![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rowynLut and I saw this movie in the theater when it first came out in 2003. At the time, our take was "It was okay." I recall having some trouble tracking what was happening during the movie. By the time I started reading the Aubrey-Maturin books last year, I had forgotten almost everything about the film -- I think there were a total of three scenes I still remembered, and I'd forgotten the central conflict entirely.
I've read fourteen of the Aubey-Maturin novels now. A month or two ago, I was talking to one of my co-workers about them and mentioned that I'd been thinking of watching the movie again. "Oh," she said, "I own that movie. I got it in a clearance sale two years ago but I've never actually seen it."
This week, I came to work and found it lying on my desk. "I haven't watched it in the two years since I got it, so don't worry about rushing to get it back to me," she told me.
Last night, Lut suggested watching a movie, and I asked, "Are you willing to watch "Master and Commander" with me again?" He good-naturedly agreed.
And omigosh, I had so much fun watching it.
It's a pastiche of Aubrey-Maturin novels, with a number of events that never took place in the books or were significantly altered from them. Probably the scenes that struck me most were the ones that were not merely invented for the film, but which would never have taken place in the books -- were, in fact, completely out of character. Some examples behind the spoiler tag:
I found these choices of particular interest because I can see why the filmmakers made them. In the first, they want to show that Aubrey is taking a sizable risk based on his personal judgment, and while in a book O'Brian can do this by showing Aubrey's internal narrative, in a film it's far more powerful to have two characters arguing instead. And of all the available characters to have argue with Aubrey, Maturin -- who is outside the chain of command and Aubrey's particular friend -- is the only one remotely plausible. In the second, they're trying to show the way that the captain is out of the loop, and the distinction between Maturin's relationship with his friend as opposed to his captain. So these two cases are sacrificing allegiance to the books in favor of making the situation more understandable to the viewers, which is a not-unreasonable choice. In the third, they're making the story fit traditional narrative structure better, by tying together the 'naturalist' and 'naval warfare' sections of the story and by giving a source for inspiration within the confines of the story. I don't really like the ahistorical nature of the last (because it misleads the audience about the nature of naval combat in the period), but I can still see why they did it.
One small discrepancy that nonetheless amuses me: Tom Pullings is described in the books as, at one point, receiving a disfiguring facial scar that makes him 'hideous'. In the movie, Pullings has a facial scar but is portrayed by the very handsome James D'Arcy who is not in the slightest less handsome for it. I don't know why that entertains me so, but it does.
I loved seeing all the characters from the books: "Omigosh Killick!" (who is just exactly like Killick from the books) "And there's Pullings! Mowett! Bonden!" ♥ And seeing the Surprise and hearing the drum as they beat to quarters and watching them clear the ship for action. Even watching a film doesn't quite make me feel like I have the whole picture, like I really understand what's actually happening, but it does give a very different perspective. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany did very well as Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Crowe quite looks the part (he makes a fine blond!). Bettany looks nothing at all like Maturin but nonetheless manages to evoke the feel of the character. (The scene where he asks Aubrey to let him walk across the island and meet them on the other side! ♥)
I find this a rather interesting situation to be in: having read the books, I know all the ways in which the narrative and the characters have been altered and in some cases mangled. But even so, my familiarity with the source material made me enjoy the film so much more than I did when I saw it with no background. It kind of reminds me of the way I loved even bad Star Trek movies, because it was so much fun just seeing all those familiar faces again. Apparently sometimes it's better to have read the book first even if the film isn't as good as it.
I've read fourteen of the Aubey-Maturin novels now. A month or two ago, I was talking to one of my co-workers about them and mentioned that I'd been thinking of watching the movie again. "Oh," she said, "I own that movie. I got it in a clearance sale two years ago but I've never actually seen it."
This week, I came to work and found it lying on my desk. "I haven't watched it in the two years since I got it, so don't worry about rushing to get it back to me," she told me.
Last night, Lut suggested watching a movie, and I asked, "Are you willing to watch "Master and Commander" with me again?" He good-naturedly agreed.
And omigosh, I had so much fun watching it.
