The New World, 2005 (dir. Terrence Malick)
Ugh, this movie. What I love is that Malick was so successfully able to show (based on old descriptions from colonialists and such) what it must’ve been like for settlers to come to North America for the first time ever. You hear about people being able to just dip their hands into rivers and oceans and grasp dozens of fish—I mean, obviously, you can’t do that nowadays in the US. And you hear about the thousands of birds and the wildlife and…yeah. Malick did it. I think I read somewhere that he filmed in the more isolated parts of Canada. Yet another reason to envy Canada.
I saw this movie five times in theaters. The last time I was the only person in the theater, and I sat until the credits finished rolling. One of a very few films I would describe as majestic.
Also: all of the scenes that take place in America were actually filmed in Virginia. The production endeavored to shoot as near the actual place where the settlers arrived as possible. IMDb backs me up on this, and I believe I heard Jack Fisk (the production designer) say as much in an interview or maybe on the bonus features on the DVD/Blu-ray. In any case, this movie is just achingly beautiful. It harkens back to a time when the world was a mystery, and there’s a lot to be said in many regards for the beauty of mystery.
(via backshootingford)
