By Matt Zoller Seitz.
The following is a piece about the similarities between two Terrence Malick films, "Days of Heaven" and "The New World." A condensed version of this piece also appears in the current issue of NYPress.
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DAYS OF HEAVEN
Directed by Terrence Malick
At Film Forum starting April 14
Despite its complexity and open-hearted spirit, Terrence Malick's "The New World" became one of the most divisive studio movies in recent memory. Even some of the filmmakers’ admirers rejected it as opaque, choppy, unstructured, too sentimental in depicting its central love triangle, and too enamored with nature photography and Transcendental sentiments. To read some of the pans by critics who’d previously backed Malick, you’d have thought he’d started throwing lovely pictures and poetic narration onscreen and hoping something stuck. 
Thanks to what The Village Voice’s J. Hoberman called the cult of "The New World," critical consensus is already shifting in Malick’s favor. Film Forum’s repertory screening of Malick’s 1978 masterpiece "Days of Heaven" should push that process along. Some detractors cite "Heaven" as an honorable example of Malick’s talent and dismiss the "The New World" as a devolution. But a close viewing confirms that that "The New World" is in many ways an enlargement of "Days of Heaven" that revisits its situations, themes and filmmaking vocabulary from a fresh vantage point.
Both films are built around migrations/immigrations – England to America and back in "The New World," Chicago to the Texas Panhandle to an unspecified small town in "Days." Both movies anchor otherwise free-floating narratives to a couple of spectacular music-and-image driven montages – the Wagner-scored arrivals in "The New World," the acoustic guitar-scored train and boat journeys in "Days."
And both are period pieces about doomed love triangles. In "The New World," the lovers are John Smith, Pocahantas and Pocahantas’ eventual husband, John Rolfe. In Days of Heaven, the triangle consists of furtive lovers Abby (Brooke Adams) and Bill (Richard Gere) -- who pose as brother and sister and flee Chicago after the hot tempered Bill accidentally kills his foreman during an argument -- and a rich but sickly young wheat farmer (Sam Shepard) whom Abby marries so that she, Bill and Bill’s kid sister (Linda Manz) can inherit his property after he dies. 
In both movies the female romantic lead becomes the movie’s de facto protagonist. Both Pocahantas and Abby are torn between rugged social outcasts to whom they’re physically attracted, and more genteel, powerful men they latch onto for survival’s sake. Over time, both women grow to love their new mates (though without the fire they showed in their prior relationships). Most significantly, Pocahantas and Abby trade one culture and social strata for another. By film’s end they’ve truly become different people, so seemingly at ease in their new worlds that the audience can’t pinpoint any obvious turning point. (And both women turn cartwheels when they’re happy!)
The filmmaker's aesthetic is a rebuke to commercial filmmaking conventions that were practically set in stone from the early days of sound. Malick's goal is to deny us the usual anchor points, to make the experience of watching his films as much a blur of emotion as our own memories or dreams, and to suggest that the world is not really driven by individual will, as both drama and Western social myths suggest; that we may be less actors than acted-upon; that instead of individuals driving a narrative, perhaps narrative (a story in fiction, or historical events in the real world) drives individuals. Malick's filmmaking turns this philosophy into rhapsody. Where most mainstream cinema unthinkingly swears allegiance to theater and the novel -- forms that prize self-contained, conversation-driven scenes with clearly-marked beginnings, middles and ends -- Malick makes music with pictures, deploying situations, lines and symbolically charged moments as motifs in an immense, interconnected whole. Other filmmakers work this way -- Wong Kar-Wai is arguably the most assured contemporary example -- but none of them do it in America, with studio money.
Malick keeps us at arms’ length from his people, the better to illustrate the notion that there's more to life than what individuals can see. He does this not just through unreliable voice-over narrators – Manz in "Days," multiple voices in "The New World" – but by visually diminishing his characters through panoramic wide shots and frequent cutaways to landscapes, flora and fauna. Disregarding the 180-degree rule and often shrugging off spatial logic, Malick cuts not for continuity of action but continuity of feeling. (To give just one example, during the tragic foot chase by the river, the music, voices and sound effects are continuous but the action jumps all over the place.) Both films are comprised of pure montage and little else.
Specific filmmaking choices that "New World" detractors have described as vexing new additions to Malick’s vocabulary are used all through "Days of Heaven." In both films, Malick often cuts into a pan or dolly shot after it’s begun and cuts away before it’s finished, and unbalances the viewer by lingering on some shots for longer than you might expect while cutting away from others at the split-second that their beauty has begun to sink in. In both "Days" and "The New World," Malick rarely shows us the beginning or end of a conversation. Sometimes we don’t even know what, exactly, the characters are discussing, because in both films, it often doesn’t matter. What matters are gestures, expressions, symbolically charged images (a crystal goblet on the bottom of a riverbed, locusts scuttling across the surfaces of a kitchen), and most of all, the ironic contrast between individual desires and nature’s indifference to humankind.
The key to understanding Malick's intent can be found in a camera move that begins the denouement of "Days," picking up after the riverbank sequence. We see the keyboard of a player piano in closeup as it pounds out a song to give our heroine and other girls in a ballet studio something to dance to; then the camera dollies back to a medium wide shot, as if to confirm that no human force is producing that music. This haunting, humble image illuminates Malick's films, all four of which depict individuals struggling (often vainly) to understand and influence mysterious cosmic forces -- time, mortality, the elements, history -- that are too vast to fully comprehend. The piano plays itself.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Player piano
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32 comments:
And just in case this piece seemed a tad ethereal, here's a bit of Malick news that will bring you down to earth: apparently when "The New World" plays Japan, a company there will waft particular scents into the auditorium. The jokes write themselves.
