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Surely the finest review yet, of Master and Commander

Posted by clarkjohnsen (R) on November 25, 2003 at 07:47:26

Master and Commander: A Valuable Fable

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Directed by Peter Weir. Starring Russell Crowe. 140 minutes.

Reviewed by Michael A. Hoffman II Copyright (c) 2003

Three years ago, when this critic panned Mel Gibson's "Patriot," a fractured fairy-tale version of colonial America set during the Revolutionary War, some enthusiasts were disappointed. To an enthusiast, history takes a back seat to any film that cheerleads for "our side," in the case of "The Patriot," it's the tale of a militiaman who defends his family from murderous state tyranny.

But if a movie is a fable, then the moviemakers should say so and Gibson's "Patriot" should have been set on Mars, in a science fiction 18th century, where those who imagine that fathers spouting hippie platitudes and reveling at inter-racial dance parties on the beach, represent authentic American colonial history, can relish the whole ludicrous pastiche.

Hollywood's latest history entry, "Master and Commander" is, in all respects but one, a kind of fable, but less egregious in its errors and omissions than "The Patriot."

The principal offense against the documentary record on the part of "Master and Commander," which is based on two of the late Patrick O'Brian's well-crafted, "Aubrey/Marturin" series of sea novels, is its coverup of white slavery . The horrible fact that the British Navy in this era (1805, the Napoleonic wars) was staffed by white slaves, will be missed by all but the most psychic viewers in the audience.

The ship's surgeon, Dr. Maturin (who is an espionage agent in the novels, but not in the movie), makes a one sentence protest on behalf of the men aboard who have been "pressed," but that's the extent of the "expose´." Had there been black slaves on the HMS Surprise, the failure to go into sufficient detail on the subject would be grounds for excoriating "Master and Commander."

But in this case the happy plantation darkies are white guys (with a tiny handful of free African sailors toiling as sailors and cooks). The film does not make life in the Royal Navy a picnic, granted. There are fierce storms and daunting battles, but when not so engaged, the movie depicts the crew as a generally happy and contented lot.

Au contraire. Few Englishmen volunteered to be common seamen in the Royal Navy in 1805. That's why "His Majesty" employed hordes of white slavers known as press gangs to roam the port cities of Britain, beating, drugging and kidnapping able men for enslavement on the seven seas. No glimpse of this "unique recruiting" system is evident in "Master and Commander."

Captain "Lucky Jack" Aubrey may seem like a tough disciplinarian by modern standards, but his invocation of the word "fun" and his reluctance to use the lash as a disciplinary tool is, to say the least, not representative of captains in the Royal Navy of this era. Not one in a hundred British navy ships was this congenial. There is little sense of British class distinctions and snobbery in the movie (Aubrey's brief word of caution to a midshipman about fraternizing with the crew, could just as well have been delivered by a US Navy commander in 1905).

"Master and Commander" desperately wants us to like Captain Aubrey on modern, democratic terms, so he talks of "fun" and attacks a French ship not in the name of the king or the crown, but rather for a generic "England."

Life in the Royal Navy was a good deal more arduous than the avoidance of enemy fire and ice storms 'round the Horn. It entailed surviving nearly fatal flogging with one hundred lashes or more, lice, rats, fever, filth and shipmates of a larcenous, homicidal or psychotic character.

If life had been as good for the common sailor as "Master and Commander" would have us believe, impoverished Scots, Irish and Englishmen would have clamored to sign on and there would have been no need for press gangs plaguing every seaport and annually stealing thousands of husbands, fathers and children from their families, in the course of the Crown's legalized mass abductions.

Out of respect for the dreadful deprivation which generations of white slaves endured in the English Navy, the filmmakers ought to have told the shameful truth. If we must know every excruciating detail of the Middle Passage of the African slave, we ought to at least be acquainted with the chronicle of our own people's enslavement under the British monarchy.

Virtues

With these failings noted, let us now consider the virtues of "Master and Commander." The details of the sailing ship, for example, are scrupulously accurate, from the mizzen topmast to the mizzen topgallant. Anyone wishing a greater familiarity with the sailing of these magnificent "tall ships" will derive much benefit from the portrayal of their operation, as meticulously and faithfully shown here.

