#Esteban Maturin y Domanova

[dukeofriven]

It's a bit frustrating to look at the Aubrey-Maturin tag and be deluged with gifs from the movie. Now I like the movie, it was my introduction the series as giddily presented to me by my grandmother when it hit theatres (her copies of the series are over on my left), and if half of it hadn't been filmed on now-awful-looking 2K digital film, I'd love it even more: the cinematography is excellent. Russel's Crowe's Jack Aubrey is about as good as we are likely to get from Hollywood: he's nowhere near fat enough, he's nowhere near scarred enough, he's not nearly taut enough with his officers and men (because somebody probably complained it made him sound 'mean' if it even reached the script stage—several times in the film he lets his officers give their opinions, which goes against Jack's character), and he honestly not nearly goofy enough (the famous weevil crack is about the most we get), but all in all it's a good performance for a Hollywood flicker and it acquits itself well. It's the Jack in Heroic mode we essentially get throughout, and I get the motivations behind it even if it lacks the complexity of the character I love. But Paul Bettany's performance as Maturin is frustrating. First, its offensive in and of itself to cast as an Irishman an Englishman who is so English his father is godfather to the wife of Prince Edward. You wouldn't know Bettany's Maturin was Irish (much less half-Spanish) if he didn't expressly say so in the picture. For a character so inextricably Irish to just be an Englishman is very vexing. He looks like Stephen Maturin even less than Russel Crowe looks like Jack should: he's much too handsome, much too well-dressed, and far too pleasant. None of Stephen's peevish waspishness makes it into the movie: at best FilmStephen mopes, and none of his cutting wit, far less his erudition, really makes it to the screen. Part of the problem, of course, is the same issue that inflicts every Jane Austen adaptation too: a distinct refusal by the part of filmmakers to depict an era with such a different understanding of intimacy among the upper classes. Even O'Brian struggled with this, as I once heard an interview where a historian complained that in the early books it was downright promiscuous how often O'Brian's characters shook hands. So of course both characters come off as less-formal on screen than they do in the books. But the movie flattens all of Stephen's wrinkles out, leaving him a caricature of his dynamic, prickly, funny, often dangerously drug-hazed, Butcher of Boston, sometimes stuffy, sometimes radical, always sui generis self. It's not a bad performance, Bettany does what he can with the material he's given, but the character on screen is decidedly not Señor Esteban Maturin y Domanova, MD.

#master and commander #Jack Aubrey #stephen maturin #the far side of the world #paul bettany #Russel Crowe #patrick o'brian #Esteban Maturin y Domanova #aubreyad #aubrey-maturin #Jane Austen

[gaslighthotel]

Happy Birthday to a C.B.E. and One Incredible Doctor!

Happy Birthday to a C.B.E. and One Incredible Doctor!

First, turning 70 today is Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, of course better known as Elton John.                   Elton John And according to some sources, today is also the birthday of one Esteban Maturin y Domanova, better known as Doctor Stephen Maturin – physician, spy (at least in the O’Brian novels and briefly hinted at in the movie), fighting naturalist, natural philosopher, sun-bather,…

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#Jack Aubrey #Master and Commander #Patrick O&039;Brian #Paul Bettany #Russell Crowe #Stephen Maturin