yeah i think that was exactly why i liked the last act, centered on pocahontas rather than john smith, the most. the part set in england appeals to my anglophile (or "euro cuck" as linebaugh has put it) tendencies a lot with its imagery of grey skies, medieval mosaics, ancient overgrown stone brick, gardens with eerie orderedness. whereas the nature center postcard visuals of american woodlands exert less of a pull on me aesthetically. (although the constant presence of birdsong is great, even when it doesn't quite seem to match up with the visuals acoustically.) but in the context of the film, i definitely get a sort of longing for america once pocahontas is living in england. which i guess is brought out by its greyness quite well. she never stops being the same person who, as you astutely caught, smiles at lightening, etc. but there's an underlying sadness in the awe of the "new world" for her that's not present in the first part of the film. idk, it's a feeling i get sometimes from fiction/music that there should be a name for. the sadness of sitting on the edge of the world, or something like that.
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The New World
- Thread starter Melmoth
- Start date
glad you articulated this as it's a thing i've had to go through too. the realization that even though reading some classic work of literature isn't necessarily going to turn me into a better, smarter person (contra the smug liberal humanist rhetoric you still get from english teachers) it's completely worth it for the in-the-moment experience, and therefore not worth putting off.One of my persistent neuroses surrounds how quickly I forget most of what I read, to the point where I'm questioning why I'm bothering reading this (say) novel if I'm not going to be able to remember anything about it within days. I guess because books are something I've been taught to consider edifying and so on. Whereas I've not felt that anxiety with films, because they're 'just films', after all.
But of course the answer to why read books if you can't remember them must be because of the experience of reading them. This is something it's easy to grasp when reading Earthsea, because again I consider them extremely well written and occasionally profound escapism, so I can give myself over to the experience of it rather than taking notes.
And connectedly I've become less worried about the time wasting element of playing video games lately, cos I've embraced them more as imaginative and intense/fun experiences, rather than as anything edifying.
I'm just talking for myself here, but what you said about feeling like there's something better to be doing made me think about all this, which I've been thinking about lately thanks to my sheer luxurious sense of enjoyment I've felt reading Earthsea.
...although it's a lesson that doesn't always seem to stick. for example i spent way too much time the other day reading some horrible genshin impact comic book spinoff series (i don't play the game) and after the fact i'd say there is absolutely no reason for anyone to be reading that shit, ever. even accounting for my desire for escapism over looking clever, i would've been much better off reading moby dick or something.
just noticed the classic tvtropes entry "narm charm" is prefaced by a terance malick quote https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NarmCharm