Monday, May 22, 2006

2005's Best Film Portrayl of Love and Grace

"In my vanity,
I thought I could
make you love me
and one can not
do that
or should not. "
--John Rolfe in The New World (played by Christian Bale)


I finally saw Terrence Malick's great film The New World. I was a little surprised how little buzz this film got when it came out and that it failed to pick up more than it's one academy award nomination (Cinemotography), especially after Terrance Malick's sucess with the film The Thin Red Line (with it's 7 nominations and of course it's all star cast: Nick Nolte, James Caviezel, John Travolta, John C. Rielly, Sean Penn, Adrian Brody, Jared Leto, Woody Harrelson, et al.)

Yet I can see how this film would not be "main stream" with the way it takes the time to tell it's story using beautiful imagry which are far more important than the words that are said.

And while I would not recommend this film about John Smith and Pocahontas to everyone (mainly for it's pacing)...I think that this film has one of the most beautiful portrayls of love and grace in the character of John Rolfe (Christian Bale). If there was a film award for a portrayl of love and graciousness, Christian Bale would have won it hands down.

Side Note: Colin Farrell was not annoying like I thought he might be, and young star Q'Orianka Kilcher was absolutly wonderful...I hope she gets more complex roles like this one.

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10 comments:

Paula said...

Thanks for the heads up...it sounds like the kind of movie I will really enjoy!

eddie{F} said...

They way you have positioned your fonts on this heading really sucks. You could have done better.

:]

RC said...

Eddie...i fixed the font treatment...hopefully that helps.

-RC

Jim Jannotti said...

Woah. You're getting slammed about your fonts. That's interesting... anyway, about New World; I'm a big fan of Terrence Malick and was all excited about this movie coming out... and then... and then...

nothing. I made zero effort to try and see it during the entire two and a half minutes of its run in theatres. I knew it wouldn't be around long, people just don't get Malick, but why did I not go see it?

Thanks for the reminder! Now I just have to remember to run out and rent it.

Jim Jannotti said...

Oops... TerrAnce Malick. My bad.

eddie{F} said...

Jim

Ask RC - he/she would know what the slamming of fonts are all about.

;-)

Jim Jannotti said...

Hey RC, what's up with the slamming of fonts?

JW said...

This film was a masterpiece, easily my number one for last year.

Anonymous said...

Just goes to show, once again, that the Academy Awards are far from the authority on the best films of the year, eh?

Liked your post here.

Andrew Gaug said...

I'm tempted to see this movie mainly because I really like Bale. But Malick has a tendency to meander constantly especially in "The Thin Red Line." I may give this one a watch though.