Master of the Sea (and the French)[NY Times Review of "Master and Commander"]

N.Y. Times online ^ | November 14, 2003 | A. O. SCOTT

[eddie willers]

MOVIE REVIEW | 'MASTER AND COMMANDER'

Master of the Sea (and the French)

By A. O. SCOTT

Published: November 14, 2003

O you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Do you want your children to grow up singing the 'Marseillaise'?" This is Jack Aubrey, commander of H.M.S. Surprise, rousing the patriotism of his men as they prepare to engage a faster, larger French vessel somewhere off the coast of South America. This ship is England, he proclaims, and "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," which opens nationwide today, makes his point with magnificent vigor and precision.

This stupendously entertaining movie, directed by Peter Weir and adapted from two of the novels in Patrick O'Brian's 20-volume series on Aubrey's naval exploits, celebrates an idea of England that might have seemed a bit corny even in 1805, when the action takes place. The Surprise is a stiffly hierarchal place of pomp and ritual that is nonetheless consecrated to ideals of fair play, decency and honor and ruled by a man whose claim on the words in the film's title comes, if not by divine right, then at least by demi-godlike force of character.

Of course, life on the Surprise is not all high-minded talk and principled action. Winston Churchill once said that the foundations of British naval tradition consisted of rum, sodomy and the lash. "Master and Commander," which is rated PG-13, settles for two out of three.

It is tempting to read some contemporary geopolitical relevance into this film, which appears at a moment when some of the major English-speaking nations are joined in a military alliance against foes we sometimes need to be reminded do not actually include France.

The Surprise may be England, but "Master and Commander" is something of an all-Anglosphere collaboration. Both the director and the star, Russell Crowe, are Australian (Mr. Crowe by way of New Zealand), and no fewer than three American studios (Universal, Miramax and 20th Century Fox, which is the United States distributor) paid for the production. The spectacle of British imperial self-defense has been made more palatable for American audiences by a discreet emendation of the literary source: the story has been moved back seven years from the War of 1812, when the British were fighting . . . but never mind. Bygones are bygones.

And in any case, the appeal of O'Brian's books to modern audiences goes deeper than their coincidental intersection with present-day diplomacy or politics. Since 1970, when the first installment was published, the series has gathered a fervent and loyal following that mere topicality could hardly account for. Mr. Weir's movie, which follows Jack's command of sharp word and quick action in transporting O'Brian's information-packed pages onto the screen, distills the essence of Aubrey's charisma.

Aubrey (Mr. Crowe) is an ideal personification of modern executive authority — the Harry Potter of the managerial class. His adventures are salted with arcane technical lore and administrative wisdom that resonate deeply with even the most landlubberly middle managers and office workers. "Master and Commander," were it not a movie, could be a Powerpoint seminar advertised in an airline magazine: Leadership Secrets of the Royal Navy.

This is not by any means to slight Mr. Weir's accomplishment (or, for that matter, O'Brian's); it is, rather, to explain why, in his expert hands, the smallest details of shipboard behavior become so breathlessly absorbing. The battle sequences are filmed with impressive coherence and rigor, but "Master and Commander" is, if anything, most thrilling between skirmishes, when the complex system of authority and deference that runs the Surprise — and the personality traits needed to keep it running — is at the center of attention.

Jack Aubrey's ship is part of a larger bureaucratic system that defines the limits of his autonomy and the particulars of his duty; but he is, within these parameters, free to be creative, even somewhat reckless, in pursuit of his designated goals. His work is occasionally brutal and dangerous, but he clearly loves it; an almost gleeful smile plays across Mr. Crowe's meaty face as each battle draws near. Passionate as he is about his vocation, Aubrey is not an utter workaholic. He likes to get drunk and regale the other officers with bad jokes, to play the violin, and to make eyes at a Brazilian beauty who shows up for a few silent seconds to remind the audience of the existence of women.

