Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The New World--10 points Enrichment
Students should go to the Wikipedia pages below and review the analysis and comments on the film, The New World and the life of Pocahontas. After reading the Wikipedia pages,provide a blog response that includes comments on what else the film shold have done to provide a more historically accurate description of the Jamestown story line. What did the film do that was of sound historical representation? What could have been done better? Pretend that you are editing the wiki, and provide comments on what you would add or change in my blog below. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_World_(2005_film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocahontas
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26 comments:
i never really thought of the tattoos on smiths arms during the movie. now it kind of makes sense that if people possibly had tattoos then why cover some thing up that you can't really get rid of. the one thing that the artticle didn't mention was the faact that smith was brought to John Rolfe's home to see pocahontas, after she and rolfe were all ready married. this oviously was hollywood adding. i don't think that Rolfe would want his wife seeing her first love especialy since "pocahontas still felt soo strongly for him". the most historicaly incorecct thing is oviously the age of pocahontas, and her loving john smith. if they would have not made pocahontas love john smith it wouldn't have been as wierd for her to be 12.
Something that caught my attention is that Pocahontas had told Rolfe that she was married to Smith still and she had to have some kind of closure. Hollywood adding. Although,I feel like this movie was more realistic than the Disney classic,Pocahontas. In both of them, Pocahontas was characterized as an attractive female with her age ranging at around 16-20.
Also, I don't recall Pocahontas going back to Jamestown to see Smith and being rejected in the winter during their starving time. To be honest, that was probably the best part to me. I am very interested in chick flicks and I imagine that is what Hollywood wanted to do to lure females and younger people in to watch the movie.The chief, her father, appeared to be very nice and hospitable in the movie, when there are documents that state that he was very quarrelsome with enemy tribes and killed off a vast majority of them. I do think they should make a historically accurate Pocahontas/ Jamestown movie because I am very fascinated by it as so are others.
I agree with Nicole on this movie being a more correct version of Disney's Pocahontas, but it was still wrong in many ways. They made her fall deeply in love with John Smith, but also made her seem older than she really was. She was only 12 at the time she met John Smith, and he was in his 30's. Weird right? They made her older in the movie, because obviously it is Hollywood and it would attract older viewers. Her father was said to have been very cantankerous or shrewish, while in the movie he is sweet and they state that he is loving to everyone.
In the article on Wikipedia, they say "probably" over 10 times. This means that they clearly did not know the true facts. They were just guesstimating. We never learned of her running back to Smith during the starving time, and just like above, I do love a good love story! But yes, I feel that Hollywood did that for more viewers. Wikipedia is not a website to gather accurate information from, but neither are Hollywood movies where all they want is fame and fortune for their lies.
Obviously this movie was more realistic than the Disney traditional, Pocahontas. In both, Pocahontas was characterized as an eye-catching female with her age stretching around middle teens, which draws the attention of young movie watchers. (money for producers) “In reality, Smith left Jamestown in 1609 because of an injury after his powder horn exploded and badly wounded his leg.” In that case why don’t you just take Pocahontas with you and live cautiously in England? In the movie I understand why Hollywood didn’t have Smith take Pocahontas with him to England, because he had orders from the king and which there would be a lot of suspicion going on. But the romance of Smith and Pocahontas could have been cut out because it doesn’t make any sense; a 12 year old girl and Smith, in his 30’s. Interesting isn’t? So I think next time, cut that romance out and get down to the basics. Or just make another untrue movie.
-Daniel Hughes
Misgana Kelecha says...
In both hollywood makings of the movie Pocahontas was characterised as an attractive young lady averaged around the ages of 15-19 with an athletic body and an attractive look, when in reality she was more than likely athletic, but was probably sorta dirty with hair that isn't all that nice and probably a not so good complection.
They also made the movie very modernised and as a modern love movie with a historical twist on it. But it makes sense that Hollywood would change up a creepy old love story of a twelve year old in love with a 30+ Year old man from another country who was robbing he people of their land and freedom. But in the end it is pretty typical to change up a story in hollywood for the enjoyment of the viewers, that is why they say "Based on a true story" not, "The actual story of..".
