but by and large it hasn't. Almost everyone I know who loved it also adores THE THIN RED LINE as well. And most are Malick aficionados from way back.
(In that sense, I'm more disappointed by the Dave Kehrs and Jonathan Rosenbaums of the world, who seem to have abandoned ship over other matters -- Kehr because he fails to see the point of Malick's aesthetic here, and J-Ro because he somehow decided that it was time for Malick to become a politician and was disappointed that he didn't.)
The gist of this is that TNW's future reputation, much like TTRL's, is safe insofar as its defenders are vocal, intelligent, and a good score of them write for and will continue to write for major outlets for a long time. But don't expect any kind of DARKO-style popular resurgence. (That said, anybody who wants to petition the Pioneer Theatre in NYC, where the DARKO phenomenon partly began, to start screening TNW at midnight, is welcome to the signatures of me and all of my friends.)
One bit of weird-possibly-bad news: New Line Video recently released specs for the DVD of TNW, and there was no mention of a new cut of the film. So either they've scrapped it or they're waiting for some kind of special edition to come out later. (The latter may well be the case, especially if Malick is still cutting the longer version.)
A midnight showing of THE NEW WORLD sounds like a great idea. (Given the film's length, a matinee might be even better.) I am going to the Pioneer tonight for the final New York showing of HOME. I will bring the matter up when I get there and let you know what I find out.
Matt, thanks for responding to my earlier post on politics. I like your description of Malick's existential optimism very much -- sort of Heidegger meets Jonathon Richman and the Modern Lovers.
I agree with your assessment of his insistence that "we can be aware of injustice AND be glad to be alive," but I'd still like to hear a bit more about what you think the film is saying about that injustice. It's obviously much more complex than simple denunciation (thank god), so I'm still hoping people can chime in about the substance of the politics. Understandably, the temptation is first to absolve Malick of his alleged sins, but I think there's more to be said than just that.
Ben said: "I agree with your assessment of his insistence that "we can be aware of injustice AND be glad to be alive'..."
In this way, I'm inclined to link Malick's attitude to Renoir, though they use vastly different aesthetics to acheive their ends and are pretty much incomparable in most other ways. Renoir, who saw through human society with a omniscient level of clarity, and was never doubtful of the inherent nastiness, still felt a profound love and respect for humans and for life. It reminds me of what Rosenbaum wrote of Miyazaki: "Wisdom doesn't so much succeed callowness as peacefully coexist with it." This is a highly personal account of influences, but "Howl's Moving Castle" was the only other film last year that I reacted to with the same level of emotional fervor as "The New World." Both filmmakers present complex worlds that hold both horrors and utter beauty, and when Miyazaki spins the frame around and around in the fantasy garden near the end of his film, the emotional effect is as inexplicable, as horribly joyful as The New World's own subconscious longings.
I've been reading about the life of John Smith lately, in response to the film. My impression of him, up until "The New World", had been overwhelming negative, a sort of murderous miser, from the same bolt of cloth as Columbus (another culturally-inherented impression on my part). The words we hear Smith saying, about the new world, no taxes, no aristocracy, honor through work, etc, are not far from the truth. Smith was an accomplished author, a very important explorer, and quite possibly one of the most even hands in relations with the Indians. And he did envision a society as heard in the film. In attempting to correct the rosy fable of John Smith and Pocahontas taught in schools for so long, liberal guilt has gone too far in the other direction. Malick's film is a partial corrective to this.
I also wonder how many others are actively reading about this history after seeing the film. An inspiration towards knowledge, in light of the film, in order to understand our responses to it and our own past.
I didn't mean to sound like I was pushing the generation angle, as I find it disagreeable and inadequate myself. I was just thinking out loud, as it were, because Bowman seemed to be saying he would have loved TNW if he saw it when he was 25.
And I sure hope late 30's isn't that old, because I'm a couple of years past the midpoint of life's journey myself.
