Dead Man's Chest Post 1: Broadening the Scope

Ok, This is not the main post I lost, That will be # 2 - but some of the stuff that was simply "tagged along" because I wanted to get it in (although, tonights viewing clinched some things for me on a better answer on the Barbosa question ... I think) but I think this post feels like the shorter of the two so I will do it first and see how it goes and how I am feeling. So, here is the place where I write more extensively on my reading of movie 1 than I did last night because it will explain better what I came up with on movie 2 tonight. Basically, I believe that movie one, in the end presents a middle pairing of a man and woman and then symbolic parings move out from their. Davey Jones and Lord Cutler Becket Basically I think movie one is about the way "myth" looks at the world (ie higher realities in the details of lower realities - that the lower reality of "historical fact" is defined by its connection to truths that are of a higher realm, rather than "truth" being merely synonymous for "historical facticity" - as Tia Dalma says: "Same Story, different versions - and all of them true!" ) as set against the way "science" looks at the world (this is not to say that scientific knowledge is wrong or any such thing, just to say that when the emphasis on it goes to the tyrannical level of absolute materialist concept of truth, it is wrong). So, what do you have in movie 1? You have a compass that is "scientifically inaccurate" but points to the real treasure. And when Jack and Will get into the island and Jack tells him that he is well on his way to becoming a pirate ("Sprung a man from jail, sailed with a buccaneer crew out of Tortuga ... and you're completely obsessed with treasure"), Will responds "that's not true ... I'm not obsessed with Treasure." Jack rebutts, "Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate" and then the shot pans to ... Elizabeth (held by Barbosa over the high altar of the chest full of Cortez's cursed gold). In the end the path for Will to finding the treasure is finding his balanced place as the bridge between Norrington and Jack ("You forget your place MR Turner" "No, it's right here, between you and Jack") - then Elizabeth can find her place beside him in betrothal (Side Note: I'll stick this in here because I'm not sure if I'll be able to fit it in in the other post or elsewhere - as to what we were saying in the comments about the hat and clothing ... notice in DMC that it is not just any dress Elizabeth uses to get the sailors to take her to Tortuga ... if you follow it back to the beginning of the movie - it is her wedding dress - oh, and on the hats thing ... note in movie 1 Jack's line of appeal to Barbosa "and I'll buy you a new hat, a nice big one ... Commodore"). Jack and James Moving out on either side of the betrothal couple you have Jack as the free-spirit and Norrington as the institution/law. In a moment I will describe and defend one of my more controversial readings (from which I garnered some accusations of extreme reader-response interpretation - it was quite fun actually), on Governor Swan as the institutional mentality ( actually the statement that came under fire was referring to him as a "satanic tempter" opposite Barbosa's barbaric obsession with the "temptation fruit," to the level of gluttony ["I'm going to eat a whole barrel of apples"] and voyeurism - the way Barbosa watches Elizabeth eating and offers her an apple is downright creepy). Swan is the institutional mentality, but Norrington, in movie 1, is the institution itself, able to work in the real world and prudently work with real people, not taken tot he level of an ideology. It is Swan who is always jumping the gun, literally, in just willy-nilly using the institution's power (Jack just saved his daughter from drowning, he doesn't even know Jack is a pirate and the first words out of his mouth are "shoot him." Once he does learn that he is a pirate, the first words out of his mouth are "hang him.") In the scheme of the history of religion in the world, Norrington is like the Jewish law that is a bridge between paganism and Christianity. Notice in movie 1 how Elizabeth burns the rum (very much like the Israelite holocaust sacrifice) in order to call Norrington to save her and Jack on the island (here is another goodie - the rum as symbolic of the free-spirit taken in the direction of paganism - took heat on this one too, LOL In post 2, on Sparrow as Christ symbol and Barbosa as reformed bad guy [structuring that post on Sumara's questions because I think they are connected and the connection is the key] you'll get to see Merlin in "I got a jar of di-irt! I got a jar of di-irt!" mode - like "Look! I found evidence in movie 2!" - much like, "Look! an un-dead monkey! Top That!" LOL - this all gets a lot easier when you accept the fact that you're crazy as a loon LOL) (NOTE: On the use of "Jewish Holocaust Sacrifice" in the immediately preceding paragraph - it is in no way an allusion to the Holocaust in Germany in World War II, mainly because I do not treat of such subject matters lightly, as saying "oh yeah, um, it's kind of, sort of like that thing ... yeah, that sounds cool." In the system of sacrifice laid down in the Old Testament for sacrifices in the Temple, the holocaust was a particular type of sacrifice in which the whole animal was burnt up. Other sacrifices involved portions of the