Master & Commander - To the end of the world

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Movie
German title Master and Commander - To the end of the world
Original title Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2003
length 133 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Peter Weir
script John Collee ,
Peter Weir
production Peter Weir,
Duncan Henderson ,
Samuel Goldwyn junior
music Iva Davies ,
Christopher Gordon ,
Richard Tognetti
camera Russell Boyd
cut Lee Smith
occupation

Master and Commander - Until the End of the World is a film by Peter Weir from 2003 based on motifs from the novel Maneuver around Tierra del Fuego (originally: The Far Side of the World ) and other books from the Aubrey Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian is based. In addition to the duel between two warships and the different personalities of the captain and the ship's doctor, the focus is on the rough life at sea, the microcosm on the ship and the fight of the individual against the forces of nature.

action

During the Napoleonic Wars around 1805, the British warship HMS Surprise, under the command of Captain Jack Aubrey, was tasked with intercepting the French privateer Acheron . However, the Surprise is surprised and attacked in the fog by the superior Acheron off the Brazilian coast and only barely escapes - badly damaged - by being pulled into a bank of fog by its rowing boats.

Contrary to the advice of his officers, but following the orders of the British Admiralty, the captain named "Lucky Jack" by the crew lets the Acheron pursue . The biologist Stephen Maturin , who acts as ship's doctor , has to oppose Aubrey's instinct with the intellect of a modern scientist, which often leads to tension between the two friends. Once the French still manage to ambush Aubrey. But the surprise narrowly escapes as Aubrey builds a dummy ship and has it illuminated at night so that the French mistake it for his ship and chase after her. Aubrey uses this time to escape, then he takes on the role of the pursuer himself.

During the circumnavigation of Cape Horn , they fall behind due to a mast break. Here Aubrey is forced to sacrifice a mast and a sailor to save the ship. Aubrey suspects that the Acheron is heading for the Galápagos Islands . There he barely missed the French and stayed behind due to a lull . Aubrey can only maintain the discipline of his superstitious team by cracking down on them. The sensitive Ensign Hollom, who the crew makes the scapegoat for the losing streak, is driven to suicide by hostility. After the slack ends, the surprise sets course for the Galápagos Islands again. There, Aubrey allows his friend Maturin, who was accidentally shot on board by Captain Howard and who underwent emergency surgery, to recover on the islands and to explore them on the side. When the ship's doctor and his helpers collect animals and plants, he sees the enemy ship anchored in a bay. On the spur of the moment he rushes back to Surprise so that the captain can find out about it as soon as possible.

Maturin reports to the captain about the anchorage of the French ship and shows him a stick insect that can disguise itself as a branch to protect itself from its enemies. The captain adopts this strategy for his ship and disguises it as a whaler . As soon as the French privateer tries to raise the supposedly easy prey after a short pursuit , the English board the Acheron , have the element of surprise on their side and emerge victorious from the close combat.

Aubrey sends the poorly repaired Acheron to Valparaíso in Chile under the command of his first officer Tom Pullings . Shortly afterwards, however, he discovers that the French captain did not fall, but pretended to be a ship's doctor who presented the body of the supposed captain to Aubrey. Eventually the Surprise takes up the chase again.

criticism

“Elaborately staged lake adventure, whose attention to detail and visual effects are just as convincing as the psychological and representational precision. A captivating, outstanding film of its genre. "

- Lexicon of international film

“None of this is 'real', and yet you believe every picture. This is not the miracle of digital technology, it is the miracle of this movie. Because Peter Weir didn't rely on computers. He relied on history. "

- Andreas Kilb in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of November 26, 2003

Roger Ebert gave the film its highest rating of four stars and wrote: “Peter Weir's Master and Commander is an exuberant seafaring adventure of unusual intelligence; we are reminded of elaborately produced classics from a time before soulless action on the computer. Based on the popular novels by Patrick O'Brian , the film revives the world of the British Navy from around 1805 in such detail and intensity that the naval battles become a stage for personalities and characters. "

background

  • In the underlying novel Maneuvers around Tierra del Fuego , the HMS Surprise pursued the American frigate USS Norfolk and not the French Acheron during the War of 1812 . It is shown in the film that the Acheron was built in the United States and bought by the French. In fact, the film set for the Acheron was modeled on the US frigate USS Constitution , which is still regarded as a symbol of US shipbuilding in the United States today.
The Surprise at the Maritime Museum of San Diego
  • The film ship is a replica of the 18th century British warship HMS Rose and was bought and converted for the film by 20th Century Fox . It is now under the name Surprise in the "Maritime Museum of San Diego". In addition, a direct copy of this ship on a 1: 1 scale was built on swiveling arms in an artificial basin.
  • For this film, Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany learned to “play” the violin and cello pieces shown, finger-synchronized to the playback of the professional musicians, which made the captain's second solo at the end of the film surprisingly perfect. A special trick in the film is to start the pieces of music intradiegetically , i.e. as part of the scene, and to let them slide into extradiegetic film music. You can hear u. a. Boccherini (night music on the streets of Madrid no.6), Mozart ( violin concerto no.3 ), Johann Sebastian Bach ( prelude from the first cello suite ), Corelli (Adagio from the Christmas concert) and Vaughan Williams (variations on a theme by Tallis).
  • The actors all took on the fight scenes themselves. Before that, they had received the classic drill of the British Navy with cutlass, saber, rapier and single stick . Russell Crowe, as the ship's experienced commanding officer, had to train the most, while Paul Bettany was trained to appear less adept as a ship's doctor and scientist (Dr. Maturin's role model, however, is an excellent fencer and pistol shooter). The crew was also professionally taught the nautical skills on board, loading the cannons, maneuvering, etc.
  • The role of the doctor Maturin makes direct references to Charles Darwin , particularly clear in the detailed film scenes on the Galápagos Islands , which for Darwin on his trip with the HMS Beagle (but only from 1831) became the defining experience on the way to his theory of evolution . Using the ghost insect, Maturin asks whether animal species would not adapt to the circumstances.
  • Russell Crowe was voiced by Thomas Fritsch and Paul Bettany by Viktor Neumann .

Awards

continuation

Due to the unsatisfactory box office result on the US market, among other things, the film studios have so far refrained from continuing. There is already a finished script based on the eleventh novel in the series, Hafen des Unglücks , and Russell Crowe has also already expressed his interest in playing the lead again. Nevertheless, a possible production has not yet been given the green light.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Master & Commander - Until the end of the world . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2003 (PDF; accessed on March 9, 2018).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Master & Commander - Until the end of the world . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Master and Commander - To the End of the World. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed July 1, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ^ Roger Ebert: Roger Ebert's Four Star Reviews 1967-2007. Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC 2007.
  5. ↑ Another "Master & Commander" Sets Sail? ( Memento of the original from July 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Accessed July 10, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.darkhorizons.com

Web links

Commons : Master & Commander - To the end of the world  - collection of images, videos and audio files