It's a pastiche of Aubrey-Maturin novels, with a number of events that never took place in the books or were significantly altered from them. Probably the scenes that struck me most were the ones that were not merely invented for the film, but which would never have taken place in the books -- were, in fact, completely out of character. Some examples behind the spoiler tag:
- In a couple of scenes in the film, Maturin is shown telling Aubrey to reconsider his actions as captain -- for instance, saying that it is foolhardy for them to be chasing the Acheron, and later questioning his decision to flog a seaman for insubordination. This is absolutely out of character for Maturin. First, Maturin has tremendous respect for Aubrey's judgment in naval affairs and rarely even considers the possibility that (a) Aubrey might be making a mistake much less (b) that Maturin might notice if he was. Questioning the wisdom of pursuing a larger and more dangerous vessel? Never happens. Second, even when Maturin does disagree with an action Aubrey takes as captain, Maturin will not say anything about it. This is not a matter of deference to his captain, or fear of disagreeing; it's mostly a strong sense of not my place to say. Just as Aubrey is not going to second-guess Maturin in a surgical operation, Maturin is not going to second-guess Aubrey in command. They don't do the armchair-quarterback thing.
- On a related note, Aubrey asks Maturin at one point his opinion on the crew's reaction to recent events. They have a little back-and-forth about naval vs personal roles and informers ("Now you're sounding like an Irishman" "That's because I am Irish") and then Maturin answers the question. Again, this is something that would never happen: not only will Maturin not say anything that smacks of informing but there's almost no occasions where Aubrey even asks him to (because Aubrey knows he can't answer and wouldn't want him to.) There is a tremendous social stigma against informing -- particularly for Maturin, a former agitator for Irish independence, but even Aubrey, who as captain gets a lot of secrets withheld from him that it would be extremely useful for him to know, has an extreme distaste for the idea. Basically, Aubrey feels that informers are terrible for a crew's morale and trust in one another, and so it's ultimately better to be left in the dark than it would be to encourage a culture of informing.
- In the film, Aubrey gets the idea to disguise the Surprise from an insect camouflaged as a stick that Maturin and Blakely found in the Galapagos. Disguising a vessel -- as something more dangerous, or less dangerous, or as belonging to a different nation* -- was an established part of naval warfare in this period and Aubrey does it all the time in the books. It's clever, but it's not innovative.
I found these choices of particular interest because I can see why the filmmakers made them. In the first, they want to show that Aubrey is taking a sizable risk based on his personal judgment, and while in a book O'Brian can do this by showing Aubrey's internal narrative, in a film it's far more powerful to have two characters arguing instead. And of all the available characters to have argue with Aubrey, Maturin -- who is outside the chain of command and Aubrey's particular friend -- is the only one remotely plausible. In the second, they're trying to show the way that the captain is out of the loop, and the distinction between Maturin's relationship with his friend as opposed to his captain. So these two cases are sacrificing allegiance to the books in favor of making the situation more understandable to the viewers, which is a not-unreasonable choice. In the third, they're making the story fit traditional narrative structure better, by tying together the 'naturalist' and 'naval warfare' sections of the story and by giving a source for inspiration within the confines of the story. I don't really like the ahistorical nature of the last (because it misleads the audience about the nature of naval combat in the period), but I can still see why they did it.
One small discrepancy that nonetheless amuses me: Tom Pullings is described in the books as, at one point, receiving a disfiguring facial scar that makes him 'hideous'. In the movie, Pullings has a facial scar but is portrayed by the very handsome James D'Arcy who is not in the slightest less handsome for it. I don't know why that entertains me so, but it does.
I loved seeing all the characters from the books: "Omigosh Killick!" (who is just exactly like Killick from the books) "And there's Pullings! Mowett! Bonden!" ♥ And seeing the Surprise and hearing the drum as they beat to quarters and watching them clear the ship for action. Even watching a film doesn't quite make me feel like I have the whole picture, like I really understand what's actually happening, but it does give a very different perspective. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany did very well as Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Crowe quite looks the part (he makes a fine blond!). Bettany looks nothing at all like Maturin but nonetheless manages to evoke the feel of the character. (The scene where he asks Aubrey to let him walk across the island and meet them on the other side! ♥)
I find this a rather interesting situation to be in: having read the books, I know all the ways in which the narrative and the characters have been altered and in some cases mangled. But even so, my familiarity with the source material made me enjoy the film so much more than I did when I saw it with no background. It kind of reminds me of the way I loved even bad Star Trek movies, because it was so much fun just seeing all those familiar faces again. Apparently sometimes it's better to have read the book first even if the film isn't as good as it.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 04:35 pm (UTC)I find movie conversions of things (and I'm using "things" pretty broadly here) to be interesting, in that what "works" in one format doesn't always (or even frequently?) work in another format. I'm always amused when people go "I can't believe it, they didn't match every scene in the books 1-for-1, so this movie sucks!" ...or, my personal peeve, people that go "that hacking sequence in that movie wasn't at all realistic!" and the like. C'mon guys, you know why it's unrealistic? Because actually watching someone hack is REALLY FRICKING BORING.