The film is more accurate than I had originally thought. Sure some things were changed drastically, but the overall concept and main points remained. The colonists did arrive to Jamestown and fight early on with the Natives. As well, the winter shows the starving time and how harsh it was on the people of Jamestown. It also depicts the how lazy, helpless, and unmotivated the colonists were. It correctly shows them still searching for gold at all costs, even if it starves them to death. The film obviously shows Pocahontas as a mature young adult that falls in love with John Smith who beforehand she saves. But she isn’t really that grown up in the real story. She was 12… They could have recreated the storyline to fit a more accurate representation of the true story, but that would have took away from the interest of the movie and would have made the movie boring. They spiced it up, adding romance with John Smith and John Rolfe in order to attract more people, and honestly it worked.
Aly Daniels
The movie The New World was the adult version of the Disney version Pocahontas. Even thought the movie did an accurate description of the starving times of Jamestown in the winter of 1609-1610. They depicted the suffering, death, and vulnerability prodigiously well. However, the movie directors still felt the need to make Pocahontas fall in love with John Smith instead of John Rolfe. This is historically inaccurate and also takes away from Pocahontas’s marriage to John Rolfe ending the First-Anglo Powhatan War. The movie also does not show how Smith restores Jamestown. It does not show that Smith employed strict regulations so that all of the colonists worked for their food. Also in this movie like in Pocahontas they depict her as much older that she actually it. This historical inaccuracy makes it so we do not see John Rolfe or in this case John Smith as a sexual predator. The movie The New World also made up the story that Smith was split between his career and his love and actually he was sent back to England because he received a gun powder wound and wanted it to get treated before it became infected. I would say that the movie sacrificed its historical accuracy for more entertainment which in their case means more money. This is to be expected, but I would say that this movies depiction did not show the New World much better than Disney’s Pocahontas.
This movie was more realistic than the Disney portrayed Pocahontas. However, both the movie and the Disney version both displayed her as a young and very attractive female. Smith only left Jamestown because of a gunpowder accident. I don’t understand why he wouldn’t just take Pocahontas there with him, but again, it’s Hollywood. Almost the entire second half of the movie, to me, was just about romance. It really didn’t give a whole lot of facts and information about the current status of Jamestown at that specific section of the movie, but once Pocahontas was sent to England, the movie got a bit better with information. Though Hollywood tends to move things or twist them in a sense, I actually like it. Otherwise, just plain facts being told would be kind of boring in my opinion.
Personally, I don't understand why there was a romance between Pocahontas and John Smith. Hollywood made them appear to be extremely attractive, but in real life they were most likely not like that at all. True, if the movie did not make them somewhat good-looking, there would have been little interest in the movie. I just would rather them have portrayed the romance with Rolfe more. Even though there might be speculation to whether or not their relationship was planned, it would have been more historically accurate of they would have had a romance between Rolfe and Pocahontas; it would also still fulfill the viewer's need. Also, Pocahontas was in her preteen years when Smith arrived at Jamestown, and it looked as if she was older than she really was.
Although the romance aspect of the movie was not at all realistic, the parts of the movie that showed the suffering of the colony was much more accurate. When Smith arrived back at the colony after being with the Indians, there was an extreme sense of suffering from the people, as well as a sense of anger that Smith was not there to help them. When Rolfe arrived, the movie showed the colony beginning to thrive, which was accurate because Rolfe brought tobacco with him, which ended up being the main source of their revenue.
Personally, I don't understand why there was a romance between Pocahontas and John Smith. Hollywood made them appear to be extremely attractive, but in real life they were most likely not like that at all. True, if the movie did not make them somewhat good-looking, there would have been little interest in the movie. I just would rather them have portrayed the romance with Rolfe more. Even though there might be speculation to whether or not their relationship was planned, it would have been more historically accurate of they would have had a romance between Rolfe and Pocahontas; it would also still fulfill the viewer's need. Also, Pocahontas was in her preteen years when Smith arrived at Jamestown, and it looked as if she was older than she really was.