The cinematography, classical music score and acting are so superb they achieve the ultimate absorption for the moviegoer -- one forgets one is watching a movie. Not since Sam Mendes' "Road to Perdition" has there been a film so high on the scale of cinematic art.

Most notable of all its fine points, "Master and Commander" is a study in character and heroism. The men (and boys) of the HMS Surprise are exemplars of the highest ideals of western manhood, of what it means to be a man in the core construct that stretches from Thermopylae to Trafalgar.

This is a movie for fathers and sons (daughters too, if they are so inclined). The PG-13 rating should not be allowed to keep most stout-hearted eight-year-olds away. There is surgical and battle gore, but it is not morbid or perverse. This is a vision of reality which almost all older children encountered before the modern world air-brushed blood, reproduction and death from life and made them the sole domain of the video game.

Maturin, the surgeon, serves as the leftist-philosopher foil to the captain's monarchial authority figure ("nature is hierarchical"). But the Left-Right split between these comrades is not poisoned by the mutual recrimination and rancor that divides our contemporary wings of the political spectrum. Both men esteem each other too highly to stoop to disrespect and the lesson is not lost on the audience.

The movie balances tenacity in combat with culture and the arts. The young midshipmen are shown learning the mathematics of the sextant. The burly captain and the unflinching surgeon play evening duets on the violin and cello. The surgeon is a pioneering naturalist and the analogies he discerns in bugs and "sticks" will serve the captain very well indeed when he and his men need them most.

The most compelling of the ship's youngsters, the maimed 13-year-old Lord Blakeney, is an unforgettably gallant role model for any boy. He's compassionate toward a tragic older midshipman, he's a reader of history and a keen student of the plant and animal life of the Galapagos, but above all, he has the courage of a lion. In the movie's climactic battle scene, the sight of this little fellow in the thick of the action will set the heart of any boy alight.

To hold our attention for more than two hours, director Peter Weir recognizes the need for a shifting narrative rhythm and "Master and Commander" is marked by epic sea battles interposed with character studies, an amputation, a trepanation, a Jonah-haunting, Brazilian natives and island exploration.

Weir endears us to his characters by introducing us to a camaraderie that will make many in the audience who are locked in the isolation of the modern megapolis, ache with longing. The dining parties in the captain's quarters are painterly tableaus of fellowship and fraternity, amid raucous wit and ballad singing. The humorously surly steward, the moving anecdotes about Lord Nelson, the prodigious wine-imbibing (even young Blakeney is shown with a glass), all bond us to the humanity of men and boys who know their lives are at hazard every moment they ride the waves in "the wooden world," and who depend on one another to live long enough to see the next sunrise.

Unlike the shallow and dishonest war stories of Steven Spielberg who, in "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List" renders every German soldier either a fiend or a robot, "Master and Commander" portrays the enemy French as shrewd and worthy opponents, even allowing them a final last laugh on the English, with an audacious case of feigned identity.

There will be those who will attempt to draw a comparison between the HMS Surprise and its fight with the forces of Napoleon, and the US Military and its contrived battles with the scion of the Bush family's bin Laden business partners. But such an analogy cannot be sustained, just as it also fails when applied to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, where the American-like resort to the eponymous, high-tech "ring" is the gravest of errors. In "Master and Commander" the HMS Surprise represents inferior, outdated technology against a state-of-the-art (American-built!) French frigate. Captain Aubrey must prevail through superior seamanship and cunning, not superior technology.

In his vigor, the captain displays the optimism and hope missing from many of the doom-dwellers in our ranks, who are exhausted by what they imagine to be an apocalyptic age. Aubrey and his crew sail confidently into the future, amid whizzing cannon balls and immense adversity, marveling at an age of wonders and invention, even as a "phantom" ship threatens to pursue them to a watery grave.

"Master and Commander" was filmed and is being distributed in what is reputed by our Cassandras to be a time so dark and so deadened by political correctness, that nothing like this movie was ever supposed to reach us.

If we would have a future, we will train up a generation of Christian gentlemen like those which "Master and Commander" holds aloft for our admiration and emulation. Though it may contain more of the outlines of fable than the details of history, by means of some mysterious benefaction, this film is faithful to a psychology and archetype which is as old as the idea of the West.

Hoffman is the author of They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America

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The preceding movie review first appeared in the Nov. 17, 2003 edition of The Hoffman Wire

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