Though I guess I'm not perfect there either, I get really annoyed at when they horribly botch the science in movies. Now, I understand that you have to do that sometimes (even frequently) to make for a good (or at least fun) movie, but I'm talking about things that are just lazy. Like in Prometheus, traveling 30someodd light years... "We're half a billion miles from home"... I don't have even a vague recollection of how many miles a light year is (shame on me) and I can still tell that's off my orders of magnitude. It just makes me cringe!
...anyhow, I'm glad you didn't get hung up on the differences, and actually enjoyed it. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 07:53 pm (UTC)Umm... I think 170 trillion miles, so yeah, off by a few orders there :D
no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 12:26 am (UTC)That's like setting out for a cross-country drive, and ending up on the other side of the room!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 06:28 pm (UTC)If I ever made a film of the series I would start with the very first scene of the very first book at the concert, because a) AWESOME SCENE! (I picture the camera view as the credit titles play up in the air a bit coasting up the bay to Mahon in the evening, the concert music playing, we're watching the Pallas sail down the bay (but we don't understand the significance of that yet, just seems like scene-setting eye-candy) and we zoom in closer to the city and then closer to the Governor's House and then we go in through the French window and see the backs of a big blond naval lieutenant that nearly extinguished the gilt of his chair and the scruffy scrawny bewigged rusty-coated man next to him, dodging the waving arm of the officer beating the time... :-) and b) we understand the friendship from the get-go, and the importance of the music, and it makes more sense, than being Oh, one BAMF guy in one role, another complementary BAMF guy in the other, of course they are bosom buddies and of course nothing can stand against their combined BAMFery might, ho hum, haven't ever seen this before, huh.
More OOC stuff that would never be from the books:
1) In the very beginning, when the mids beat to quarters, Aubrey takes time to dress in full uniform instead of running instantly up on deck. Any captain would have been up in a trice under the circumstances, even if they were buck naked. Certainly Aubrey is described often as running up on deck and even up the rigging in just his nightshirt. (Also, under those particular circumstances, Hollum would have immediately informed the captain of the possible sighting, instead of dithering. I'm not sure the mids would have beat to quarters based on the slight possibility, unless that was in their orders, which it might have been. but if it were, again Hollum wouldn't have dithered - either he'd have orders to beat to quarters or if there'd been any doubt he would have informed the captain. But there wouldn't be any dithering.)
2) Dr Maturin leaves his sickbay during a very bloody battle to go fight. OK, that's a no, never. Maturin in the books was very clear that his role was to be the doctor. He would never leave his patients. He did not fight in the battles. Never. But the filmmakers had to show off his awesome BAMF fighting prowess too, entirely unnecessarily :P
3) Captain Howard, an excellent Marine officer and an excellent marksman, accidentally shoots a person. Nope. Would never happen. Gross slander! In the book it was Maturin's legendary clumsiness in falling from the deck onto a cannon during a storm that caused the injury. Which we never saw that legendary clumsiness, which was too bad, because great comic relief and emphasizes how they are from different worlds, and Maturin's a little bit human after all (there was only one little thing in a deleted scene, which they should have kept as it was perfect Maturin, and very funny :-)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 06:30 pm (UTC)Regarding A and M discussing orders, not only are you correct, but Aubrey would NEVER have exceeded orders. Never never never. Typically his orders were couched in very vague terms - give him enough leeway to hang himself, as Aubrey would put it in the books. But if the orders actually said do not go round the Horn he would never have gone round the Horn. Defying orders is like mutiny! Treason! It would never even occur to Aubrey to do it. I think they should have shown him reading the actual order, and it says something like, "Pursue the Acheron to the Horn, as far as necessary, to take, sink, or destroy." And Jack pondering (talking to himself) what exactly that is supposed to mean: "Damned if I do, damned if I don't; fuck it, Imma go catch the sucker."
Um, I may have written a little ficlet about the OOC stuff in the movie <.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-22 07:45 am (UTC)Other times, well... half the Chronicles of Narnia movie was spent on a battle that in the book was told in one paragraph of dialog. x.x