I guess I’m in a curious minority here. I love The New World, but I don’t see it as a work of mystical optimism or Eurocentrism triumphant. Those of us who sat through the credits “until the last avian note” had our supposed indulgence in a national myth of innocence undercut by drawings of slave ships, after all. (Particularly cruel as a degraded echo of both Smith’s arrival at the Americas in chains and that lovely moment in England where Pocahontas and an African sailor stare in gentle fascination at each other’s skin tones.)
The New World offers a critique of colonization, but it is a subtler and sadder complaint, I fear, than would satisfy those who express dismay at Malick’s politics. Hoberman goes so far as to suggest that the film would have done well to follow William Vollman’s lead in making Argall the loathsome main subject. I’ve not read the novel, but feel Malick’s treatment of Argall is one of the most interesting beats in this film full of idiosyncratic rhythms. Malick’s not deaf to the appeal of casting this brute as the convenient villain of the piece: he even gives him a pithily nihilistic little speech that would have raised hisses from the groundlings. Once his part in this story is done, however, Argall doesn’t stalk off in Conradian grandeur threatening revenge and pledging to see His Majesty’s standard stretch across this virgin land. Rather haughtily put back in his place by the voice of authority, Argall merely shambles off, never to be seen again. Exit the villain, stage right, to general disapprobation. But even with Argall dispatched to his low station, somebody, we in the audience know, still killed off the Naturals and cut down all those trees.
Ah, yes, the trees. All those complaints from the Show-Don’t-Tell squad about all those damned shots of trees: pointless, boring, self-indulgent. As if Malick hadn’t gone out of his way to make the trees embodiments of strength and perseverance, or to show that the first item leading the way when the English head inland is an axe (a battleaxe, but still), the first order to chop down the trees in a given radius. The portrait is not one-sided and not without irony; the English soldier’s exasperated rant that the Naturals are wrong to think anyone can claim to own land is the funniest joke in Malick’s career. But despite every criticism of Malick’s vague meandering, the throughline is clear as day.
So hold on to that thought, and consider how thoroughly Malick distinguishes Smith and Rolfe. The mythologizer (of both self and Other) on the one hand, romantic, peripatetic, eternally unfulfilled; the sensible Christian merchant on the other, pragmatic, comfortable, content in his new home. When Smith instructs Pocahontas it’s a rhapsodic trading of labels for body parts, a catalog of sensation; Rolfe leans over her like a schoolmaster and helps her memorize the days of the week. I can only think of two things these men have in common: They both fall madly in love with the living symbol of the new nation. And they both are shown wielding an axe.
Good men, decent and forthright, not cardboard nasties like Argall. Sincere in their devotion to progress, open in their relations with the Naturals, genuinely courageous when they stepped on the new shore. They love this New World. So much they chop and tame it out of all recognition.
bilge said:
"One bit of weird-possibly-bad news: New Line Video recently released specs for the DVD of TNW, and there was no mention of a new cut of the film. So either they've scrapped it or they're waiting for some kind of special edition to come out later. (The latter may well be the case, especially if Malick is still cutting the longer version.)"
My understanding (based entirely upon half-remembered internet reports and/or gossip, mind you) is that the "three hour" cut of the film is already done, but will be released before the end of the year as an HD disc (or as both HD and regular... I'm not tecnically-minded enough to know what's going on with all that nonsense, exactly).
It certainly would've been considerate of the studio to just release both at once (preferably in one set) but... at any rate, it does appear a longer cut is forthcoming.
(Hi, first time poster here).
So, it's already confirmed that the DVD will have only the 135 min. version, with a possible 3-hour "special edition" scheduled for later? The initial 150 min. cut is definitely gone into oblivion then?
(FWIW, I saw the movie (135 min.) the other day and liked it a lot, but the only thing preventing me from calling it a masterpiece were those damn voiceovers. Or to be exact, the fact that those voiceovers weren't at the same level than the rest of the movie. If Malick the spoken-word poet had been as good as Malick the visual poet...)
Non sequitur alert:
If you want to see the poster for the new Altman film, paste in this address:
http://www.impawards.com/2006/prairie_home_companion.html
pauljbis, and everyone else: Thanks for the info on past and future cuts. I'll look into this myself and see what I can find out.
