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January 12, 2006
Wes Studi wants his cut: The New World
While only a few folks have seen the re-edited version of The New World, Indian Country Today's Jennifer Hemmingsen is not impressed. "The melodrama is thick, the internal monologues are endless and the soap operatic overuse of the thousand-yard stare is absolutely maddening... The story is tired... It's not really a love story... With Smith playing the colonizer and Pocahontas the ''good Indian,'' it's actually a metaphor reinforcing the tragic inevitability of the conquering of America—a story we've heard too often already... ''It's not my cup of tea,'' said Cherokee actor and activist Wes Studi, who plays Opechancanough in the film. Studi, who is also a spokesman for the Indigenous Language Institute, said he got involved... because of the original script (the final cut of the movie is missing most of his character's development) and the historical research that went into it. The production team hired language expert Blair Rudes to research the indigenous language and use it for much of the film's Native dialogue. The resulting lexicon is being used by the Pamunkee trib [but] it wasn't much used by [the filmmakers]. ''I'm a bit disappointed that so much of that reintroduced language wasn't used in the film,'' Studi said... What will it take to write a new story about the ''new world''? A different director? Another 400 years? ''What it would take is for me to edit it,'' Studi said."
Posted by pride at January 12, 2006 06:32 PM
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