When I had to read Moby Dick in college, I was not a fan. It was a book with too much description of the details of whaling for my young and unformed taste.
So, with latent memories of long hours wading (in sea water) through the novel, I wasn’t excited to see the new movie In the Heart of the Sea. I was wrong on several counts, but the biggest one was whether I would be enthralled with the movie. I was, very much so.
This Ron Howard film, is the story of Herman Melville coming as an aspiring novelist to Thomas Nickerson who had been a boy on the ship Essex out of Nantucket that encountered a phenomenon nearly beyond belief.
In 1820, a nearly 100 foot long, white sperm whale had aggressively—and it appeared—purposely attacked the Essex in the southern Pacific, ultimately sinking the ship.
This true story is what inspired Melville to write his novel, but in this case truth is stranger, and perhaps more compelling than fiction.
The gripping tension in the movie is not just with the whale that seems bent on destroying the ship, but also between Captain George Pollard and first mate Owen Chase who measure the world and God’s purposes quite differently.
The result is that the movie works for those who are intrigued by adventure stories, but also find moral ambiguity equally gripping.
Here’s the preview for the movie that opens Dec. 11.
sueDecember 11, 2015
My Swain ancestors hailed from Nantucket. Natucket, due to its great isolation, and difficulties in being accepted by NY, and with few ways of getting supplies, went into the whaling business.They had no other option,and they became the greatest whalers in history. Yes it is based upon a true story which involved the greatest and most prolific whaler in Nantucket. I would have to look through my many books to find out his name. My ggg grandfather moved from Nantucket to NYC, and became a famous ship captain. He was an outstanding man, and I have a poster photo of his ship which disappeard. I have my thoughts about what happened to it. I actually ended up disproving a supposed historical fact about when he died. Two of my ancestors were part of the nine purchasers of the island. They had come to the Mass. Bay Colony to escape religious persecution in England, and there was so much of it in the colony that they bought the island. The people of and history of early Nantucket is fascinating. They were the only people who could get along with native Indians. I will probably not see the movie, but i know all about these great men. Half of the time they were nearly starving due to lack of food. Nantucket was not a fertile place to grow anything. Love the place and the people.