This is my favorite of the many arguments that you've made on behalf of The New World. I've also been perplexed by negative comparisons to Malick's earlier work. I can sympathize (to an extent) with those who would dismiss him entirely, but to suggest that The New World is somehow inferior to his other work? I wonder how much this has to do with the fact that Emmanuel Lubezki is not Néstor Almenadros?
Your comparison between Malick and Wong Kar-Wai is especially effective. Their technique, their method is similar enough that I think it behooves a critic who favors the latter but not the former to explain him- or herself.
All we got over here was Odie "farting in church."
grand epic: Maybe Odie's on the scent list for the Japanese showings.
PS: Some other good "Days of Heaven" links:
* A page full of stunning screen grabs at DVD Beaver.com (I helped myself).
* A review by Damian Cannon that's short but exquisitely wrought.
And one of my very favorites, a lengthy analysis by Carl Bennett, originally published in a 1979 issue of Cinemonkey. In addition to some deep-dish analysis of Malick's use of objective correlatives for every major character, the piece calls the movie, "...a wonderfully colorful tapestry. It flows from shot to shot, scene to scene, in the carefree yet persistent manner of the wind, the river, the rain and other elemental entities represented in the film. 'Days of Heaven' is an uplifting, even hopeful film — despite the tragedy of the main characters — in its portrayal of a time in America (at least in Malick’s interpretation) when people carried a humanistic pride in themselves."
Another great piece is Carole Zucker's excellent article in Literature/Film Quarterly. I was going to post a link but I think I might have gotten cut off (the URL is pretty long). Anyway, just Google "Carole Zucker" + "Days of Heaven". You'll be glad you did.
You know, I did get this uneasy feeling of vertigo watching The New World, because of the volume of references to Days...including the repetition or paraphrase of at least one line from the "farmer" character in both: “Why are you so uneasy with me? Seems like I don't know you.”
And I think that the result is unusual; It's as if the New World is a portmanteau which carries Days inside of it, and that the film's moments allow you to enter a mood of reverie, a la Raul Ruiz's concept of shamanic cinema -- a film that explodes among your memories and brings other films to life. This is also probably the reason the film seemed, at least to me, like a different experience each time I saw it.
And I also wanted to mention the obvious stylistic antecedent for both of these films: Claude Lelouch's bitterly, and I think unjustly, maligned A Man and A Woman. That film showed that a film like The New World would eventually be possible.
MZS: Maybe Odie's on the scent list for the Japanese showings.
Yes, I will be providing Contrapuntal Farting at screenings of The New World in Japan.
They should just have John Waters' Odorama cards from Polyester at screenings. After all, the people in The New World do not look like they smell "Zestfully Clean."
Days of Heaven is my favorite Malick film, so you won't get any arguments from me.
Anyone have any info on the new DVD cover for DAYS shown at amazon.com, etc? Unless I hear otherwise I have to assume it's the same disc with the same content...
Matt, when will you be leaving for Japan? Could the smell factor finally be the tipping point that turns Kehr into an enthusiast? You've come to far to back down now. Your loyal House mates are expecting a full and flavorful report!
"that we may be less actors than acted-upon; that instead of individuals driving a narrative, perhaps narrative (a story in fiction, or historical events in the real world) drives individuals."
This is where The New World turns irredeemably sour for me. I'm willing to recognize the beauty of its craft, but the story that it hangs itself around - the Smith/Pocahontas/Rolfe creation myth - is the last one in need of being told with this sense of "inevitably," or narrative over individual will, because that is how it's been told throughout American history to justify colonialism. I've read dozens of reviews which all laud Malick's film on the grounds of its technique and form, but none which grapple with its very tired political tropes. Even most of the negative reviews I've read only take issue with Malick's form and style. While I don't think form and style can be completely divorced from content, no one - fans and detractors alike - seem to actually address the meaning of the content in The New World.
Andrew -- I'll compose a detailed response to your last remark, which raises important points, and post it later tonight.
For the meantime, I'll just say I don't think the movie paints a rosy picture of colonialism at all. From images of denuded forest land to scenes where Native Americans embrace the crudest sorts of commerce (almost a kind of idol worship) after the English example, Malick is fully aware of the damage inflicted by this union. And don't forget that in the end this is Pocahantas' story, and over the course of the film, she gives up her culture (though never entirely relinquishes her original identity as a Native American). Many of the English characters are depicted as ignorant, benignly but decidedly oppressive or batshit crazy and racist.
But at the same time, Malick shows us that Pocahantas, Smith and Rolfe were more acted upon than acted, that there was decency in them, that they recognized what was happening and had only the most limited ability to do anything about it. The movie doesn't absolve the West of guilt, not at all. But it also says that even in times of great darkness, individuals survive, often by adapting, and find some happiness in spite of it all. If that hopefulness unbalances the darkness the movie shows us, then it's definitely a huge flaw. What did you want from the movie, though? I'm not being argumentative, I am curious. A statement to the effect that all English are defined by the sins of their culture? A less hopeful finale? More of a dark stain on the Pocahantas-John Smith canoodling?
This is a political movie, no doubt, and a critical one -- the end credits move west across a map of the New World, forseeing "manifest destiny" and genocide to come. But it's not a strictly polemical movie, and I'm glad it's not, because those sorts of films tend to succeed mainly as statements, not drama.