PS -- the 150 minute cut is gone, as far as I know, though there is a faint possibility that it might be excavated someday for repertory showings, provided that New Line and Malick are OK with it.
I still love Malick, but the main problem I have with the new world is the casting. Everytime Colin Farrell was on screen, he dragged the movie down. Part of it is that physically he was constantly sad sack-ish and pensiveness, - his eyebrows always furrowed or desperate. And part of it is that his part of the story is so pre-destined and historical, in that you know it'll end up badly for Cap Smith and Pocahontas has to find new love and life else where. This second part really limits a lot of Malick's strength and vision. It's like he's trying to stretch a rubber band that has no stretch.
In contrast, Christian Bale saves the movie, because the second half with him really opens up Malick's ideas. The transcendence and optimism and openness is more real, without the weigh of Farrell's so so performance and the popular and fixed historical nature of Cap Smith.
And I am trying to think of questions for Cheshire. Maybe: once he critcially tagged Hou Hsaio-hsien with the white elephant art label, but did he realize that Manny Farber selected a Hou flick to be screened during some celebration of his critical writing. Ironic, no? Or, more open ended: is film dead yet?
The House Next Door's regular interview contributor, Jeremiah Kipp, interviewed Godfrey this past week and will post an interview in the near future. I am told it was fascinating, and that it deals extensively with his influential essay "The Death of Film/The Decay of Cinema," so I can't wait to publish it.
hello. Regarding Kehr's blog, I just want to say this (well I understand this should better be addressed to Kehr himself but I actually don't even want to look at his blog anymore)-I generally find his attitude in his blog entries deplorably smarmy and "knowing".
and I find that attitude extremely surprising because I remember that he used to write very long, detailed analyses of particular films (I'm talking about his stuff in critics' anthology-type books; I remember his writings on ONCE UPON TIME IN THE WEST and AFTER HOURS, which were stellar), not unlike the owner of this blog does presently.
But nowadays, something seems always ticking off Kehr, and his blog is damn near unreadable, to me anyway-sarcastic snap judgments, general feeling of boredom, etc.
I understand that the entries in blogs can't be as concentrated, or polished, or whatever as the writings in the print medium perhaps, but the advantages of a blog are that it encourages more informal discussions between the writer and the readers, which Kehr rarely engages in with his blog (in contrast to the owner of this blog, I might add). Apparently, he just wants his readers to read his stuff as "final words".
I mean just compare the incredibly prejudiced list of links (Sarris, Rosenbaum, Hoberman, Cahiers du Cinema, etc.) on his blog, with the incredibly inclusive list of links on THIS blog-this is not just to kiss ass, but the mood of this blog is that of enthusiasm and informed interaction (I mean is it really an exaggeration to say that the continuing enthusiasm for THE NEW WORLD, which prompted a writer as aloof as Hoberman to write a SECOND piece on it, is due to THIS BLOG?), which is just sorely lacking in Kehr's sour blog.
And I really look forward to the interview with Cheshire because he's one of the (few) critics who are willing to still write "long and detailed".
You should probably address those remarks to Dave himself. For the most part, I disagree with your characterization. Though I think he missed the boat (so to speak) on THE NEW WORLD, he's a sharp critic who is engaged with movies of every sort, from American studio blockbusters to underground movies to neglected foreign films that do not have distributors. He is somewhat constrained by not having a regular platform to go long, as you say. But that's not his fault. Those sorts of gigs are few and far between, and they're becoming more scarce by the month. Even Godfrey, who can be relied upon for in-depth criticism, doesn't get to do so every week in The Independent. I think he will touch in this in the forthcoming interview. Jeremiah Kipp has not yet transcribed the interview, but he tells me that much of it concentrates on the state of film as a physical medium, a language and a business, and how difficult it is for critics to engage with it fully when their employers are interested mainly in celebrities and gossip.
Yes but the bottom line (for me) is I just like your blog better than his!
