Movie Club - The New World

I’m not going to give The New World the full review treatment as I’m hoping the discussion will lead us into new areas as it develops. That’s the plan anyway.

The thread is going to be a spoiler-tag free zone as I’m assuming that everyone who wants to contribute has already seen the movie. If not, read on at your peril!

I thought The New World was an exquisitely crafted, lyrical piece of cinema. I loved the languid pace, long silences and lingering shots though admit they mightn’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

Farrell does his job as the brooding Smith, accent wavering at times but always coming across as the reluctant conquistador. Christian Bale was fine at portraying a fundamentally decent man, marrying Pocahontas dutifully though suspecting her heart may lay elsewhere. I was also pleased in an, albeit brief, appearance by one of my favourite character actors, David Thewlis, as the spiteful and spineless Wingfield.

Which leads us on to Q’Orianka Kilcher’s Pocahontas. The young lady has a wonderful presence on screen, free-spirited and almost ethereal in places.

The historical aspect to The New World is probably best described as ‘wilful’ and hopefully we’ll get into the whys and wherefors later.

All in all, I liked The New World a lot. From a visual standpoint I’ve seen very little recently that can hold a candle to it and the sound on 5.1 is wonderfully subtle.

Quite how many more times I’ll want to watch it I’m not so sure…

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

First impression: visually stunning, emotionally detached, and not in a good way.

On the other hand, that was my first impression of The Thin Red Line (now an all time favorite), so I'll have to give it 2-3 more viewings before really formulating an opinion.

HERE is my review from when I saw it theatrically back in January. I'll reprint that first...


ORIGINALLY POSTED 1-22-06:


The New World (2005 - Terrence Malick)

Terence Malick is a director you either get or you don't. Either you find his cinematic storytelling compelling to the point of breathtaking or you find it boring to the point of snoring. His latest movie - his fourth - is even more so going to divide audiences into one camp or the other. I happen to love Malick, and I don't think any fan of his work will be disappointed with The New World. Still, I'd have to rank it fourth of his work thus far. After only one viewing anyway. But that's also like ranking Beethoven symphonies.

In The New World Malick tackles the Seventeenth Century story of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. But Malick is a filmmaker who isn't overly concerned with history in the grandest sense. The physical details recreated seem incredibly authentic, showing the dirty, small little fort in a bit of swampland as it must have been in 1607. But when it comes to the details of people, liberties are taken. These are along the same lines of liberties that have been taken over the last four hundred years as there has built a sort of myth around the names Captain John Smith and the young Powhatan princess Pocahontus, the native pleading with her chieftan father to spare his life and the romantic love affair that followed. Malick chooses to retell the myth...though he does it very much on his own terms. Colin Farrell is Smith and fifteen-year-old Q'Orianka Kilcher is Pocahontus. She does save him from execution that first year in the New World, and they do fall in love. But this is no Disney cartoon, and the beats and tenor of this legend are not the ones you may be used to. After Smith returns to Jamestown and the colonists manage (just barely) to survive the winter and hold off the natives long enough for more English to return in the spring in numbers big enough to truly make their presence and canons the power in the region, Smith leaves. The despondent and outcast Pocahontus eventually agrees to marry another of the settlers, John Rolfe (Christian Bale), though she never stops loving Smith in her heart.

If that sounds like the makings for a steamy, sweeping epic soap opera, you must not be at all familiar with the films of Terence Malick (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line). The passion between Smith and Pocahontus is shown, to be sure, though without hardly any physical contact, and certainly no nudity or anything overtly sexual in the Hollywood sense. The love triangle between Pocahontus, Smith and Rolfe is painful and tragic, but without the two men even catching a glimpse of the other, much less pointed words and declarations of love or a dramatic duel with pistols or sabres. In fact for a two-hour and thirty-minute film, those unaccustomed to Malick may be surprised at how little dialogue there actually is. But the film speaks volumes. While they may not speak aloud to each other very often, we are privy to the thoughs of all three principle characters in voice over. And of course most importantly there are the visuals from Terry and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (Sleepy Hollow, Y tu Mamá También). James Horner's score is also wonderful, especially the last crescendoing measures that end the movie and gave me chills.



