The Movie: Ship of Fools - Term Paper Example

Ship of Fools Introduction The movie Ship of Fools was an ironic film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer. The script of the film was written based on the voluminous novel of one Katherine Anne known as the Ship of Fool. In the year 1962, the film used to be one of the bestselling movies and ended up receiving a series of awards like Best Art Direction-Set Decoration in Academy Award, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Ernest Laszlo, Joseph Kish and Robert Clatworthy). One Robert C. Jones edited the movie, Ernest Gold did the movie music and the production designer was Robert (Keller and Wintle 65). The film gives a full list of the older and the younger stars in its fascinating assortment of perceptive and well-decorated roles. The pictures of the movie are in black and white and it runs for an approximate time of 149 minute. The award winning Abby Mann who applies his intelligence all through making each plot of the movie to be relevant wrote the script of the movie Ship of Fools (Gawley 50). The historical context during the shooting of the movie The movie was made during the social rights era and it depicted the exact things that happened to the real world and its people during that period. The movie shows a group of farmers being taken from Spain to some other destination in Germany and the ferrying of the Spanish countess to a particular island prison, which are all issues in relation to both social and human rights (Keller and Wintle 34). The ship’s doctor talks about equity in the treatment of all the members in the ship bringing about the issue of equality to all that is related to human social rights. Again, during the shooting of the movie, Germany as a nation that was the destination of the ship that was ferrying the people was at a point of accepting the rule of Hitler’s National Socialist party. At the month of September 1930, that was a year just before Vera arrived, 6.5 German nationals had already voted for the Nazi party that had marked an increase of 810,000 in the previous two years (Gawley 50). The economic straits that Germany was experiencing those times were as a result of high unemployment that was evident in the country in the year 1931. All the employees in the middle-class category were faced by hard financial conditions leading to the ruining of the unpopular countrys economy. What followed was the winning of Hitler in 1932 with over 11 million votes in Germany. The second election that followed saw Hitler increase his winning margin by a margin of 2 million votes and in the year 1932, the Nazis officially became the largest party in Germany. The movie ship of fools uses Pepe as a fictional character in the film (Gawley 65). Characters featuring in the movie ship of fools and an analysis of the film The movie has Vivien Leigh as a diminishing divorcee from America, Ferree as a brazen Jew-baiting businessperson from Germany, L. Marvin shown as the Texas baseball player, Segal and E. Ashley as the Americas pair of lovers and artists. The movie also features S. Signoret showing the character of a fading Spanish countess, J. Greco as the leader of a group of ferocious Spanish dancers and some other minor actors. The ending of the movie has some casual like that of the archetypal Grand Hotel (Porter 71). It is notable that the actor, Oskar Werner who is given the significant role and acts as the principal actor is not a star in the arithmetics of Hollywood film levels. The actor is of a modest and a much-accomplished European origin who is famous in his home country from the movie Decision Before Dawn and Junes and Jim. In the movie, the actor displays his talent by acting as the ships doctor who is a tired, sad and disillusioned man. The character that the actor displays pumps the central irony and pity into the troubled heart of the movie (Turi 34). The heartrending figures of Mr. Kramer as the ship’s doctor and that of Mr. Mann have been coined to represent the exhaustion of the old and the cultivated class of Germany residents that ought to have stopped the Nazis since it had acquired the intelligence and vigor. The doctor has been successfully and clearly shown as the symbol of a helpless healer in this soul-sick ship of fools to Germany. Although, it is the involvement of the actor in a short love affair that he engages with the tacitly doomed Spanish countess who was being ferried to some prison (Porter 43). The relationship makes for the fundamental implications and core compassion in the movie. The love which revolves around the two actors that is said to be tender, understanding and sad at the same time shows the fading demonstration of people dignity and despair, as they are all frustrated as they continue with their relationship (Turi 26). The movie also displays the immature and peevish love affair of one Mr. Segal and Ms. Ashley of which neither of them is too good to one another and other relationships that are evident to the other people in the ship. The relationships are a representation of the passage of foolish humanity experienced in the maw of Nazism. The movie is an eternally engrossing and mind provoking video that Mr. Kramer has aptly displayed in the movie making the movie a best selection for the movie fanatics all over the world (Turi 60). The movie shows a group of actors that board a Germany-based ocean liner in a place known as Veracruz, Mexico for a journey to Bremerhaven in Germany. Among the people on board are about 600 displaced workers who are being taken back to their country unwillingly. Some of the members are happy to be part of the crew ending to the rising Nazi Germany while others are apprehensive