Fifty Years Of Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
SPOILER ALERT: Plot details for 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea follow.
NOTE: This essay was originally written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 2014 and has been revised since its original publication.
What are your favorite Disney movies? There are many common answers to this question: Beauty and the Beast, Mary Poppins, The Lion King, Fantasia, Toy Story, Dumbo, WALL-E, Snow White, Frozen, and so forth. Each of these, and many other Disney films, have a lasting appeal. They are accessible, vibrant, and warrant multiple viewings. Most of these films, however, are family pictures. We rarely speak of the Disney movies made with a more adult sensibility, one such picture is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was written in 1870 by Jules Verne “the father of science-fiction.” The novel is among Verne’s most popular, along with 80 Days Around The World and Journey to the Center of the Earth. The book still holds up today as a fine piece of literature, although the scientific descriptions can be a bit much. The story is such easy fodder for film that it has been adapted to the screen many times. One of the most significant being the 1916 silent version, from which the 1954 version took much inspiration. The 1954 version, however, is something altogether different. It only seems right that a company with so much ingenuity as Disney be the ones to bring Verne’s spectacular adventure to life.
The film opens at sea, with a mysterious green eyed monster in the dark waters. It speeds in towards a ship, destroying it. After this sinking we get a scene of an opposite tone. An old seaman telling tales about said monster to an eager crowd. A harpooner, Ned Land (Kirk Douglas) makes light of the monster and starts a fight. This scene tells us all we need to know about his character: He has a good sense of humor and is quick to use his fists. Later, we are introduced to an eminent professor of a Paris museum, Pierre Arronax (Paul Lukas) and his assistant Conseil (Peter Lorre). When dogged by reporters about the existence of the monster, Arronax confesses uncertainty, which reporters take as admission. Sensational headlines ensue. Despite being greatly misquoted, Arronax is asked on a voyage aboard the Abraham Lincoln. It is a part of an American expedition for the monster, which would have more credibility with the professor along. Arronax and Conseil agree, and on the Abraham Lincoln they meet Ned Land, who was hired to help kill the monster.
The monster turns out to be a mechanical submarine. Arronax is mesmerized by the technological wizardry when he first arrives. Amazed by the electric lights that don’t run on oil or gas and the famous circular window to the ocean deep that opens up like a spiral. In the window he sees several undersea divers conducting a funeral. One of them is carrying a coral cross. The burial is brief, but sure enough, Arronax is spotted. The trio try to escape, but are outnumbered. Below they meet Captain Nemo (James Mason). His introductory scene is perfect. When he enters, the whole area is silent and all heads turn to him. Nemo looks on them sternly before swiftly condemning them to death at sea. He spares Arronax, however, on his basis as a professor. Arronax protests, saying that Nemo’s behavior is uncivilized. Nemo responds, “I am not what is called a civilized man, Professor. I have done with society for reasons that seem good to me. Therefore, I do not obey its laws.” Arronax insists that he is as guilty as his friends, and Nemo regrettably condemns him, too. With still over an hour left in the movie, it clear that our heroes will not be slain. Rather, Nemo tests them, having the trio cling to the top of the submarine while it submerges. Once the waters go over their heads, Nemo raises the sub. Arronax and Conseil have drifted into sea. Only Ned Land is left clinging, a fierce look on his face. Nemo takes note of this and welcomes them back inside. They are now captives aboard his ship, the Nautilus.
The Nautilus is one of the great vessels of the silver screen. In the novel, the Nautilus is shaped like a smooth, black bullet, similar to the rocket ship in Verne’s From The Earth to The Moon. For the film, Disney gave the Nautilus a very Victorian and almost steampunk design. The interior of the Nautilus is just as amazing as the outside. Its hallways can be claustrophobic, with its churning noises of pumps and alarms, but also calming in its rythms. Rooms can be lush, like Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu. Smalls libraries, massive maps, rare paintings, and of course, Nemo’s grandiose organ, where he plays Bach’s “Toccata And Fugue in D Minor.”
In the novel, the Nautilus is run by electricity, which would have been quite revolutionary in the 19th century. For audience of the mid 20th century, however, an electric powered submarine would hardly be very stimulating. So it is implied that the Nautilus is driven by nuclear power. The very idea that a man in the 19th century could develop the technology needed to split atoms, let alone use it to power a submarine, is absurd on the face of it. The nuclear power, however, serves a more metaphorical purpose which becomes evident later. What nuclear power would have meant at the time is hardly glossed over. The scene where Arronax sees the light from the Nautilus engine is indicative of that.
