The New World

As an, admittedly, slightly aloof moviegoer (well, individual), 2005 held very few special moments for me. Moments I can recall as breathtaking came seldom and very few times did a film make me smile with the realization that maybe what I was seeing was not just entertainment to pass the time but a slice of that ever-elusive quality - Art. I felt this way while watching David Cronenberg's History of Violence. I felt this way while watching Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain. But most of all, I felt this way while watching Terrence Malick's The New World.

The film's scope, beauty, music, harmony, all resonate in me in quite a soulful manner. Pretentious? Sure the film reeks of pretentiousness, if you buy into that falacious critique. Art, above all else, seeks to illuminate. And illuminating is the only adjective I care to use to describe the moments in the film where Wagner's Vorspiel from Das Rheingold is played to accompanying cinematography.

It was not surprising that The New World did not get nominated for Best Film or Best Directory by the Academy. The following excerpt from J. Hoberman's article in The Village Voice explains how this came to be:

"New York Times critic Manohla Dargis found only one possible explanation for The New World's failure to attract more than cursory Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences attention: 'With the exception of my few dear friends in that august body, [the Academy members] are idiots.'"

Some say the Academy collective is an idiot for not unanimously voting for Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture. I call them idiots for failing to nominate The New World at all.