The larger and more constant Malick themes of the natural world and how man is both juxtaposed and in harmony with it are on full display in The New World. Malick is a cinematic poet, which is really the key point of audience division. If you go into Terry's films expecting traditional narrative you will likely be frustrated, confused and bored by the images, no matter how beautiful. But if you open yourself up to his unique brand of storytelling, these are momentously engaging and emotionally moving films. Like The Thin Red Line some may wonder why some of the background characters seem to move in and out of the spotlight, or are thrust there for only one scene never to emerge again? The timeline of the editing can be confusing in the traditional linear sense, and your brain or the person next to you may be asking how did he get there, or what happened in between this scene and the last? Malick's narratives aren't concerned with aiming at those types of details for two and half hours, he's going after bigger game. And this is where you either do or don't go along with him on his poetic journeys. I definitely went with him to The New World, and can't wait to return.

GRADE: A-




OK, I've got a couple points to start people talking (hopefully). Answer some of them, none of them, start with your own points, whatever. Just use it as a little primer, if necessary...

• is The New World the first movie directed by Terrence Malick that you've seen?
• what did you think about the way nature is presented in the film?
  (and if you have seen any of his other movies, how is it different or the same?)
• what did you notice about the way voice-over and interior monologue was used vs. the actual spoken dialogue?
• did you feel like the film took sides as far as one culture or the other being "right" (or at least in more of the right than the other)?
• did you have a strong view of the historical period and these figures going into the movie? Was your understanding enhanced or clouded by Malick's film? If you knew some of the history beyond Disney's Pocahontas did you find the film's presentation of the material to be distracting? If you knew next to nothing, does the movie inspire you to learn more about the period?
• what did you think about the casting of an actual teenager to play Pocahontas rather than a twenty-something who we're supposed to believe as being thirteen? Did it make the love scenes, even though they weren't graphic, at all uncomfortable for you?

Discuss....

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

I loved it.

The movie contrasted the Jamestown settlement and the crowded London streets with the beauty of the Powhatan village. The native Americans planted fields, fished with nets, smoked tobacco, played games, practiced archery. The depictions of the villages and the native housing were beautiful. The depiction of the natives Americans was in keeping with Malick's description of them as "naturals". They seemed to be at one with the land.

The Jamestown residents hunted for gold and despoiled the landscape. A view into the stockade of the Jamestown settlement is as powerful a statement as has ever been made about the "civilization" of the new world on film.

The movie had a very realistic feel to it. Malick has tried to base much of his vision on the historical record, delving into the writings of explorers and colonialists in early Virginia to create voice-over monologues by Smith and others. The reconstructions of the Jamestown settlement and of the Powhatan village were based on archaeological evidence. A professor re-created the extinct language of Virginian Algonquian for the film.

Malick's feelings about what man has done to nature is pretty obvious and this movie is a pretty powerful statement that's hard to argue with.

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"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."- Groucho Marx

• is The New World the first movie directed by Terrence Malick that you've seen?

I have seen Thin Red Line and Badlands, although I last saw Badlands many years ago and probably should look at it again. I remember it being a bit Bonnie and Clyde like. One of the things that sticks with me (In a good way) is the scores from both New World and Red Line. I cannot say I remember what music was used in Badlands.

• what did you think about the way nature is presented in the film?
  (and if you have seen any of his other movies, how is it different or the same?)

Certainly from the time the movie started until credits stopped rolling Nature was the star of this movie. It is akin to much of David Leans work, and I wonder if Malick gained inspiration from him.

• what did you notice about the way voice-over and interior monologue was used vs. the actual spoken dialogue?

