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quigonejinnYes, this LJ could basically be called, "WM BUSH IS TEH KEWLIEZIST."
- The opening stuff of Bush is characterization: can't get interior dialogue in the movie, so get characterization by footage. They move the introduction of Bush back -- first shot isn't of Horatio standing on deck -- instead, stuff of Bush in the boat, going out to the ship. Everything in order, the crew working quietly and steadily, Bush not saying a word and alone.
Notice, too, how they lay the groundwork for him being obervant -- he's looking everywhere, and nt in a kind of crazy, thrashing about OMFG! AH'M GOING TO SEA! kinda way, but steadily, neatly. He looks in one direction for a while, studies and figures out what he needs to know about that direction, then moves to looking in another direction.
I love the emotional moment, though, of the Renown appearing out from behind another ship. It's one of the few scenes shot near Bush eye-level and from the POV that he'd get, so I can only assume that the little rush where we get to see the ship that he'll be working on is supposed to be the rush that he gets, too, with the wee little swell of the music. Awww. <3 Lookit him checking out his new girl, and how he only has eyes for her now that they're drawing up close. <3 It's the best kind of arranged marriage. <3
- Presence of caution: clearly, this dude know his way up an entry-port, but he's still going up with two hands, still looks at the rope in front of his hand. Takes a good look down to make sure he doesn't stumble over the side. Oh, Bushling.
-Who does Bush lift his hat to? Just a ritual for officer first time he comes aboard ship? Answered!
- Big difference: Hornblower has his back turned to Bush, so shot of Bush, studying Hornblower for a second before saying, "Morning." Paul McGann's voice. *_* *_* *_*
- So far, nothing all that remarkable -- a bit more of cautious, ship-loving Bush than we get in the original intro, and we get a stronger sense of his reserve since we only see hte outside, but it's pretty much by-the-books. Nothing to be seriously interesting yet.
- Where it gets interesting: No tackle in the books, and Bush is much frostier in the beginning in the movie than in the book. Partially, maybe tackle -- he's put effort into a dignified arrival, dammit -- and this is highly irregular, but there is that little twitch of a smile (OMG) when he's laid out on deck.
- Note: he takes Hornblower's hand before he reaches for his hat. Desn't put any weight onto it, just presses it there, then leans back with his hand to get his hat and get the business of standing up started -- we don't actually see Bush putting weight on Hornblower's hand. That shot, it's all about the greeting and the contact of horny hands on beautiful fingers.
Hi, Flying Colors Bush. ^_^
- Hornblower wants to help dust him off. Bush won't let him. That hand fending him off. "Nothing damaged but my priiiiide." That little geture says volumes about this Bush -- the Bush and Hornblwoer in this start off much more distant with each other, something that isn't much helped by Bush doing his little suckup bit, and Horry looking a step or two short of murderous.
- By the way. I'm going to take those dusty smudges that we suddenly see appear on Bush' shoulder as he comes through the entry port to them having to shoot the tackling scene multiple times, as I don't think they're there in the bit where Bush is going out in the boat, and I can't imagine that Bush would let himself meet his new ship that way. Look how much time the script directs him to spend brushing himelf off. Whenever he has a chance, it' with the dusting off and the <3 <3 <3.
- But the thing, really: Hornblower baaaaaaaawling out Hobbs, partially becaues of the irresponsibility of Hobbs, and then! Then! Best part of all! Bush being like. "Well, maybe if they were better supervised." T__________________T The fact that he waits so long to make a comment makes it seem like he's saying that in response to Hornblower's handling of the accident, and not the fact that the accident happens itself.
This really, really, really wouldn't be the case with book!Bush, who "feels like everybody is better" after a good verbal thrashing and has no objection to Hornblower yelling at totally innocent people on pretexts. And I know that in the books, yes, he thinks that Hornblower is a firebrand in that initial scene, but there isn't particular opprobrium attached to it -- it's just like, "Ah, I'll be working with atotal hottie guy with a temper!" The wariness only comes when he sees how Hornblower is playacting.
