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.

M&M: A Ghost Story

The title seems fairly straight forward in regards to what the story is about, a typical ghost story, but "A Ghost Story" from the year 2017 is far from that. David Lowery wrote the story and also directed the movie.

The story is about a young couple (Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck) living in a small house. The woman would like to move out, but the man doesn't. He likes the history of the house, he tells her. She tells him that when she was young and had to move a lot, she would write something on a small piece of paper and hide it in a crack in the wall of the house so that she'd have something waiting for her, in case she'd come back again. Shortly before they actually do move out, the man dies in a car accident. The woman sees the dead man one last time in the hospital and finally covers him completely with the sheet. After she's gone, the body under the sheet starts to move. He turned into a ghost. He walks around the hospital covered under the sheet and goes back to the house, which he seems unable to leave.

He watches his mourning partner. It's somewhat funny and yet sad, to see the ghost with his sheet, when he's standing in a room or sitting, barely moving or not moving at all. When the ghost is looking out of a window one day, he sees another ghost in the neighbour house also looking out of the window. They have a short talk.

After some time the woman finds a new partner and moves out. One of the few moments in the movie when something scary and typically poltergeist-like happens, when the ghost gets mad (or is it jealous?). Normally we'd be scared in movie moments like that. Here the scene is more bitter sweet. Just like she told her partner before, she leaves a small piece of paper with something written on it in a crack of the house.

A mother moves in with her two children. They celebrate Christmas. But they can't cope with the ghost and after another tamper tantrum of the ghost, during with plates fly and hit the wall, the family moves out again.

Eventually the house gets steamrolled over. The “neighbour ghost” is ready to go. Only "our" ghost stays and is still there when the small house is replaced by a skyscraper with office rooms. After the ghost desperately throws himself off the building, he finds himself in the 19th century. A family of settlers wants to build a house. The girl of the family writes on a small piece of paper and puts it on the ground, placing a stone on top of it. The family is killed by Native Americans. The ghost stays with the family and watches as the body of the girl turns to just bones.

You need to watch the movie yourself to find out whether the ghost finds his peace and how the movie ends. A movie with the title "A Ghost Story" is certainly one people who don't like horror movies would avoid at first. But I can most warmly recommend it to everyone. The movie is not at all a scary movie and the two poltergeist-like moments are already mentioned above. It doesn't get scarier than that. On the contrary the movie impressed me with how calm it is, not least with very little dialogue, long scenes without cuts or camera movement and a very beautiful score by Daniel Hart. Also the movie has a 1.33 : 1 ratio, not the typical 2.35 : 1. That means black mattes left and right of the screen. Also the edges are round, which gives the movie its very own atmosphere.

I came upon this movie only a while ago, when I read the title somewhere on the internet in a list of movies. Certainly I will check out other movies by David Lowery soon, since I really liked "A Ghost Story".

["Ain't Them Bodies Saints" is another movie by David Lowery, again starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck and yes, Daniel Hart provided the score to that one as well. Haven't seen that one yet though. I might (re)view it soon though.]

Rain

Heavy rains the past weeks inevitably have made me think of certain movie quotes.

I have repeatedly watched the first 6 episodes of "The Tick" months ago. In episode four (Party Crashers) the vigilante Overkill comes back to his boat, which is equipped with artificial intelligence and answers to the name of "Dangerboat". Soon after that Overkill wants to leave again.

Dangerboat: You just got back.
Overkill: Crime has overtaken this city. There must be punishment. They're all animals, anyway. It's time for the real rain to come and wash all this scum off the street.

Movie fans might remember similar words. Dangerboat also recognises a certain similarity and answers accordingly to that.

Danerboat: Travis Bickle.
Overkill: What?
Dangerboat: Taxi Driver.
Overkill: Shut the fuck up.

For comparison Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) in "Taxi Driver":

May 10th. Thank God for the rain which has helped wash away the garbage and trash off the sidewalks. I'm workin' long hours now, six in the afternoon to six in the morning. Sometimes even eight in the morning, six days a week. Sometimes seven days a week. It's a long hustle but it keeps me real busy. I can take in three, three fifty a week. Sometimes even more when I do it off the meter. All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the street.

Fred on the roof

Fred on the roof

Fred was sitting on the roof.

His light blond hair was clearly visible against the brown roof tiles and is light blue eyes were shining. Yes, today, now on the roof was one of the few moments of his young life, where they were shining. They were sparkling like a happy leaf fire in autumn.

But the crowd of people below could not see that. Today was the day the whole neighbourhood was paying attention to him. All those years, the whole damned 14 years he had been in the world, he didn't get that much attention as he did now.

When someone wanted to end their life, “oh“ and “awww“ came from everywhere.

And before that?

Like ants they were scuttling on the street, helpless, small creatures, to serve him.

God wasn't called God anymore. He was called Fred now.

Everyone looked up at him. Everyone obeyed him. Only thought: don't jump down there.

Fred as the puppeteer. Ladies and gentlemen, the time is up. Red or green? Death or life? Jumping or not?

Fred stood up.

“Oh!”, it came from everywhere like an echo. Some screamed “No!” and “Boy, watch out!” or “Boy, don't do that!”

Fred lifted his arms as if to jump.

What would be his last words?

“You're all so stupid!”, he screamed from the top of his lunges, opened the roof window and went back into the house.

I wrote this story in 2001 or 2002 when we were covering short stories in German and some fellow students complained that the stories we talked about were dull. Well, the point of short stories is not to be exciting in the first place anyway. When I came back from school, I remembered a task I had read in a book on writing stories or books. I didn't quite like the task originally. Now somehow I had a story in my head. Imagine a person on the roof of a house, about to jump. What would be his or her last words? What would be his or her last sentence?

I didn't want my person to jump, hence the ending of my story. I wrote it and brought it to school to the next lesson. The teacher agreed to include it into the lesson. Of course I had to read it out aloud myself. I hate reading out aloud.

I changed one sentence a little bit, because it turned out people understood it another way I meant it to. Otherwise the story is without any further changes and the way I wrote it originally.