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To say that The New World was a crossroad for Terrence Malick is to suggest that it was formed out of indecisiveness, and such a line of thinking is misguided, but it is his most immediately sinuous work; a landmark in wandering, meandering, losing its train of thought in the eyes of another. It's a nearly-flawless synthesis; nature and the confines of civilization - an early sprout of Malick's interest in primitive purity and ambiguous hustle and bustle within the modern - pushing and pulling on the same canvas for dominance. But it is romance which wins in the end, and the end is something elusive, relative in Malick's eye, but it is a victory nonetheless, not one which…

"What else is life but being near you?"

One of those times where you think "Damn it, why didn't I bring my notebook." So here's some discarded thoughts. This was my first Malick back in 2005 and it struck me back then as it strikes me now as monumental, much more than the visually ambitious but not as philosophically ambitious Tree of Life. Something of magisterial power being worked out here—a film that almost attempts to recognize the infinite ("There is no unreal," Smith tells us). It's also the film that I think best typifies what people think about when they think about Malick—The Thin Red Line is very much still a war picture with Malick's sensibilities, while this has…

Discussed HERE

"There's something I know when I'm with you that I forget when I'm away. Tell me, my love. Did you wish for me to come back and live with you again?" -Captain Smith

Almost 15 years ago this was my first Malick film. I must have been in my last year of middle school or thereabouts when this picture floored me and wracked my young mind with feeling I was unequipped to fully collate. I didn't know how to put it to words then and I scarcely can now. It echoed itself in a way I hadn't seen before in movies. It was poetic in it's rhythm but classicist in it's structure. It was a work of literature,…

"A world equal to our hopes."

Though I find his infamous media shyness a bit pronounced to say the least, Terrence Malick is hardly the only artist to pretend he doesn't want attention in order to receive attention. Moreover he's a true original for better and worse, so I was happy to get a chance to catch up with The New World before the Criterion Channel gives it the hook in a couple of weeks.

Set amidst the early seventeenth-century founding of the Jamestown colony, Malick's fourth feature recalls the mythical doomed romance between English Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) and pubescent Native American Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher). The sexual nature of their relationship is not made explicit, but watching the…

"I have never truly been the man I seem to you to be."

The New World is Pocahontas for grown-ups.

What I love most about Terrence Malick—even more than his beautiful imagery and visual compositions—is his editing. His unconventional Kuleshov-inspired technique in Days of Heaven had me yearning for my film school days, and with The New World he continues to impress.

Malick is notoriously meticulous with his editing, often recutting his films right up to their release, and this is no exception. A 150-minute cut was shown early in order for the film to quality for Oscar contention, but by the time it received a wide, theatrical release it had been trimmed down to 135 minutes. When the film…

Colin Farrell more like commie Farrell 🥂

watched extended cut.

damn Malick really peaked hard with tree of life. very much not as good as tol. visually rich but not mesmerising. narratively interesting (very large story, didn't like the title cards though) but lacks the unique, awe-inspiring and surreal narrative structure of tol. Good score and good narration, the latter plus dialogue being the strongest parts of the movie. Malick loves his narration and poetic speech and it do be good.

like tol it feels poetic, with its overlay of dialogue and narration, scenes that flick around and overlap, interspersing story with sudden beautiful shots (many of landscape). ending was also fantastic.

Unfortunately, I felt it failed to execute everything…

I always get a sense of catharsism after watching The New World that is unmatched to anything else I've ever watched, and the story and the dialogue itself feels too loose or too non descriptive to be the only reason for that matter, so it must the images of the film that give me this feeling. But how does Malick achieve this while many other fail?

Recently I watched Nomadland which was quite obviously inspired by Malick's style, and while it was a fine film it just didn't give me the same strong of a sensation like a Malick film, and I'm genuinely not informed enough to intellectually figure out how he achieves this. I think that's one of the…