Andrew wrote: "I've read dozens of reviews which all laud Malick's film on the grounds of its technique and form, but none which grapple with its very tired political tropes."
OK, as our Kommissar for political matters:
1) what is the political Da Vinci Code that you are pussyfooting around with the phrase "tired political tropes" in The New World...?
2) What things can you point to in the film that identify Malick's P.O.V. (i.e. in the mise en scene) with those "political tropes..."
THLR-HB: I appreciate the encouragement, but there are no Japan trips in my future. I have enough time management issues as-is, plus I'm tapped out from my trip to Syracuse last weekend. I will have to content myself with watching THE NEW WORLD on DVD bootleg with a selection of air fresheners -- Pine, Seascape, Incense, Henna, and a new one, something called Farrell Pit.
To the rather glib anonymous commenter: Sorry to have "pussy-footed," but it was a blog comment, not a treatise. I was addressing the narrative's conveyance of "inevitably" of colonialism; if that's not political, I don't know what is.
Thanks for the honest response, Matt. I admire your openness to these questions.
The question foremost in my mind while watching The New World was: why this particular story? Why now? If you are going to tell the story of Pocahontas, I think you need to bring something new to it, not embellish the myth. The story is deep-rooted in America's understanding of itself and its right to the occupation of the continent. It is so central to American creation myths that an early race law even made the "descendents" of John Rolfe and Pocahontas honary "whites" (see Cheryl Harris's essay "Whiteness as Property" for more context and a citation).
This is not simply a film about individuals surviving, adapting, and remaining happy in spite of it all. Beyond the drama of the story, beyond its portrayal of individuals (and I think the characters mean little as individuals in Malick's films), Malick has chosen the Pocahontas myth to speak to certain issues he is very fond of: man's relationship to nature and innocence.
I loved the Thin Red Line, and for a long time it was one of my favorite films. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember his depiction of the indigenous people in that film was troubling. Granted, it could be argued that the romanticization in that film is all a product of Witt's point of view, but the whole AWOL-in- paradise sequences are too ambigious to ever know for sure. And why is it indigenous people are always being used as devices for the white main characters?
In The New World, Malick is again tackling with issues of corruption of innocence. You might even say this is the main issue in the film. I agree with Matt that Malick doesn't paint a pretty picture of colonization, but that doesn't excuse Malick for failing to nuance his portrayal of Native people at all (even Pocahontas, who does little but praise the Earth and pine after Smith). Granted, all of Malick's characters are just types representing some larger idea; but Native people have been represented as nothing but "types" since Europeans got here.
I think I read in the "Great Directors" essay at Senses of Cinema that Malick's films rebuke sociological or psychological explanations for things. I think it is exactly sociological and psychological explanations that are missing from the Pocahantas myth, and the far, far from resolved issue of Native nations colonial relationship with the American State.
It's not simply Malick's "mis-en-scene," its the larger context the film is inevitably a part of. It's hard to get lost in the beauty of the film when all these very real ethical questions are floating around unaddressed.
Jeez this is getting long-winded. In sum, Malick's story inevitably brings nothing new to the myth of Pocahantas. It only perpetuates it. Again, I ask: why is this particular story needed? Why now?
Andrew wrote: I was addressing the narrative's conveyance of "inevitably" of colonialism; if that's not political, I don't know what is.
I'm always baffled at this kind of statement. This isn't Doctor Who, right? There isn't really an alternate reality. The English, who brought with them a set of values (which as Malick carefully points out, both idealized the "naturals" and dehumanized them simultaneously) actually did eventually conquer and colonize Virginia. The enterprise was to found a colony, so it's rather perceptive of you to figure out that it was colonialist enterprise. And "inevitably" so...
Since we're playing fantasy history here, what other non-inevitable result should Malick have dramatized?
Andrew wrote: "I remember his depiction of the indigenous people in that film was troubling. Granted, it could be argued that the romanticization in that film is all a product of Witt's point of view, but the whole AWOL-in- paradise sequences are too ambigious to ever know for sure."
You're starting to get warm here. When Witt first sees the melanesians, he, like Smith, believes that he's found a paradise on earth, a people at one with nature, and then later when war has colored his experience of that world, he sees all the hallmarks of civilization: disease, fear, etc. So it really isn't THAT ambiguous, it does indicate a subjective vision on Witt's part, no?
Andrew wrote: "If you are going to tell the story of Pocahontas, I think you need to bring something new to it, not embellish the myth."
You're really mixing two myths here. The secondary myth, which was Indians were savages who, incapable of civilization, deserved their extermination. And the original countermyth was that Indians were these cute, noble beings who were in a state of natural grace and that that was what was going to cure the sick soul of the old world.
It seems to me that Malick gives play to both of these myths in a dialectical process, and asks YOU to negotiate your own position with respect to them. If you're looking for an answer in the film's ideology you could be waiting a long time. The film is designed to contradict itself, even as it insists on tantalizing parallels between the two civilizations that have so tragically encountered each other.
Anonymous writes, "I'm always baffled at this kind of statement. This isn't Doctor Who, right? There isn't really an alternate reality.... Since we're playing fantasy history here, what other non-inevitable result should Malick have dramatized?"
