The broken oar and the gear of foreign dead men

[sovay]

So I feel like I owe writeups of several things, including Readercon and the movie I saw last night, but what you're getting right now is a list of different movies altogether. Over dinner tonight, derspatchel and I were pipe-dreaming the program for a festival of maritime film. (I don't even remember. I think we were talking about John Ford.) Inevitably, it's kind of a list of our favorites. So far we agree on—

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), dir. Frank Lloyd

Captain Blood (1935), dir. Michael Curtiz

Captains Courageous (1937), dir. Victor Fleming¹

The Long Voyage Home (1940), dir. John Ford

The Cruel Sea (1953), dir. Charles Frend

The Caine Mutiny (1954), dir. Edward Dmytryk

Moby Dick (1956), dir. John Huston

The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), dir. John Sayles

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), dir. Gore Verbinski²

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), dir. Peter Weir

We very regretfully did not include either 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) or Treasure Island (1950), although James Mason and Robert Newton are deservedly classic and inimitable in each.³ I am uncertain whether A Night to Remember (1958) counts as maritime film or just a disaster movie that occurs aboard a ship, albeit a wrenching and excellent example of the form. (You will notice Cameron's Titanic (1997) is not on this list.) I am also not sure I can count Splash (1984), formative sea-movie of mine though it is, and I know I can't count Pacific Rim (2013), although somehow it feels like one should. There are no documentaries; there should be some. Some more recent films couldn't hurt. And something non-American. Also it has not escaped my notice that this list of directors is kind of a dickfest and I cannot believe women never make movies about the sea. Tell me what we're missing!

1. If, as my husband stipulates, the audience remembers that the very last lines are terrible.

2. The first movie remains the best example of swashbuckling I have seen since Errol Flynn. I love so much about the second and third, but they are so wildly inconsistent I cannot in good conscience include them. Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman and Calypso/Tia Dalma: fantastic. Elizabeth Swann coming into her piracy: could've used more, but that's why we have fanfic. The cannibal island and whatever the hell was going on with Singapore: naaarp.

3. Newton's Long John Silver is extremely imitable, but that is part of his glory.

Comments

[sovay]

in a bizarre double bill with one of the St Trinians movies, and I forgot my then-very-new glasses and had to watch the whole of the first film in a blur, until my dad came hurrying down the aisle with my specs and Alistair Sym leaped suddenly into focus)

I can see that being very unsettling if you weren't prepared for it. I say this as someone who grew up on Scrooge (1951).

The first of course is about a ship being sunk, and the second is about a ship being stranded mid-river and having to retreat: both continuing that splendid British tradition of finding triumph in defeat.

Heh. I've seen the first, but not the second. Oh, hey, I could have included We Dive at Dawn (1943). Except I really like about the first three-quarters of that movie, and then it turns into an action flick and that's a lot less interesting. I love Eric Portman in it, though.

[edited for tangent] Have you seen The Battle of the River Plate (1956)? It's one of the few by Powell and Pressburger I haven't. Speaking of the Archers, I'm not sure The Silver Fleet (1943) is maritime enough, but I loved it.

I might also want to make a case for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or possibly The Boat That Rocked, just because frankly this list could use a giggle.

Go for it! So The Boat That Rocked was good? It had a fantastic cast, but it played here for approximately a weekend and I couldn't tell from the reviews.

I actually consider The Long Voyage Home a comfort movie, but I recognize that I may be the only person who feels that way about it, including Eugene O'Neill and he wrote it.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I liked The Boat That Rocked enough to watch it on a transatlantic flight and then buy the DVD. It's very much an ensemble piece, and if you like that ensemble, you're going to like the movie. And then I also came of age in the time of pirate radio ships, so.

[sovay]

It's very much an ensemble piece, and if you like that ensemble, you're going to like the movie.

w00t. I'll check it out.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup, I loved The Battle of the River Plate also. Basically, give me big ships beating shit out of each other, I'm happy.