- And then the (mild, really, when you consider how honestly excited most people would be to work with Sawyer) sucking up. The bit TOTALLY different from the way that Bush gets introduced in the books -- Sawyer semi-chewing Bush out, Bush very consciously not saying as much as he wants to, the stuff about being brought up in a hard school. And of course, Hornblower's total >:/ to the sucking up when he's actually kind of trying to help Bush in the book.
And of course, the little conflict with Kennedy, who so isn't jealuz of Hornblower speaking to other men. The HH/WB porn is pretty much gone -- no companionable twinkling/soul-deep staring into each other' eye, no companionable little chat, no bit where Hornblower helps Bush/gives Bush a bit of a wise-up about the ship, etc.
In summary: movie Bush is much less likeable off the bat than book Bush. He's a good bit more distant, more formal. Substantively, they're still the same person in a way that the Hornblowers aren't -- movie!Hornblower is NOT book!Hornblower -- but there're a major difference between the Bush that we see at the start of LtH and the one we see in Mutiny. Our immediate impressions of bookBush are that he's obervant, tough, and practical; our immediate impressions of movieBush are that he's observant, careful of his dignity, and since we're coming into this in the mindset of HH and AK, something of a suckup.
ETA: FUCKING LIVEJOURNAL. STOP FUCKING WITH THE STYLESHEETS AND SHOW MY LJ PROPERLY.
- The opening stuff of Bush is characterization: can't get interior dialogue in the movie, so get characterization by footage. They move the introduction of Bush back -- first shot isn't of Horatio standing on deck -- instead, stuff of Bush in the boat, going out to the ship. Everything in order, the crew working quietly and steadily, Bush not saying a word and alone.
Notice, too, how they lay the groundwork for him being obervant -- he's looking everywhere, and nt in a kind of crazy, thrashing about OMFG! AH'M GOING TO SEA! kinda way, but steadily, neatly. He looks in one direction for a while, studies and figures out what he needs to know about that direction, then moves to looking in another direction.
I love the emotional moment, though, of the Renown appearing out from behind another ship. It's one of the few scenes shot near Bush eye-level and from the POV that he'd get, so I can only assume that the little rush where we get to see the ship that he'll be working on is supposed to be the rush that he gets, too, with the wee little swell of the music. Awww. <3 Lookit him checking out his new girl, and how he only has eyes for her now that they're drawing up close. <3 It's the best kind of arranged marriage. <3
- Presence of caution: clearly, this dude know his way up an entry-port, but he's still going up with two hands, still looks at the rope in front of his hand. Takes a good look down to make sure he doesn't stumble over the side. Oh, Bushling.
-
- Big difference: Hornblower has his back turned to Bush, so shot of Bush, studying Hornblower for a second before saying, "Morning." Paul McGann's voice. *_* *_* *_*
- So far, nothing all that remarkable -- a bit more of cautious, ship-loving Bush than we get in the original intro, and we get a stronger sense of his reserve since we only see hte outside, but it's pretty much by-the-books. Nothing to be seriously interesting yet.
- Where it gets interesting: No tackle in the books, and Bush is much frostier in the beginning in the movie than in the book. Partially, maybe tackle -- he's put effort into a dignified arrival, dammit -- and this is highly irregular, but there is that little twitch of a smile (OMG) when he's laid out on deck.
- Note: he takes Hornblower's hand before he reaches for his hat. Desn't put any weight onto it, just presses it there, then leans back with his hand to get his hat and get the business of standing up started -- we don't actually see Bush putting weight on Hornblower's hand. That shot, it's all about the greeting and the contact of horny hands on beautiful fingers.
Hi, Flying Colors Bush. ^_^
- Hornblower wants to help dust him off. Bush won't let him. That hand fending him off. "Nothing damaged but my priiiiide." That little geture says volumes about this Bush -- the Bush and Hornblwoer in this start off much more distant with each other, something that isn't much helped by Bush doing his little suckup bit, and Horry looking a step or two short of murderous.