It's not a question of what the history is, but how history came to be that way: how it is depicted. This question of "inevitability" is more in response to how colonialist practices are still justified in the United States (take as an example any elementary school education). If we fail to acknowledge that the cruel things in history (the American genocide, Nazi Germany, etc.) were conscious choices - hardly "inevitable" - then we deny our own responsibility for putting a stop to cruel practices today. Given that Native nations still exist and colonialism is alive and well in North America, non-indigenous Americans have some real issues to grapple with. Maybe you saw George W. Bush's recent (last two years or so) on the spot definition of "native sovereignty." If not, google it, its a sad commentary on what the US government understands about its relationship (not only ethically, but legally) to the nations within it.
Regarding Witt in The Thin Red Line, I can see the role the subjective plays, and I can agree that this is the proper interpreation. The reason I say its ambigious is because I've seen it interpretted otherwise - which tells me that Malick didn't spell out his intentions as well as he could have. Maybe if he had spelled it out more, he would have lost something in terms of artistic quality, who knows. Anyway, this doesn't address how indigenous people are often being used as devices for the development of white main characters. They are being interpretted through Western eyes, not on their own terms, and without an acknowledgement of the contemporary power imbalance (maybe that's impossible if Malick is to keep his narrative whole, and if so, it is definintely a weakness). I think this is ultimately the case with The New World as well.
Anonymous says, "You're really mixing two myths here."
You're missing a third myth, the one Pocahontas (and Sacajawea) has represented for centuries: that Indians are assimilable, and an essential component of European's newly found American identity (see Phil Deloria's book Playing Indian for an extended study of the role of "Indianness" in American identity). This was especially represented in the law when Rolfe and Pocahontas's descendents were made honary "whites" (when being "white" meant something very specific legally).
Anonymous writes, "It seems to me that Malick gives play to both of these myths in a dialectical process, and asks YOU to negotiate your own position with respect to them."
Dialectically paired or not, both myths are essentially false. Isn't it true that two wrongs don't make a right? Neither myth is transcended by merely being paired with its direct opposite. No matter whether Malick is asking for it or not, from my own viewing of the film and most of the reviews I've read (I can start digging up review quotes if you'd like), the two options hardly anount to an informed and ultimately valid "position with respect to them."
Andrew wrote: "If we fail to acknowledge that the cruel things in history (the American genocide, Nazi Germany, etc.) were conscious choices - hardly "inevitable" - then we deny our own responsibility for putting a stop to cruel practices today. Given that Native nations still exist and colonialism is alive and well in North America, non-indigenous Americans have some real issues to grapple with."
Um, why just non-indigenous Americans..? I think the reservation system serves the racism of the dominant culture AND the repressed culture equally well. Native Americans have their own kind of racial purity test: it's called tribal membership. And we, as a nation, tolerate that unique type of racial exceptionalism, even after all the rest of the country comfortably (or at least legally) accepts mixed-racial categories as the future of America. Why? Because our self-identity requires the "natives" museum preservation as a kind of eternal totem of its founding. Native Americans are truly the "other" that binds America to itself. But it takes two to do that tango...
Andrew wrote: You're missing a third myth, the one Pocahontas (and Sacajawea) has represented for centuries: that Indians are assimilable, and an essential component of European's newly found American identity..."
This is indeed an American myth, but that isn't at all what Rebecca (she is never referred to by any other name, I don't believe) represents in Malick's film.
We notice that Pocahontas/Rebecca is speaking English because all the other "naturals" use their own, often untranslated, language. But Malick works very hard to emphasize her "otherness" to both cultures. This is the KEY to her character.
She is an example of what Frank Waters would call a "psychological mestizo": those rare persons who can bridge gulfs of cultural alienation and remain resolutely individual, not ever fully integrated into either the repressed culture or the dominant one.
And I think this story can be read, like Witt's journey in the Thin Red Line, as myth of individuation NOT INTEGRATION against the group, by often painful dialectical contrast with one's surrounding environment. Rebecca suceeds in navigating the two "New Worlds" -- she recognizes the same "mother" under the two faces of the world, the "natural" and the "artificial".
In contrast, John Smith remains trapped in a reverie, a false rousseauian dream of his own making.
As an aside, I don't quite understand why you keep referencing other reviewers, as if others' snoozing and oversimplifying the myriad contradictions of the film seems to prove anything.
Andrew said...
"Dialectically paired or not, both myths are essentially false. Isn't it true that two wrongs don't make a right? Neither myth is transcended by merely being paired with its direct opposite."
But that's exactly what I value about this film. I don't think it has anything really to do with the myths being "false" or not. I think it does have a lot to do with them being incomplete.
You asked why this particular story and why now. Well, on one hand I would suggest that it says much about Malick's artistry that we even ask such a question of him. Most other films don't demand or deserve it and the ones that do (like Munich) offer up a slate of distinct starting points for the discussion.
But ultimately Malick's intentions as implied above are reason enough to produce a film like this--how many other filmmakers are combining the mystical and the ironic with such deft verve; how many other filmmakers (particularly in the States) would attempt such a thing at all, would even see it as worthwhile?
Why tell any story? Perhaps because it can penetrate to something true, maybe even something unexpectedly true, something we are not prepared to see or immediately accept, though the view has been prepared for us, thoroughly and with care.
Anonymous writes, "Um, why just non-indigenous Americans..? I think the reservation system serves the racism of the dominant culture AND the repressed culture equally well. Native Americans have their own kind of racial purity test: it's called tribal membership. And we, as a nation, tolerate that unique type of racial exceptionalism, even after all the rest of the country comfortably (or at least legally) accepts mixed-racial categories as the future of America. Why? Because our self-identity requires the "natives" museum preservation as a kind of eternal totem of its founding. Native Americans are truly the "other" that binds America to itself. But it takes two to do that tango..."
