Nanny McPhee

Nanny McPhee is ugly.

So is the behavior of the seven Brown children.

Nanny McPhee has a large, bulbous nose, several facial warts, a certain rotundity of figure, a snaggle tooth, and a decidedly unfeminine unibrow.

The children are out of control, willful, disrespectful, and rude. And they have intentionally chased away the last 17 nannies since their mother died. And they are counting on victim #18.

Having exhausted all the options at his disposal, Mr. Brown is at his wits’ end when Nanny McPhee arrives (out of nowhere), announcing, after a brief interrogation, that the children need her. She then tells the children that as long as they don't want her, but they need her, she will stay; as soon as they want her but do not need her, she is to go. In the meantime, she has five lessons to teach, five ways in which the children's lives will change for the better. (You can imagine the seven pairs of rolling eyes...)

Nanny McPhee's primary teaching tool is to use the children's behavioral whims to her advantage—a bang of her magic stick, and suddenly the children are completely unable to stop the misbehavior they are so intent on performing. So you want to play in the kitchen? OK—now you are unable to stop the mayhem. So you want to lie in bed, pretending you have the measles? OK—now you truly have the measles, and literally cannot arise from your bed.

The screenplay, written by Emma Thompson herself, is decked with little grains of wisdom, mainly spoken from behind that snaggle tooth. However, the most poignant undercurrent is the way in which the characters undergo their own "Extreme Makeovers."

The first lesson that must be learned is saying “please�—and saying it sincerely. This is accomplished in the kitchen-mayhem scene, when the eldest of the seven children, Simon, is forced to sincerely ask Nanny McPhee to break whatever spell is keeping them from stopping their obnoxious and destructive behavior.

Lesson One is learned: the children's behavior loses a piece of its ugliness; and Nanny McPhee loses a wart.

As the movie progresses, the children learn their subsequent lessons, and also learn to accept the consequences of their actions. But each time the children's demeanor improves, so does Nanny McPhee. Over the course of their five lessons learned, Nanny McPhee's warts dissolve; her brow become neatly divided into two very shapely brows (plural); her bulbous nose shrinks; her snaggle tooth disappears; she develops a waistline. With each of the children’s steps toward respect for self and others, Nanny McPhee grows more and more comely.

Nanny McPhee is a fun, delightful movie, taking a 21st century twist on the Practically Perfect Mary Poppins of the olden days. But look out Nip/Tuck. Move over Extreme Makeover. When children learn to respect themselves and others, it affects the beauty of the entire world around them, without ever reaching for a scalpel or laser to remove the ugliness.

And that is the beauty of Nanny McPhee.

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.�

The New World

The story of Pocahontas is the stuff of legend, and there is no doubt that The New World bears the personal stamp of writer/director Terrence Malick’s artful combination of historical documentation and brilliant imagination to bring a fresh and multi-layered story to the screen. And if you generally appreciate director Terrence Malick's body of work (The Thin Red Line, Badlands, Days of Heaven), The New World will reinforce your devotion. The film is visual poetry, with stunning cinematography and impassioned acting accompanied by an impressive classical score by James Horner. And while the story itself is largely speculation, the movie is incredibly well researched, with much of the voiceover (one of Malick's favorite cinematic devices) lifted directly from the writings of the colonists.

Malick's story of the young Pocahontas follows her journey from being a free-spirited Native American girl through her passionate love affair with John Smith, her father’s disownment, and her ultimate immersion into the Western culture, complete with Christian baptism and the adoption of a Western name. It is a complex story, told largely through silence, which is simultaneously distressing and beautiful.

The foundational underpinnings of the story revolve around tension between choices—and in true Malickian form, he offers no moral commentary. Rather, the characters are shown in all their conflicted vulnerability, making their choices for their own reasons—reasons that aren't always clear to the audience. We're not privy to the rationale behind John Smith's choice to fabricate his death, nor are we certain why Pocahontas betrays the plans of her tribe's attack on the colonists. In superb parallel with real life, we are only able to speculate on why the characters choose as they do. One of Malick's great strengths is his ability to portray characters and their actions completely neutrally—there are no white hats or black hats, only people making difficult choices.

Part of the beauty of the story is the contrast between the dream and the reality for Pocahontas. The passionate romance with John Smith represents the dream—the Christian marriage to John Rolfe represents the reality. Like the Englishmen whose expectations of abundance and freedom ultimately gave way to the reality of work, disease, and war, the young Pocahontas dives headfirst into a steamy relationship with a less-than-stable man, yet ultimately finds her reality in the man who loves her so much as to be willing to let her go back to Smith if she should so choose. The conflicts between dreams and realities allow the audience to remain morally neutral as well—a stunning accomplishment for Malick when so many moral and ethical issues are in the forefront of the story (cultural imperialism, faithfulness, personal integrity, just to name a few).

It must be said that Q'Orianka Kilcher shines in her first major role. The 15-year-old was forced to master the art of silence, as there is very little dialogue in the 2 ½ -hour movie. When asked about the need to express so much without words, Kilcher noted that she was often required to speak only the first part of a written line, and "act out" the rest. This she does with stunning depth, retaining the historically playful nature of Pocahontas while plumbing the depths of grief, loneliness, and despair.

Pocahontas' conversion to Christianity (including changing her name to Rebecca), like other morally neutral choices in the movie, begs an interesting question for both the characters and the audience. It appears as though the adoption of the Christian faith is simply the next step for the young woman—a necessity for marriage to John Rolfe and integration into the colonists' community. Her conversion itself carries no more weight than her squeezing into a corset and shoes, or her learning to read and write in English. And despite going through the rites of baptism and christening, she continues addressing her "Mother" in prayer, though whether she addresses her biological mother or Earth Mother, we are not certain. What is clear, however, is that there is no joy or hope depicted in the conversion. There is no heartfelt embrace of something many cling to in times of loneliness and grief. In short, there appears to be no heart in her decision to convert; it is rather another step toward her Westernization.

Probably the most profound realization for me was that the celebrated New World simply was not a New World. It was the collision of two very old worlds, combining to form something very new, but not separate from its dual heritage. I had never thought about how the story of Pocahontas was less a story of the beginning of America than of the merging of two very long histories into one. There is nothing "new" about the New World, as the English-Americans wanted to believe. There was no way to leave their Englishness behind, nor was it possible to avoid permanently disturbing the Native American cultures as they imposed themselves upon the land. Rather than "discovering" or "establishing" a New World, an Old World descended upon an Older World, and the nation-child born of the union was only new in its form; its genetic history stretches farther than the stories we can tell.