Anthony Quinn and The Sea

Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is one of the finest books I’ve read recently, so to enhance my experience I decided to check out a movie version. The version I found was a made for TV production from 1990, starring Anthony Quinn. For purposes of disambiguation there is a 1958 feature film starring Spencer Tracy.

The original novella is much famed and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1953. It’s much read on high school curriculums today. The story is one of inspiration, perseverance and faith as an old man, down on his luck finds himself far from shore, alone, battling with the largest catch of his life, an 18-foot marlin. It’s a book that’s beautifully descriptive and replete with symbolism.

In the movie Anthony Quinn plays the old fisherman. It follows the same premise as he returns home after his 84th day without a catch. In the local bar he is greeted with a mix of ridicule and reverence. The ever faithful young Manolo remains by his side, bringing him beer, food and enjoying his tales of the great DiMaggio and school on fishing.

The story proceeds to the next day and Santiago’s 3 day ordeal at sea. True to the book, Anthony Quinn portrays the old man’s thoughts by talking to himself. Quinn is an entirely convincing Santiago. Apparently he asked for this role as a 75th birthday gift. I’d expected the old man to be a little more frail, but then I had to remember the flashbacks to his days as an arm wrestling powerhouse and how he still manages to row his boat alone and carry the mast back to his shack. For me he completely epitomizes the character, in structure and in weathered age. He’s impressive in his monologues at sea, and my only complaint would be that he doesn’t spend enough time on screen.

That last complaint actually becomes a major one. The story in the book revolves entirely around the old man. In the movie we get a couple of other stories going on. Vacationing in the fishing resort is an American reporter. At first I thought this was a nice little touch, because even though named differently, this had to be a reference to Hemingway. It also serves to add a little commentary into the old man’s philosophy and his struggles. However the movie does become a little over involved with the American and his wife as it appears that they’re going through marital problems, and distracts somewhat from what should be the heart of the tale, the old man’s struggle at sea.

We also get to meet Santiago’s daughter, who is insisting that he stops living by himself and joins her and his grandchildren in Havana. She epitomizes the overall belief that faith will not carry him much further and that he is simply too old. The character serves a purpose, but I’d have preferred it if they’d stuck closer to the novel.

They also forgot about his dreams of the lions on the beach. Instead he dreams of himself as a young man, fishing with his father, marrying his wife. The book told us that Santiago no longer dreamed of such things. By far my biggest complaint has to be the ending. Without spoiling things, I’ll just say that instead of going for the quiet lonely ending, they decided to dramatize it a little.

The movie isn’t a complete failure. It serves as a nice little visualization to the novel. We get some great footage of the marlin as it jumps out from the water several times, and also of the ensuing sharks. It’s stock footage but it’s pretty seamless. The location of the fishing village is also a beautiful picture. If you’ve read the book, this might make a nice little refresher.

But what it essentially lacks are many of the fine details. I wish that they’d tried to focus more on the old man and the sea. Maybe it would have been tough to stretch that to a feature length movie, but when I imagined Anthony Quinn as the old man I was looking forward to long moments of personal reflection and acting through suggestion and expression. Obviously the director decided to go a different route.

I’ll have to check out the Spencer Tracey version to give you a final verdict, but otherwise I’d just say watch this as an accompaniment to the book, not to recapture its emotion.