Well, you know what they say: there's no accounting for taste!
"Matt Zoller Seitz said...
pauljbis, and everyone else: Thanks for the info on past and future cuts. I'll look into this myself and see what I can find out.
3/10/2006 1:18 AM
Matt Zoller Seitz said...
PS -- the 150 minute cut is gone, as far as I know, though there is a faint possibility that it might be excavated someday for repertory showings, provided that New Line and Malick are OK with it.
3/10/2006 1:19 AM"
You mention that Kehr rewatched the film via a screener -- is this an Academy screener or a retail screener? I believe it's too soon for the retail screeners to be out (at least we haven't receieved any at my store) but if it's an Academy screener wouldn't it be the 150-minute cut? If so, somebody *has* to boot that sucker.
I don't know, I'll ask Dave.
I responded to Dave Kehr, and now he responds to me. Click here to read the exchange.
Hello, Matt, so I bounced over here upon your invitation, but I'm not going to launch into a Malick thing right now (I've got to pack, I'm going to Jebland, aka Florida, for a week), but I did want to say that Kent Jones has weighed in with a favorable take on TNW at Film Comment. When I return, and if people are still discussing/arguing over this film, I'll jump into the fray!
I'll read it tonight. Thanks for the heads-up, enjoy your trip, and welcome the House.
All this Malick arguing makes me want to see the 135 minute cut one more time in the theater. It's still playing at the Union Square. I am also interested in revisiting the 150 minute cut, which is officially out of circulation. If anyone out there has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.
I think I am a little late into all this. Just read Hoberman's article and came here and have been reading all your posts and discussions for the past few hours. My head is now spinning and I have grown even more confused about the film than I was before :(
I will have to see it again I think. Thanks again for all the discussion and a fantastic blog.
Hi, Alok. Thanks for stopping by.
Some other NEW WORLD pieces I recommend (forgive me if you've already read them):
Armond White.
Manohla Dargis.
N.P. Thompson.
The interesting thing about these various pieces -- as you might have already noticed -- is that everyone who writes about the movie comes at it from a different, highly idiosyncratic angle. It's that kind of movie.
Matt — This blog thread reminds me of an old R.E.M. song title: "Talk About The Passion." If nothing else, your passion for The New World makes me wish I had gone to see it, and ignored the negative reaction from the mainstream critics. Now, I'll have to wait for the DVD. But I think you've accomplished all a critic can hope to accomplish: Basically, your writing style and your fever for the work makes this reader want to become a viewer, and makes me want to form my own opinions and test them against yours. (Pauline Kael always did that for me, and that's a high compliment to you!)But that's as far as I go. All the talk about dueling essays on editing and camera positions and timed shots will accomplish nothing, because the only real fallacy is that there is any applicable objective criteria for a movie. I think Kael called it "saphead objectivity." It's useless. So, I don't think a write-off between you and Kehr would have proven anything. He's never going to see what you see in it, and that's OK. The important thing is that you have talked about your passion, and tried to share it with others. Now, others will pick it up and run with it. That's the highest function of criticism, in my view, and a far sight better than the dry recitations of plot that passes for most mainstream criticism today. I'm not sure what point I've made here, if any, but keep it up. I'm now convinced more than ever that it's on blogs like these that the true passion for movies, whether high cinema or just a good old flick, will live on.
Jeremiah Kipp, interviewed Godfrey this past week and will post an interview in the near future.
so i was too late. just as well, i'm sure jeremiah has a better idea of how to go about it anyway.
Matt and others,
I noticed there wasn't a response to my criticism of Colin's performance. I've tried to read most of the reviews/criticism linked here (and for the most part I read them prior to this subsequent round of Malick talk), and aside from the view that Smith and Pocahontas' characters doing what their characters would be doing, getting together and splitting up, there hasn't been much written about the contribution Farrell made.
Me and a friend both share the view that Farrell really subtracts or distracts from the movie. My friend still thinks The New World is terrific. And I guess I do too, but with reservations. But at the same time, since some of you all love the movie a lot (favorite of all time?), I guess I was hoping there could be some clarification or explanation about the acting that I missed or don't understand.