and others appear to be unmindful of the potential dangers of whatever they were involved in (Wilson 774). During the trip, the ship’s doctor develops unique interest with a countess from Spain who is faced with drug addiction and is being moved to a German-run prison to a known destination. The countess sense of doom is always seen to be contrasted with the ships doctors determination to stand and fight the forces of oppression that are covered by the doctors insistence that all the members being steered in the ship must be treated equally like human beings and not animals (Wilson 776). The ships doctor suffers from a terminal heart condition that he keeps as a secret, but his sympathy for the countess lady grows and develops into love. Each time at dinner, the captain invites some of his passengers to dine with him with music and live professional dancers entertaining them. After some time, the passengers realize that two of their members are absent, the countess who is moved to an island prison and the ship doctor who they realize had died (Turi 34). Critics of the Sheep of Fools Although the movie received a critical and well received by the audiences, it was looked at and criticized by some reviewers and some termed it as a Grant Hotel afloat that was often aped. The movie was criticized for being of preachy and melodramatic nature despite the fact that the cast was globally hailed for its production (Wilson 778). The New Yorks Bosley Crowther saw the film and termed it as a powerful and ironic movie of that time. He describes the film as being rich in reflecting the conditions of human conditions and environments in the ship of fools like those of hate and love (Wilson 780). The way through which the movie illustrates its themes makes it unique and quite distinct from the other movies. Another critic who reviewed the ship of fools was known as Aubrey. Aubrey is a Ph.D. holder in English and has made a lot of articles publications in the 20th-century writing. In his analysis, Aubrey tries to discuss the novel of Porter in a self-deceit manner of most characters in the novel that is translated into the movie. In his review, the critic says that the title " ship of fool" is generally fitting. The summation of the wisdom of humans collected on the Vera is extremely outweighed by the accumulation of recklessness, vice, unawareness and utter evil. If fool of the ship is a representation of the human situation, as the critics take it to be, it offers a modest source of comfort. The challenges of humans that are presented in the ship of fools’ film are numerous and some of them include the hateful ranting of some of the characters, the captain’s authoritarianism and the alcoholism of some of the characters and the cheating that the dancing troop displays among others. With the several afflicts that affects the characters, the major one is self-deceit (Porter 36). Some reviewers have criticized the movie as a grand hotel at the sea stating that its structure resembles the one for soap opera although the issues that it tackles, which include anti-Semitism and those of the development of German threat makes the movie a substantive soap opera (Turi 49). The film review in Jewish publications The movie has been reviewed in Jewish publications and the reviewers have given their varied views and comments about the whole movie. The reviewers say that the movie is not as glossy as the viewers may expect it to be considering the type of star collection of the Hollywood actors that the movie is made of. Actually, the portrayals displayed by the movies cast are harsh, as the passengers did not show who they were. The phenomenon is demonstrated in different ways in which some characters in the movie answer to the successful salesperson in the ship who is of the Jewish originality. It is also displayed in the way with which the passengers treat one another in the movie (Wilson 775). When the theme turns to the unity of the Germans, the depth of the passengers with German origin always does not have any bounds in their anti-Semitism. In reality, the main actor in the movie who shows displays the Jewish character looks at their hatred as a mere nuisance because German Jews tend to consider themselves firstly as Germans and secondly as Jews. In one of the major parts of the movie, the passenger with the Jewish origin tends to admonish another passenger who then accuses him of being blind to the danger of asking what they could do to them (Turi 75). Conclusion To conclude, the film ship of fools has received extensive television broadcast over the years and also was released on VHS, laserdisc and inform of DVDs. The movie was also issued in widescreens with supplements in a S. Kramer box set made from Sony Pictures home entertainment. Presently, the video is made available in a budget-priced 2-disk 4-movie collection DVD that is licensed by Sony. All the four videos are given in their original theatrical aspect and they are anamorphically enhanced. The video has been made available on Blu-ray in the form of a double feature pack with the video Lilith through Mill Creek. However, there are no records of any documentaries that were produced during the filming of the video and no book or journal has been listed after the shooting of the film. Works Cited Gawley, John. Ship of Fools. New Scientist 193.2595 (2007): 27. Web. Keller, Hans, and Christopher Wintle. Film Music and Beyond. London: Plumbago, 2006. Print. Porter, Katherine Anne. Ship of Fools. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962. Print. TRANS- 10 (2010): n. pag. Web. Wilson, Richard. Ship of Fools: Foucault and the Shakespeareans. English Studies 94.7 (2013): 773-787. Web. Read More