This kind of historical filmmaking may be the polar opposite of the ecstatic
mythologizing of Terrence Malick's The New World, but it's the proper opposite and no less valuable a strand in cinema's long,
often tortured relationship to historical representation.
In decades since, critics have
often been eager to puncture Mr. Johns's legend, deriding him as «self -
mythologizing» or «undernourished and overthought.»