Posted by Christina on July 09, 2000 at 17:12:30:
In Reply to: Re: At the risk of sounding callous... posted by NightSky on July 09, 2000 at 15:51:54:
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: : I know this movie has already been discussed but I just have to get something off my chest and figure if maybe I'm way off base here...last night, I wound up a long week of movie-seeing (LOTM twice, Me Myself and Irene, The Patriot, and two Aussie films) by seeing "The Perfect Storm." Let me say the good things first: great special effects, good evocative picture of the fisherman's lifestyle, interesting relationships, good treatment of the terror of a storm. (As a veteran of six hurricanes --thank God no direct hits-- on the Carolina coast, I can relate)....but in the end both my friend and I were left with one lingering bitter question...WHY DIDN'T THEY TURN BACK FOR GOD'S SAKE, OR GO SOUTH, OR STAY WHERE THEY WERE WHEN THEY HAD THE CHANCE???? I was just overwhelmed by the advance warnings they had and the fact that, but for the fact of having to sacrifice a load of fish, they decided to risk life and limb to sail through that storm. Anybody ever heard of that Greek term, hubris -- i.e. tragic pride? While I certainly felt sorry for the characters, I really lost some of my sympathy when I went back and thought about the chances they had to avoid the situation. I also felt for the crew when Clooney refused to listen to them when they first wanted to turn back. I'm a huge believer in premonitions, and sometimes when people feel unlucky, there's a reason for it...I don't know. Please understand I'm not being callous. Part of my sadness was for those Coast Guard folks who went back out into the storm to try to find the boat. I used to cover the police beat years ago on the Coast, and I can't tell you the times we wrote about Coast Guard and other personnel risking life and limb in the ocean to save people who wouldn't have been there had they exercised better judgment. I guess that's the only thing that left a bitter taste in my mouth. It was tragic what happened to these guys, but unfortunately there were also some ways around it...maybe that's the lesson.
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: Christina: Yes, I sat there the whole time also thinking, look at the fax, think, Dammit, think. But what is depicted is based on a true event. Those men died out there, and no one will ever truely know what happened. The events on the boat are speculation, all that's really known are the contacts with the other boat captain, the rest is fictionalized. Plus there's the simple fact that no one can ever get a weather forecast right. How many times have those big storms been predicted to go one way, and turned around and do something entirely different. It truely was a set of weather conditions that no one would have believed would coincide the way they did. And of course there's the forever truth that hindsight is 20/20. It's a way of life that is a gamble every day, and they lost. NS
Nightsky: good points all. I haven't read the book or done much reading on the events itself, so I was just going by what's in the movie. One useful thing to get out of it, I guess, is that life is about decisions and you have to really realize what you want to do and how much you're willing to give to do it. That's why I've always believed that people who go to sea have a very special love for it, because it is such a risky business!