The "If it's Malick, it's poetic, not lousy" Syndrome

Rating: 3/10 (23 July 2006)

In early 1974, I saw Martin Scorcese's MEAN STREETS and Terence Malick's BADLANDS within weeks of each other at the same theater in Providence, Rhode Island, and changed my college major to film shortly thereafter. Which is my way of saying that I'm not trashing THE NEW WORLD because I know nothing about Malick or film in general. So many reviews I've seen in these pages talk about Malick only in reference to THE THIN RED LINE, which in my humble opinion is another bloated blunder that meandered more than it moved. If you actually go and rent BADLANDS (or to a lesser extent, DAYS OF HEAVEN), you will see Malick's true poeticism at work in both sound and imagery - voice-over narration that enhances story and character motivation, rich moments of stillness contrasting with jarring, eruptions of action and remarkable choices in staging and composition - all of which are absent in the new film. Instead you get mostly mumbled or whispered narration that is either barely audible or laughable when audible. (Why do actors whisper so much and so inaudibly these days? Is it lack of vocal training that ill-prepares them from projecting properly or are they so embarrassed by the lines given them that they don't want to be heard? It's definitely not my hearing because I can put on an old Orson Welles or Alfred Hitchcock flick and hear every line that's whispered, that is when those often radio-trained actors were called upon to whisper.) And the beautiful, poetic photography everyone is raving about? Only in the National Geographic or 70s shampoo commercial sense, I'd say. How many times did we need to see Pocahantas smile and back away from them camera into a field? When you can't integrate action and storytelling into your imagery, then it's just postcard pretty, as is the case here. And where's the historical authenticity people are going on about? Q'Orianka Kilcher actually shows up in her first couple of scenes wearing a buckskin bikini/halter top, for Pete's sake. Shouldn't most or all of the "naturals" be au naturel to begin with? Or was Mr. Artsy Malick compromising a bit for the sake of a PG-13 rating? And speaking of compromising, I agree with the reviewer who found fault with the casting of nostril-flaring Colin and smoldering Christian in the two male lead roles. That's throwing period authenticity out the window right there. (Again, if one compares this to the casting of a pre-CARRIE Sissy Spacek and the then under-exposed Martin Sheen in BADLANDS, one sees how compromised Malick's NEW WORLD vision has become.) As for Kilcher, she may have the makings of a terrific actress, but I don't think she is really old enough to portray the full psychological and emotional arc of her character. She handles the early innocence of Pocahontas well, but halfway through the film she seems to sink into the funk of a sulking child and never quite snaps out of it. And the way Malick fixates on her physicality feels less like directing to me than some kind of cinematic pedophilia. I stopped counting the number of times shots hone in her buckskinned torso in the first half and her exposed cleavage in the second half (once she is in "civilized" dress). I can't believe that more people aren't as disturbed by this as I was. The girl was 15 when they shot the movie! Finally, IMDb Trivia notes that over a million feet of film was exposed for this Malickian misfire. And no fewer than 4 editors are listed in the opening credits. One needs no further evidence beyond those facts that THE NEW WORLD is a self-indulgent fiasco from a former wunderkind gone senile. P.S. Both BADLANDS and DAYS OF HEAVEN clocked in at under 100 minutes.