In the heart of the sea

I would like to talk to one film that I have recently seen: In the heart of the sea. I really enjoy this film (not only for the main character, Chris Hemsworth) for the story itself. This film is based on the novel Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) and published in 1851. This book is one of the top works of world literature and for write it, the author was inspired in a totally true story: a great albino animal of these characteristic has existed wandering the ocean, sinking boats and being chased by the most daring whalers. So the book tells the story of the whaler Pequod commanded by Capitan Ahab, who had the obsessive and we also can say, self-destructive, hot pursuit of a great white sperm whale.

I think that one of the things that I like most of the story itself is the fact that it really could be a real one. At the beginnings of the 19th century, whaling was probably the most dangerous, unpleasant, and less rewarded of all occupations. Signing for a trip whaling could mean beeing up to five years away from home and a trip to the end of the Earth. The life of a whaler was between blood and blubber, with long periods of boredom and often, with violent deaths, but it was a big business. The whale blubber provisioned to the streets of London, New York, Berlin or París the necessary fuel for to illuminate them and most machines of the industrial revolution used the same fuel.

For this, it’s strange how rarely Moby Dick has been filmed, this story has never been a Hollywood obsession as other popular and good know adventure books as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or Journey to the center of the Earth, both of Julio Verne, that had been on screen several times. Anyway, this adaptation is a very good one if you didn’t know about Movie Dick story or if you want to know more about it.

The film, directed by Ron Howard, although tell us the same story, it’s narrated in a different way. In 1850, the young Herman Melville (author of the original book),  visits Thomas Nickerson, the last survivor of the whaler Essex, and he’s willing to pay him for know the story of Movie Dick. This sailor put us in the winter of 1820, when the Essex, a British whaler, was assaulted by something that nobody could imagine: an enormous size albino whale with almost, the human sense of revenge, and it comes the second big difference with the book: the novel only tell us the mind of the story, In the heart of the sea reveals us the terrible consequences of the meeting, when the survivals of the crew, among them who narrates the story, were forced to their limits and were compelled to make the impossible to stay alive. They had to face storms, the famine, the desperation and the panic. In that context, all men doubt even about their belief, about the value of their lives and also, about the morality of their office.