Just Re-watched "All Is Lost"

[gmakhs]

A single handed sailors sleep whenever he can and mostly the nights , because at night you get better view of ships around you (because of the lights ) so you know you are safe and most importantly because at night you can't spot object at seas but during the day you can .

[cyan]

Originally Posted by lestersails

"All is Lost" is the same movie as was ""Leaving Las Vegas". LLV being more literal and AIL more metaphorical. AIL was just using sailing to talk about how hard life can be and how, in the end, we are all doomed. Not a fun topic, but perhaps a worthy one.

Yeah, no.
That is way too much of a stretch, IMO. We can imagine that Redford's struggles are metaphors for life's struggles. OR- we can imagine his struggles are metaphors for warring nations, for the four seasons... pick your angle and enjoy. Cool with me. If you saw it as the same movie as Leaving Las Vegas just less literal, then you were using a lot of imagination- more than I was.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by gmakhs

A single handed sailors sleep whenever he can and mostly the nights , because at night you get better view of ships around you (because of the lights ) so you know you are safe and most importantly because at night you can't spot object at seas but during the day you can .

While that may be true for most single handers, I sleep during the day for these reasons:

1) my vessel is more likely to be seen during the day and less likely to be in a collision
2 the watchkeeprs on other vessels tend to be at their worst at night (or are sleeping)
3) the at-sea winds and weather tend to be most stable before early afternoon, and so morning and early afternoon are the best times to sleep
4) I often can't see approaching gusts and squalls at night, so I need to be awake, alert, and on deck to deal with them as soon as they arrive (when I am sleeping, I take the end of the mainsheet down below so I can give it a tug and let out the main)
5) Most importantly -- if something bad happens it's worse if I am awoken to deal with it in the dark. Most bad stuff seems to happen at night only because the sailor is at the end of his/her awake cycle, or sleep was interrupted. I'm just plain stupid when I am awoken in the middle of a sleep cycle. I don't need darkness to add to my clumsiness.

When the sun comes up, I take in a reef and go to bed.

I worked the night shift for decades, and my adaption to being awake at night may also be a factor.

[carlosproa]

That was my beloved 1979 CAL39 MKII, he used 3 boats to film the movie, 2 were built in the same sequence as mine
I sold mine,and Irma came and sunk it for the new owner. Oh well

[aqua de vida]

[QUOTE=WingRyder;2739148

'I think that Redford's character is a man who is solo sailing, not for the adventure, but to escape his miserable life. "All is lost." He had given up on life, long before the trouble even begins. His boat is somewhat neglected, and he is slow to respond to situations, because he is in denial and doesn't want to deal with it. This is apparent when the big storm is coming and he starts drinking and shaving, instead of making storm preps.'



......ever heard of someone with depression starving to death while there's a fridge full of food in the kitchen?....or freezing to death while only a few steps from a warm refuge! I sure haven't!.... Why is that?..... because basic survival kicks in almost without consent or intent....sure, they'll eat the ice cream and skip the broccoli!....but hunger outranks being unable to get a date on Saturday night or not being able to fit into your favourite pants anymore!.....

Why is this important?.....because ANYONE who has ever solo'd will know, that you are very much in survival mode, when land disappeared behind you!....when you're there by yourself a very large part of your conscious thought is about staying alive!

Sure, put old mate Redford in a caravan and you could almost reach plausible!....if you really want to push the envelope, put him in a marina!....but as soon as those lines are let go it becomes bad scriptwriting from some twat that wouldn't know which end of the boat was the pointy end!!!!!

[lituya1617]

I have spent months at sea in small sailing boats far from the land. For the folks who have not actually spent much time on the deep ocean, let me comment on the movie, "All Is Lost." It is rare indeed to be totally becalmed on a perfectly motionless sea surface. The "becalmed" sailboat will be actually moving, even if so slowly the wake is hardly visible. The sea surface may look pretty flat, but there is usually a rise and fall of a foot or more even when it looks flat. The deep ocean is characterized by swells that come from thousands of miles away, so there is almost always a source of motion. Also, surface air is almost never completely motionless, although I have seen days when smoke rises straight up as far as you can see. Those are rare days on the sea. Very rare. So, you have a 50,000 pound boat moving forward at perhaps 1/2 a knot and slowly dipping its bow up and down a couple inches per second. A waterlogged shipping container is somewhat like a deadhead in that it may bob up and down at a pretty high rate of speed if the waves happen to be at the right frequency to harmonically reinforce the up and down motion. If you hit the steel corner of a shipping container moving vertically because of the energy of the waves but barely afloat and weighing over 200,000 pounds because it is full of water, you are going to punch a big hole in the hull if the impact is in the wrong spot! Never underestimate the force of even slow motions in heavy objects. Impact is directly proportional to mass and velocity. A large mass need not have a large velocity to deliver many foot-pounds of impact. I have seen 10-foot diameter deadheads rise out of the sea like breaching whales to heights of over 15 feet. Such objects can and have punched holes in boats and sunk them - it is due to the mass of the water-logged tree or the water-filled steel container. When boating, if you cannot see where you are going (or you are not looking) you place yourself at risk even when risk is difficult to believe. If you need to sleep, toss the sea anchor over even when it is calm. Don't sail at night. Always keep a sharp eye ahead. There are dangerous things floating around out there folks. That part of the movie was not unrealistic. On the other hand, it is bad scripting to have an element of a movie that brings people back from suspending disbelief and causes them to question the plausibility of what they are seeing.

