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| Master
and Commander: The Far Side of the World The movie is Set during the Napoleonic Wars, Crowe is Patrick O’Brian’s Captain ‘Lucky’ Jack Aubrey, renowned as a fighting captain in the British Navy, and Paul Bettany is ship’s doctor Stephen Maturin. Their ship, the Surprise, is suddenly attacked by a superior enemy. For people who is not familiar with the story telling historian loved for his wit, fast paced and action sequenced writing Patrick O’Brian is one of the great, if relatively undiscovered, authors of the twentieth century. His novels were often compared by critics to the work of Jane Austen and even Homer. A writer of breathtaking erudition, O’Brian evoked in complete and dazzling detail an entire world – that of the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. As for Crowe with the HMS Surprise badly damaged and much of his crew injured, Aubrey is torn between duty and friendship as he pursues a high-stakes chase across two oceans, to intercept and capture his foe. It’s a mission that can make his reputation or destroy Lucky Jack and his crew. Among period sea sagas, this film stands supreme just as the Patrick O’Brian novels that inspired it are justly regarded as the finest historical sea-war stories ever written. “Master and Commander” takes its titles and plot from two O’Brian novels, the first and 10th in that brilliant author’s 20-book series about dashing Jack Aubrey of Lord Nelson’s British Navy and his friend and ship’s physician (and Irish rebel), Dr. Stephen Maturin roles played to perfection by Crowe and Paul Bettany. The friendship between Jack and Stephen is one of the most vivid and unexpected in modern literature. They are unique creations and very much the reason there are twenty Aubrey/Maturin novels. Jack is a fusion of the best traits of several real-life captains – a brilliant seaman and genius warrior, if a reluctant follower of orders. He also is exuberant, loud and a connoisseur of bad jokes. Stephen is a brilliant surgeon, naturalist and “lubber” whose courage matches Jack’s. It took a star with an imposing presence, Russell Crowe, to play the bigger-than-life Jack Aubrey. Much of the magic of O’Brian’s work is pairing the captain with his natural opposite: a man of science whose courage matches Jack’s: Stephen Maturin, played by Paul Bettany. The production team found the HMS Surprise to be in American tall ship Rose based in port Rhode Island. The three-masted wooden frigate, formerly the country’s largest sailing school vessel, is a twentieth century replica of a 1800s-era British Royal Navy ship. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the Rose. (Upon completion of principal photography, Fox donated the ship back to a non-profit naval history organization.) The Rose travelled through the Panama Canal en route from Rhode Island to the West Coast, enduring a hurricane and a broken mast before arriving at a San Diego dry dock to prepare for her transformation into HMS Surprise. The movie has the distinction of being the only feature film ever to shoot on The Galapagos. A province of Ecuador, is home to a variety of unique plant and animal species, including the almost-extinct giant tortoise. The details above are few but it may take thousands perhaps more words to narrate the whole setup that was drafted to finish this magnificent creation. A blend of modern visual effects, actual craftsmenship and the sheer talent of the production and the cast has created a wonderful piece of history. The rest is with you, sail the HMS Surprise with 197 souls and 28 guns aboard! |
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The
Gladiator elevated the status of the New Zealand born actor Russel
Crowes cinema carrier to unprecedented heights. A Beautiful mind
cemented any doubts about his prowess for performance. Master and
Commander: The Far Side of the World has brought the actor with
an appetite to create and relive history once again to the fore.
