Some anarchist (I take it) examination of Pirate Utopias.
The film was pretty good, but not as great as the first, which has stood up well indeed. Viv and I just watched it yesterday evening and even as familiar as it it is now, there are repeated moments in which I shook my head in wondering appreciation of the spectacle laid before me.
The first film included a wonderful reimagining of the Buster Keaton gag wherein a house’s front falls just so, leaving Keaton wonderingly untouched. Verbinski recast this from comedy to destiny as Barbosa strides though the hurricane of battle, his falling mainmast raining rigging about him. In this film, I counted at least one direct Keaton quote and an indirect reference to Keaton by way of Chuck Jones’ roadrunner cartoons.
I did find myself rolling my eyes in a couple of places. For pete’s sake, can’t the filmmakers cast a person of African heritage in a major supporting role other than that of a mystical witchy woman?
Despite that, several of the action sequences were grandly satisfying, and the final image on screen of Captain Sparrow is likely to resonate with me and I imagine the rest of the culture as powerfully as the Wyeth illustrations for Robert Louis Stevenson’s piratical did in establishing the contemporary visual idea of the 18th Century pirate.
I submit for your consideration, however, that Cthulu might well find the idea that a seaman driven to immortality by a broken heart is the elder lord’s primary aspect or incarnation earth – or under seas – demeaning.
