Musical Take on 'First Year in Jamestown'

Rating: 7/10 (18 January 2006)

Can the story of Captain Smith, Pocahontas, et.al. be presented in the fashion of "Last Year in Marienbad"? Terrence Malick (of "Days of Heaven," yup) seems to channel Resnais in "The New World" he wrote and directed.
It's a bizarre, puzzling, beautiful, and maddening film, sure to end up on both the year's best and worst lists. And, one of the strangest things about this strange movie is its soundtrack.
After James Horner's name appears on the screen as the composer, there follows 2 1/2 hours (doesn't anyone make 90-minute movies anymore?) of Mozart and Wagner.
Now, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 floating over the muck of the settlement and the broad vistas of the Naturals (as Christopher Plummer refers to the Indians) may be anachronistic, but we are well used to KV 488 from a dozen movies, including - alas - "Way of the Gun," "Good Riddance," and "Misunderstood."
No, what's interesting about the soundtrack of "The New World" is how the Prelude to "Das Rheingold" is used - at length and significantly. Just as the film itself is good/bad, there is a contrast here in the appropriateness of the soundtrack. Wagner's unstoppable ascending modulation makes no sense at all in the middle of the movie, but the very beginning is something else.
As the settlers' ships approach the coast of this new and strange world, water is everywhere... and there swells that grand "Creation music" so well, so right. Underwater glimpses of young native women swimming just reinforce the connection, needlessly.
Studio notes, by the way, identify soundtrack portions not written by Horner as "non-original music." That be Mozart and Wagner...:)

Janos