Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: The New World (2005) - Exquisite images in hard-to-take Malick drama

10/27/2021

The New World (2005) - Exquisite images in hard-to-take Malick drama

♥♥

+ Most Deserved Flop of the Year

Swept in cloudy skies, violence and romance are promised on this muted colored poster for Terrence Malick's The New World

As strange ships arrive from the East in 1608, Pocahontas and her tribes' lives are soon changed forever.

The New World is written and directed by Illinoisan master filmmaker Terrence Malick (Badlands (1973)), whose 4th feature it is.

It is a film that divides its audiences sharply. Those who see the light in The New World really see the light in it. There is no question that Emmanuel Lubezki's (The Harvest (1993)) photography is exceptionally beautiful and that James Horner's (Flightplan (2005)) score is commendable, (although little of the music in the film is actually Horner's, due to Malick's unconventional way of working.)

Malick's nature-romantisizing and pseudo-poetical style in a film where, for the longest stretches of it, nothing seems to happen, are deeply aggravating to me. Colin Farrell (Ondine (2009)) as Captain John Smith is mostly inexplicable in terms of the film's plot and stands back as eye-candy in a pompous, women's magazine style drama.

Related posts:

Terrence Malick: 2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

The Tree of Life (2011) or, Mother, Father, Sharks, Dinosaurs, My Brothers, Sunflowers, the Desert, the Wind and Me

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Top 10: The best true story movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Badlands (1973) or, Kit and Holly in Love

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 30 mil. $

Box office: 49.3 mil. $

= Big flop (returned 1.64 times its cost)

[The New World premiered 25 December (US) and runs 136 minutes, with the first limited release version running 150 minutes. Malick had been working on the script for the film since the late 1970s. When his planned Che Guevara film failed to materialize, he instead found support for this film. Shooting took place from July - November 2004 in England and Virginia. The film opened #44 to a 30k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #9 and in 811 theaters, grossing 12.7 mil. $ (25.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 3.9 mil. $ (7.9 %) and Italy with 3.5 mil. $ (7.1 %). The film was nominated for 1 Oscar: Best Cinematography, lost to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha. It also won a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to 4 notches over this one. Horner was deeply unsatisfied with his collaboration with Malick, who cut and edited his film right up the time of release, leaving little room for the long score Horner had devised: "I never felt so let down by a filmmaker in my life", he has said. The Pocahontas-Smith romance is usually considered to be a fictional invention, as Pocahontas would have been 12, when she first met Smith. Malick returned with The Tree of Life (2011). Farrell returned in Ask the Dust (2006); Q'orianka Kilcher (The Alienist (2018, TV-series)), who plays Pocahontas, returned in Princess Kaiulani (2009). The New World is fresh at 63 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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10/27/2021

The New World (2005) - Exquisite images in hard-to-take Malick drama

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (16-24)

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