Abstract
Terrence Malick’s The New World (2005) is a poetic evocation of one of America’s founding myths, the story of Pocahontas. While the film allegorises - through the theme of marriage - the possibility of successful cultural exchange and of reconciliation with nature, it also fuses mythic history, subjective reflection, and the self-expression of nature. This unstable point of view has led to a critical ambivalence concerning the film’s romantic naivety: its evocation of ideologically suspect myths or historically anachronistic tropes. My discussion defends the film as knowingly romantic; an aesthetic challenge to our historical scepticism towards the experience of new worlds.
Original language | English |
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Number of pages | 18 |
Journal | Screening the Past |
Issue number | 26 |
Publication status | Published - 2009 |
Keywords
- film
- Terrence Malick
- mythic history
- cinematic poetry
- romanticism