The success of Sebastian Junger's monumental bestseller is not a result of deep, penetrating character development. The book is more of a meteorological tour de force, written in the clipped, in-the-moment, in-your-face style of an
Outside magazine expose'. The reader is forced to accept the characters—the sword fishermen (and fisherwoman), the Coast Guard rescue teams, and the sailors aboard the Westsail 32
Satori— at face value. They are defined by their occupations and avocations, by conjectured dialog, and mostly by the simple fact that they all happen to be in the same stretch of ocean when the unsentimental hand of fate sends one hell of an angry storm their way. The main character in the narrative is "the perfect storm," the unlikely and deadly result of three cannibalistic weather systems converging off the New England coast.
Junger keeps his and the reader's emotions under control, and that is a large part of the book's appeal. The narrative is well supported, and for the most part—the sailing sections aside—believable. Just when you are ready to burst into tears knowing that Bobby will never see Chris again, Junger breaks off into a clinical treatise on how boats implode from pressure and sink in a blur of spiraling descent, or how a person actually, physically drowns. The fact that he never explores the origin of the word "Satori," the name of the unlucky, inaccurately portrayed sailboat that is ultimately abandoned, illuminates the emotional distance maintained. I couldn't have resisted wrapping a clunky metaphore around Satori, which is the final stage on the road to enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. The ultimate storm, enlightenment—something has to give, right? Wrong. The book is not about metaphors, it is about low-pressure systems, cold fronts, and a hurricane named Grace. The crew of the sword fishing boat Andrea Gail, and to a much lesser extent the crew of Satori are just pawns in a script written by the dispassionate forces of nature.
This theme, which finds its roots in the transcendentalism of early American literature, works in the book. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well in the film. Reduced to only two hours, films invariably focus on people rather than natural events, and cheap metaphors are common tools. While the narrative skillfully moves between tracking the fateful voyage of Andrea Gail, to the meteorological developments of the building storm, to the escalating struggles of Satori, the film script instead tries to make you care deeply about the crew of the fishing boat. Wolfgang Peterson, who also directed Das Boot does a brilliant job of recreating the fury of the storm, but the off the shelf, melodramatic dialog does not allow for much character development. This becomes glaringly apparent with the way the Satori scenes are presented and the rather insidious innuendo that somehow Satori contributed to Andrea Gail's fate.
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Peterson is a master of fast-paced action, and arguably the best scene in the movie is the helicopter rescue of
Satori's crew. But the event seems surreal and ultimately out of place, as though more time was needed before the final pitchpoling and sinking of
Andrea Gail. Unless you had read the book, and followed
Satori's plight carefully, you would be completely excused for asking, "Who are these inept, bickering people in a sailboat and what are they doing in the movie?" It almost seems like there is an underlying current running through the scene suggesting that if these silly sailors hadn't needed rescuing, the crew of
Andrea Gail, might have been saved. The fact that the key events are changed in the scene is never mentioned.
The crew of Satori is introduced in a brief but absurd scene, having a fair-weather meal in the cockpit while the skipper, Ray Leonard, puffs out his chest and claims that he never plots his course on a chart. Don't worry he assures his crew, "We'll be in Bermuda in no time." In contrast to the film's technical accuracy, this scene is culled from some 1940's, B-rated, action drama. Talk about a set up; the scene has the subtlety of a Clive Cussler plot. The director never bothers to introduce the crew, nor to explain why they're headed to Bermuda, and what their hopes and dreams are. They exist in the film solely for the purpose of being rescued and for having somebody to blame for Andrea Gail's misfortune.
I confess that I found the portrayal of Satori's crew troubling in the book, revealing much about Junger's complete lack of sea experience. But in the film it is simply dreadful. It doesn't give the non-sailing public a very nice impression of offshore sailing. As the storm builds, the two women crew become increasingly concerned. After a violent knockdown, they decide to put out a Mayday. The skipper lies in his bunk, apparently in shock, except for an occasional and bizarre statement that is supposed to generate tension, and ultimately he does not prevent them from calling for help. In the book you learn that the SSB has been doused and is out of commission. The crew realizes in despair that their only hope is the VHF, and they are aware of the limited range that the distress call will carry. In the film, there is a flash on the SSB and then you see one of the women putting out a feeble Mayday on the VHF. What does this mean? To most people nothing, but to a sailor it is a critical event.