[carlosproa]

It is only a movie...escape from reality, of course nothing is close to what happens

[Suijin]

Originally Posted by gmakhs

A single handed sailors sleep whenever he can and mostly the nights , because at night you get better view of ships around you (because of the lights ) so you know you are safe and most importantly because at night you can't spot object at seas but during the day you can .

Nonsense. It’s much more difficult to assess what another vessel is doing at night. You basically have to take multiple bearings if the lights are not clear and monitor the situation until it’s resolved what to do, if anything. During the day one glance through your binoculars is usually all it takes.

And no one stands there staring at the water in front of the boat all day long during daylight, looking for completely submerged containers or whales. If you hit something, you hit something.

[ShellBack89]

Originally Posted by redbeard1

FYI, there is a strong case to be made that he died at the end. When I finished watching the movie, I said "Too bad he died". My gf said, "What do you mean, he was rescued."

*** This was from an interview ***


If you’ve just seen J.C. Chandor’s stunning new movie All Is Lost, chances are you came away with one of two reactions: “Thank God he made it!” or “It was so sad when he died.” At a Q&A with Chandor and star Robert Redford at the Telluride Film Festival in August, the moderator asked the audience, “How many people think he makes it?” The audience’s show of hands revealed “about a 50-50 split.”

Both the star and the writer-director are happy that audiences are having both interpretations. Chandor even described sitting outside of a screening and hearing an audience member start to say something about “When he dies…” only to have the moviegoer’s friend say, “What the heck are you talking about?”

If you’re a pessimist, or perhaps just a realist, you might think that the main character’s final vision—of the flashlight shining down on him, and a hand reaching down into the water—is just a dying delusion, too good to be true. If you’re an optimist, you might take it all at face value: Redford’s character is literally saved. Or, if you’re religious, you might have a third interpretation: It’s not his dying delusion, but a true vision—he’s being pulled into the afterlife. In this reading, the unusual fade to white might represent something like an ascent to heaven.


*** My thoughts - I find it interesting the 50/50 split. I'm not an optimist but apparently in this case I am since I thought he was rescued. ***

[Thom Hounsell]

I think you're bang on. I remember all the criticism sailors had for this movie and I always found it surprising. I don't know why people assume such a deeply flawed character should behave according to RYA standards. Clearly, he's not supposed to represent the best of us, or the best of anyone.

[Aaarrgh]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

I haven't wasted my time watching this trainwreck, but I do have a question for you.
What was powering this container which "hit" him?

Just askin'...


Oh, and do a search on CF. It's been discussed ad nauseum which is why I never watched it.

Not in quoted post, but LMAO@GRATE!!!!

MAKE America AMERICA AGAIN !!!

Aarrrgh!

[carlosproa]

Not sure what happens to my answer

The movie destroyed 3 California based 1979 CAL39 MKII . I heard they paid top dollar for them. Mine was the sistership of the 3 of them here in Miami,one was a 1978 MKII.
I sold mine 2 months prior to Irma, and the meathead who bought it never listen to my advice on how to prep it for the hurricane, so it sank

Sailing movies are fantasy. Nothing technically makes sense. I guess you should overlook that and concentrate in the story at hand. Not a good one as far as I am concerned. But hey, to each it’s own

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by carlosproa

Not sure what happens to my answer

The movie destroyed 3 California based 1979 CAL39 MKII . I heard they paid top dollar for them. Mine was the sistership of the 3 of them here in Miami,one was a 1978 MKII.
I sold mine 2 months prior to Irma, and the meathead who bought it never listen to my advice on how to prep it for the hurricane, so it sank

Sailing movies are fantasy. Nothing technically makes sense. I guess you should overlook that and concentrate in the story at hand. Not a good one as far as I am concerned. But hey, to each it’s own

the only thing he did right in the movie was hooking the sea anchor to the container to get it away from him so he could effect repairs.

[a64pilot]

Well just to further the thread drift, I think you could easily land a Spit on wet hard sand, Although the glide was ridiculously long. All airplanes of that day were flown from dirt / grass strips, one reason most were tail draggers, and had relatively large low pressure tires. Ever seen the tires on a Lancaster? They were huge, looked like they should be on an earth mover.

Before Jaws as a kid we used to often jump in in deep water out of sight of land and go swimming when fishing and it got hot.
To this day I still can’t do that, gives me the willies thinking something is coming from out of my sight.

[dfelsent]

I haven’t seen the movie. I have a hard time with films that are other than imaginary unrealistic escapes. Too intense. Too real. I live with the hard stuff in life enough.
But... When I was in High School(15-18 yr old) I lived in the same town as Robert Redford and Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
They were known about town as regular people and boaters and sailors.
I suspect that any part of the film that is disconnected from sailing reality was done with artistic intent, not with ignorance.
I only saw them at a distance but had teen friends who met them in person. All good stories.

So I would cut the accuracy a lot of slack and assume that the story telling took precedence.