Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Bruce from DC (B) on December 03, 2003 at 06:35:06

In Reply to: In fact... posted by Harmonia on November 26, 2003 at 16:37:28:

The closing line at the end -- identifying the writer as the author of a book on "white slavery" -- is the giveaway. I've read about 1/2 of the books in the series, including the two that were used as a basis for the film. If the reviewer has a gripe, it is with the books, not with the author of the screenplay or the director of this film. While conditions on sailing ships were horrid by modern standards, so were conditions just about everywhere else. Read Richard Henry Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" -- and there were no press gangs that gathered the crew of his ship. Frankly, a comparison between British crews manned by impressed seaman and the African slave trade is a little offensive. No English crews were racked out horizontally in wooden bunks and secured with chains below decks as were the Africans being transported to the Western Hemisphere. Nor were English seaman property to be bought and sold or killed as were African slaves. It is clear what this reviewer's political agenda is, when he makes his derisive comments about the protrayal of German solidiers in "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" vs. the portrayal of the French sailors in "Master and Commander." Apparently this reviewer can't grasp the differences in moral dimension between the Napoleonic Wars (essentially wars of empire) and World War 2.

Regarding the film itself, I have only one serious complaint. It is that, in the portrayal of Dr. Maturin, it indulges the Hollywood cliche that all scientists are otherworldly, bumbling fools when it comes to practical things. In fact, the O'Brien character of Dr. Maturin is very far from a bumbling fool; he is an engaged intellectual. I can understand the reasons for not developing Dr. Maturin as a spy in the movie--there's only so much that can be done in 120 minutes or so of narrative. But making Maturin into a science doofus (at times) is inexecusable.

The Jack Aubrey of O'Brien's books is perhaps less cerebral than the character portrayed by Russell Crowe. The Aubrey of the books, when ashore, is almost literally a "fish out of water," randy and socially awkward. Once at sea, he is, again almost literally, "in his element." Again, in the narrative space of the film, it would be impossible to show this.

Where the film is faithful to the books is in developing the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin, albeit on slightly different terms, given the strictures imposed by the cinematic narrative format.