And from Kehr's site, Whitman and jazz seem rationally related.
I don't share the opinion that Farrell's performance subtracts from the movie. (For starters, he's virtually unrecognizable in that dark mane and beard, so I rarely think of it as Colin Farrell...but then again, it's not like I've committed all his films to memory or anything.)
For an example of why I think Farrell works so well in this film, I'd point you to the scene where he teaches Pocahontas the English words for eye, ear, lips, etc. There's one moment where the camera stays on Farrell's face long enough to register this weird sense of joy, of childish enthusiasm for what he's feeling at the moment. He's trying to hide it, and he looks like he's about to giggle -- but if you blink, you'll miss it. For all I know, it might have been a blown take that Malick decided to leave in the film, but I think that's meant to be the moment when Smith truly falls in love, and Farrell plays it perfectly.
virglilx: I like Farrell a lot in this movie because he's vulnerable in a way that young macho actors rarely permit themselves to be. There's an almost feminine quality to his yearning, same with Christian Bale (who's a much more technically fluid actor). This performance made me see, for the first time since TIGERLAND, what the industry saw in Farrell as a leading man. It might be a case of perfect casting, or maybe Malick's rather hippie-ish working methods brought out the best in him -- i.e., Malick let him be himself in some way, caught a vulnerability that's present in Farrell the man, not necessarily the actor. In other words, maybe the performance has a strong documentary element like everything else in the movie. I don't know. But I like him in it.
Would the character and the movie have been stronger with a deeper actor? Sure, in the same way that DAYS OF HEAVEN would have been a stronger movie (and I think it's a masterpiece) with a deeper, more polished male lead than Richard Gere Bale, for instance, would have knocked Smith's role out of the park, and if you could have put him in a time machine and let him play Gere's role in DAYS OF HEAVEN, he would have done that better, too. (I don't think it's possible to improve on Martin Sheen's performance in BADLANDS, though -- but that's another discussion, maybe part of Martin Sheen Weekend?)
Malick had to cast young actors who could get him financing, and to permit him to cast a complete unknown as Pocahantas, and all in all, I think he put the right two guys in those roles. In some ways, the John Smith role can bear an actor who's more a charismatic camera subject than a master of craft, because it's a star part, moony and somewhat self destructive, a beautiful fuckup, like many a movie star. John Rolfe is a more challenging role because the actor has to make responsibility sexy -- no mean feat.
Bale pulls it off, but that's not surprising. He and Johnny Depp are probably the two most intelligent and daring actors in English language movies right now. I think Bale can do pretty much anything.
Of Bale and Depp, I meant to specify YOUNG actors. Obviously they cannot be judged the equals of Pacino, De Niro, etc, because they have much shorter track records.
virgilx,
I think TNW is a rare case of a great movie that could have been cast just as good a number of different ways. Whereas a weak or bad performance would have crippled the movie, solid acting all the way around (what we have here) is sufficient. It's a different kind of movie, not the kind where an actor can run away with the film. It's even conceivable to me that the fine Q'orianka Kilcher could have been recast well, though the chances of success are probably slim and I wouldn't want to try it.
Re: Colin Farrell, I went into TNW with a prejudiced animus towards him, although I hadn't seen many of his movies. I just didn't like him, but I never doubted his acting ability. My problem was more with his 'Star' appeal. Sexually, I thought he was kind of yucky, he looked like he smelled bad, and I found him irritating in interviews, sorta like those fuckers in the band Oasis.
None of that bugged me in TNW, though. I liked his inhibited, puppy-eyed flirtations with Kilcher, so I'll second what bilge said in the comments above. I thought Farrell effectively conveyed John Smith's imprisoned soul with it's periodic releases (we first see him in chains) and his deferential respect for the 'naturals'. And it is no stretch for me to imagine Colin Farrell incarcerated or having trouble with authority.