The actual portrayal of the boat battling heavy seas under staysail is better than Hollywood's usual fare. It is interesting that the staysail never actually shakes or flutters as the boat is laid on her beam ends by breaking seas, and also that Peterson has a disturbing, almost comical tendency for man overboard incidents. But that is nit-picking—as a sailor I was impressed that they actually used the right boat for the film. The temptation to use a more ostentatious yacht, to heighten the contempt for the crew, must have been tough for the director to resist. Overall, the special effects of the classic, double-ended Colin Archer's knockoff squaring off with the storm are believable and terrifying.
Hollywood needs a villain, yet I found it galling that the crew of Satori was designated to play the role. We never learn that Satori represents everything skipper Leonard has: it's his boat, his home, and all of his dreams for the future. Naturally he is reluctant to abandon the vessel. The truth is that the boat actually did stand up to the tempest, and ultimately did survive. I sympathize with him completely. I have said many times that I will never leave a boat until I see the mast dip below the surface. It must be a horrible trauma to leave your boat while it is still afloat. It goes against the very essence of self-reliance that is at the heart of offshore sailing. The ocean was not meant to be a place where you can cry for help. Yet the skipper is presented in villainous fashion, both in the film, and to a degree in the book, because he doesn't want to leave his boat. Of course, once a Mayday has been issued, and you have invited the risk of those sent out to rescue you, you are pretty well obligated to abandon ship.
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This emotional aspect of
Satori's crew is never investigated in the film, which is a great missed opportunity. In fact, Leonard, like many sailors, is more committed to the ocean and a nautical way of life than most of the crew of the
Andrea Gail. For them fishing is a livelihood, only a way to make some money—the sooner they are back in Gloucester slugging back beers at the Crow's Nest, the better. In fact, they long to turn back throughout the film. The sailors on
Satori have voluntarily set off on a sea voyage while the fisherman have resigned themselves to another miserable stretch of sea duty to pay their bills. Although Peterson does a credible job of showing a boat being tossed about at sea, he completely misses the passion that drives sailors.
He is not to blame, however, because Junger also misses this fundamental point in the book.
In late October 1991, I was also carefully watching the progress of Hurricane Grace. I was the skipper of a Hylas 47, conducting an offshore navigation voyage between Annapolis and Nassau, Bahamas. We had just cleared the Bay Bridge/Tunnel when we learned that Grace was heading north and east, out of the way of our intended path. We veered offshore and soon encountered building seas. The next four days were some of the most exciting sailing I have ever experienced. The seas spawned by Grace grew into huge, ocean rollers. We blasted south, surfing on long cresting waves, several times burying the knotlog at 12 knots. If we had 20-foot seas 500 miles away from the storm, I can only imagine what the conditions were like in the center. Maybe the final wave that engulfs the Andrea Gail in the film's dramatic climax is close to reality, maybe it isn't. Either way, the thought of 90-foot waves is almost beyond comprehension.
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When we arrived in the Bahamas, I was put out by the fact that 'rage' conditions caused by the storm had closed the port of Nassau. We had to thread our way through the reefs south of Paradise Island before tying up at Yacht Haven. I remember vaguely hearing about a terrible storm that occurred off the Maritimes on CNN, but I was more concerned with preparing for the second leg of my voyage to the Virgin Islands.
And that is the way it is with the sea—that is the crux of it. The sea is local, private—a gale, even the perfect storm, is a personal event. My friend Carl perished in Hurricane Lenny while I was sailing smartly under sunny skies just a few hundred miles behind him. If someone makes a film about what Carl was thinking, exposing him in a way they can't know, I'm going to be very angry. Keep that in mind while you watch "The Perfect Storm."
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