Although the romance aspect of the movie was not at all realistic, the parts of the movie that showed the suffering of the colony was much more accurate. When Smith arrived back at the colony after being with the Indians, there was an extreme sense of suffering from the people, as well as a sense of anger that Smith was not there to help them. When Rolfe arrived, the movie showed the colony beginning to thrive, which was accurate because Rolfe brought tobacco with him, which ended up being the main source of their revenue.
The movie the New World depicts Jamestown from 1607- around 1612. The movie has several accurate facts in it. The movie does a fantastic job showing the colonization of Jamestown, and truly shows how the fort would have looked. The people are portrayed almost to a tee in how they were not motivated to work, lazy and selfish. Also, the Starving Time is shown well, including much historical accuracy. The conflict arises in the relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas. Now, don't get me wrong i enjoy a good mushy-gushy love story, but not this one. In reality John Smith was in his early 30s and Pocahontas was about 12 years old... SICK! I don't see what Hollywood was honestly trying to do with this false relationship of John Smith and Pocahontas. The relationship NEVER existed, and she was not a young women, she was 12! Disney along with this movie simply lie to young children/ their viewers by adding this unnecessary and unrealistic love story, to gain entertainment value. I thought the movie had several good points and portrayed several things in the settlement of Jamestown well, but Pocahontas was not one of them.
The film did a great job of showing the suffering of the Jamestown colonists. I feel that the relationship between John Smith and Pocahontas was good for the movie, but not for the historical accuracy of the film. It irks me that Hollywood has to make everything sexually appealing, enought so that a relationship between Pocahontas and just about anyone would be socially acceptable in today's public forum. This need for political correctness does not do any historical event justice. I would have to have seen a better representation of the Starving Time, as well as Smith's leadership saving the settlement from ruin.
When watching the movie, I thought it looked like it could be historically correct without the relationship between Pocahontas and John Smith. But there were a lot of small things that were changed to make the movie likable for audiences. For instance, Pocahontas was portrayed as an older, more attractive woman in maybe her 20’s, instead of her actual age at the time which would have been in her early teens. John Rolfe, and John Smith were also played as younger men, which made both of their relationships with Pocahontas more pleasant for movie watchers. Also the Powhatan in my opinion acted to gentle. The Powhatan were powerful Indians who were the not harmless, but ruled over other local Indian tribes. If the movie would have changed some of the small things, it may have been maybe not as good as a movie, but more historically correct.
-Connor Edstorm
The New World was supposed to be the historically accurate version of Pocahontas's life and the lives of all the Jamestown colonists, or so I thought before watching the movie. Remembering, vividly, that I despised the animated version of Pocahontas, I was incredibly disappointed with the real life version because it was the same story just put into a more adult friendly depiction. Obviously what I will start with is that Pocahontas was still portrayed as a woman and not a child. She was only twelve in history, why try and make her twenty? Just to please the people who are afraid of pedophiles? That’s too bad. If people don’t like that Pocahontas was a child when she married, then they don’t have to watch the movie. Next, John Smith and Pocahontas were NOT romantically involved. The New World makes the majority of the screen time about Pocahontas and John Smith’s huge romance. The sexuality of their love was incredibly uncomfortable for APUSH students to watch because all we could think about was that she was actually twelve, not twenty. The fact that they made the love connection between Smith and Pocahontas so strong makes the marriage between John Rolfe and Pocahontas almost unbearable to watch. When juxtaposing the relationships, one almost wants to favor the relationship had with Smith because it seemed to be the most enjoyable one. Rolfe and Pocahontas were madly in love historically and The New World makes it out to be an inconvenience for Pocahontas. And for another thing, since when is John Smith thought to be dead? Nobody ever thought that he had died and Pocahontas did not only get with Rolfe because she thought Smith was dead. On the brighter side of the movie, the starving time and the disease ridden people were portrayed well and accurately. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this movie was not worth watching because as an APUSH student, all I think about when I watch the movie is that everything is wrong. Literally all that goes through my head is “That’s wrong.” “No, it didn’t happen like that.” “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
