Film Facts:

Cast: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D’Arcy, Billy Boyd, Max Pirkin, Max Benitz, Chris Larkin, Edward Woodall

Shooting Schedule: June 17 – November 11, 2002

Location: Fox Baja Studios, Rosarito, Mexico, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

Awards:

Oscars for Best Cinematography and  Best Sound Editing; ASCAP award for Top Box Office Film for the composers; BAFTAs for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Director; Cinema Audio Society (CAS) award for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures;  Evening Standard British Film Newcomer award (Max Pirkis); Golden Satellite award for Best Sound and Best Visual Effects; London Critics Film Circle award for Film of the Year, Screenwriter of theYear and British Actor of the Year (Paul Bettany); Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing in Domestic Features: Sound Effects/Foley; National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Cinematography; Screen Music Awards Australia for Best Soundtrack Album; Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture; Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor in an International Film (Max Pirkis)

Russell's Weight: 228 pounds

Plot Summary:

In the capable hands of director Peter Weir, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a seafaring adventure like no other, impeccably authentic, dynamically cast, and thrilling enough to give any classic swashbuckler a run for its money. In adapting two of Patrick O'Brian's enormously popular novels about British naval hero Capt. Jack Aubrey, Weir and cowriter John Collee have changed the timeframe from the British/American war of 1812 to the British/French opposition of 1805, where the HMS Surprise, under Aubrey's confident command, is patrolling the South Atlantic in pursuit of the Acheron, a French warship with the strategic advantage of greater size, speed, and artillery. Russell Crowe is outstanding as Aubrey, firm and fiercely loyal, focused on his prey even if it means locking horns with his friend and ship's surgeon, played by Crowe's A Beautiful Mind costar Paul Bettany. Employing a seamless combination of carefully matched ocean footage, detailed models, full-scale ships, and CGI enhancements, Weir pays exacting attention to every nautical detail, while maintaining a very human story of honor, warfare, and survival under wretched conditions. Raging storms and hull-shattering battles provide pulse-pounding action, and a visit to the Galapagos Islands lends a note of otherworldly wonder, adding yet another layer of historical perspective to this splendidly epic adventure. --Jeff Shannon -

Trivia:  Some filming was done in the same tank that was built for filming of Titanic,  at Fox Studios in Rosarita, Mexico; Russell Crowe wanted to form a sense of authority on set, so he had all the actors wear shirts according to their characters' rank. Officers wore a dark blue, midshipmen wore a light blue, the marines wore red and everyone else wore white. The actors also had to sew their own name tags on each shirt, a tank top, a short-sleeved shirt and a long-sleeved top; the name of the French vessel "Acheron" comes from the name of a river in Hades in Greek mythology; Russell Crowe learned to play violin for the film and referred to it as the hardest thing he'd ever done for a film; Originally based in Providence, Rhode Island, The HMS Surprise was actually the HMS Rose, a reproduction tall ship built in 1970 at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia by Smith and Rhuland Ltd. The film crew made several alterations to her design to match the 1802 design of the HMS Surprise. The Rose/Surprise is currently docked in San Diego, but in previous years the HMS Rose was available for tall ship cruises. Amazon.com essential video

Favorite Scenes:

The loss of Warley, exquisitely filmed and paired with perfect music, exceptionally well acted by all involved; the entire Galapagos segment, what an extraordinary place and again a perfect marrying of visual and music; the Great Cabin scene with Aubrey and Hollum, you learn so much  about both men from that short scene; all ‘confrontational’ scenes between Aubrey and Maturin. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany again showcase the wonderful chemistry we first saw in A Beautiful Mind; all the scenes of music in the Captain’s Cabin.

Comments by Russell:

"Of Jack, Russell Crowe says that he had to be a patriarch. If you want him to be the man you think he is, then he has to be concerned with the welfare of every person on board. The more effort Jack puts into the teaching of these young men then the easier his life is. There’s a very human side. He doesn’t want anyone under his charge to fail themselves or what is required by the community of the ship." – The Making of Master and Commander by Tom McGregor

"Jack", he (Russell) says, "had to be "always definite – but not necessarily correct." You have to train your men," he continues, "to respond to your being definite and not to question the moment." – The Making of Master and Commander by Tom McGregor

"Stephen", says Russell Crowe, "is Jack’s saviour in many ways. He’s the outlet for the art that works inside this otherwise monolithic figure of authority: he needs Stephen to be there..... They (Jack and Stephen) have a very, very different view of the world, they also come to cross words, but at the same time they’re both reasonable enough men to realise the size of the planet they travel on and how much they need each other. There are, "he finishes, "freedoms of expression he allows Stephen that he just cannot allow with his officers." – The Making of Master and Commander by Tom McGregor

".... I loved the image that Peter (Weir) put in my head when we talked about this man (Jack Aubrey), a sailor with calluses on his hands, who has grown up in the navy and knows every part of his ship – if the sails aren’t going up fast enough, he will jump down and grab the rope and see what is causing the problem. And those same callused, thickened hands then pick up this delicate, feminine instrument, the violin, and he will play from his heart the things he can never say." - indieLONDON.co.uk

Q: What makes your Master and Commander character, Jack Aubrey, tick? RC: He considers his duty to be of primary importance.... He’s completely a rebel. He’s not one who follows the rules. Still, fulfilling of his duty as his main aim. – Buy Magazine, March 2004.