Who needs them, anyway? Jack does write letters home to his wife, and makes a ribald toast in the officers' mess, but the Surprise is a world of unstinting and diverse manliness. In the best war-movie tradition, "Master and Commander" is in essence a study of male camaraderie under duress. The motley ensemble of officers and ordinary seamen display vivid flashes of individuality as they go about their shipboard business. Especially fine are George Innes as a toothless old-timer, Robert Pugh as the Surprise's rotund and pompous Master and Max Pirkis as Blakeney, a very young aristocratic midshipman.

At the center of the picture is the friendship between Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the ship's surgeon, played by Paul Bettany. Mr. Bettany, sensitive, quick-witted and easygoing, makes a fine sidekick for the fierce Mr. Crowe, and this is his second tour of duty. In "A Beautiful Mind" his character, John Nash's imaginary roommate, was a man of letters to Mr. Crowe's man of numbers; this time, he is a man of ideas, and as such the perfect foil for Mr. Crowe's man of action. Aubrey and Maturin, who play stately cello and fiddle duets in the captain's cabin after meals, argue about the nature of power and the competing claims of scientific inquiry (Maturin is a naturalist as well as a physician) and military duty.

Not that Maturin is a sissy: he can handle a sword when he needs to, and, in one of Mr. Weir's many dazzling close-up set pieces, he performs abdominal surgery on himself. Nor is Aubrey simply a brute; he shows both a keen tactical mind and surprising delicacy of feeling. But he is, above all, the embodiment of English practicality (Maturin's background, by the way, is Irish and Catalan), ruled by instinct and habit rather than intellect. At one point he tries to impart the essence of leadership to Hollum (Lee Ingleby), a timorous young midshipman who has lost the esteem of the men. The younger man parrots Jack's words and you realize that, in his mouth, discipline and respect are abstractions rather than living principles, and that he is therefore tragically unsuited for command.

The Napoleonic wars that followed the French Revolution gave birth, among other things, to British conservatism, and "Master and Commander," making no concessions to modern, egalitarian sensibilities, is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made. It imagines the Surprise as a coherent society in which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty and his place. I would not have been surprised to see Edmund Burke's name in the credits.

Mr. Weir's direction is appropriately old-fashioned, which is not to say that it is staid. It is rare, nowadays, to see a story of such scale and complexity filmed with such clarity, swiftness and attention to detail. O'Brian's command of nautical lore and maritime history was always remarkable, but it also tended to oversaturate his narratives with data. In Mr. Weir's version, every nail, every rope, every teacup and brass button is in more or less its place, but rather than feeling fussy and antiquarian, as so many Hollywood costume pageants do, "Master and Commander" hums with humor, passion and life. It makes you wish Napoleon were still around, so we — that is, I mean, the British Empire — could beat him all over again.

[Huber]

Freepers who have read the book, by and large, hated the movie. I, on the other hand, had NOT read the book and thought the movie was a gas.

Having read all of the books in the series, I disagree strongly. While the movie does not exactly follow any of the novels in the series, it would be unrealistic to expect it to. The general feel, however, captures O'Brian's sensibilities to a tee. Taken across the entire series, the nuanced relationship between Aubrey, and Maturin, as well as Bondon, Killick, Pullings and the rest unfolds into a universe that is a wonder to ponder. Despite the two hour confines of the movie, Peter Weir is able to hint at this universe, and no doubt, the film will attract many to begin reading the series. The filming is beautiful with a soundtrack to match.

Regarding first timers to the written series, until one becomes used to the dialect and the nautical jargon, the books can be a bit slow. However, once you begin to understand the setting, the books become an effortless and enormously satisfying read. May I suggest, for beginners, the recorded "Books on Tape" version narrated by Richard Brown which wonderfully brings all the characters to life while helping with the pronunciation of unfamiliar terms. (The Patrick Tull version on recorded books is much more difficult to understand)

This is great movie for conservatives and we should support it. Not mentioned in the NY Times review above were the reverent and positively depicted Christian references. The references to values, tradition and male comraderie and the generally positive role models make make this a good choice to see as a family.

