Sea stories blowing through

By Roger Moore
Orlando Sentinel

Russell Crowe is Capt. Jack Aubrey in "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World." Patrick O'Brian's books follow a Royal Navy captain and his doctor friend. 20th Century Fox

A chantey rises up from below decks.

"Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men."

And on the quarterdeck, pacing, scowling, his club-tailed hair in the wind, is the captain, commander, king and god of all he surveys.

He could be Australian hunk Russell Crowe or British wunderboy Ioan Gruffud. The character could be real-life legend Capt. James Cook or Lt. William Bligh, or fictional hero Horatio Hornblower or "Lucky" Jack Aubrey.

This fall, the fleet is in. Specifically the Royal Navy, Napoleonic Wars edition.

"Pirates of the Caribbean" was just the appetizer. From now through the end of the year, the golden age of sail lives again, on big screen and small and on the new-release table at your neighborhood bookseller.

In an uncertain time, the romance of the sea and the heroism of those who sailed it will be celebrated over and over again.

"Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men;

We always are ready, steady, boys, steady!

We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again."

Patrick O'Brian's 20 "Master and Commander" books, about a Royal Navy captain and his friend — a doctor and amateur naturalist who dabbles in spying — are coming to the big screen. C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower returns to TV. And new books and reissues of books about the mutiny on the Bounty, the life of James Cook and the search for pirates promise to take us back to the days when men were men, ships were wood and you explored and fought where the wind took you.

"Sea tales have a power that is literally mythical," says Caroline Alexander, an author who set the stage for the great sail revival with her book on Sir Ernest Shackleton, "The Endurance," in 1998. Her new book is even saltier — "The Bounty" is a fresh take on Bligh and Fletcher Christian and the infamous mutiny aboard the ship of that name.

"From 'The Odyssey' onward, harsh sea voyages have a romance to them that is inescapable," Alexander says. "If the HMS Bounty mutiny was simply about an outlaw trekking across the mountains to escape, nobody would care. But it's a sea tale, with an island paradise and a mystery."

Uncharted worlds

The cusp of the 19th century, where this confluence of fact and fiction takes place, draws writers, filmmakers and consumers of culture and history to it like few other eras.

The ancient art of sailing reached a zenith during the Napoleonic Wars. But the warships weren't just for combat. The culmination of generations of almost uninterrupted war between Britain and France and their allies was also a glorious time of discovery. Hawai'i and Tahiti were uncharted worlds for the Europeans, explored by Capt. Cook and others, including the Bounty's William Bligh, who accompanied Cook on the explorer's final, fatal trip to Hawai'i.

First came the real sailors, most famously Lord Thomas Cochrane, a daring captain and adventurer. His exploits would first inspire Forester's Horatio Hornblower in the 1940s and '50s, and later O'Brian's novels. O'Brian's heroes now come to life in a new Russell Crowe movie. And Hornblower's adventures have been an annual miniseries fixture on the A&E network since 1998.

"When I think about how many movies and miniseries we've done, from the Jane Austen adaptations to 'Hornblower' — it's been just glorious for us," says Delia Fine, executive producer of A&E's Horatio Hornblower miniseries, which resumes this December. "Audiences can't get enough of it."

The early 1800s, the end of the Age of Reason, was one of the most tumultuous and colorful eras in history. Women were just beginning to emerge from the shadows of Western society. Science was finally winning out over religious superstition.

And the world was at war.

"Empires were gained and lost," Fine says. "The world was truly shifting and changing in tremendous ways, with warfare and trade and scientific breakthroughs, and that makes it an incredibly interesting period, dramatically."

Gordon Laco is a Canadian writer and tall-ships expert who was historical consultant on "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," which comes to a very large screen near you

Nov. 14.

Johnny Depp stars in "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl." Walt Disney Pictures

"The men who were fighting on the HMS Surprise would have been the sons of men who were the sons of men who were the sons of men who knew only a world at war," Laco says.

Combat between the French and British empires "had been going on that long," Laco says. The rise of Napoleon at the end of the 1700s let the French all but conquer the continent. But not the sea. Britannia ruled the waves.

Some sailors were enlistees, some were "pressed men," arrested on land or even at sea and forced to serve, something that led to the War of 1812. But most were men of duty defending their country.

"We need, in these uncertain times, to look to people who had certainty in their lives," Fine says. "These were people who knew, when they swung out of that hammock after four hours of sleep, why they had to have their feet on that deck."

Epics on the big screen

The historic parallels to the present world situation were just one of the reasons 20th century Fox wanted to put O'Brian's novels on the screen.

O'Brian, who died in 2000, sold millions of copies of his books, which also garnered glowing reviews that called him a modern Jane Austen.

The rights to film these books have been in various hands for decades, but now is the right time to film "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World," says Hutch Parker, president of the Fox Film Group.

"The movies are constantly looking for new, expansive universes, big themes, big stories, big experiences, spectacles on a great canvas," Parker says.

" 'Braveheart,' 'Titanic' and 'Gladiator' opened the door to the historical epic again. I see this movie as kind of a continuation of that trend."

The $135 million movie used a real tall ship, the HMS Rose, assorted models and sets. A&E's "Hornblower" series has bought or rented many a European tall ship. Fine and Parker both say that fans of the O'Brian and Forester novels will let them know when things aren't authentic.

"You would not believe the mail we got when we shot some of the last series from the deck of a ship set we built up on a hill in Minorca," Fine says with a laugh.

Director Peter Weir, of "The Truman Show" and "The Year of Living Dangerously," charged Laco with keeping the "Master and Commander" set accurate. Laco acquired a cannon, trained a gun crew and recorded the real sounds of a brass cannon firing deadly shot.

The HMS Rose put to sea for some scenes, with her crew, including Crowe, mastering the art of scampering up the rigging and "skylarking," playing Tarzan among the lines in the towering masts.