IdleRich

IdleRich
Interesting scene when he talks about Nelson's zeal keeping him warm and you think maybe he's going to undercut it... but he doesn't.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I do find it a patriotically stirring film, actually, to contradict what I said earlier.

But you have the Irish doctor Stephen maturin in the film (played without an Irish accent) expressing scepticism about naval service and Nelson etc. Deflating Aubrey's romantic view of things. You see how superstitious and cruel the sailors can be.

And the French are only ever glimpsed. There is some sense of kinship you see between the two captains, like sporting rivals, but the motives of each side are never examined, let alone critically, so you can't help but view the French as the lurking threat to be outsmarted and "soundly beaten".

Anyway, this doesn't decrease my enjoyment of the film one bit. It's a rollicking good time.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Actually I don't think you do get that sporting rivals thing between opposites cos the French captain is never seen (until right at the end) and I think it's the better for it. I totally expected to get that sense of battle between captains and loads of shots of the French. I think it was a truly interesting decision to totally skip that.
 

luka

Well-known member
fwiw I’d sail under a French flag before an English one

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sus

Well-known member
Seems like bad calculus, the French have a habit of losing wars, and don't you want your kids to grow up proper citizens of the winning empire?
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I hate the French instinctively, but every French person I've actually met IRL has been lovely.

I have always been scared of going to Paris cos my parents went back in the 70s or something and the French were apparently all rude to them. But I do really want to go there at some point, for the art and all that.

When I say I hate them btw I don't mean I want to exterminate them, it's just one of my many inherited English prejudices.
 
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