New world
For Valentine’s Day, we decided on an afternoon matinee showing of The New World, which received much praise from critics and promised to be at least a little romantic.
The story is based on legends of the founding of Jamestown colony in Virginia and the English interaction with the Powhatan nation. It attempts to get audiences to approach a familiar story in a new way, partly by not naming most of the characters, except Capt. John Smith.
It’s a pretty unusual film for broad release to American audiences. No bombastic soundtrack, stylized battle scenes, long love speeches. I was surprised at the quietness and almost complete lack of dialogue. The director asked a lot of his actors, needing them to carry most of the scenes with body language, facial expression. The land itself becomes a character, its shifting colors and gentle sounds speaking as much or more than the taciturn characters.
I liked the emotional complexities, especially the very mixed nature of the Smith character. While Anglo legends make him heroic, this film portrays him, very subtly, as a bit self-absorbed and out of touch with reality. I really like how they handled the Pocohontas character’s slow transformation into Rebecca Rolfe. She moves from starry-eyed teen to purposeful adult, maintaining her basic generous spirit despite rejections and losses. The man she marries (spoiler here if you’re not familiar with historic accounts) wins her so gently, you see Smith’s earlier attentions in a very different light.
3 comments:
I heard it was very non-historically accurate. What did you think? Was it very "noble savage" sort of thing? Did they deal with her conversion to christianity at all?
I think the point was to make a love story, to play with the existing legends in a fresher way. History says Smith invented the story of Pocohontas saving his life, and of their supposed love. She would have been only 9 or 10 when Smith came to her village.
We see the Pocohontas baptised "Rebecca" during a period of deep depression, like she was just going along with the Jamestowners. Her only other Christian action is her wedding ceremony. She continues to be a mother earth worshiper in this version.
Capt.Smith has a "noble savage" view at times, but his high-minded ideals don't really match the natives' actual behavior we see. For all his idealism, he rejects Pocohontas again and again, never commiting to her, making us see him to be an unreliable narrator sort of character.
"The naturals" are portrayed as curious, childlike, nature-worshiping and uninterested in allying with the English. They know how to live on the land, the English are ill-eqipped to survive. It seemed to me to portray both sides having pride issues, wanting to have the upper hand in a way that would only lead to clashes.
From what I understand of the Pocahontas story, historical accuracy would be difficult since the whole John Smith part of the story is probably almost pure legend that Smith himself made up - certainly the Powhatan nation would say so. I think the part of the film depicting the relationship with John Rolfe is roughly accurate.
It didn't strike me as perpetuating the "noble savage" myth a great deal. Most of the scenes that play that way are through John Smith's eyes and, as Laurel noted, he's shown to be unreliable and out of touch with reality.
Just as one example, Smith says something in his narration about the "naturals" having no betrayal, no sense of property, and not even a word for "forgiveness." But as the story plays out, the natives are very concerned about property, about the presence of the English in the land, Pocahontas' father accuses her of betraying the community, and she asks him for forgiveness. Thus Smith's narration is completely undermined.
Pocahontas is shown learning to read, learning about the religion of the English, and eventually being baptized, though she ends up with a kind of syncretistic combination of Christian belief overlaid upon some supposedly native sky-Father, earth-Mother notions.
It's a very pretty film, cinemagraphically. And it seems to reject Hollywood standards of what a "good film" is supposed to be: almost no dialogue, most of the violence is off screen, very little action, a very measured pace, exceedingly sparse script, etc.
It's certainly not going to be popular film or make a lot of money. But I thought the filmmaker's handling of the largely legendary material was interesting.
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