THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

US, 1958, 86 minutes, Colour.
Spencer Tracy, Felipe Pazos, Harry Bellaver.
Directed by John Sturges.

The Old Man and the Sea is a cinema attempt to visualise Ernest Hemingway's celebrated novel. The Nobel Prize-winning American novelist was a man of action as well as of literary ability. His novels focus on human beings confronted by nature and confronting it. A hunter himself and a fisherman, he used the hunter, fisherman character as a way of representing Everyman and the human struggle.

The Old Man and the Sea was published in association with Hemingway's winning of the Nobel Prize. It is a short novel, an allegory of human existence and struggle.

The screenplay was written by novelist Peter Viertel and the film was directed by John Sturges who had made a number of short dramas at M.G.M. e.g. Bad Day at Black Rock and was soon to move into more spectacular adventures with The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Hallelujah Trail, Marooned.

The film uses the voice-over technique with Spencer Tracy speaking the words of the novel. Commentators found this a distancing effect rather than inviting the audience to experience the old man's struggle with the big fish. Spencer Tracy is earnest as the old man but reviewers were mixed in their reactions to his success in embodying Hemingway's character.

The film relies on James Wong Howe's expert colour photography of the sea and its moods and action as well as on Dmitri Tiomkin's musical score. Versions of Hemingway novels include The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Macomber Affair - both with Gregory Peck - and The Sun Also Rises with Tyrone Power.

1. Hemingway's literary ability and repute? Nobel Prize-winner? The Old Man and the Sea as a classic novel? The difficulties of transferring literature to cinema? Of visualising Hemingway's philosophy of what it was to be a man, to be human, to struggle, to dream and achieve?

2. Production values: colour photography, location photography? The atmosphere of the Gulf Stream? The life of the island? Small community, isolated? The colour photography of the sea and the range of its moods? The fish and the struggle? The pursuit by the sharks? The atmospheric contribution of the score?

3. The voice-over technique: the audience having Hemingway's words to describe events, mood, meaning? Spencer Tracy speaking the commentary as well as acting the central role? The value of the comment for description, emotional response? The effect of distancing the audience from the immediate impact of the drama?

4. The structure of the film: the focus on life on the island, the dilemma of the fisherman and his not having caught fish for 84 days, his relationship with the boy, his life on the island? The transition to the central action on the sea with the old man alone with the fish? The aftermath and the fisherman's return, being looked after by the boy, his final dreams and hopes? The momentum of the structure and the audience participating in the quest for the fish?

5. The title and its allegorical overtones? The story as a microcosm of human existence and struggle? The Everyman figure as the Old Man? Livelihood, survival, struggle? Dreams and hopes? Goals and endurance? Assertion, battle? The experience of defeat? Pride?

6. How well did the film establish briefly the atmosphere for the struggle: the setting of the island, the cafe and the man behind the bar? The tropics?

7. The sea as a character: the expanse, colours, moods, peacefulness, waves. the terrifying aspects of the sea? The smallness of humanity in confronting the sea? The sea as a place where the fish live and thrive?

8. Spencer Tracy's portrayal of the Old Man? The old grizzled fisherman and his experience. his peasant wisdom and humour, his reputation on the island, the 84 days without a catch, the friendship with the boy. the boy as his protector? The drama of the 85th day? The man alone on the sea, his ruminations, determination? The personalising of his struggle with the fish? Relationship with the sea, the catching of the fish? The symbolic struggle? The progress of the struggle, tactics, pain, food, sleep? The fish towing the old Man? Both of them tiring? Mutual strategies?

9. The portrayal of the fish? Size, equal opponent to the Old Man?

10. The emotional response to the sharks, their tracking the fish, tearing at it, destroying it? Destroying the Old Man's pride? His return with the remnant of the fish? His pride and his being hurt? His being visualised returning home with the line on his shoulder. his falling - the echoes of Christ-figure imagery? The significance of the defeated Christ-figure?

11. The old Man and the friendship of the boy. the boy as his protector. having faith in him, getting him coffee, food. watching over him while he slept? The symbolic contrast of the Old Man and the little boy - humanity?

12. The dreams of lions and the Old Man conquering? New hopes? The perennial resilience of human nature?

13. Hemingway's portrayal of humanity and insight into it? Physical humanity, psychological. spiritual? Conquering and defeat? A story in praise of the human spirit?