A scene from Ron Howard's new film, In the Heart of the Sea.
A scene from Ron Howard's new film, In the Heart of the Sea.
Dominic Corry looks at five films based on survival at sea.
Ron Howard's new film In the Heart of the Sea opens this week and taps into a sub-genre rarely accessed by modern cinema: that of the classic rip-roaring, seafaring adventure that tests the limits of its characters.
Beyond the impressive whale-centric drama focused on by the marketing of the film, In the Heart of the Sea is also very much a survival-at-sea story, and a remarkable one at that.
To mark the release of the film, here are five (or so) sea-faring adventures worth watching. These are all stories about men at the mercy of two equally unforgiving monsters: the open sea and each other. Mettles will be tested.
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935 and 1962) and The Bounty (1984
Clark Gable to Marlon Brando to Mel Gibson is one heck of a through-line: they each played Fletcher Christian against Charles Laughton, Trevor Howard and Anthony Hopkins' Captain Bligh in these three dramatisations of the iconic real-life mutiny.
All three films are handsome productions which effectively tap into how the open ocean drives men a special kind of crazy.
The 1984 film was the first big undertaking for Kiwi director Roger Donaldson (Sleeping Dogs, The World's Fastest Indian) and paved the way for his successful entry to the Hollywood big leagues. In addition to seeing Gibson and Hopkins go at it, the film also features supporting turns from a young Liam Neeson, a young Daniel Day Lewis and a young-ish McPhail from McPhail and Gadsby.
Captains Courageous (1937)
As the poster respectfully puts it, this is "As great as Mutiny on the Bounty". Actually, it's even better.
Based on Rudyard Kipling's novel, it tells the old-fashioned, yet still highly effective story of a young rich kid named Harvey (Freddie Bartholomew) who is picked up by a fishing trawler after falling off an ocean liner.
In one of his most iconic roles, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar, Spencer Tracy stars (wearing bronzer and sporting a dodgy accent) as Manuel, a Portuguese fisherman who teaches the spoiled brat about hard work and life at sea. It's one of those stories where the basic emotional mechanics are so effectively executed, you can't help but succumb to its classic charms.
Master and Commander (2003)
Although an altogether different beast, at it's best moments, In the Heart of the Sea evoked the elegiac grandeur of this Patrick O'Brian adaptation from the great Peter Weir (Gallipoli, The Truman Show). It's a damn shame the film wasn't deemed enough of a success to justify the planned follow-ups - the film brought an unmatched epicness to the classic seafaring adventure.
Kon-Tiki (2012)
This stellar Norwegian film (devoid of any drunk Kiwi backpackers, in case you were wondering) about a real-life attempt to cross the Pacific in 1947 impressed the Disney folks enough for the filmmaking duo behind it to be selected to direct the fifth entry in the Pirates of the Caribean franchise, Dead Men Tell No Tales, shot in Australia recently.
All Is Lost (2013)
This one-man film about a solo sailor (Robert Redford) battling the elements and the odds stresses the directness of the central idea by titling itself after an oft-cited screenwriting term (coming soon: Save The Cat: The Movie), but it's one of those cases where a simple, direct concept gains power from its simplicity. This is an old-school seafaring adventure in more ways than one, and an instant modern classic that is yet to be fully appreciated.
