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The New World: The Extended Cut
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - New Line Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Shahir Daud & Noor Razzak (5th March 2011). |
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The Film
 Fans of Terrence Malick are probably just glad that it didn't take another twenty years for the reclusive auteur to direct another film. "The New World" comes hotly anticipated after his mesmerizing Oscar nominated WWII extravaganza "The Thin Red Line" (1998). Despite the anticipation, star studded cast and controversial subject matter, "The New World" seems to have been buried by distributors, and finally makes it debut on Blu-ray in the much longer 172 minute "Extended Cut" a version fans have waited patiently for. Shame too, since "The New World" not only affirms Malick as one of the genuine living master filmmakers of our time, but is a haunting, sublime and exhilarating look at the formation of America as a union between nature and technology; English settlers and Native Americans, and the body and spirit. The significance of the Pocahontas story, regardless of its historical accuracy has always been appropriated as the great American tale, perhaps more insidiously it marks the assimilation of the native American with the English settlers. Historians would argue that the great myth of Pocahontas (played here by newcomer Q'Orianka Kilcher) throwing herself upon Captain John Smith (Colin Ferrell) to save him from death may not have in fact been the heroic act Smith saw it as, but Malick smartly interprets it as both an act of affection from Pocahontas and an initiation into the Powhatan tribe. Smith arrives to the titular new world a prisoner, but is soon freed to explore and liaise with the 'naturals'. He meets a young Pocahontas whom he falls deeply in love. And so begins the great affair which unites the two waging factions. In The Disney company's hands, the romance epitomises the spirit of racial harmony (despite the eventual obliteration of native lands by English settlers), while Malick turns his camera towards the sky, the land and the waters surrounding our lovers. Their union forming the new country and their naivety sowing the soil of future wars. Like all of Malick's leading men, Ferrell's Smith is a haunted fragment of a human being, reinvigorated by nature. The decision to play his muse at her genuine age (she was somewhere between 10 and 12 when they met) may be unsettling, but highlights the youthful innocence he was so attracted to. Q'Orianka Kilcher may be a relative newcomer, but her presence is magnetic in every scene, making her Pocahontas more haunting and beautiful than any Disney cartoon. Another aspect to note is that prior to start of photography Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki established a dogma in respect to how the photography would be handled on this film. The rules they followed included that everything was to be shot in natural light, They used no cranes or dolly shots (only a combination of handheld and Steadicam shots), everything is shot in the subjective view, all shots are 'deep-focus shots' (foreground and background are visible and focused), the camera crew were encouraged to go and shoot unexpected things that might happen in accident or if instinct told them to. Malick was selective in his shots and as a result many shots that did not exhibit 'visual strength' were dropped (as a result the filmmaker had shot over a million feet of film to construct his final cut with). Unconventional by contemporary means, Malick and Lubezki followed these rules effortlessly and the result makes the film all the more beautiful. There are few films that capture me so completely that I almost never want them to end, "The New World" is one of them.
Video
Mastered in high definition 1080p 24/fps using VC-1 compression, the film is presented in its original theatrical ratio of 2.40:1 preserving the ratio, look, and colors Malick intended this Blu-ray release delivers a stunning image. Visceral is a word one can use when describing this film, the image is impressively pristine, crisp and vibrant. The image is clean from any dirt, the 50GB disc allows this nearly three hour film breath showing off the beautifully deep focused shots with immense detail. The textures are abundant, right down to the threading of the period costumes, the stubble on the actor's faces and detail like the sweat patterns on their faces. Background detail is lush, beautiful and brilliantly balanced with bold and rich colors and deep and rich blacks. Grain is evident, but not heavy or intrusive, retaining the filmic qualities well and adding further weight to the overall image. The naturalistic photography style shines and can definitely be placed near the top among reference quality HD images.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included on this disc, and English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track as well as the standard English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its TrueHD audio. While my preference would have been DTS-HD, this TrueHD audio certainly does the trick. The film is a glorious mix of dialogue and subtle environmental surrounds and score, this sound track opens up the ambient field with much more depth than the standard 5.1 number and offers a vastly improved audio experience. Dialogue is clean and clear, ambient sounds are wonderfully mixed through the sound space and the film's score effectively delivers combined together to bring out the natural environment of the location to life. Optional subtitles are featured in English for the hearing impaired only.