The New World was a very good movie that created a semi-good development of the understanding for Pocahontas and what all she lived through. Although it was a lot better than Disney’s version, it still is not completely and honestly, 100% truthful. Seriously! How many more times do we have to go over this! Pocahontas was never romantically in love with John Smith. Just because it makes a movie a lot more interesting and entertaining when there is a romance, does not mean that it is the right thing to do. It needs to be a historically correct motion picture. The producers needed to do an incredibly better job with her looks (as in her AGE). Seriously!? We all know that that actress was not a twelve year old little girl! This movie is made for adults, adults are not THAT stupid! (Well…hopefully anyway) Just because you wanted to make it all “love-y, dove-y” for the audience between Pocahontas and John Smith does not make you any better than Disney. Everybody already knows that the historical junkies complained about Disney’s movie. Why change just a little bit? How come nobody learns from past history mistakes!? I did believe, however, that the film did a fantastic job at the Indians. They did phenomenal at how they had the Indians acting with their enthusiastic curiosity during the arrival of the first English colonists to their future settlement. How they portrayed Jamestown as a starving colony was beyond words. Watching it, I almost felt like I was there and I could feel the insanity all around me. I felt horrible for those settlers and I just wanted to reach into the screen and give them a sandwich or something. Another thing that bothered me though, was the fact that John Smith was constantly with Pocahontas. He never even TRULY helped the colonists survive the starving time. How did they survive it when he was dancing awkwardly with his twelve year old so-called “lover.” This movie had some positive accurate historical facts, and some very negative historical facts. All in all, I would show this movie to my students, as long as they knew the correct and incorrect information from the film.
~Alyssa Bradford (1st block)
The movie was historically accurate in many ways in that it depicted life in the colonies of Jamestown well during the early years of colonization. Another accurate part about the film was that it showed Pocahantas marrying John Rolfe which is true. Asides from this, there are also some things that are wrong in this movie such as Pocahantas falling in love with John Smith and marrying him. As even the portrayal of her age was off in the movie as she would have been much younger than him in real life. This is a good movie to gain some knowledge about the settling of Jamestown and the life of Pocahantas, but you should not rely solely on it otherwise you will be mislead.
Chance Ragan, 9th Block
I feel like for the most part the movie did was was necessary from the historical aspect. Don't even get me started on the Hollywood side of things though. The romance was almost just dumb, for lack of a better term. I mean, don't get me wrong, as a teenage girl, I love a good romance story. But in my own personal opinion, I would almost rather it be completely fictional, than half of it is make believe and then the other half is to be depicted as historically accurate. I think, again through the Hollywood aspects, that the producers and directors did a very nice job of displaying the almost helplessness of Jamestown and what it was like to go through at the beginning of the colonization. And they were for the most part spot on the historic facts. Just next time, don't make her out to be 18 when she was 13 in real life, and don't throw some random love affair that doesn't do anything but advance the plot when it didn't actually happen!
-Lexi Naegele
In the film, the plot of depicting Pocahontas’s life was historically accurate although some key points were changed. It accurately portrays the “Starving Time” at Jamestown and what the colonists went through. Although it does lack showing the leadership of John Smith saves the colony from failure. I think that the fact that it shows how Pocahontas and John Smith fall in love was just something to make the film more interesting but is not the story that actually occurred. In the movie it portrays the sexual attraction between Smith and Pocahontas but in reality when Pocahontas met Smith he was considerably older than her, which is not appropriate. I feel like keeping Pocahontas age appropriate would have made the movie much more historically accurate. Even though they changed the story of how John Smith died from drowning to being wounded from an explosion, I do not think that this effected the historical accuracy of the film because either way he came back.
