What actual events or people were portrayed as central in the book?
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger has caught the attention of the people with its stunning and awe- inspiring description of the biggest storm of the century and how a fishing boat with six men was caught and lost in the eye of the storm. The book closely follows the lives of the fishermen of Gloucester with vivid and graphic description of their life. The author is successful in taking the readers close to the fishermen’s houses with an eye for reality. Junger with his journalistic hunger has understood the lives of the fishermen by talking with and living with them and has given a detailed account of their daily life style.
Sebastian Junger has taken the backdrop of the fishermen of Gloucester, whose job is the most dangerous of all in America. Junger has made every effort to account the details of their daily lives lending the story an unparalleled authenticity. Most of the description takes place around their daily activities at the Crow’s Nest, a popular tavern for fishermen in Gloucester. It is the story of the real people and actual incidents that made it such an arresting and best selling non-fiction book. Though the beginning of the book is a bit slow, it has set the background perfectly focusing on the crew’s lives.
One of the reviewers of the book has says “Junger’s attention to detail was fascinating, even if “morbid” at times (as when he provides a scientific explanation of drowning). However, the important social point he is suggesting is that even at the end of the millennium, many men are still making their living, in the most dangerous occupations. (doaskdotell)
The harrowing account of the fate of Andrea Gail, a fishing boat with six crew members, is one the centuries most violent east coast storms. At the end of October 1991, when a hurricane and nor’easter combined, it resulted in one of the most horrific storms with waves rising hundred feet high in the tempestuous ocean.
The later part of the book deals with the events during the violent storm. Junger tries to reconstruct the events that took place aboard the Andrea Gail and the rescue operations directed at several other ships caught in the storm. Even some para jumpers who went to rescue others were lost and were not traced. The rescue efforts of other boats caught in the storm are incredible and breath- taking. The book ends with the probable fate of the doomed ship and the incredible and breath taking rescue stories.
What did the author choose to exclude, include, change or invent – and why?
Junger has chosen the actual incident “The Perfect Storm”, perfect in the meteorological sense, a storm that could not have been worse. He has reconstructed the story of the six crew members and their fishing boat Andrea Gail which was under the captaincy of Billy Tyne.
It is truly “a true story of men against sea” as the title says. It is based on a real event that took place in 1991. Much of Junger’s writing describes the technical details of seamanship and presents real characters by interviewing the family members of the missing crew members in the perfect storm.
Junger sends shivers in the spines of the readers and fills them with dreadful thrill when he describes the furious hurricane and storm with the accuracy of a meteorologist. It is these details that make the story, though sometimes gruesome, real and gripping.
“Meteorologists see perfection in strange things,” Junger writes, “and the meshing of three completely independent weather systems to form a hundred-year event is one of them. My God, thought Case, this is the perfect storm.”
Christopher Lehmann rightly says:
To be out at sea in the path of such an event would be a catastrophic experience. And so it evidently proved for the six men aboard the Andrea Gail, a 72-foot swordfish boat that disappeared off the coast of Nova Scotia on Oct. 28, leaving behind only fuel drums, a propane tank and sundry radio equipment that were found weeks later. To dramatize the incredible fury of a severe storm at sea, Junger reconstructs the fatal voyage of the Andrea Gail. (Christopher Lehmann)
“She’s comin’ on boys, and she’s comin’ on strong.” That was the last radio transmission from the captain of the Andrea Gail. Indeed, Junger leaves it to the reader’s imagination and understanding what must have happened to them in the ‘perfect storm’.
Junger has skillfully personalized the storm and its effects by taking the three main groups of people. He has recreates the voyage of Andrea Gail. His story is based on his interviews with the friends and family of the crew. He has collected his materials by interviewing the fishermen of Gloucester who survived the previous storms.
. He also describes the voyage and eventual rescue of three people on a 32 foot sailboat. Finally, he narrates the efforts of two groups of Air National Guard rescue teams.
Junger as a true journalist wants to be authentic in his story. He has got authenticity with his first hand knowledge of the things and experiences of the fishermen and with a mix of his imagination. His concrete details do the work for him. In a review of the book, Tom Cronmiller rightly observes:
“Junger intersperses the story with short passages on related topics like history of commercial fishing in that area, weather systems and different boats and how they sustain in extreme weather conditions, and changing technologies and dangers of commercial fishing”. (Tom Cronmiller)
He maintains a balance in including some details and excluding some unnecessary details. Many of these related topics would make interesting books or articles by themselves.
His keen eye of observation in descriptions of the storm the actions of the crew, makes the readers witness the scenes of the storm directly. He achieves that effect with his great ability to write with minute details. It is evident from the following description of a scene in the storm. For example; the following description takes one into the middle of the hurricane.
“Drifting down on swimmers is standard rescue procedure, but the seas are so violent that Buschor keeps getting flung out of reach. There are times when he’s thirty feet higher than the men trying to rescue him. . . . [I]f the boat’s not going to Buschor, Buschor’s going to have to go to it. SWIM! they scream over the rail. SWIM! Buschor rips off his gloves and hood and starts swimming for his life.”
