The Movie in My Head vs. the Movie on the Screen: Working with Terrence Malick

A Talk with the Cast of The New World

Terrence Malick is an enigma, emerging from seclusion once every fifteen years or so to tell a cinematic story in his own very unique way. His films are generally character studies, often sacrificing the drive of a storyline to explore the behavior of his characters. Unlike many writers and directors, Malick's works are entirely devoid of ethical and moral commentary—he portrays a mass murderer (Badlands) with the same neutrality as a disowned Algonquian girl. Not that there is a lack of passion or depth of personality, but the motives and intentions of the characters are largely left unexamined, and therefore unjudged. It is truly a unique approach, leaving much to the imagination and speculation of the audience.

Also unique to Malick is the practice of changing the script from day to day, even moment to moment. While The New World was first written about 25 years ago, what made it to the screen was very different from what was originally on paper. When asked about the tendency for last-minute changes, actor Wes Studi commented that a scene would often be interrupted by Malick's desire to capture "the grass waving in the wind." Likewise, Q'Orianka Kilcher noted that Malick pushed her acting skills to their limits, cutting vast quantities of spoken communication in favor of body language and facial expressions. For Kilcher, though, the changes merely accentuate an already stunning performance, as her silence often reveals more of Pocahontas' soul than any dialogue could have captured.

In relation to Malick's tendencies to add, subtract, expand, condense, and otherwise alter the script at the last moment, it was interesting to discover how the nearly three-hour film compared to the film the actors had envisioned. Considering that Malick shot a million feet of film (about four times the average for a feature-length movie), there was certainly some question as to what would appear in the final cut. (In fact, Malick has been known to shoot a film and then cut characters—major characters—from the work entirely.) At any rate, Q’Orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale and Wes Studi each had their own expectations of what they would see at the premiere, and the only thing that lessened their surprise was knowing that they would be, somehow, surprised.

Kilcher, whose skills were probably most challenged by the last-minute dialogue cuts, expressed some disappointment regarding several very visceral scenes that didn’t make it to the screen, particularly those involving Pocahontas’ transition from Native American to English colonist. (And, indeed, the movie seemed a bit top-heavy, spending the majority of time on Pocahontas as a playful sprite of a girl, and comparatively little on the staggering transformation of the young woman as she leaves her Native identity behind.)

Bale, whose actual screen time was probably most affected by Malick’s editorial whims, was nonetheless pleased by the outcome. While Rolfe only appears as a major character very late in the movie, Bale was particularly pleased by the spiritual progression evident in Rolfe’s character —the “idea of a spiritual journey� from the rigidity of England to the relative freedom offered by new surroundings. And despite the relative brevity of Rolfe’s character (which seems far greater thanks to Bale’s outstanding performance), Bale remained exceptionally enthusiastic about the work, noting that it was “the most perfect acting environment [he] could imagine.�

Wes Studi (Opechancanough) was probably the most surprised by what was not included in the final cut. Openly preferring "the nastier side of human nature,� Studi felt that the battle scenes showed far less of the violence inherent in those initial confrontations between the two worlds, also noting that while much of that fury and brutality was choreographed and filmed, very little found its way into the movie itself. Perhaps his final comment conveys best what many of those involved in the project feel: he’s “looking forward to the DVD release� in order to see more footage—and “a lot more Terrence.