I think the most incorrect part of all of the movies about Pocahontas is her relationship with John Smith. The only reason for this was to add romance into the films. I didn't really understand the point of adding the marriage between John Smith and Pocahontas into the story when that is historically incorrect. They romance was already there with John Rolfe, who she actually did marry. What people freak out the most about is the age difference between Pocahontas and John Smith. That issue wouldn't have arouse if they wouldn't have decided to make Smith and Pochontas be in a romantic relationship. Adding the marriages in the films obviously makes for a better movie, which is understandable but unnecessary. If you're going to direct a film about history, why wouldn't you want to make the story correct? A lot of people will forever think that the Disney movie "Pocahontas" is the true story and never know the true history. Besides that, the director of The New World did a great job of keeping the main details and making the story make sense. There are definitely some other points that could have been added such as showing more about how Smith brought stability to Jamestown. Also, in the film, they say that Smith returned to England because of his inability to chose between his career and his love for Pocahontas, when actually he had to return because of an explosion of his gunpowder bag. Overall, the film was historically correct and a much better deception of history that Disney's Pocahonatas.
The film seemed to have some key points, that were definitely true and accurate but it was wrong in many ways. The true story of Pocahontas saving John Smith from dying should have been the focus instead of an entire love story. I don't believe Pocahontas and Smith had a love connection at all. I think filmmakers ,especially in the Disney version of Pocahontas just changed everything for entertainment purpose and made a big spin off of Pocahontas saving Smith, but then falling deeply in love. I also found it strange how then she married John Rolfe in the movie, after John Smith had gone away. Film makers made Pocahontas, go from 12 to 20 and made her fall in love with two men, and changed her historical background completely. A great idea would have been for the film to actually provide a historical background that is entirely true.
Bailey Prigel,
I thought THe New World was much more realistic than Disney's Pocahontas. But there still some issues. Pocahontas and John Smith weren't in love,also John Smith was in his fifties when he went to the New World, in the movie he looked much younger, also in the movie, Pocahontas looked older than she was when the colonists arrived. It was probably used to add romance and make a more interesting movie.
Also, Pocahontas' tribe appeared to be a very peaceful tribe, but Powhatan was a brutal chief, he would kill entire tribes that would challenge him.
Built upon the establishment of Jamestown and the relationships between those who had previously inhabited the New World and those who had come in hopes of bettering their lives in England, The New World is a historical romance directed by Terrence Malick and released in 2005. Although the movie is concentrated around the famous and controversial, pop-culture, Hollywood laden relationship between the young Native American girl, Pocahontas and English explorer, John Smith, there are many components in which inaugurate background information, necessary for story development. Many pieces of specific information in the movie are proven to be true by historical standards. Jamestown, Virginia was established in 1607 and on the ship of colonists was indeed an English soldier and explorer, John Smith. Although he was not nearly as attractive as the actor chosen to play his role, it is true he was chosen to take on a role of leadership within the colony. In addition, there were accurate representations of historic components in The New World such as the starving time of 1609, the climate of Virginia, the slothfulness and greed of the settlers and the slow rise of tension between the natives and explorers. Due to the fact The New World was intended to be a new variation of the love between Pocahontas and Smith and not a purely historical film, these aspects were not fully elaborated on, but nonetheless they do give the movie a sliver of credibility. Additionally, it is true John Smith was captured by the Powhatan Indians, but it is untrue he had immediately began to mention Pocahontas. Instead, Smith began to mention her months later, first describing her as a young girl of only ten years and later as a twelve to thirteen year old. What is certain though is Pocahontas was a child during Smith’s stay in Jamestown and was far from the young woman she was depicted as in The New World. The movie also failed to incorporate a rather important event of Pocahontas’s life, her capture during the first Anglo-Powhatan war in 1609, where she was held captive by the English at Henricus, where she had met John Rolfe, rather than the movie’s interpretation of Pocahontas meeting Rolfe in Jamestown while dealing with the depression and heartbreak Smith had left with her. Finally, the portrayal of Pocahontas in England was illustrated in the movie in the same way it truly had been in history. She was presented as an exotic and desired commodity, an Indian princess who had successfully been converted to Christianity and was established as the face of the New world’s success. In conclusion, The New World is a movie constructed around an infrastructure of facts and then filled and adorned with modern day conceptions and romantic fantasies.
-Brandon Johnson
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