Undoubtedly, when one reads the novel, one feels the absolutely enormous strength of the hurricane and the incredibly towering mass of the hundred-foot waves.” (Patrick O’Brian)
The most compelling description is how he explains in concrete detail why hurricanes blow, how waves rise, what happens to boats in a storm and the way human beings drown.
Finally, he is able to reconstruct what he calls “the zero-moment point.” When drowning, he writes in this frightening chapter, “the body could be likened to a crew that resorts to increasingly desperate measures to keep their vessel afloat.” He concludes, “Eventually the last wire has shorted out, the last bit of decking has settled under the water.” The crew members of the Andrea Gail “are dead.”
Part II: Analysis of Film
The movie “The Perfect Storm” is based on the book with the same title. It is one of the best attempts by the director Wolfgang Peterson, to show on screen what Junger has tried to portray in the book. Naturally, when one is reading the book, one can see the picture as one visualizes it with the help of the book. But when the book is brought on to the screen it should match the pictures in the minds of the readers. It is a tough task to make a book into a movie.
The visual medium has the advantage of showing effectively in a short time what the writer has described elaborately in many pages. The movie “The Perfect Storm” thrills the audience in the theatre with its spectacular sound and visual effects. The movie represents the story presented in the book with a few changes.
The similarities are many, the film being an adaptation of the book. The story is based on the missing crew members of the Andrea Gail, led by Billy Tyne of Gloucester. The town of Gloucester keeps the track of “men who go down to the sea in ships”. Six names are on the 1991 list. The story is about those missing six and of course, dedicated to those six. The film is especially about the ferocious storm, popularly known as ‘perfect storm’ that took their lives.
The film has received mixed opinions from different film critics. The one important question is -what should be focused more: the characters in the story or the storm? Critics are divided on this point.
Roger Ebert, one of the popular film critics who runs the show “Roger Ebert and the Movies” liked the film, but he comments on his show (July 1, 2000), “The more the characters are sketched in, though, the less the movie is effective because in movies of this sort it’s really the storm…that is the subject….”
On the other hand, another film critic Chris Gore, who runs the TV show The New Movie Show with Chris Gore” (FX Channel) had opposing views. He says,
“I can understand the storm being a major part of the movie. But if you don’t get to know the characters, you won’t appreciate the storm or the story. Most action films often get criticized because of skeleton characters. This is one big action film that breaks all the rules,” (Chris Gore)
The film finely balances these two things i.e. the characters and their relationship with one another and the storm. Chris Gore is right when he says, “What makes this film work so well,” said Gore, “is the time spent getting to know these fishermen. They’re proud men with families and a passion for the sea.”
If there is no focus on characters in the first one hour of the movie, it would have been a perfect disaster in making the film. The first one hour of the movie provides the background to the story to understand how deeply the storm leaves its mark on the families who are far away from the crew of the boat. The importance given to the characters enhances the meaning of the movie giving it a social perspective of showing how dangerous is fishing and how vulnerable are their families. The book and the movie are in the same in line as far as focus of the story is considered.
The special effects of the movie are very effective in creating spectacular experience for the viewers. Suad Bejtovic, a Bosnian Film Critic says, “much publicized special effects in Perfect Storm are truly special, and highlight well the movie’s most intense moments. Huge waves give the impression of massive bodies of water colliding, fighting for supremacy, oblivious to the insignificant little dot that represents the life or death of our six heroes.” (Suad Bejtovic)
“As a natural disaster movie, The Perfect Storm creates the kind of frightening realism few movies have achieved. The spectacle of the huge storm tossing all sizes of boats in rolling seas and howling winds was marvelously created” (Solarnavigator)
The storm scene should have been longer to give more intense and the real feel of the storm. For a film director like Peterson who is an expert in making such films, it would not be a difficult or an impossible task. The Bosnian film critic also opines the same, when he says, “It would have also been much better if the director Petersen, no stranger to aquatic spectacles (“Das Boot”), added another 30 minutes of footage described in the book
Despite the immense spectacle, the film suffers from the dilemma whether to adhere to the book strictly or to craft a great story. Usually, true stories are not sufficient for a profound cinematic experience because they lack the emotional subtext of well-developed characters. This movie, unfortunately feels woefully flat as soon as the action is diverted from the storm.
“The film has faithfully followed the book in the last scenes keeping us guessing at what happened to the ship Andrea Gail. We know she is fated to sink, but with no survivors and no trace of the boat, we have no idea what happened during her last hours”. (Solarnavigator)
It is difficult to make a movie without any additions to the original story. The director has taken some liberty in introducing small snippets of drama here and there. For example, the scene where the crew encounters a shark is not in the book. Of course, the director is free to make changes as long as it will not alter the message intended to convey by the author.
References
http://www.doaskdotell.com/books/bjunger.htm
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/01/daily/storm-book-review.html
Patrick O’Brian
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&endeca=1&isbn=006101351X&itm=5#TABS
Roger Ebert and Chris Gore http://www.criticdoctor.com/reviews/perfectstorm.html
Suad Bejtovic http://www.suad.com/perfectstorm.htm
Tom Cronmiller
http://www.sailingbreezes.com/Sailing_Breezes_Current/Other_Reviews/perfectstorm.htm
http://www.solarnavigator.net/films_movies_actors/the_perfect_storm.htm