- By the way. I'm going to take those dusty smudges that we suddenly see appear on Bush' shoulder as he comes through the entry port to them having to shoot the tackling scene multiple times, as I don't think they're there in the bit where Bush is going out in the boat, and I can't imagine that Bush would let himself meet his new ship that way. Look how much time the script directs him to spend brushing himelf off. Whenever he has a chance, it' with the dusting off and the <3 <3 <3.
- But the thing, really: Hornblower baaaaaaaawling out Hobbs, partially becaues of the irresponsibility of Hobbs, and then! Then! Best part of all! Bush being like. "Well, maybe if they were better supervised." T__________________T The fact that he waits so long to make a comment makes it seem like he's saying that in response to Hornblower's handling of the accident, and not the fact that the accident happens itself.
This really, really, really wouldn't be the case with book!Bush, who "feels like everybody is better" after a good verbal thrashing and has no objection to Hornblower yelling at totally innocent people on pretexts. And I know that in the books, yes, he thinks that Hornblower is a firebrand in that initial scene, but there isn't particular opprobrium attached to it -- it's just like, "Ah, I'll be working with a
- And then the (mild, really, when you consider how honestly excited most people would be to work with Sawyer) sucking up. The bit TOTALLY different from the way that Bush gets introduced in the books -- Sawyer semi-chewing Bush out, Bush very consciously not saying as much as he wants to, the stuff about being brought up in a hard school. And of course, Hornblower's total >:/ to the sucking up when he's actually kind of trying to help Bush in the book.
And of course, the little conflict with Kennedy, who so isn't jealuz of Hornblower speaking to other men. The HH/WB porn is pretty much gone -- no companionable twinkling/soul-deep staring into each other' eye, no companionable little chat, no bit where Hornblower helps Bush/gives Bush a bit of a wise-up about the ship, etc.
In summary: movie Bush is much less likeable off the bat than book Bush. He's a good bit more distant, more formal. Substantively, they're still the same person in a way that the Hornblowers aren't -- movie!Hornblower is NOT book!Hornblower -- but there're a major difference between the Bush that we see at the start of LtH and the one we see in Mutiny. Our immediate impressions of bookBush are that he's obervant, tough, and practical; our immediate impressions of movieBush are that he's observant, careful of his dignity, and since we're coming into this in the mindset of HH and AK, something of a suckup.
ETA: FUCKING LIVEJOURNAL. STOP FUCKING WITH THE STYLESHEETS AND SHOW MY LJ PROPERLY.
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Re: don't touch my uniform I hardly know you = we must get acquainted before i bend you over
Date: 2006-02-15 06:01 am (UTC)Dammit, also, just becaue I'm brooding about Caudebec tonight -- I wonder whether any of Bush's sisters ever married or had a child, a la Gerard's sisters. I mean, man, the notion of one of them writing to Admiral Hornblower and asking him to remember the son of his old, dead friend's sister is *_________*
Re: don't touch my uniform I hardly know you = we must get acquainted before i bend you over
Date: 2006-02-15 06:22 am (UTC)Re: don't touch my uniform I hardly know you = we must get acquainted before i bend you over
Date: 2006-02-15 06:26 am (UTC)OMG ICON!!!
Date: 2006-02-15 04:12 pm (UTC)Stone, Lawrence, 1977. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper and Row.
Trumbach, Randolph, 1978. The Rise of the Egalitarian Family: Aristocratic Kinship and Domestic Relations in Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Academic Press.
Ray Porter. 1990. English Society in the 18th Century.
The Porter? DYNAMITE. So very very readable. Entertaining even. *G* You can get an excerpt of it on Amazon HERE.
Just by reading the excerpt I think you'll recognize Mr. Bush. *G* And going through the Porter book especially, I think you will see the different lens that Hornblower is looking through when he looks at Bush. That whole bit in Commodore with Bush yelling for the rope to have a hanging and HH being all squicked out? Bush is SO John Bull at that point. So typically 18th century English. But modern readers ain't gonna get that unless they've done a lot of reading of English cultural history. It just comes off as Bush looking like a bloodthirsty asshole, when in fact HH is the one outside the cultural norm of his country and time. Which has an interesting benefit as a point of view (once you sift through the crazy).
