M&M: In The Heart Of The Sea

It seems fitting, after writing about a whale with over 80 plastic bags in its stomach, to now review a movie about whales and the sea: “In The Heart Of The Sea”.

This movie from 2015 was directed by Ron Howard, who with “Apollo 13” and “A Beautiful Mind” already did movies based on true stories.

“In The Heart Of The Sea” is a bit similar to “Titanic” from the year 1997: a true ship accident and a (supposed) survivor telling other people the story. The movie here essentially tells the story behind the world classic “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville. The sinking of the whale ship “Essex” in 1820 was in part inspiration for the novel. The movie “In The Heart Of The Sea” is based on the book “In The Heart Of The Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex written by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Around 1800 whales were excessively hunted. On August, 12^th 1819 the Essex started with a crew of 21 men. It should be mentioned that just 3 days after that, the ship capsized. The last captain of the Essex was George Pollard (played by Benjamin Walker). According to the movie Pollard got the position as captain not because he was skilled, but because of his family history and was sort of born into this position. Petty officer second class Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) doesn't like that at all. Mostly because he is truly skilled and longs to be captain himself. This leads to tension between the two of them. Also on board is Henry Coffin (Frank Dilane) as ship boy. Coffin, only 17 years of age, was Pollards cousin.

On November, 20^th 1820 the crew finally found a group of whales. A whale attacked the boats so forcefully that the crew had to cut the leash. As they wanted to go back to the Essex later, they found the boat at an angle that part the bottom of the ship was showing. The crew worked hard to return the ship to an upright position, but was attacked by a whale several times. The force of the attack was so strong that some of the planks burst. The crew was able to get some food supplies from the Essex into the catchers, before on November 22^nd the Essex sank.

The problem with what followed was that the 3 catchers weren't build for long rides on deep sea, which lay ahead of the crew. Catchers are build for short, fast rides.

Owen Chase (the first helmsman) and Thomas Nickerson (the ship boy) were among the 8 survivors of the originally 21 crew members. Herman Melville hired on a whale ship in 1841. Which is how he came to meet the son of Owen Chase, who gave Melville his father's journal to read. Inspired by these writings, Melville wrote the novel “The Whale”, which today is known as the world literature “Moby Dick”. In the movie Melville (Ben Wishaw) goes to Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson),in other words a direct survivor, to be told what happened on the Essex. It probably makes more sense to tell the movie in flashbacks from a survivor. This meeting never took place though.

By the way, I saw the movie “Moby Dick: Heart Of A Whale” from the year 2015 directed by Jürgen Stumpfhaus. In it they suggest that some certain sounds whales make to communicate with each other were similar to workings the blacksmith did on the harpoons on the Union in 1807 and also the dinghy repairs of the Essex in 1820. Maybe the whales have misinterpreted the repair noises for whale sounds and that's why both of the ships were attacked.

Nail clipping. The right hand first or the left hand first?

Since I just clipped my fingernails again, I came to think about a scene from "Nymphomaniac 1", not for the first time.

An old man meets a young woman and lets her live with him. He introduces himself as "Seligman", which seems to be an odd name. He explains that it means "the happy one". She calls herself Joe and asks if he is happy.

Seligman: Well, I suppose I am. - In my own way. Even if I'm the kind of person who cut the nails
of the right hand first.
Joe: What does that mean?
Seligman: Well, I divide humanity into two groups: the people who cut the nails on the left hand first,
and the people who cut the nails of the right hand first. My theory is that the people who cut the nails
of the left hand first, they're more light-hearted. They ... they have a tendency to enjoy life more, because they go straight for the easiest task, and save the difficulties for later. - So what do you do?
Joe: Always the left hand first. I don't think there's a choice. Go for the pleasure first, always. And then when you've done the left hand, only the right hand remains. That's... that's the easiest one left.
Seligman: I never thought of it like that. - Well, you're never too old. Never too old to learn.

Which hand do you clip first? Let me know in the comments.

The whale with over 80 plastic bags in its stomach

Meant to write about this a while ago already. At the beginning of this month it became known that a pilot whale in Thailand had fought for its life. Already during the rescue attempt it threw up 5 plastic bags. The rescue attempt failed and the whale died eventually. An autopsy revealed 80 plastic bags in its stomach, weighing up to 8 kg (18 lb).

80+ plastic bags in the stomach was too much for the whale. When will it be too much for the humans? For the rest of the world?

A Ghost Story: The Music

Already shortly after publishing my last post, I got the feeling that my review of "A Ghost Story" didn't really do the movie any justice. So I want to use this post now to write some more about the music. As I already wrote in the post about the movie, the music is composed by Daniel Hart.

Daniel Hart was born to musician parents in 1976 in Emporia, Kansas in America. So it probably comes as no surprise that they gave him a violin when he was 3 years old and he never let go since, as he said so himself. He came to composing film music for friends and providing the music for their little projects first.

When he's not composing film music, he plays and sings in his band: Dark Rooms. The song “I Get Overwhelmed“ from the band is used in the movie. Contrary to other movies it is not just the title song or something, but the man of the couple is a musician and the woman listens to the song after he died. Elements from that song can be heard in the other tracks of the soundtrack.

The soundtrack is mostly calm and much like the movie as a whole reduced to the essential. I personally feel that the soundtrack is a good one to listen to in passing when you work on something (like I am now, writing this post) and don't want to do that in complete silence or when you want to calm down and get some rest.

I should also mention that Kesha wrote the song “Last One“ performed by Stereo Jane. Kesha is briefly seen in the “party“ scene in the movie, too.

Here is an incomplete list of the tracks from the soundtrack album, if you want to check it out for free:

AGhost Story (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Not included is track no. 9 of the album, “Sciunt se Esse Mortui“ and no. 10, Kesha's/Stereo Jane's “Last One“.)

Often times for the trailer music from other movies is used of from music groups. In the trailer for „A Ghost Story“ however you can hear parts from „I Get Overwhelmed“. Check it out:

trailer in English and trailer in German.

I think, because the movie is rather quiet and with very little dialogue, the music as a whole and “I Get Overwhelmed“ comes to the fore more. If you don't just want to listen, but also see Dark Rooms performing “I Get Overwhelmed“, I found this

IDKSessions Video

for you.