Comments about Russell:

"Russell is a very rare combination of a screen actor and a movie star. You usually get one or the other. He's not a dreamer. He doesn't wait for the muse to descend. On the contrary, he's extremely mathematical and rigorously pragmatic in his approach. He'll take the script and minutely adjust it, going into extreme detail, perhaps more than any other actor I've worked with, about a word or a line or gesture." – Peter Weir, The Vanity Fair UK edition December 2003

There's also a less methodical side to Crowe's preparation. As Weir says, "When we initially talked, I explained that I usually like to work from a sense of joie de vivre on the set, a reckless energy. After Russell heard me out, he said, 'That's fine, but at times I will go into a very dark place. Don't get sucked into my vortex when that happens.' I saw that a couple of times, and it was kind of alarming. Very brooding, very hard to talk to on those days. Russell was inside this impenetrable black hole where he draws great inspiration, because the work that comes out of some of those dark spots is quite stunning. He's searching for something, and he has to do it alone you can't help him." – Peter Weir, The Vanity Fair UK edition December 2003

"He has a natural authority,' says Peter Weir. 'He was born to be a captain: a captain of actors and a captain of a ship. A movie star is a very rare creature - even rarer if they're also a good actor. It's as much as you can ask for." – Peter Weir, The Making of Master and Commander by Tom McGregor

Reviews:

Peter Weir's "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" is an exuberant sea adventure told with uncommon intelligence; we're reminded of well-crafted classics before the soulless age of computerized action. Based on the beloved novels of Patrick O'Brian, it re-creates the world of the British navy circa 1805 with such detail and intensity that the sea battles become stages for personality and character. They're not simply swashbuckling -- although they're that, too, with brutal and intimate violence.

The film centers on the spirits of two men, Capt. Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. Readers of O'Brian's 20 novels know them as friends and opposites -- Aubrey, the realist, the man of action; Maturin, more intellectual and pensive. Each shares some of the other's qualities, and their lifelong debate represents two sides of human nature. There's a moment in "Master and Commander" when Maturin's hopes of collecting rare biological specimens are dashed by Aubrey's determination to chase a French warship, and the tension between them at that moment defines their differences.

Aubrey, captain of HMS Surprise, is played by Russell Crowe as a strong but fair leader of men, a brilliant strategist who is also a student, but not a coddler, of his men. He doesn't go by the books; his ability to think outside the envelope saves the Surprise at one crucial moment and wins a battle at another. Maturin is played by Paul Bettany, who you may recall as Crowe's imaginary roommate in "A Beautiful Mind." He's so cool under pressure that he performs open-skull surgery on the deck of the Surprise (plugging the cranial hole with a coin), and directs the removal of a bullet from his own chest by looking in a mirror. But his passion is biology, and he is onboard primarily because the navy will take him to places where there are beetles and birds unknown to science. (…) "Master and Commander" is grand and glorious, and touching in its attention to its characters. Like the work of David Lean, it achieves the epic without losing sight of the human, and to see it is to be reminded of the way great action movies can rouse and exhilarate us, can affirm life instead of simply dramatizing its destruction. – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

"MASTER AND Commander: The Far Side of the World" isn't just a fabulous seagoing spectacle. It's one for the ages. Not only does Peter Weir's film give you an atmospheric feel for the agony and ecstasy of early 19th-century sea warfare, it's a rollicking good story.(…) Weir and his impressive crew have created something truly special. The cinematography, montage, sounds of the ocean, sets and costumes are all part of a constantly exhilarating whole. Composers Iva Davies, Christopher Gordon and Richard Tognetti have provided an unforgettable score. And the performances are perfect. Bettany gives us a stirring character, the delicate man of science. But not enough can be said about Crowe's contribution. Swaggery and sensitive, bullish and subtle, he's a star from the old days, a man with the sweaty, animalistic grace of Brando. Like his fictional counterpart Capt. Aubrey, he understands the necessity of commanding a ship with authority. And he makes this crew -- and us -- follow him to the ends of the earth. – Desson Howe, Washington Post

The film looks marvelous from start to finish. In fact, this may be the best-looking film ever made about a seafaring vessel. The filmmakers carefully researched ships of the era and spent time and money doing the best possible job re-creating the era. Digital effects are seamlessly incorporated, so there's never a sense that what's on-screen is anything but the real thing. And the typhoon is more real than any previous at-sea storm (such as the one in The Perfect Storm. Part of the reason for this is that Weir shot footage of an actual typhoon specifically to be used during this portion of the movie. So what we're seeing is not all the creation of special effects. The verisimilitude extends to the locations. The only land-based portions of the film take place on the Galapagos Islands, and Master and Commander became the first movie ever to shoot there.

The film's emotional core is the relationship between Aubrey and Maturin. In terms of personalities, they are opposites. Aubrey is a rash, flamboyant warrior given to excesses of drink and courage. Maturin is far more reserved, preferring intellectual pursuits and loving his pre-Darwin naturalist studies more than his duties as ship's doctor. When the officers are singing a song, he is always the last to join in. Despite their differences, however, these two are fast friends, and each has a deep and abiding respect for the other. Actors Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, who previously worked together on A Beautiful Mind, successfully capture the characters' personalities and interaction. For Crowe, this is another acting triumph - an opportunity once again to highlight his versatility. Crowe's ego may make him difficult to work alongside, but his performance speaks for itself. – James Belardinelli, Reel Views

Web Related Links:

Official site: http://www.masterandcommanderthefarsideoftheworld.com/

Patrick O’Brian web ring: http://r.webring.com/hub?ring=patrickobrian

Maximum Russell Crowe: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Cinema/1501//maxcrowe_mastercommander.html

Travels with the Tall Ship Rose: http://www.tallshiprose.org/index.html

MRQE page of 286 reviews/articles - http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?Master+and+Commander

Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311113/