If I perform the thought excercise of recasting, and search, somewhat strenuously, for deficiencies in the choice of Farrell, I'd say that another actor might have put a different and stronger emphasis on the military aspects of Smith's character. He is the only professional soldier after all, and occasionally he has to fight and bark orders with authority. Farrell only has to do this a couple of times before he is usurped, so he was okay. I imagine he had to bark a lot of orders in Alexander, don't know how he did.
Anyway, I hope all this doesn't sound like backhanded praise, because I think he's a net plus in the film. That's the best I can do for now. I hope it helps.
Thanks, very interesting comments. I hadn't really considered Christian Bale's talent much before TNW, or thought he was over-rated more than anything. But TNW really made me reconsider, even in Batman Begins!
Bilge, regarding the scene you mentioned: to me, those type of scenes are design for actors to hit home runs with. the audience is already engaged and ready to be impressed. So I wouldn't necessarily give too much credit to Farrell. Or hold it against him, for that matter.
Matt, I guess I don't find Farrell that charismatic to begin with. My sole positive association with Farrell was that I thought he would make a great Bullseye, cool and with a real, sharp edge. In TNW, yes he's yearning, but there's no grounding, and he overdoes the moony and self destructive bit.
Speaking of Gere, I guess he is the easy comparison (same directors, similar role). Except, no matter his limitations as an actor, Gere is more charismatic. He can be moony or self destructive or troubled, without making it seem forced like the way I think Farrell does.
And considering how great I thought the Rolfe parts were, I wouldn't trade Bale out of that role for anything.
dave, um, your comment was interesting as well, but I've run out of things to talk about.
My opinion has been reformed a little, the "feminine quality to his yearning" is quite a good way to put it.
"...Those types of scenes are designed for actors to hit home runs with. The audience is already engaged and ready to be impressed. So I wouldn't necessarily give too much credit to Farrell. Or hold it against him, for that matter."
Those types of scenes can also spell doom for many actors. It's through the accumulation of moments like that that we get what is often mystically, elusively referred to as "chemistry."
So maybe what it boils down to is that Farrell has terrific chemistry with Kilcher -- and I'm sure we agree that said chemistry is very important for this film. (That's actually one thing I haven't seen much in negative reviews of the film, either -- noone seems to think the two leads lack chemistry.)
It's possible that another actor might have been more technically accomplished than Farrell in TNW. But I doubt he'd have had better chemistry with Kilcher.
I, as well, have never cared for Colin Farrell in the past. His celebrity persona is basically a horny drunken lout, and this is well known and seemingly unchanging, if not Farrell's fault. But, beyond the tenderness of the performance itself (which I found deeply moving), I felt like I was discovering something about Farrell I had not known before. And when he speaks of Pocahontas not knowing him, of being a bad man, when he arrives in chains, what we know of Farrell the star, if we permit ourselves to leave the movie, or maybe even subconsciously, influences our understanding of that past. It's incredibly sad. Yes, Malick had to cast Farrell and Bale in major roles; it was important to cast Pocahontas with an "unknown", implicitly aligning us with the English, but then revealing sides of Farrell (and Bale, for all I'm concerned) that we have never known or seen before. Farrell's performance is so against type as to be a revelation of his humanly qualities. When was the last time a film treated its characters with such tender understanding. Or showed their bodies in such a beautiful way, without relying on sex. When Farrell is captaining the small boat headed up river, an Indian tethered near the mast, while his voice speaks of the wonderful promise of free class in America, and his shirt is open revealing his chest, this is classical beauty, yet complicated and complex.
Maybe I'm just saying this because I've got Johnny Depp on the brain right now, but it seems to me that he could have played either Farrell's or Bale's role as well as the current occupants, maybe better.
I disagree. He doesn't have the physical presence of Farrell, which I feel is one of the most striking qualities of Captain Smith. He is a soldier after all, and a renowned one at that. And maybe Depp at one time could have played the Bale role, but his performances have evolved (devolved?) into studied quirkiness. And the Rolfe character is anything but quirky. Though I do think Depp could have brought some interesting, darker shadings to both characters, but maybe at the expense of the film.