This is what annoyed me at first then drug me in and made me feel a part of the film. You have to let yourself go in order to apprciate this movie, or at least I did.

• did you feel like the film took sides as far as one culture or the other being "right" (or at least in more of the right than the other)?

No, it showed the good and defenitely the bad in both.

• did you have a strong view of the historical period and these figures going into the movie? Was your understanding enhanced or clouded by Malick's film? If you knew some of the history beyond Disney's Pocahontas did you find the film's presentation of the material to be distracting? If you knew next to nothing, does the movie inspire you to learn more about the period?

I have always been interested about this time frame in America's history and it certainly rekindled my desire to learn more.

• what did you think about the casting of an actual teenager to play Pocahontas rather than a twenty-something who we're supposed to believe as being thirteen? Did it make the love scenes, even though they weren't graphic, at all uncomfortable for you?

Perfect casting, and yes it made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but it certainly would have been a different film if an older actress were used.


Overall this movie really is beautiful, and wonderful to experience. I think it also demands the viewer take a deep breath and enter an almost Yoga like trance in order to empathize fully with the characters. A Wonderful movie.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

This movie came across to me like a film pieced together from leftover footage by a person who was guessing what the original story might have been, while under heavy sedation. I found the pace interminable. I literally rechecked the DVD box for the run time at least 5 times.

Not even Christian Bale can save this, and to make sure, he's kept out of the 2 hour, 15 min film until the last 20 minutes. Then he shows up with no introduction, stands around looking gorgeous but doing nothing but watching Pocahontas work for him, and delivering the same wheezing voice-over that Colin Farrell did through the first two hours.

There are long stretches where you have no idea what is going on. The camera work is disorienting. Story-wise, precious little happens that is given any focus in the film. This happens to such a degree that I was left with the impression that Smith was a real schmuck. Case in point: the indians walk him back to camp with gifts of food, the men in the camp are starving, and Smith immediately secludes himself to ruminate about his relationship issues, like some emo kid in a man's body. I wanted to stab him, right about then.

Q'Orianka Kilcher does an impressive job as Pocahontas, considering she had practically nothing to work with. The character is drawn as an indian princess fantasy, complete with the awkwardly-cut indian hottie costume with the half-heart cutout over her left breast. My eyes nearly rolled straight out of my head. And the other people playing the Powhatans.... that body makeup? What was all that about? There are quite a few drawings/engravings of indians of the time, and I've never seen one depicting that sort of stuff. They wore tattoos that defined their muscles, not greasepaint that blurred their features.

And the score... beautiful in the first scene, but the 2nd time through was a little monotonous. Moreso the 3rd, 4th and 5th times. By the time this film ended and the credits finally rolled, I felt like Andy Dufresne in the rain, free at last!!

heh.. I wasn't going to do a full review on this, but once I got started I just couldn't stop thinking of things that bugged the hell out of me.

* is The New World the first movie directed by Terrence Malick that you've seen?
Yes... and I don't think I'm in danger of breaking a leg in my rush to see another one.


* what did you think about the way nature is presented in the film?
It's very beautiful, and also murky and treacherous which was cool.

* did you feel like the film took sides as far as one culture or the other being "right" (or at least in more of the right than the other)?
Well, it seemed a pretty clear statement that the "Naturals" were a lot happier before the white people arrived.

* did you have a strong view of the historical period and these figures going into the movie? Was your understanding enhanced or clouded by Malick's film? If you knew some of the history beyond Disney's Pocahontas did you find the film's presentation of the material to be distracting? If you knew next to nothing, does the movie inspire you to learn more about the period?
I knew a good bit about an earlier colony, in Manteo, NC in 1587. Not much about this story, though, so of course I learned more of that.

* what did you think about the casting of an actual teenager to play Pocahontas rather than a twenty-something who we're supposed to believe as being thirteen? Did it make the love scenes, even though they weren't graphic, at all uncomfortable for you?
I didn't give it much thought, truth be told. It wasn't a legal issue then, for one thing. For another, there was nothing graphic, as you said. And for another, as I said above, this version of John Smith seemed like a 15 year old was about his speed. (No offense to any of the 15 year olds here.)

