The New World and Avatar: How Hollywood Has Gone Green
By Zachary Rubin, with comments by Jesse Stehouwer and Jeffrey Herrigel
[1] Film itself is an expressive medium in which innovative and unique individuals can express their opinions on prevalent and pertinent issues to audiences through a wide-ranging and popular platform: the movie theater. For Terrence Malick and James Cameron, two of the most prominent and acclaimed directors in the history of film, utilizing this platform to convey their beliefs has been of the utmost importance throughout their careers in producing films. Malick and Cameron in recent years have similarly directed two films, The New World (2006) and Avatar (2009) respectively, in which they attempt to criticize the human exploitation of the environment through the expansion and proliferation of modern technology. While both films are polar opposites in regards to their production values, most notably in setting and editing, both make the most of their cinematography and visual effects, characters and storyline effectively to portray the negative effects inherent in the utilization of forms of modern technology. Thus, while the average viewer may simply look at The New World and Avatar and be unable to find any similarities, it is clear that this major theme, the exploitation of the environment through modern technology, resonates between both films.
[2] The cinematography and lighting in both films, while grossly different in technique, help illustrate to the viewer how both directors feel about the current state of the environment. Malick, named by many within the film industry as the Ralph Waldo Emerson of this medium, is primarily a visceral and transcendental film director whose primary focus is to illustrate the beauty of the natural world through the lens and through the multiple shots he takes. Throughout the film, the viewer can find a vast difference in the two civilizations depicted as colonial Jamestown in many appearances is quite gray, bleak, and dull in comparison to the vivid, colorful, and serene look of the Indian village. For example, when John Smith returns to Jamestown after his time with Pocahontas, the barracks are depicted as sullen and dry, with its people acting more like savages rather than civilized people. Before Smith leaves, however, Malick shows numerous colorful scenes, such as when Smith learns to fight with the natives and when he is exploring the surrounding forest with Pocahontas, that show the natural beauty of the Indian village. It is well known within the film industry that Malick rarely uses artificial lighting in his shots; thus, what is most amazing about the images is that the shots within the forest are naturally more vivid and brighter than those within Jamestown. Through cinematography, Malick illustrates to the viewer his problems with Jamestown and its settlers’ destruction of the ambiance and beauty of the natural world.
[3] While Malick primarily utilizes natural lighting to create his scenes, Cameron specifically uses computer-generated imagery, known as CGI. In creating Avatar, 60% of the film was shot in photo-realistic CGI, which essentially made the images come to life on screen because of the precision of each frame. Furthermore, Cameron knew that in creating the world of the Na’vi, the alien race inhabiting the planet Pandora, he must utilize this advanced film technology to create a vivid and vibrant world in which the audience would be swept away by the images of this unique land. In particular, Cameron contrasts the amazing natural world of the Na’vi to the rigid and bland base occupied by the humans. While the majority of the images depicted throughout Pandora are bright and are in constant movement, the human base is notably fixed, dry, and dull. As the film progresses, and we see the protagonist Jake come to love and understand the beauty of nature and of the Na’vi world, the viewer can see Cameron’s displeasure with the world Jake left behind and how the potential advancement of his civilization into the Na’vi world would do major damage to the environment. In one particular scene, Jake, after being sent into his avatar, attempts to destroy a military bulldozer that almost kills Jake and Neytiri. In this scene, Cameron illustrates how the serenity of the jungle is lost because of the effects of deforestation and how this affects the lives of the Na’vi. Thus, while different in their lighting and cinematographic styles, Cameron utilizes his scenes to illustrate his concern with the proliferation of the modern technology and its effects on the environment.
