The New World (2005)

The Interview with Sarah Green (Producer)

Although The New World-director Terrence Malick was in Berlin for the festival, he didn't even show up for the press conference. Business as usual for the extremly publicity-shy man, of whom it is even hard to find a current picture. So the next best thing to figure someting out about him would be the producer on his newest epos, Sarah Green. Green produced films like Frida and Havana Nights: Dirty Dancing 2 among others, but The New World was her first collaboration with the enigmatic film-maker Malick as well.

Nevertheless OutNow.CH tried to find out more about Malick from a person, who at least saw saw the man recently. And we also learned about the difficulties of casting the right girl for the role of Pocantos. A story which seems to be a fairy tale of it's own.

» Das Interview in deutscher Sprache.

OutNow.CH (ON): How did the collaboration with Terrence Malick come about?

Sarah Green (SG): He called me. It was one of the most exiting phone calls I've ever gotten. We spent a little time together to start to know each other and then worked on this movie.

ON: Out of the really blue?

SG: Out of the really blue. I was just driving my car.

ON: Can you tell us a little about his personality. When reading about him you sort of think he's becoming more and more like Stanley Kubrick.

SG: (laughs) He's your very everday sort of man. He's a nice guy. He's very polite, funny and easy to work with. And he is very private. He's not strange in any way. He's a down to earth person.

ON: What's it then that makes him stay away from any attention?

SG: Probably just because he is private. Nobody likes when people want to figure you out.

ON: He's known for making very beautiful films that might not really connect with general audiences. Did you as a producer have mixed feelings about that?

SG: Not for a moment. I was thrilled to work with him. What I found out very quickly is, that he is a very responsable director. He keeps his agreements on budgets and times. My job is to figure out how to support the director's vision and best facilitate it. Terry doesn't need a lot of stuff. He just needs a lot of time with the actors. He likes fast moving sets, so we didn't use a lot of lights and complicated camera set ups. There's a lot of steady cam and hand helds.

ON: Did you ever feel the need to interfere in his work? Would that actually be possible?

SG: You can do everything. He's very open to input and suggestions. But one thing I learned as a producer is not to try to anticipate the audience. Because I am the audience. I'm not smarter than anybody else. All I do is say "Do I understand it and does it have emotional residence for me?" If I didn't understand it I would have told him. But I didn't try to say "Oh no the general audience isn't going to stay with you there..." We just checked in with each other. The same with everyone who was working with him, the editors, the PAs. He's very open to input on ever step of the way.

ON: How would you compare him to directors like John Sayles and David Mamet who you also worked with?

SG: Everyone is different. Every director has to find his priorities. John is a director who is very specific because he is also an editor. He knows exactly what he needs in the editing room already ahead of time. Therefore he can keep stuff very condensed. David is a bit more like Terry that he just has fun with the actors and lets them do what they want. For him his words are important. One doesn't change his dialogue so easily. Where as Terry is very open to that. He loves the actors to chance their dialogues and they get better.

ON: How did you find Q'Orianka Kilcher? And did you have any thoughts about her being so young and fresh?

SG: We were absolutely terrified. We knew it was the biggest challenge we were going to face in that movie, because we didn't know anyone who could play that role. Months before the movie was greenlit we started looking for her. We put on a woman who specialises in Native American casting. She went through the entire Native American community. We saw thousands of young woman. After six months we started to get nervous. We found parts of her, but not all of it in one person. I had to extend the search. Thirteen casting directors looked all over the world for her. Every place that had a aboriginal community or any place where a Native American might have moved. We found a Cherokee princess in Australia. I would have gone for the Maori if I would have found somebody there. We narrowed it down to three people when Q'Orianka showed up. She was submitted for the Spielberg-Series Into the West which was starting to cast. Fortunately they had the same casting people as we did. So they brought her in to meet us. The first impression was, that she is too young. But the casting director insisted and came again the next day. We didn't take her too seriously first, but she was very bold and flexible and she had a lot of discipline. Those sort of things made us think that we could take the risk. Only when we started the lens testing one day, litteraly deciding which lenses to take with us on location, we had the girls there and where still deciding. So we tested them. Maybe the older one with the many acting skills would look much younger on camera. Instead Q'Orianka just popped. It was so obvious that she is the one the minute we saw it.

ON: The version of The New World they were showing in Berlin ist different than the version that was shown before in the US.

SG: That version was only shown for a week as a qualifing version for the academy awards. We had a deadline. We made it just in time and we were happy with the film at the time. Then we went straight on to make an extended version for the DVD. In that process it gave us perspective on the theatrical version. Because we put all that stuff in the extended version that we really wanted for a longer experience we realized not everything had to be in the theatrical. We realized that with a little more money we could improve the theatrical experience and could make it different than the DVD experience.

ON: What are the major differences between the two versions?

SG: Pacing. In the earlier version every moment would have its visual and aural components. A voice over might have been carried over three scenes instead of one. The new version allowed us to add a couple of things in the beginning to orient you in the camp. It was tougher to put your feet down in the earlier version.

ON: What's your opinion on Disney's Version of Pocahontas?

SG: Sadly neither Terry nor I ever saw the Disney version. We don't really have an opinion about it. I'm not sure if it was this version that first put Pocahontas on everybody's awarness level. After all the story is thought in high school. It is about the myth of their love story. Modern historians would tell you they didn't have a story because they couldn't.

ON: Did you read all of John Smith's books? Did he write about the love for her?

SG: No. He wrote about the Love she had for him! He talks about her with great wonder. You might imagine that he was in love with her but he nevers says it. Some historians say it could never have happend because she was royalty. There's theories that her father let her go that she could be sort of a spy in the settlers' community. We don't really know. But the love metaphor is important on it's own, it lasted lasted for 400 years. There's power to it. So I feel justified to use it wheather they were lovers or not.

12.02.2006 / rm