Extras
New Line and Warner Brothers have delivered this film onto Blu-ray with a single and expansive documentary plus a collection of theatrical trailers, below is a closer look at these supplements. The primary supplement on this disc is the expansive in-depth "Making The New World" documentary which can be viewed in either 10 parts or with a 'play all' option, the total run time for this feature is 81 minutes 34 seconds. This features delves into the production process and covers a vast array of topics, sadly we don't ever see the famously reclusive director Malick onscreen. While it would have been great to see first hand the director's process, instead we get a look from the production crew's perspective, and their dedication to the vision and creation of this film, the parts included are: - "Making The New World" this segments focuses on the production design team as the build the major fort and village sets for the production, on ensuring that it's built as a real set, using local trees and logs, it's a very natural set build, we get a look at the research that went into the production design among other things. - "Core Training" takes a closer look at the participation of the local Native American tribes in Virginia on the production. The story concepts are shared with the tribes and how important it is to gain their confidence in the story and bringing their history and expertise in training the cast to perform as 17th century natives with utmost accuracy in the way they are in tune with their surroundings, getting rid of their 20th century postures, etc. there's an incredible attention to detail in getting these actors ready to portray these warriors onscreen. The clip also looks at the 'European' actor's preparation including canoeing, mastering the armor and weapons. - "Finding Pocahontas" the production searched for 8 months for their Pocahontas and how they came about finding Q'Orianka Kilcher, how tested on 35mm without make-up. That test showed a strong beauty, we follow her through her training in preparation for the role, learning the language and gestures. - "Recreating The Powhatan" looks at the research undertaken in order to accurately portray the Powhatan, their look and their culture. The production meetings are recorded as they discuss the process required and experimenting with the body painting and texturing the war patterns. Using various elements from nature such as the red mud among other things including the hair design which was very practical to the tribe. The costumes are also explored in creating natural and organic garb. We also get a brief look at the weapons and props for the European explorers. - "Along The Chickahominy River" shooting the three replica ships on the Chickahominy river, we get a look inside the ship and meet the crew that work the ship as well as the challenges on shooting on the water and getting the shots required for the film. It's a complex coordination effort between cast and crew and the enormous amount of work done to achieve what the filmmakers desired. - "Werowocomoco" This segment of the features looks at the stunt work for the film, coordinating and choreographing a fight scene in a swamp. It involves some native warriors fighting John Smith, we hear from the stunt performers, cast and crew along with more behind-the-scenes footage of the crew filming the sequence. We also get a glimpse of the village scenes and coordinating the extras, and shooting the medicine ceremony among other things. - "Jamestown" The Jamestown set was one of the toughest shoots on the production, both because of what the characters had to deal with and because it was a grueling shoot in an location that was muddy, damp and miserable. We get a look at the conditions the crew created to capture these scenes. We also get a look at the various stages of the set decoration, to show a progression of time and deterioration. There's a terrific look at using natural light only to light the scenes, in many ways it was a search for light especially in the interior scenes and how this process allowed for Malick to work in an improvisational way in terms of selecting his shots. - "The John Rolfe Plantation" the plantation set is explored, from the design and building, the choice of a remote location to build the set and how that effected the production especially with logistics in getting cast, crew and equipment to the set. We get a look at the shooting of a couple of scenes as we hear from more of the cast about the director's vision and the dream of making this film as well as Malick's obsession with filming everything including unscripted moments. - "The Battle" this is my favorite part of the feature, were we look at the process of bringing the battle sequence to life, from the rehearsals and grueling training process, shooting the rehearsals to get a sense for the battle, and creating chaos and intensity on the set to get the big shots needed. Later we get a look at the burning of the village scene. - "England" the final chapter of this feature takes us to the England sequences of the film in which the character of Pocahontas as been taken away from the new world to England. The production crew relocate to the UK to finish the film's final shots and they encounter some unexpectedly fierce weather. Rounding out the extras are the film's original teaser trailer running for 1 minute 31 seconds and the original theatrical trailer which runs for 2 minutes 31 seconds.
Overall
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