[4] While Malick and Cameron are vastly different in how they produce films, both of these directors utilize their respective protagonists to enhance their stories. In Malick’s The New World, legendary Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) serves as the male lead that leaves his mundane world behind for a period of time to explore nature and begin a path of self-discovery with Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher), the princess of the native tribe. In Cameron’s Avatar, the protagonist Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic member of the military, enters the world of the Na’vi for government gain, only to find himself intrigued by Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and the ideals of their native civilization. As the plot progresses, the two main protagonists greatly evolve and begin to see the flaws of their original world and of their past lifestyles. In particular, viewers can easily see how both characters begin to love and appreciate nature while simultaneously coming to disapprove of how their past respective worlds treat, and specifically exploit, the world around them. For example, Smith, upon returning to Jamestown illustrates to the viewer, through his own private monologue and through his body language and actions, how he is notably disturbed with how Jamestown now operates. In one scene, while a seemingly ragged and insane man is screaming throughout the town, Smith is sitting alone in his room holding his only connection to the natural world: a feather given to him by the natives. Ultimately, through the actions and experiences of the two protagonists, both Malick and Cameron further illustrate their disapproval of the exploitation of the environment and how we as people neglect and overlook the importance of nature. (see comment by Jesse Stehouwer)
[5] Certain scenes within each particular film also illustrate Malick’s and Cameron’s sentiments regarding the state of the environment. In both of the films, the two directors create scenes in which their native tribes’ land is destroyed by an unyielding fire initiated by the incoming settlers. In The New World, Pocahontas’s former tribesmen are forced to flee their home because of an unstoppable brushfire created by the settlers that devastates their homes and their land. In Avatar, at the beginning of the final chapter of the film, the human forces use their modern technology to decimate the Na’vi civilization by using a plethora of bombs and missiles to start a swirling and forceful fire in the jungle. Both particular scenes are extremely intense, captivating, and saddening, as the viewer can see literally how the use of technology for the exploitation of natural resources can devastate the natural environment. Ultimately, these two particular scenes, as crafted by Malick and Cameron, are just one example of the potential ruthlessness and chaos that can come from the utilization of technology in a harmful manner.
[6] What is truly remarkable in comparing these two particular films is how similar they are in so many ways that have little to do with their setting and their production techniques and values. While Malick shot this film to resemble the 1600s while using virtually no special effects and artificial lighting, Cameron used the most innovative and progressive CGI equipment in the business. Yet, both films strongly illustrate how we as a people have been exploiting our environment and our natural resources for hundreds of years. Upon our arrival in the Americas, we destroyed nature to build our colonies and forts, and even in our distant future, hundreds of years later, we, according to Cameron, will still be doing the same thing: exploiting the environment through modern technology for financial gain. Thus, these two remarkably different yet amazingly similar films are quite unique and innovative in using and manipulating lighting, creating remarkably vivid scenes, and utilizing characters and plot to make a point to viewers that our continued destruction of the environment is wrong and that we should take immediate action to help eliminate this overwhelming devastation of nature. (see comment by Jeffrey Herrigel)
Comments
It is undeniable that the two movies Avatar and The New World are similar in many aspects. Both these films tell a story of a battle between “modern society†and the indigenous people. Another movie that tells this story is The Last Samurai, which, I would consider more similar to Avatar than Avatar is to The New World. In the film The Last Samurai the protagonist is also captured, his life is spared and he learns the way of the Samurai (AKA the indigenous). However, in this movie and Avatar the protagonist stays with the indigenous and adapts to their culture. This is a clear fact that Rubin did not note in his analysis. In The New World, Pocahontas adapts to the protagonist’s culture rather than Smith adapting to the indigenous one. This drastic difference reshapes the whole film, making it difficult for me to accept the comparison between the two films made by Rubin.
When I originally walked out of Avatar, I actually turned to my friends and said, "didn’t that remind you of a high-tech, futuristic version of Pocahontas?" What originally struck me was their character development similarities. In each movie the protagonist is brought into the new culture because he wanted a second chance (Jake because he was given the chance to walk again; John Smith because he was given the chance to be free again). They then fall for a native of the new culture and assimilate into their society and see the beauty of their culture and in the end defend that way of life. The Pocahontas/The New World and Avatar environmental activist message did not occur to me until I watched the former movie for class. In the first minutes of the film there are very still, calm shots of the rivers and brush that covered the American Atlantic coastlines. All one could hear was a soft hum of nature and the rocky trickle of water down the streams. This was very well punctuated by the violent construction of the forts by the British. The natives were shown attempting to climb on the skeletons of the forts constructed, not sure what the apparatus was intended for. After reading the Rubin’s essay and the essay by Burgoyne, the movie Fern Gully kept popping into my head, and I couldn’t figure out why. I hadn’t seen the movie since sixth-grade science during our ecosystems unit, but the message stuck with me until English 187 my junior year of college. There are remarkable similarities between The New World, Avatar, and Fern Gully, leading me to believe this plot line and theme of save-the-environment may have become somewhat of a Hollywood cookie cutter production. In the movie Fern Gully, an animated film from the 1990’s, the handsomely drawn protagonist is shrunk by a forest fairy, much to his dismay at first. He is then led through an enchanting world of nature and inner peace. This new culture shows him the joys of the natural world as he runs across lily pads and swings from trees. Then, just as he has completely fallen in love with this new world, it is being threatened by his own culture, a deforestation corporation! He defends the forest and realizes that maybe he was always meant to be part of this culture; meanwhile the save rainforest mantra is shouted throughout the film. Upon further research I found this which turned out to be an incredibly entertaining support to my theory of Pocahontas/Avatar/Fern Gully being a repeatedly used and copied plot: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1920954.