PS: My 11 year old daughter and 8 year old son loved the film, although it probably helped that Dad is a Patrick O'Brian fan and could explain what the characters were doing in any scene.

[Huber]

Here's the Krauthammer take on the film:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/charleskrauthammer/ck20031114.shtml

WASHINGTON -- The great director Billy Wilder was once asked about subtlety in movies. ``Of course, there must be subtleties,'' said Wilder. ``Just make sure you make them obvious.''

The trailer for ``Master and Commander,'' the seafaring epic opening Friday, can hardly be described as subtle. It is a dazzling montage of dramatic scenes of early 19th-century naval warfare, with cannonballs, bodies, furniture, masts flying all over the place. Nonetheless, my first reaction to a screening of the film itself was that it was beautiful and brilliant, but I was not sure it would find a mass audience because of its subtlety.

Perhaps subtlety is the wrong word. It perfectly describes director Peter Weir's mind and manner, but perhaps refinement is the word for what might hinder the film's commercial success. Weir gives us some magnificently choreographed naval mayhem, but it is spread over two hours of thoughtfulness and restraint.

The story, drawn from the Patrick O'Brian novels, is framed by battle scenes between a British and a French warship. The TV trailer promises ``'Gladiator' at sea.'' But the movie is really about the nature of naval life in the age of sail, the nature of command, and the nature of friendship (between the ship's captain and the ship's doctor).

Although entirely fictional, ``Master and Commander'' might be considered the most dramatic and brilliant naval documentary ever made. It should be on the reading (viewing) list of every college course on the history of naval warfare. Weir has given unbelievable attention to every detail of the period -- the cookware, the rigging, the uniform buttons, the drinking songs, the instruments of surgery.

And the mode of speech. This is where I worry about subtlety. I speak English reasonably well, but I could only make out about half of the dialogue. That is because Weir has maintained an unswerving fidelity to the period dialect (the 1805 action is situated about halfway between us and Shakespeare's time, and so is the diction and syntax). Pepper that with nautical nouns you never heard of, often issued in Russell Crowe's barely audible drawl, place them within a cacophony of ship sounds (another example of Weir's fidelity to authenticity), and you sometimes wish that the movie had been accompanied by subtitles.

Weir's restraint carries into a remarkable austerity regarding women. In the movie's version of a love interest, a Brazilian beauty in a small boat selling wares offshore to the sailors of Captain Aubrey's ship catches Aubrey's eye for a moment at a considerable distance. For about 5 seconds you see Aubrey (Crowe) returning her glance.

And that is it. Indeed, that scene marks the only appearance of women in the entire two hours of the film, setting a new outdoor record for sexual austerity in an epic, a record previously held by ``Lawrence of Arabia.''

The austerity works as film, as does the fidelity to detail. My only worry is that it won't sell to the kids who flock to see ``Pirates of the Caribbean,'' who expect sex and swashbuckling between their battle scenes, and whose patronage is needed for the movie to recover its $135 million cost.

It is perhaps odd to worry about a film's box office, but when a film is as splendid as this one, you want it to succeed. Perhaps it will be helped in the U.S. by its timing. We are at war, and this is a film not just about the conduct of war, but about virtue in war. Its depiction of the more ancient notions of duty, honor, patriotism and devotion is reminiscent of what we glimpsed during live coverage of the dash to Baghdad back in April, but is now slipping from memory.

The film was first planned a decade ago, long before Sept. 11, long before Afghanistan, long before Iraq. But it arrives at a time of war. And combat on the high seas -- ships under unified command meeting in duelistic engagement in open waters -- represents a distilled essence of warfare that, in the hands of a morally serious man like Weir, is deeply clarifying.