Well, it ought to go without saying that Native Americans have to deal with colonialism as much as non-Natives. But its non-Natives who have the privilege of ignoring it, or misunderstanding and grossly overgeneralizing about Native issues, as you seem to do here. It needs to be recognized that the "unique type of racial exceptionalism" of blood quantum was also originally a colonial imposition in the first place, and that "racial purity" is not the end all be all of tribal membership; the criteria for membership varies from tribe to tribe. It is a gross generalization and rather inept to say that tribal membership is simply an issue of otherwise antiquated racial purity. Tribal membership is "tolerated," as you say, not because Natives serve some ideological empty space in the American psyche, but because Native nations have the sovereign right to determine their membership.
Also, blood quantum and racial identity is a very much an issue far from resolution within Native communities for many reasons, not least among them that it has eventual tribal extinction built into it. And while America might like to think its "over" racial purity, it still very much colors the US governments relationship to Native nations; e.g. see Cheryl Harris's discussion of the Mashpee case in her essay "Whiteness as Property."
But back to the film...
Anonymous writes, "Rebecca suceeds in navigating the two "New Worlds" -- she recognizes the same "mother" under the two faces of the world, the "natural" and the "artificial". In contrast, John Smith remains trapped in a reverie, a false rousseauian dream of his own making."
Your arguments about individuation are compelling, and may highlight the most worthwhile reading of the film. But it has to be recognized that this individuation happens against the backdrop of an overarching and overpowering narrative which Matt points to in his original post, and about which I orginally responded to. It is the overarching themes (most of all the Pocahontas myth) that Malick sticks his characters into that renders the film nothing new, and ultimately - in my view - unsuccessful.
This is why I've asked "Why this story?" I ask to get at Malick's intent. He has deliberately chosen the Pocahontas/Smith myth to explore issues of innocence and nature, and by extension the origins of America, and in so choosing to tell the story as he does (in typical Malick fashion, devoid of overt sociological, psychological or political content), I think he's just perpetuating, not transcending the tropes and stereotypes. By making the tired dichotomy between "natural" (the Natives) and "artificial" (the Europeans) I think Malick is stuck in the same dream as Smith.
Anonymous wrote, "As an aside, I don't quite understand why you keep referencing other reviewers, as if others' snoozing and oversimplifying the myriad contradictions of the film seems to prove anything."
Well, I keep referencing other reviews because I think there might be some evidence to back up my argument. I am of the tendency to think that the way an audience recieves a film is important to take into consideration when evaluating it. Some reviews I have read of The New World reproduce tired stereotypes of Native Americans, and that tells me that the film's narrative, if it truly intends to undermine myths, is not successful.
nathaniel wrote, "But ultimately Malick's intentions as implied above are reason enough to produce a film like this--how many other filmmakers are combining the mystical and the ironic with such deft verve; how many other filmmakers (particularly in the States) would attempt such a thing at all, would even see it as worthwhile?"
Well, I hate to get all materialistic here, its what the film demands: how many other filmmakers would attempt such a thing if they had access to a million-dollar budget? Because of his reputation over several decades, Malick had a unique oppurtunity to make this film. Who has the time and resources to spend several decades to get to the point where you can make a film like "The New World?" I definitely enjoy the film's unorthodox narrative style, but mostly it makes me wish more filmmakers had the luxury that Malick enjoys. I realize this opens an entirely new can of worms which I might not have the knowledge to discuss, but for the sake of honestsy I should mention that it is a question that nags me.
While I recognize the skill of his style, and appreciate his attempts to expand what film can mean, that by no means says I have to agree with the ideas he extends in the film. And for the most part, while the individuation argument seems like a good one, I find the ideas overall to be very old, not taking us anywhere new at all.
Andrew wrote: "It needs to be recognized that the "unique type of racial exceptionalism" of blood quantum was also originally a colonial imposition in the first place"
Well, of course, because aborigines are "naturally" free from racial animosity, and they frolic with their brothers and commune with nature. Here's where I don't see any difference between your p.c. paternalism and John Smith's fantasy of a edenic world corrupted by the entrance of white men. Perhaps that's what rubbed you the wrong way in the film.
Andrew wrote: "Tribal membership is "tolerated," as you say, not because Natives serve some ideological empty space in the American psyche, but because Native nations have the sovereign right to determine their membership.
Also, blood quantum and racial identity is a very much an issue far from resolution within Native communities for many reasons, not least among them that it has eventual tribal extinction built into it. "
Sovereignty = Casino Payouts, fetal alcohol syndrome, dying languages, moribund or corrupt economies, meth plague, nuke waste dumps, criminally unacceptable levels of poverty, but by all means, blame the Great White Father. That gag's worked well enough for a hundred years. It should work until well after the tribes are extinct.
Andrew wrote: "It is the overarching themes (most of all the Pocahontas myth) that Malick sticks his characters into that renders the film nothing new, and ultimately - in my view - unsuccessful."
It seems that this is the crux of the matter. You keep dancing around the fact that you object that Malick chose to tackle THIS VERY SUBJECT, which I think at base you find illegitimate. Again, I'd like to know what your (or Godard's) Pocahontas film would look like, a request that you've been ditching for a while now. Are there any portayal of Native Americans in historical settings (by priviledged white males or others) that you find non-problematic? Let me hear your list.