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Review: Cabin in the Woods 8/10

heh! It was better than a root canal.

Which long stretches in particular?

I think that's a timescale issue, or rather Malick playing with time - the only thing that mattered to them both was seeing one another again so that's what's shown.

D'you not think this might have been just as much to protect a 15 year old's modesty as anything else?

I'll have to bow to your better judgement on this one but after a quick 20 minutes on Google Images, I've yet to find one tattoo. Help!

I suppose to believe she was 13 is also to believe she and Smith ever had a relationship - if you do then you're thankful that everything depicted is so coy. If you don't then it's just another (slightly more realistic) depiction of the myth.

"Both men and women painted their bodies, using paints from oils, bloodroot and animal fats. They rubbed themselves with bear fat to repel mosquitoes and to keep them warm during the cold months. Women pierced their skin to make tattoos of various animal and floral designs. As a mark of wealth and status, the Powhatans wore necklaces and ear ornaments made from materials such as shells, copper and freshwater pearls. In the winter, they wore deerskin with the fur toward their skin. Often, depending upon the season, they wore only deerskin or woven grass garments around their waists. Powhatan children did not typically wear clothing prior to adolescence. The Powhatans probablyappeared rather scantily clad to the Englishmen who appeared on their shores in 1607."

from a nice article at
http://historyisfun.org/visitus/docu...tJamestown.pdf

So the grease was probably to keep off mosquitoes. Imagine living in the woods with no bug spray.

• is The New World the first movie directed by Terrence Malick that you've seen?

Negative. The first Malick film I saw was Badlands, followed by The Thin Red Line, which is quite possibly my favorite war film. I have yet to see Days of Heaven.

• what did you think about the way nature is presented in the film?
  
  
  
  (and if you have seen any of his other movies, how is it different or the same?)

A recurring theme in both The New World and The Thin Red line is the constant presence of order and chaos in nature, not really presented as a balance, but instead a constant struggle between the oppossing forces.

• what did you notice about the way voice-over and interior monologue was used vs. the actual spoken dialogue?

Have to focus in a bit more on the differences next time I watch. Malick used this device in The Thin Red Line as Well, and I remember the VO as mostly character development then...

• did you feel like the film took sides as far as one culture or the other being "right" (or at least in more of the right than the other)?

No. Malick avoided dichotomy for the most part, keeping us at a bit of a distance to paint a larger picture of the nature of man and societies. I do feel he showed a bit of cultural contamination, with the Europeans introducing some negative concepts into the psyches of the naturals.

• did you have a strong view of the historical period and these figures going into the movie? Was your understanding enhanced or clouded by Malick's film? If you knew some of the history beyond Disney's Pocahontas did you find the film's presentation of the material to be distracting? If you knew next to nothing, does the movie inspire you to learn more about the period?
  
  
  
  

Not too familiar with the story before seeing this. Not the biggest Disney fan, so I skipped that telling. I do find the period interesting, and I enjoyed a trip back in time with Malick helming the time machine. I didn;t really have an urge to explore this particular story beyond this film, though.

• what did you think about the casting of an actual teenager to play Pocahontas rather than a twenty-something who we're supposed to believe as being thirteen? Did it make the love scenes, even though they weren't graphic, at all uncomfortable for you?

Not really. She has a presence beyond her years, so I bought her as a passionate character, up to a certain point. I also felt a bit detached from the characters emotionally, so perhaps that was a factor, as well. Again with Malick showing us the events in a broader scope. The chronological holes you mentioned in your review also made it a bit more difficult to keep tabs on age.

I really dig this film, but I have to put it third in my list of Malick that I have seen. Some parts of the score sort of grate on my nerves, which detracts a bit from the film for me. A minor quibble, however, and I still rate the film quite high. Like Holden said, it's like ranking Beethoven symphonies...

