Master and Commander at 20

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

Wednesday, March 08, 2023

 

Upon the 20th anniversary of the film’s theatrical release, GQ magazine asks why Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is so beloved by a certain kind of “guy.”

 

Most of the article focuses on how men entering middle age are attracted to a film that is filled with men working together as friends and comrades at something daring, dangerous, and worthwhile. I think it runs deeper than that.

 

Master and Commander, an adaptation from Patrick O’Brian’s seafaring novels, was directed by Peter Weir at the zenith of his powers. It stars Russell Crowe as the magnetic, stalwart Jack Aubrey, captain of the HMS Surprise. Paul Bettany plays Stephen Maturin, the ship’s physician and part-time naturalist. They are matched up like two sides of the 19th century. Crowe’s character is defined by his great passions and his adherence to tradition, Bettany’s by his brainy skepticism. The scenes of the two of them consoling or debating each other zing, and that spirit is reflected in similar scenes where they play duets — Maturin sonorous on the cello and Aubrey sprightly on violin. It’s no ordinary film that can inspire the New York Times‘ critic A. O. Scott to write:

 

The Napoleonic wars that followed the French Revolution gave birth, among other things, to British conservatism, and ”Master and Commander,” making no concessions to modern, egalitarian sensibilities, is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made. It imagines the Surprise as a coherent society in which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty and his place. I would not have been surprised to see Edmund Burke’s name in the credits.

 

Indeed. One of the great subplots of the film involves Aubrey trying to help a junior officer earn the respect of the men below him. The film takes the view of the ship’s own seamen that God’s blessings and good luck follow those who zestfully fulfill the roles Providence has bestowed on them. The world of Master and Commander is one where everyone has a purpose and a place in a great enterprise. The ship is an emblem of the whole world, and a mission coterminous with salvation. We perish alone but survive as a hearty crew. The medals and rank advancements we win as individuals make sense only as duties performed and responsibilities taken on for others.