Since
this year marks the 250th birthday of the United States of America,
I’ve decided to mix my love of movies and history. Roughly once a week, I’ll
watch an American history film, arranging them in rough chronological order
(these movies span any period from a few days to a few decades).
First
is up is Terence Malick’s The New World
(2005), which covers the early years of the colony at Jamestown. Malik is a
deeply philosophical filmmaker, and he is less interested than the history per
se than in its personalities. Thus the movie revolves around a trio of
characters. There is John Smith (the competent explorer played by Colin Farrell),
the quiet planter John Rolfe (Christian Bale), and most importantly Powhatan
princess Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher).
As with many previous iterations, most famously Disney’s controversial animated effort, Malick ages up Pocahontas a little so she can have a romance with John Smith. In real life they had an intergenerational child-adult friendship. Most of the inaccuracies in the movie stem from this decision, as it heavily reframes Pocahontas’ character. For example, when she becomes a member of Jamestown she’s listlessly going through life because she believes John Smith is dead. In real life she was actually very interested in her new home and earnestly wanted to become an Englishwoman and a Christian.
