Inspired by the legend of John Smith and Pocahontas, acclaimed filmmaker Terrence Malick transforms this classic story into a sweeping exploration of love, loss and discovery, both a celebration and an elegy of the America that was…and the America that was yet to come.
Release Date: December 25, 2005 (limited; wide release: January 13, 2006) Studio: New Line Cinema Director: Terrence Malick
Screenwriter: Terrence Malick Starring: Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, Christian Bale, August Schellenberg, Wes Studi, David Thewlis, Yorick van Wageningen, Q'orianka Kilcher, Will Wallace Genre: Adventure, Drama MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for some intense battle sequences) Official Website: TheNewWorldmovie.com
…in the beginning all the World was America, and more so than it is now.”
-John Locke, Second Treatise on government (1690)
The New World is an epic adventure set amid the encounter of European and Native American cultures during the founding of the Jamestown settlement in 1607. Inspired by the legend of John Smith and Pocahontas, acclaimed filmmaker TERRENCE MALICK transforms this classic story into a sweeping exploration of love, loss and discovery, both a celebration and an elegy of the America that was…and the America that was yet to come.
Against the dramatic and historically rich backdrop of a pristine Eden inhabited by a great native civilization, Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line) has set a dramatized tale of two strong-willed characters, a passionate and noble young native woman and an ambitious soldier of fortune who find themselves torn between the undeniable requirements of civic duty and the inescapable demands of the heart.
In the early years of the 17th century, North America is much as it has been for the previous five thousand years -- a vast land of seemingly endless primeval wilderness populated by an intricate network of tribal cultures. Although these nations live in graceful harmony with their environment, their relations with each other are a bit more uneasy. All it will take to upset the balance is an intrusion from the outside.
On a spring day in April of 1607, three diminutive ships bearing 103 men sail into this world from their unimaginably distant home, the island kingdom of England, three thousand miles to the east across a vast ocean. On behalf of their sponsor, the royally chartered Virginia Company, they are seeking to establish a cultural, religious, and economic foothold on the coast of what they regard as the New World.
The lead ship of the tiny flotilla is called the Susan Constant. Shackled below decks is a rebellious 27-year-old named John Smith (COLIN FARRELL), sentenced to be hanged for insubordination.
A veteran of countless European wars, Smith is a soldier of fortune…though fortune has often turned its back on him. Still, he is too talented and popular to have his neck stretched by his own people, and so he is freed by Captain Christopher Newport (CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER) soon after the Susan Constant drops anchor. As Captain Newport knows -- and the colonists will soon discover -- surviving in this unknown wilderness will require the services of every able-bodied man…particularly one of Smith’s abilities.
Though they don’t realize it at the time, Newport and his band of British settlers have landed in the midst of a sophisticated Native American empire ruled by the powerful chieftain Powhatan (AUGUST SCHELLENBERG). To the colonists, it may be a new world. But to Powhatan and his people, it is an ancient world -- and the only one they have ever known.
The English, strangers in a strange land, struggle from the beginning, unable -- or, in some cases, stubbornly unwilling -- to fend for themselves. Smith, searching for assistance from the local tribesmen, chances upon a young woman who at first seems to be more woodland sprite than human being. A willful and impetuous young woman whose family and friends affectionately call her “Pocahontas” -- or “playful one” -- she is the favorite of Powhatan’s children. Before long a bond develops between Smith and Pocahontas (Q’ORIANKA KILCHER in her feature starring debut), a bond so powerful that it transcends friendship or even romance -- and eventually becomes the basis of one of the most enduring American legends of the past 400 years.
REVIEWS
It wasn't quite what I expected.
I do hope that those Christians who go to see the movie will reflect on how their faith is shared-- is it offered or forced upon?-- and that others will not experience Christianity the way that Pocahantas did. —Review by JACOB SAHMS
The story of Pocahontas is the stuff of legend
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.
—Review by Jenn Wright
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