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I'm with Sammie on this one. That is 2 hours and 15 minutes of my life that I won't get back. It made me wish we had chosen "Breakfast on Pluto" instead. I guess I am just not a Malick connoisseur. As Holden said, you fall into one of two camps and I fell into the "I don't get him" camp. The voice overs made me nuts. I yearned for real dialogue. And the spinning around in the high grass.......once or twice was pretty but it finally made me dizzy.

Is The New World the first movie directed by Terrence Malick that you've seen?
Yes, and it might just be the last.

What did you think about the way nature is presented in the film?
(and if you have seen any of his other movies, how is it different or the same?)

It was probably one of the only things I enjoyed about this film.

What did you notice about the way voice-over and interior monologue was used vs. the actual spoken dialogue?

See above.

Did you feel like the film took sides as far as one culture or the other being "right" (or at least in more of the right than the other)?

I'm not sure about right or wrong, but it sure made me feel for the Naturals. Here they were happily going about their own business when the English decided to come over and visit without an invitation. Not only that, they decided to stay. I hate it when that happens.

Did you have a strong view of the historical period and these figures going into the movie? Was your understanding enhanced or clouded by Malick's film? If you knew some of the history beyond Disney's Pocahontas did you find the film's presentation of the material to be distracting? If you knew next to nothing, does the movie inspire you to learn more about the period?

I did not have a strong view of the historical period and I would have to say my understanding was enhanced by the film. The hunger, cold and desperation were acurately portrayed IMHO. The material was not distracting in the least. The movie really did not inspire me to learn more about the period. Period.

What did you think about the casting of an actual teenager to play Pocahontas rather than a twenty-something who we're supposed to believe as being thirteen? Did it make the love scenes, even though they weren't graphic, at all uncomfortable for you?

I honestly thought she was older. She did a wonderful job and was a bright spot in an somewhat tedious movie. (I couldn't wait for it to end.) I wasn't at all uncomfortable because I thought the love scenes, such as they were, were done tastefully.

Thanks, Holden, for giving us thoughtful questions to answer. I thought your review was great, although I didn't like the movie.

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Do not meddle in the affairs of Dragons.....for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

As a fan of The Thin Red Line, I was looking forward to The New World, but found it surprisingly TOO slow, even for me. For some reason I was also expecting it to have a lot of action sequences, like The Thin Red Line, like the R2 DVD cover promised, so I found myself watching it in completely the wrong mood. I'm definately going to watch it again later. The cinematography, though, was definately incredible.

The only problem I think I will still have with it are the edits to the nature shots. They were too abrupt - I would have preferred dissolve cuts, which would be perfect for the slow, dreamlike mood.

I will have to try and see this one soon so I can participate in this....

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

There was very little sense of the story moving in any direction, for me, for much of the film. I was lost during the long stretch with the Naturals... and I get that I was feeling his indecision, but like... c'mon. DO something. Standing around wondering if they're going to kill you or teach you to fish really only works for a minute or so, and it's not a screenworthy minute.

This is a guy with the moxy to sail around the world to barely-charted territory, but his inner monologues are all about indecision.


awww... Yeah, but the only reason we're shown that they like each other is that they're both pretty.


Well... no. I'm not complaining that I wanted to see more 15-year-old skin. I'm saying her outfit was cornball. It looked to me like a kid's halloween costume. It was better with the leggings, but then she wore those in hot weather, and walked through the snow with her thighs bare.


I can't help doubting they were this fey, but here's a great one of the tattoos I was talking about:


The article accompanying that picture does say if they were going to battle, they "paint their bodies in the most terrible manner that they can devise." It seemed to me that the men in this were nearly always painted to the point of obscurity though.