animal left to provide for the priests and their families to eat, as their way of "making a living," but in a holocaust sacrifice the whole animal was consumed by the fire. I just wanted to be entirely clear on what I was referring to there.) Barbosa and Swan On either side of Jack and Norrington you have Barbosa and Governor Swan. I have already parenthetically gone over Barbosa above and will go over him more in post 2, but here I'll just say that one should notice what a consummate legalist he is in movie 1. Now, as for Swan and my accusations - I already noted his "trigger-happy" institutionalism. But I also think he suggests some of the dirtiest piracy of all in movie 1 (I should note here that, just as Barbosa seems reformable by the end of movie 2, I think Swan is ) In a way he may be largely innocent on the subjective level, he may be simply the product of bad upbringing etc, but on the objective level what he, I think, very subtly hints as possible is pretty bad. He says to Norrington, when Jack disappears over the wall at the end, that "if maybe even piracy can be the right choice sometimes." What I'm about to say is very tenuous (hey, I openly said I think it is subtle :) ) - but I think he is not so much actively suggesting that Norrington do this as he is subtly raising it, between the lines, as a possibility to consider - that Norrington perform an act of piracy on true love. Elizabeth obviously loves Will, BUT by the terms of agreement and all (ie, "legally") she did promise to marry Norrington in exchange for going to the Isla de Muerta ... he could hold her to that. But Norrington doesn't, he respects her wishes and her heart (and that's where I get my distinction between Norrington as actual concrete institution and Governor Swan as institutional mentality, with the former being in the better place, at least in the structure of the movie). The Damned: Jones and Becket Now, for "Dead Man's Chest - here we come to "the damned," the two who will be, I think, in the structure of the trilogy, completely beyond redemption: Davey Jones (on the mythic side) and Lord Cutler Becket (on the side of ruthless materialism ... "I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm"). Notice that Becket IS the East India Trading CO (as revealed in Governor Swan's "selling his soul" dialogue with Becket "your loyalty to the EIC" - "You mean to you." "You see Mercer, every man has his price he is willing to accept ... even for what he hoped never to sell"). Becket "wheels and deals" with Will, Elizabeth and then Governor Swan. Notice the whole tone of Davey Jones and his ship ... bargain gambling for years of service; bargaining with Jack over the number of souls and - and we know that he doesn't only offer only his 1 standard bargain (a simple postponing of death for 100 years of service) - he did some sort of deal with Jack for raising the Pearl from the depths and 13 years as her captain. Jones and Becket are the new pairing added in Dead Man's Chest, at the extremes of mythic evil and materialistic greed. I think that this will tie in with a theme of "globalization" in World's End, in some symbol of the global economy, or some perversion of it, as the backbone or maybe the goal of globalization (basically what Becket speaks of in terms of the "map" motif ... "The blank edges of the map are being filled in" versus Barbosa's Movie 1 line "you're off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be monsters!"- which at least had some idea of there being things in the world that are bigger than human mercantilism). Triangulation This is more of a sort of post-script. But I had it in on last nights post and it fits better here. I talked above about Jack and Norrington being on either side of Will in Movie 1 (with E. forming a single unit with Will in the middle - so basically 3 elements) - and in movie one they found some balance. But I think one of the progressions of the trilogy will be that that balance was tenuous, it needed some further foundation to be sure and stable (such as there may be in Jack facing said beastie-o-death on his feet) - and that may be why, where in movie one you had that temporary stabilization, in Movie two you have a three way sword fight. And with that I'll just end this post by saying two things about the 3 way swordfight. 1. I didn't think Verbinski was going to be able to improve on his "swashbuckling" choreography from movie 1, it was just too good. But then he went and did it - the three-way fight and the whole water-wheel thing quite simply rocked as a roller-coaster ride of choreography - most fun to watch in years. 2. A lot of times you have either "pure fun" (ie "amusing" as "anti-muse" or anti thought-provoking) OR a forced symbolism that gets in the way of fun. Verbinski managed, I think, to push even further in this movie, especially in the 3-way sword-fight, into the realm of something that is both, not either or. It is "entertainment" that also gives rise to "entertaining" thoughts and questions about what is going on with the symbolism. Sometimes in movies you get both together, but even then they usually only kind of more exist side by side (ie the symbolism simply doesn't inhibit the fun) - this is one of the few places, I think (and this is just my feeling - I would not be able to "prove" it right now) where you have both and have them so organically connected ... it just felt so "all of a piece" .