With Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line all part of The Criterion Collection, the company has long hinted that The New World is rightfully next in line when it comes to their Terrence Malick additions. Ahead of the Oscars this Sunday — where Emmanuel Lubezki is the favorite to pick up Best Cinematography for the third year in a row — they’ve finally confirmed they have been working with the cinematographer and Malick for the last year-plus on a new 4K restoration of Malick’s preferred 172-minute cut of the film. Along with the confirmation, they’ve shared three examples to see what it looks like before and after color correction.
We noted in our recent Lubezki appreciation, “Their first collaboration, The New World, was also an opportunity for him to shoot (at least partially) on 65mm. The film is a lucid historical drama depicting the relationship between Captain John Smith and Pocahontas at the forming of the Jamestown Colony. What results is graceful and hypnotic, like images found in a rusted and long-forgotten time capsule. Working as a team, Malick and Lubezki formed a series of rules for their photography, which they referred to as “the dogma.” Among the rules — which, according to American Cinematographer, include employing natural light and avoiding lens flares and primary colors in the frame — the most important for Lubezki is to never underexpose their images. “We want the blacks. We don’t like milky images.””
Check out the videos below as we await more details on the release.
The Criterion Collection will release The New World later this year.