That is one of a series of engravings by Theodore De Bry (based on the drawings of John White, which depict the day-to-day lives of the natives in the Chesapeake Bay area. John White was an artist/illustrator and he and an astronomer/author named Thomas Hariot came to "Virginia" (a huge chunk of the US east coast) and roamed around, documenting the people and "critters".

Here's one of a war party getting prepped:


I'm cool with 'coy'. I don't quite follow you on the "if you don't" side of the equasion... care to elaborate?

I've lived on the east coast, right where the Roanoke colony was, and I'd have been saying "pass the bear grease". They have bugs there you don't wanna mess with.

Follow me this way - if you don't buy into the legend that Pocahontas and Smith had a physical relationship then what was shown was slightly more realistic than a tall, blond settler and 20-something woman in cartoon form. But still thankfully coy...and still the depiction of a legend.

is The New World the first movie directed by Terrence Malick that you've seen?
what did you think about the way nature is presented in the film? (and if you have seen any of his other movies, how is it different or the same?)

>It was the third Malick film I saw, and the second one I saw theatrically. Watched Days of Heaven last weekend; now I've seen them all. I think this, Days and Red Line fall together pretty neatly, while Badlands (good as it is) is less distinct and watches very much like a french new wave film.

what did you notice about the way voice-over and interior monologue was used vs. the actual spoken dialogue?

>Most of the story is in the narration, which is true of Malick's approach generally. It goes farther than that; the film is cast in the past tense, as a semi-lucid collaborative memory. This may explain some of the complaints about incomprehensible camerawork and storytelling, and the subsequent misunderstandings of malick's intent that result.

The acting and staging bear this point out; rather than entering our world by acting like real people world, the actions of Malick's cast come across gently dulled, characters endlessly circle each other rather than explicitly reacting. Take the battle scenes: staged in a common movie fashion that gives a sense of violent chaos, but rather than going for visceral thrills the camera skips along, picking up unexpected details while glossing over other more typical war-movie ones, with a much gentler feeling than the reality could possibly be. Rather than Lean, I think Herzog - and maybe even Altman - make better comparrisons with Malick, for how they use the camera as a tool of discovery rather than of strict creation. It's this tension between lucid discovery and remembered romance that characterize this and Malick's work more than anything for me. Much, much moreso than the nature vs. human tensions. This is also what I think the title refers to; it's notable that the "Old" English world seems just as new and alien through Malick's camera as that of the American wilderness.

More later, especially once I see it again. I only saw this movie once so far (back in January), so these comments aren't aimed at the New World specifically but rather my general impression of Malick's films over the years.

Dave, I promised you my two cents..so here it is.

We’ve been to Jamestown and might visit there again this year, so I was very interested in how this movie was layed out and how much actual history made it in. In general, I thought the film looked very pretty, but it seemed as if the first half was handled with much more loving hands than the last part. I dunno...at least for me, even the trip back to England seemed to be rushed and not treated with the same respect as the beginning was.

I agree with Cindy and Birdygirl on this, and was disappointed in the story and how a few of the character’s, Smith and Rolfe, were handled. And, the history aspect seemed selective...very realistic in some ways, but in other ways the creative license used to weave this yarn ruined it for me. I got into more detail on this in the questions, so...


is The New World the first movie directed by Terrence Malick that you've seen?
Yes.

what did you think about the way nature is presented in the film?
I thought he did a beautiful job with filming and creating a mood with nature. Some of the shots were gorgeous...but by the end I wish the director treated the story with the same loving care as he filmed the landscape. It’s almost as if he got too absorbed if the 2 dimmentional look of the film and forgot about making it 3 dimmentional. By the time England rolled around, I was done with the quiet, sweeping long shots replacing story and character development. For instance English garden scene where the native american is wandering around...where are the other people or the 11 other native americans? This is a New World for him/them...I would have been interested in how they really might have reacted to their surroundings other than a suger coated picture.