Even better is the fact that the hero in his little British frigate is up against a larger, more powerful French warship. That allows American audiences the particular satisfaction of seeing Anglo-Saxon cannonballs puncturing the Tricolor. My favorite part was Aubrey rallying the troops with a Henry V, St. Crispin's Day speech featuring: ``Do you want your children growing up and singing the Marseillaise?'' It was met by a chorus of deafening ``Noes.'' Maybe they should have put that in the trailer too.




©2003 Washington Post Writers Group

[eddie willers]

[Freepers who have read the book, by and large, hated the movie. I, on the other hand, had NOT read the book and thought the movie was a gas.]

Having read all of the books in the series, I disagree strongly.

Just for clarity's sake, the book / movie I was referring to with my sentence was "Starship Troopers"...not "Master And Commander". I think M&C will be a big hit...both with freepers and the public at large.

PS. Thanks for adding Krauthammer's take.

[Allan]

What a day.
It seems everything I read on Free Republic
already I have heard
on the Batchelor Alexander Show
WABC.

The author of this review was interviewed at length last night.

[McGavin999]

This might be just what the Brits need to remember who they really are. They are a fierce, wonderful, and stoic people who have been masquarading lately as the English version of the french. They need to remember who they REALLY are.

[Huber]

Thanks Eddie. I caught the error on my second read.

PS: Just one more plug - this is a great flick for home schoolers. The attention to historical detail is exceptional.

[Cpu]

>>The general feel, however, captures O'Brian's >>sensibilities to a tee.

I disagree. Jack Aubrey would never have broken off a chase to return Maturin to the Galapagos. Maturin would not want him too. Maturin hates the French and Napolean. The depiction of Maturin is completely wrong.

cpu

[Huber]

At that point Jack had calculated that the chase was lost and Stephen's life was hanging by a thread. I agree, however, that the Maturin personality was not nearly as acerbic as in the novels.

[radiohead]

By happenstance, I just finished watching History vs. Hollywood on the History channel. The navel experts seem to find the movie fairly accurate. Crowe, when asked whether it was history or Hollywood, suggested that it was entertainment, meant to inform, not instruct. And Weir said that it was the kind of film that entertained you in the evening and made you think the next day. Hopefully, those thoughts would lead you to learning about the history.

I'll admit straight up that I'm a Crowe babe. While I enjoy historical drama, I'm not too sure about a movie about marine battles. I don't know if I would see it if Crowe weren't in it. That said, the movie looks good, and as something of a history buff myself, it looks like they didnt' take too many liberties.

[KillTime]

Just saw the movie and it's about time I get what I'm paying for after all these years! =) A Great tale on the high seas! Loved it. I've read all the Hornblower novels, but never this fellows books, but may have to take a look now.

[Sans-Culotte]

It's been a long time since I've read Far Side of the World. I felt that the movie (which I saw today, BTW) was a sort of hodge-podge of several plot elements of O'Brian's books. I thought Russell Crowe was rather ideal as Aubrey. I could never imagine who should play Aubrey, but then, there was no Russell Crowe back when I was reading the novels. Dr Maturin in the film was not what I expected, more of an effeminate whiner than the cool secret agent (his spying was not even brought up in the film). I suppose he was attempting to play up the character's lubberliness, and this came off as rather sissy-like.

Still, I thought it a fine film. While it was not an accurate filming of any particular O'Brian book, I really doubt that O'Brian is spinning in his grave. In fact, I do not thing the O'Brian books, as written, lend themselves to being filmed. They are great reads, and I thought the movie did a great job of being an accompinant to the books, rather than a replacement.

[Hollywoodghost]

I just saw the movie. I didn't read the books but I thought the film was great. A real epic in every sense of the word. See it! Its a great film for our time when we face an enemy as great as the 44 gun frigate the HMS Surprise battled. The only Metrosexual in the movie jumped overboard with a cannon ball.

[hunter112]

Hollywood hasn't produced a convincing picture involving naval conflict yet, IMO.

A&E had some made for TV movies on the Horatio Hornblower character from novels. I found them entertaining, sometimes they re-run them, check the TV listings.