*rambly*
Date: 2006-02-15 04:40 pm (UTC)Hornblower comes off as kind of as an oddball in his own time,s yeah. Were you the one who was talking baout how Hornblower is totally a modern man sent back in time? Because he really is. I don't claim to know very much about the culture of that time, but there are pints in the books where HH is explicitly thinking about how he wishes he could be all tough and with-the-times like Bush.
Something else class-related that struck me jut now about Bush and Hornblower: they have very different, most likely class-related attitudes toward food. Hornblower is such a picky bitch -- he doesn't like heavy meals, he wants tea and not beer at breakfast, he likes coffee and fresh fruit. The one other bit in the book where we really see another character's food preferences is with Lady Barbara and her craving for fresh milk and vegetables, and so yeah.
HH shows all the signs of someone who's used to having choices about what he eats; he eventually learns to have classy tastes like port-and-cheese, whereas Bush always just seems happy to get whatever he can. Good food is cause for celebration -- COW TONGUE! FRESH BEEF! :D :D :D -- while bad food is just another discomfort to be endured.
And yeah. Icon. Nothing is ever going to persuade me that Hornblower didn't buy Smallbridge so that he could drive out and see the boyfriend. NOTHING. The thirty mile distance mentioned in the extra chapter of Commodore was so totally Forester being like, "Fine, bitches. You want me to write a happy ending? You want me something that's more commercially friendly? I'LL DO IT SINCE YOU'RE THE ONE CUTTING CHECK, BUT I'LL ALSO THROW IN THIS MAJOR HINT TO THE FACT THAT HORNBLOWER NOT NLY FUCKED AROUND ON HIS WIFE WITH OTHER WOMEN, BUT ALSO HIS VERY MALE BEST FRIEND. :D :D :D"
OMG it's another diatribe *tells self to STFU*
Date: 2006-02-15 06:10 pm (UTC)French dogs! Of course. *g* And tons of blasphemy. XD
I don't know if I was the one talking about HH as a modern figure, but it's a tight fit. HH comes off as if he was raised like a veal in so many spots. As if the culture of the world he lives in is a big whopping surprise. There's also this whiff of the Englightenment about him but how far that goes I haven't really paid enough attention to, or if I'm just making all that up, which is a huge possibility. XD
And there is some sort of nexus that I've never been able to articulate properly about the English pov towards the French and the fledgling USA that makes no sense for the classes of folk like Bush who have had a hard road in life because of the way English soceity is structured. You would THINK (flaws and excesses and failures of the systems aside) that you would see more sympathy for the basic Republican ideologies of the French Revolution. Maybe it's because the English got their asses spanked by the colonials in league with the French, or maybe something else entirely to do with the national cultural consciousness and the sort of particular type of English xenophobia coupled with the self-love that Porter points out so well.
And there is definitely some sort of different class thing going on with the food. That is a fact. And I think it's in LtH that CSF points out that Bush is a fast eater -- like a dog that wolfs down the food because you have to get it when you can.
Re: OMG it's another diatribe *tells self to STFU*
Date: 2006-02-15 07:04 pm (UTC)the food stuff is so much fun. there's a lot of material out there, archaeologically, about the differences of upper and lower class foodways. historically, it's mostly upper class discussion. and after having tried to put together a decent bibliography on the subject for my dissertation, i find the historic materials to be very disappointing. a lot of them are, um, silly. while i was specifically looking for american stuff, i did expand to the atlantic world a bit. i might be able to pull up some things, or at least suggest where to go. for certain, i have a couple articles and know of some decent books on food and naval ships. i've also got some interesting stuff on coffee and coffeehouses.
bush/hornblower eating habits are v. interesting, but i keep trying to tell myself that forester wrote it and may not have been that well read in early 19th century eating habits so i shouldn't go all anthropological on its ass. however, it's still massive fun!
The whole world is one big dogpack to me
Date: 2006-02-15 07:11 pm (UTC)Re: OMG it's another diatribe *tells self to STFU*
Date: 2006-02-15 11:28 pm (UTC)I'm such a moron for not noticing this before. *FACEPALMS*
And yes, there's a definite whiff of the Enlightenment around Hornblower with his love of mathematics and rationality and tendency to value institutions insofar as they're useful to him/humanity. He also has that Enlightenment urge to conquer the world by knoweldge -- like, that thing where he likes prepping for the geographic area that he's going to be in?