Depp was credible as a soldier in PLATOON and a cop in DONNIE BRASCO, so I think he could have risen to the physical challenges. But we're in fantasy football territory now anyway, and you're right that he now tends toward bigness, so I'll take your point.
Perhaps another way to get at the issue of Malick is to remember that almost all movies tell stories. They are to cinema what the novel is to literature: they have a cast of characters, they have a hero or heroine, often a villain, a series of obstacles that have to be overcome, or not, etc. They are novels, basically, but set to film, and requiring skilled actors to bring the characters to life.
But the novel, by definition, is a modern development: a "novel" is literally a "new thing". Most literature throughout history was poetry, not prose.
Why, in theory, can't movies also be "poetic". Why must they always resemble novels? Isn't it conceivable that one day it will be commonplace to be a "poetic" filmmaker, not in the sense this is normally used, but really and truly to describe the motion picture equivalent of poems? Even the best filmmakers have more in common with Dickens than Dickinson, but why, in theory, couldn't they more resemble Dickinson?
Malick tells stories, of course, but then so did Wordsworth (sometimes). But Wordsworth wrote stories in verse, where there was minimal action and a superabundance of reflection, reverie, and contemplation. Thus the poems "Michael" or "Tintern Abbey" or "Intimations of Immortality" tell stories, but the story is almost irrelevant, it's just a peg to hang Wordworth's impressions on; the real emphasis is on describing sights, sounds, smells, emotions, reminiscences as if for the very first time, to see the flux of nature with fresh eyes.
(But if you went to the movies expecting a "novel" and got a "poem" instead, you'd be both confused and extremely annoyed, wouldn't you? It would be like going to a concert and walking into a museum instead of an auditorium. You came to hear music, not look at paintings, so right away you're not in the frame of mind to appreciate the perhaps wonderful paintings on the wall.)
Try reading those poems, or any Wordsworth poems (Whitman's "Song of Myself" is another analogue) then look at Malick's movies. There is a real similarity of intent.
crash & burn: you write, "Malick tells stories, of course, but then so did Wordsworth (sometimes). But Wordsworth wrote stories in verse, where there was minimal action and a superabundance of reflection, reverie, and contemplation. Thus the poems "Michael" or "Tintern Abbey" or "Intimations of Immortality" tell stories, but the story is almost irrelevant, it's just a peg to hang Wordworth's impressions on; the real emphasis is on describing sights, sounds, smells, emotions, reminiscences as if for the very first time, to see the flux of nature with fresh eyes. (But if you went to the movies expecting a "novel" and got a "poem" instead, you'd be both confused and extremely annoyed, wouldn't you? It would be like going to a concert and walking into a museum instead of an auditorium. You came to hear music, not look at paintings, so right away you're not in the frame of mind to appreciate the perhaps wonderful paintings on the wall.)"
That's what I'm talking about! Movies are descended from theater and the novel, but that is not their only allegiance. The biggest problem with the commercial narrative filmmaking model is that it reinforces the widely held idea that movies are primarily about three-act structure and cleanly defined characters you can hang labels on. The real power of movies lies in their mystery, their fundamental opacity, their sense of unresolved contradiction. Hollywood wants exclamation points, and Malick gives us semicolons, ellipses and question marks. It is accurate and useful to compare him to a poet or a musician because that's where his sympathies lie. Orson Welles described film as a ribbon of dreams. No matter whether you have an affinity for Malick or not, that is unquestionably what he gives us, and what he intends to give us. They are poetry and music in pictures, and you cannot judge them by the usual standards. There's an ineffable quality that demands personal engagement, and either you respond or you don't. The general lack of enthusiasm for this movie among general audiences and critics is disheartening. I would like to think time will remedy it, but BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN aren't as wildly popular as other movies made during their time, no matter how many enthusiasts come out agitating on their behalf. I don't think he's ahead of his time, though, as sophisticated and intuitive as his style is; I feel as if he's more in tune with silent movie values, or experimental film values, and that, more than anything else, puts him out of step with popular taste.
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