what did you notice about the way voice-over and interior monologue was used vs. the actual spoken dialogue?
I didn’t mind the voice overs, I just wished they carried it through out. With all of the voice overs of Pocahontas on how she must feel towards Smith, I found it odd that a voice over wasn’t used when they finally met at the end in England (if nothing else a simple...’couldn’t you at least wash your hair for me after all these years’, would have sufficed. ).

did you feel like the film took sides as far as one culture or the other being "right" (or at least in more of the right than the other)?
No, I don’t think it took sides. I think the film was too busy in other directions to take sides.

did you have a strong view of the historical period and these figures going into the movie? Was your understanding enhanced or clouded by Malick's film? If you knew some of the history beyond Disney's Pocahontas did you find the film's presentation of the material to be distracting? If you knew next to nothing, does the movie inspire you to learn more about the period?
As stated earlier, since we had been to Jamestown, I already knew a little about Smith, Pocahontas and John Rolfe...and unfortunately already had an image in my mind of them. Which is probably why the character treatment drove me crazy and why this movie was so disappointing to me.

In some ways the film did a great job depicting a realistic view of Jamestown, the village of the Algonquian Indians and some aspects of history...like Powhatan and the natives’ interest in Smith’s compass...and the settlers looking for gold and so on. Maybe because it seemed so realistic, the complete disreguard of other aspects of history and taking a creative licsense where it suited them, drove me crazy. For instance...

....the fact that in Smith’s writings, he reffered to Pocahontas as a ‘child of ten years old’ (not a sixteen year old)..
...and the fact that Smith really left Virginia before Pocahontas was kidnapped...and he left due to an injury.
...or the fact that she was married for several years to another native american before she was kidnapped....
...or the fact that she was returned to her people after being held for a year and asked her father if she could marry John Rolfe (lets’ face it...if she didn’t love him, she wouldn’t have gone back)...
...and that their marrage was a direct link that brought peace between the two cultures (which was thinly veiled in one scene. but never made clear).

Also...it would have been nice if at the end a quiet written screen was done telling what happened with Smith, Rolfe and Pocahontas’s son Thomas and his desendents. T’would have made an interesting ending.

what did you think about the casting of an actual teenager to play Pocahontas rather than a twenty-something who we're supposed to believe as being thirteen? Did it make the love scenes, even though they weren't graphic, at all uncomfortable for you?
Eventhough I loved Q'Orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas (as I imagined what 'P' might have been like at 16ish)...I wish there were two actresses chosen to play the part to really emphasis how much Pocahontas grew from a child into young woman. Obviously, I would have wriiten the story diffrently too...that would have been more realistic and in keeping with the tone initially set (there are writings of her doing cartwheels in the fort with the other young boys). I can’t even image a grown man having a love affair with a girl that was between 10-12yrs old. However, as far as the way this story was written....no, I wouldn’t have had an older actress play the part for that time frame. However, I can honestly say I think I done with ever seeing Colin Farrell make coweyes or make another lusty look at any woman ever again.

..........
Which was part of my problem with Farrell...the constant brooding. Smith (at least in history) was a self-confident, strong leader who had already travelled the world and been in life threating situations....Farrell’s weak, brooding, reluctant Smith was not my image of how Smith should/could have been portrayed at all.

Yep, I think so too. He needed to be slapped...or stabbed. I would have liked a less attention to Farrell’s ‘look’ and put more attention on Bale.

I guess this is always a problem when filming a historical drama, especially a story which has it's roots as much in fable as in fact. Looking purely in terms of the film, I thought Farrell's (more importantly Malick's) take on Smith was fine - a man awkwardly unable to express his feelings - and pretty essential to the plot.

The rather basic research I've done on the subject seems to suggest that, yes, they knew each other and, yes, Pocahontas saved Smith initially. When they met again in England she apparently called him 'father' which, if true, points to the actual nature of their friendship.

But...I didn't look it as a biopic (or anything close) which is maybe why I enjoyed it better than you. This is probably because I knew next to nothing about the history behind the myth, and precious little more about the myth itself.