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, 12th 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, 20th
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 22nd 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.
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