He's also got that crazy Romantic love of the sea and freedom, though ahaha. :D I know there's a book where he totally talks smack about Byron.
Re: OMG it's another diatribe *tells self to STFU*
Date: 2006-02-16 01:19 am (UTC)England at war in the 2nd half of the 18th century:
1756-63
1775-83
1792-1815 (with that little blurb of Amiens in the middle)
Bush gets his commission as Lt. in 1796. So he had to enter the navy, according to the passage, somewhere between 1783 and 1792.
*counts on fingers and toes*
The ever popular FC, of course
Date: 2006-02-16 04:53 am (UTC)End of ch. 17 in FC (the source of all that is right and good):
Hornblower remembered the prediction that the war would end in 1814 -- promotion would be slower in peace time. And Bush was ten years older than he, and only just beginning the climb.
Re: The ever popular FC, of course
Date: 2006-02-16 05:10 am (UTC)I know I've done this calculation before, but in Lt, which happens in '00, Bush has been in for ten years. So he came in as a middie in '90, and gets his commission after the minimum six years. That makes sense.
However, if we take the ten year difference, that means Bush was twenty-four when he entered the Navy, which makes no goddamn sense. Particularly -- though I guess this is seriously nitpicky -- if we take it that he got his commission while he was on the Superb becaue the third Superb was wrecked in 1783 and the fourth didn't launch until 1798.
Randomly. Bush dies in 1814, right? Ten years older than Hornblower at that point, which means that he died at the age of FORTY-EIGHT. How many forty-eight year olds in the year 1814, iron constitutions or not, who have lived their entire adult lives on ships with shit nutrition and minimal health care and now have peg fucking legs have the vitality to lead a night-time raid on an enemy magazine?
Re: The ever popular FC, of course
Date: 2006-02-16 05:40 am (UTC)And Bush going into the Navy at 24 as a midshipman? *shakes head in denial* That doesn't qualify as 'in his earliest youth'. And in LtH CSF tries to realign his age more closely with HH, so even if you clip off say, 8 years, and have him being born in 1774, that still made him 16 when he entered as a midshipman, which isn't 'earliest youth' either.
And some of this I just have to chalk up to suspension of disbelief because the chances of a peg legged captain in command of a 74 in wartime is not the most historically viable scenario. *g*
Re: The ever popular FC, of course
Date: 2006-02-16 05:59 am (UTC)HEY! HEY! ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE THROUGH LOVE. OR SOMETHING.
But yeah. You're right. I don't think that there's any way that we can square the ten year age difference with the stuff we get in LtH, and the Superb doesn't work -- even if we take the ten year difference, that would mean that at the very latest, even with a geography change, Bush was a lieutenant against rules at 17. *____*
For my personal CSF love, I think I'm going to pretend that he picked the Superb despite the chronology problem because he wanted to tell us a little story about Bush through the ships he served on sans-Hornblower. I mean, you can read it as kind of an underhanded, symbolic way of telling us that Bush is a hell of a guy independent of Hornblower -- Hornblower is so hard on Bush, and yet the names of the ships that Bush served on independent of Hornblower mean "excellence," "rash bravery" where the rash bravery leads to famous, brilliant feats, and "unparalleled, incomparable, or unrivalled."
Man. I wonder what prize ship Bush had command of at Trafalgar. *________*
Re: The ever popular FC, of course
Date: 2006-02-16 06:01 am (UTC)Re: don't touch my uniform I hardly know you = we must get acquainted before i bend you over
Date: 2006-02-15 04:14 pm (UTC)*fangirls
Re: don't touch my uniform I hardly know you = we must get acquainted before i bend you over
Date: 2006-02-15 04:29 pm (UTC)Or maybe it's just the notion of a whole family tree full of solid, stolid of Bush makes me giggle. :D I can only imagine how noiy family gatherings were.