[rmlew]

I just came back from a late showing (12:50 at AMC 25). I enjoyed the movie and was quite perturbed when the need to recycle my diet coke became urgent. Due to the late hour, the theater was only 1/3 full. Interesting mix of people from their late teens to early fourties. Unfortunately, a number of viewers became bored and left. Other unmannered folks say fit to comment and even laugh inappropriately. (I fail to see the humor in a 13-year-old being amputated, or the suicide of a depressed older midshipman.)
I loved the cinematography. Character development was limited to the officers. I also think that an introduction for those with no sense of history or knowledge of nautical terms would have helped. Perhaps a few scene with the midshipmen would have accomplished this. Otherwise, people will have to see the History Channel's "Hollywood vs History" on the movie.
I can't speak to the accuracy of the movie as I hve not read the novels. I do hope that this movie does well. A few sequels would be useful.
Assuming that this movie does well, I believe that an American one would be in order. Hollywood may be unwilling to do any movies relevent to our current wars, but one on the campaign against the Barbary Pirates would be nice. It was full of heroics, intrigue, and an attempt to overthrow the Dey of Tripoli and install his more friendly brother. It would be well work $10, just to see a crowd yell "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"

[Robert Drobot]

" The only Metrosexual in the movie jumped overboard with a cannon ball."

Today, Congress is promoting them generals and admirals, and we're left holding their sacks of s_it.

It is a great film - and must watched on a full screen to grasp an appreciation for the power of the sea.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

You'll want to see Tripoli, then.

This is the grand epic adventure of how William Eaton (Crowe), a diplomat representing President Thomas Jefferson and the United States in North Africa, joined forces with Hamet Karamanli, the exiled heir to the throne of the Barbary Coast nation of Tripoli (now called Libya) in 1804 to overthrow a corrupt ruler (Hamet's brother) who had taken his place. Organizing a relatively small group of 500 soldiers comprised of U.S. Marines (does "to the shores of Tripoli" sound familiar?), Arabs and Greeks, Eaton successfully marched across 600 miles of desert to storm and capture the seaport of Derna in April, 1805. Eaton and his men then prepared to continue their fight all the way to the capital city of Tripoli...

If Crowe is Eaton, who plays Lt. O'Bannon?

[Cpu]

>>hodge-podge

Mess, stew, disaster, all good word choices.

cpu

(Sans-Culotte?? no pants?? always or just special occaisions?)

[Cpu]

>>>At that point Jack had calculated that the chase was lost ...

P.O'Brian's Jack Aubrey never quit.

R. Crowe's Jack Aubrey quits. That is the difference in a nutmeg.

cpu

[SomeCallMeTim]

Funny, the need for subtitles was something I felt coming out of this movie.

ELF will make 5 times as much money as this boring "epic". I have not read the book. But, I have seen both ELF and M&C this weekend... I'd watch Elf again before I'd waste another 2 1/2 hours of my life with this movie.

I must admit, I was intriqued by the historical aspects of the film. It seemed, mostly, historically accurate. But, the plot of the film was VERY diificult to follow. The dialogue was inaudible. There were numerous silly twist. A naturalist in the midst of all this testosterone?? puh-lease!

And, what's up with the SUDDEN storm? One second, clear sky.. next second, Freakin hurricane at the Horn.

My main emotion leaving the theater was.. ANGER. I was mad because this COULD HAVE BEEN a great movie. Tons of money spent. Beautifully filmed. 20 books to pull plot ideas from. But, it comes off pretentious and B-O-R-I-N-G-!!

At least 20 people walked out of my theater without returning.

WAIT FOR THE DVD to rent.

[Pharmboy]

After reading the Friday reviews in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, I took myself to see the 12:50 PM show yesterday at the local Cinema 12 since I knew Mrs. Pharmboy wouldn't see it (she wanted to see "Love Actually").

This was truly a man's movie...loved every minute. Can't wait for the next installment.