The New World seems like nothing new because you insist on reading it through a coke-bottle lens of political correctness -- and in a dense, unthinking way. I'd say that it's your ideological baggage that is nothing new. I keep pointing out to you ways in which the "ideological text" of the film is undercut by the director and you keep staying on the surface with the superficial audience response. If you actually had the courage of your convictions, you would have walked out with the audience members who thought they were watching a romance starring Colin Farrell.
Andrew wrote: "By making the tired dichotomy between "natural" (the Natives) and "artificial" (the Europeans) I think Malick is stuck in the same dream as Smith."
Why are you having so much trouble with this? Malick is undercutting and critiquing rather than endorsing this antinomy. That's why I put the words in quotes. And I have to say, you really do seem invested in believing that particular myth yourself.
Andrew: "I am of the tendency to think that the way an audience recieves a film is important to take into consideration when evaluating it."
This "let's take a poll attitude" is absurd. Great art is almost invariably received and condemned according to the mores of their time. You can't really SEE something until after the moment has been stripped away. If a work doesn't have the power to sustain itself over time it will obsolesce. So no worries here, if The New World is nothing new, or bad art, it will die a just death. But I don't think that's going to happen.
Anonymous write, "Sovereignty = Casino Payouts, fetal alcohol syndrome, dying languages, moribund or corrupt economies, meth plague, nuke waste dumps, criminally unacceptable levels of poverty, but by all means, blame the Great White Father. That gag's worked well enough for a hundred years. It should work until well after the tribes are extinct."
Thanks for sharing this. You won't be suprised that I find it awfully offensive (because its gravely dehistoricized and incredibly ignorant), but at least I know where you're coming from now.
Anonymous asks, "Again, I'd like to know what your (or Godard's) Pocahontas film would look like, a request that you've been ditching for a while now. Are there any portayal of Native Americans in historical settings (by priviledged white males or others) that you find non-problematic? Let me hear your list."
Why should I have to make a Pocahontas film? The story might have too much baggage to touch, and I don't understand why this is an unacceptable decision to make. Nor am I a filmmaker. But, if it'll make you happy... if I had to make a film about it, the first thing I'd do is drop the airy, mystical narrative with its depoliticized philosophical aspirations. If I was going to quote the real John Smith at all (as Malick does, I believe) I'd also do as much as I could to not only historicize his words, but subject them to scrutiny. I would attempt to historicize Pocahontas's legacy, and follow her myth throughout American history to the present day.
As to your question of appropriate portayal of Native Americans in historial settings, I suppose you mean films. I could cite some history books, but I'm sorry I haven't the background in film to give you some examples.
I will say, however, I dont think its mere "political correctness" to acknowledge that the large bulk of American cinema (as least in its multimillion dollar form) through its short history has largely been the domain of white guys. That's a truth. Nor do I think its being merely P.C. to conjecture, based on this history, that nine times out of ten, their representations of people not like them (e.g. Indians) are going to be misrepresentations.
Anonymous writes, "If you actually had the courage of your convictions, you would have walked out with the audience members who thought they were watching a romance starring Colin Farrell."
This comment, coupled with your ignorant commentary on sovereignty, is making me question whether you even care to discuss this, or just feel a need to get polemical. I fail to see how putting art in its historical and political context is simply "political correctness," and why I should have walked out. I don't see why I cannot on the one hand reject the reading of the movie that views it as stupid because its slow and unconventional, but on the other also feel that the film has grave weaknesses in some of the ideas its putting forth.
Anonymous writes, "Why are you having so much trouble with this? Malick is undercutting and critiquing rather than endorsing this antinomy."
I'm willing to believe that's Malicks intent, and maybe there are even brief hints of it in the film. But I don't his narrative style is up to that very difficult task, and the films grand philosophical aspirations put the story in the clouds where it shouldn't be.
Anonymous writes, "You can't really SEE something until after the moment has been stripped away."
Here is where we irreconcilably differ. I believe "the moment" can not be stripped away. Art cannot be seen outside its political and social contexts; no piece of art can completely transcend these contexts, and its my opinion that such a thing is not only impossible, but dangerous. By considering an audience's reception of a film, I don't mean to endorse their reception, only to help me better understand a film and its place in this world.
Andrew wrote: "I find it awfully offensive (because its gravely dehistoricized and incredibly ignorant), but at least I know where you're coming from now."
I was trying to get your goat, a little. Hey, let them eat history and context, and wash it down with some paternalist "compassion", if it works for you. It doesn't for me.
Andrew wrote: "The story might have too much baggage to touch..."
Thank you for this brief moment of clarity. But doesn't Malick get any credit for touching the third rail of a "problematic" story? Or should artists only regurgitate banal cliches that have the approval of the historicist pedant or theory of the moment..?
Here's an idea: Maybe Malick is smarter than you are. Maybe he has some interesting ideas about the subject. Maybe paranoia about his intentions isn't a real critical method. The historicist "political" decontruction gag is just the will-to-power of the 98 pound weakling prostrated before the all powerful artist. Ultimately, this attitude has no use of the art object, except as an excuse to respond. It may be that you have no real interest in figuring out what Malick is up to. It seems you just want your preconceptions about the "baggage" (which are clearly received opinions, in any case) of the Pocahontas story validated. This is really no way to experience a serious and challenging work of art.
Why be so defensive? I really don't get it. Is it the budget? Is it film you have a problem with? Are you really honestly afraid that people won't grapple with some of these issues we've been going back and forth about? I think that you wouldn't feel uneasy in your response to the film, unless Malick wanted you to feel that unease. I suggest that is the film working properly on you.
