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Film and the seaBy Michael Griffiths |  | | |
“Ships are all right; it's the men in 'em …” who, it would seem, are more fickle. That is what Joseph Conrad maintains in The Mirror of the Sea. In this book he is in some sense suggesting that the sea itself reveals, fundamentally, the nature of men and their ways beyond simple appearance. Filmmakers, too, have been keen to exploit this notion and use the sea as a dramatic device to reveal the 'inner' workings of their characters. Whether or not they are always successful is open to question. Here are two sea films picked at random one, The Battleship Potemkin, was released in 1925, the other, Master & Commander, in 2003.
In The Battleship Potemkin the sea is captured from a single static camera angle from a position on the coast. Nevertheless it is dramatic. It feels authentic. You sense the seas enormous power and energy. In filmic terms, however, these images are edited so as to act as a commentary on the action. They are a metaphor for the energy, the vitality and the just authority of the sailors. The sea, in this context, acts as a dramatic device amplifying and echoing the defiance of the films heroes. In this way the sea has an essential part to play in the narrative and functions admirably well.
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In Master & Commander the sea is similarly employed to aid the drama, though it does not seem as rigidly maintained or seamless a part of the film as in Potemkin and the overall effect is less satisfying. The intentions for the sea in the film are honourable enough. It challenges the crew and, indeed, that product of civilisation and of imagination, their ship, so revealing what and who they really are. Here they not only battle the enemy they battle Nature. This is fine. However, the film is not consistent in the use of the sea in the drama because once below decks it becomes superfluous to the narrative and very obviously absent: everything is too static. The 'ship' does not move as she (and sailing folk know) she should. Through this lapse everything becomes artificial and inauthentic and the suspension of disbelief in its (sailing) audience is lost.
You could argue that, like the theatre, we should employ our imagination to better effect - to fill in the blanks where they exist. But I think, and Potemkin demonstrates, that in film the sea can be employed in a way that is fully constant throughout the filmic process. For those acquainted with a pitching boat in rough weather consistency about the sea in a film they have a natural interest in is something they look out for. It is disappointing when it is not maintained; where ill-judged scenes below decks are shot so the movement does not relate to the motion of the ship as seen from the outside.
Both films available in DVD or video.
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