The implication behind your complaint is that art shouldn't challenge your assumptions and way of thinking, etc. As long as it's properly historisized, i.e. defused and inert of anything that might smack of ambiguity or politically offensive subject matter, in other words completely explained, annotated and denotated, then it's cool by you. Great. There's just one problem. It's not art. It's propaganda. There is a difference, you know.
Andrew wrote: "if I had to make a film about it, the first thing I'd do is drop the airy, mystical narrative with its depoliticized philosophical aspirations. If I was going to quote the real John Smith at all (as Malick does, I believe) I'd also do as much as I could to not only historicize his words, but subject them to scrutiny. I would attempt to historicize Pocahontas's legacy, and follow her myth throughout American history to the present day."
Fabulous. Can we get Angelina Jolie for this? Dude, I don't know what planet you come from, but here on earth -- what you're describing is maybe the dullest and most uncharacteristically dogmatic Peter Watkins film ever with some Godard and Straub minced in. Now, it seems that you're upset that Malick isn't Watkins/Godard/Straub, but I don't see how that is a valid critique of The New World.
Andrew wrote: "Here is where we irreconcilably differ. I believe "the moment" can not be stripped away. Art cannot be seen outside its political and social contexts; no piece of art can completely transcend these contexts, and its my opinion that such a thing is not only impossible, but dangerous."
We sure do differ on this. In other words, art is just a suburb of the fertile field of sociology. This, my friend, is one of the most banal, pointless cliches of the past 40 years. Just one question...? What deathless masterpieces has this outlook produced? Can you name one? This is a recipe for quietism and pedantic self-consciousness, not for art.
Every time I hear that "everything is political" I yawn and reach for my revolver. But that's just me.
Andrew wrote: Nor do I think its being merely P.C. to conjecture, based on this history, that nine times out of ten, their representations of people not like them (e.g. Indians) are going to be misrepresentations.
Whoops, didn't mean to let this gem slide. This may be news to you, Andrew, but all representations are illusionist, i.e. they don't convey the totality of the objects or persons that they "represent" just a poetic aspect of them -- so effectively speaking all representations are misreprentations, no?
'when "The New World" plays Japan, a company there will waft particular scents into the auditorium.'
Haha... Well, when I saw THE NEW WORLD for the first time in the theatre, anyone within ten feet of me could have "downloaded" some herbal scents off my clothing, if you know what I mean. ;)
To Andy and the other dude, you are kind of missing the point. Malick is not cleverly making this movie about these very detailed issues you seem so interested in. Malick loves nature, and this movie is about man vs nature. Will he live in harmony with nature or opposed to it? Sure, Malick's "naturals" are romanticized. It's a movie, a myth. They represent human harmony with nature. The English, when they arrive, are basically in awe of the natural beauty, but quickly fall out synch with it. In fact, it becomes clear to us that the English intend on doing harm to nature and living out of harmony with it.
Malick doesn't give a damn about all this political stuff. He cares about nature and beauty.
Dear Andrew and Anonymous: You guys are the Godzilla and Megalon of the comments section, and though I usually intervene and facilitate, this time I rather selfishly decided to hang back and watch. It should come as no surprise that I agree more with Anonymous than with Andrew. But I think Andrew raises some points that are difficult to refute, particularly this:
"I'm willing to believe that [a dialectic] is Malick's intent, and maybe there are even brief hints of it in the film. But I don't [think] his narrative style is up to that very difficult task, and the film's grand philosophical aspirations put the story in the clouds where it shouldn't be."
And in response to Anon's, "You can't really SEE something until after the moment has been stripped away," Andrew writes, "Here is where we irreconcilably differ. I believe 'the moment' cannot be stripped away. Art cannot be seen outside its political and social contexts; no piece of art can completely transcend these contexts, and its my opinion that such a thing is not only impossible, but dangerous. By considering an audience's reception of a film, I don't mean to endorse their reception, only to help me better understand a film and its place in this world."
That last part is critical. While I agree that art must be considered apart from its popular reception, the better to judge the nuances of form and content, we cannot discount the audience's reaction, because that reaction gives us a clue as to whether the artist succeeded in getting his points across, whatever they may be.
That's why Jonathan Demme re-edited the climax of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS to employ a somewhat duller cutting pattern than he'd used originally -- because he never intended the film as a rah-rah, kill-the-killer movie, and was so disturbed when the audience cheered Clarice Starling's shooting of Jame Gumb that he figured he must be doing something wrong.
As much as I love the movie, i agree that Malick is so engaged with his three main characters and his setting that the political issues get muddled at times (particularly in the middle section). That said, it's much, much sharper and more self-aware than you give it credit for, Andrew. I won't rehash the same defenses here, since I already made them in the comments sections of previous posts, and in various articles and posts (all collected on the sidebar).
At the risk of reviving a thread that you both might have already abandoned, I'd like to pose a different question: Suppose Malick didn't give a damn about politics or being historically/culturally accurate. Is that a crime? Does it disqualify the movie from being taken seriously as art? Does art based on historical figures, however loosely, have any obligation to adhere to established facts or even conjecture? If so, are Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra," John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln" and Oliver Stone's "Nixon" all worthless? None of them really gave a damn about representing the strict facts of what happened; they just took off into their own mythic realms.
So I saw The New World again, at Cornell Cinema, this past weekend, and I'd like to propose-if you haven't already-that there is a THIRD New World at play: the place where P/R's mother lives, and in which P/R is romping in the film's last minutes; I am unconvinced that the hide-and-seek around the hedgerows took place in "living space," and am quite sure that P/R cavorting on the lawn, standing in the water, was already in that third space, the spirit world. I think that a side-by-side viewing of Dead Man and The New World would be incredibly fruitful. I fully believe that Malick was tipping his hand with Rolfe's line: "She understood the culture of tobacco," which calls to mind the way in which Dead Man underlined (as Rosenbaum so aptly emphasized) the importance of tobacco in Native views of the permeability of the border between this world and the other.
Matt, I appreiciate you weighing in. I've been hesitant to respond because Anonymous's argumentative style - especially attributing opinions by implication, rather than based what I had in fact written - was making it difficult to respond without getting defensive. He/she was after my goat and got it.
I am glad, however, at how our discussion parceled out our two very different perspectives (which I can't help characterize the political vs. the apolitical/or anti-political). I was surprised to find that they differed so much.
I'll admit this discussion might have coaxed me into another viewing of the film some day, and I'll also admit I may been coming down too hard on the film's (lack of) politics. But I have done so partly because the film has been so lauded, and aside from stupid reviews that dismiss the movie based on its slow narrative style, saw few reviews willing to critique the film.
One last "clearly received opinion" on my views of art, which might be something of a response to Anonymous's question about "deathless masterpieces" and takes on "representation." James Baldwin once wrote, "Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real." Baldwin is one writer who gave us masterpieces full of political and social worth.
As Baldwin says, of course art is supposed to challenge us - I feel like Malick's film does not challenge us where it needs to. I do not think a more clear challenge to myths about American history would have neccessarily rendered the film a polemic.
the plan writes, "Malick doesn't give a damn about all this political stuff. He cares about nature and beauty." I think this suggests how many people are interpreting this film. And historically (and today) representations of Native's too often forsake the political for nature and beauty (New Age, anybody?). Unfortunately, I feel like Malick fell into this trap. He didn't invent it, and he couldn't destroy with a single film, but he also didn't challenge it to the degree that I believe he could of.
Matt asked, "Suppose Malick didn't give a damn about politics or being historically/culturally accurate. Is that a crime? ...None of them really gave a damn about representing the strict facts of what happened; they just took off into their own mythic realms."
It's not Malick's choice to go off into a mythic, dehistoricized realm per se; it is the particular realm he decided to enter. My opinion is that the Pocahontas story has almost always been within this "mythic realm," for the worst. In terms of crimes, its a very low-level offense. Malick didn't make a Holocaust denying film. But it's an issue worth commenting on, and that I believe should remain in discussions of the film.
Andrew writes, "But it's an issue worth commenting on, and that I believe should remain in discussions of the film."
It's here right now, because of your participation, so thanks. It will be impossible for me to watch the movie again without thinking of this discussion.
RE: Watching THE NEW WORLD again. The news on the street is that New Line has now scrapped plans for a release of the longer (presumably three-hour) cut of the film due to the film's failure at the box office.
This might be time for that much vaunted NEW WORLD-lovin' blogosphere Hoberman was talking about to chime in.
I predicted that Malick himself would eventually believe that the 135 min. version was 'inifinitely perfect'; lacking nothing, containing everything (essential). I don't know to what degree Malick may believe this, but perhaps the invisible piano player sees it the same way as I do?
My opinion is that Malick doesn't really care about the historical "truth." His people freely admit that the movie is purposefully not historically accurate, so that debate has little meaning.
As has been mentioned, Malick is taking this storytelling to a different level -- to the mythical. He is using archetypal themes and dream-like imagery and voice-overs. Yes, sure, there are political lessons perhaps, but what Malick is really after here is trying to tell story about man vs nature and that most simple story of all -- a love story. The stunning visuals and cinematography are Malick's paint and canvas. Malick is chasing the cosmic, timeless themes, not petty political causes.
jamesnix-1 wrote the following in the thread "Philosophical/Literary influences..." over at IMDb:
"I hate to deviate from the clear intentions respected here, but I was so deeply moved by watching "The New World" last nite, maybe a quick contribution;
The stretching of that emotive tug, until a deepening of experience is stirred until overflowing, with loss, with love, with hope, with joy, with tears of summer rain and the glowing warm light of earthy friendship, brother to sister, child to man, the artist setting out to accomplish, by way of a structure, an intent, a plan, a screenplay, setting out to accomplish many important tasks, yet an artist determined to create the ode to one thing, the experience of witnessing art, the experience of surrendering to the art, the resonance with the art, the audience - the artists, the shared creating of a shared appreciation, the inability of my mind to form a simple sentance (kidding, but...) I just cannot help but sense that Malick sets out on a journey, with the same set of tools as other filmakers, but then after setting up the whole structure he opens up something inside of himslf and allows for the power of presence in his own moment to moment experience of making the work, urgently imbue his decisions from shoot to shoot, and then - once compiled, I see his editing process as one beholden to some "vitality code", like the great composers of yore and the great players of Jazz and psychedelic music, that if it doesn't move me on these deeper levels in this moment, if it doesn't swerve the underlying catharsis of worship, and harmony of subtle vibrational underpinnings from the centerpiece in every Malick werk - Earth - i shoot, I am just so challenged by the gravity of how deeply this exerience last nite is still moving within me.. i promise next time i will think things through before so impetuously posting to your shared resource here..... ;-)"
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