The trio later join Nemo and his crew below the ocean depths in heavy, steampunk-like diving suits. Most of this sequence was actually shot underwater and feels like a missing segment of Fantasia. The ways that they move remind me of astronauts skipping on the moon’s surface. Arronax, in fact, makes a similar observation in the film, “A strange twilight world opened up before me, and I felt as the first man to set foot on another planet, an intruder in this mystic garden of the deep.” His narration, however, is sparse, and doesn’t stifle the romance of the scene. Its mesmerizing to see these sub-mariners, if you will, lifting up a net of crayfish, or pulling along a reluctant sea turtle. Paul Smith’s score really shines here, as it does everywhere.
In their captivity, we start to see the differences between Arronax, Conseil, and Ned. Ned is simple man. He just wants to get off and get back home. This does not make him a simpleton. This makes him human. Arronax is helplessly enamored with the Nautilus. He is impatient with Ned’s desire to escape. Arronax wants to stay on and study the significance of these wonders. He wants Nemo to share these discoveries with the world. Conseil appreciates these achievements as Arronax does, but is also wary of Nemo. He wishes to leave before anything awful happens. When Conseil asks Arronax to understand Ned’s viewpoint, Arronax berates him. The way the professor sees it, no individual life is worth more than the scientific accomplishments of the Nautilus. The manner in which Arronax seems to belittle their lives in the name of scientific advancements is scary. The professor is naive in his hope that Nemo will share these discoveries and Ned tries telling him just that, “Nemo’s a mad dog, and while you’re feeding him sugar, I’ll be thinking of a way to muzzle him.” Arronax is further put to the test when Nemo shows his more savage brutality.
Nemo takes Arronax ashore to show him the slave camp of an unnamed nation. The slaves work to bring nitrates and phosphates for military ammunition onto warships: “They’re loading a full cargo of death, and when that ship takes it home, the world will die a little more.” Nemo reveals that he was once one of those slaves and almost seems to revel in Arronax’s despair. Upon returning to the Nautilus, Nemo plays on the organ. This time, we see the anguish on his face. It’s clear that playing the organ has become one way for him to release his trauma, but it is not the only way. When a warship from the slave camp goes into the water, the Nautilus attacks. The camera, again, is sure to give us close-ups of Nemo’s face. It is no longer one of anguish, but of bloodlust. The Nautilus sinks the warship and all of the men on board are killed. Arronax, Ned, and Conseil all view the horror from the spiral window.
After the attack, Nemo appears absolutely exhausted, as if he had just finished a boxing match. Ned is particularly hurt, because those dead were sailors, like him. He can’t understand why the professor would want to make friends with someone so vile. Arronax confronts Nemo in the most emotional scene of the film. He calls Nemo a hypocrite for participating in violence like the nation he condemns. Nemo bursts in anger, “You call that murder! I see murder, too, not written on those drowned faces out there, but on the faces of dead thousands! They are the assassins, the dealers in death. I am the avenger!” Nemo justifies his actions by saying that the death he causes is small compared to the deaths caused by his enemy. He also reveals that the nation tortured his wife and child to death in an effort to get the secrets of the Nautilus out of him.The acting throughout this scene is critical. James Mason’s Nemo turns from furious to despairing. Arronax says nothing. What could he say? Paul Lukas gives his character a look of pure horror on the languishing Nemo. That face says it all. Nemo lies down and asks Arronax if he knows the meaning of love. When first saw this scene, I thought that Nemo’s going to talk about his wife or son, but the script has misled us, and he insteadtalks about hatred, “What you fail to understand is the power of hate. It can fill the heart as surely as love can.” The professor tells him that it’s a bitter substitute.
Only now does Arronax really take issue with Nemo’s terrorism. He was well aware that the Nautilus attacked other ships under the guise of a sea monster. Perhaps he was so invested in his own interests that he needed a visual reminder of why the Nautilus was infamous to start. When Arronax first came on board he said, “There is great genius behind all this.” To which Conseil responded, “Yes, and great evil.” The crew of the Nautilus, being former slaves as well, were also complicit in this evil, which makes his crew akin to a guerrilla army or terrorist group. They are a band of misanthropes, and Nemo is biggest misanthrope of them all. Arronax’s sympathy for Nemo is hardly shared, as Conseil, at one point, derisively calls him “Captain.”
The climax of this film, of course, is the celebrated giant squid scene. Even after fifty years, the best computer animation cannot compare to the lifelike animatronics of this creature. The illusion still works for two reasons. One, the squid is represented by an actual machine with hose powered tentacles. There is no doubt that the crew are fighting something that is really there, and not some CG ghost or cheap puppet. Two, the scene is at night. The giant squid fight was originally shot during sunset, but Walt Disney himself saw the scene and was greatly unsatisfied. Under all the bright lights and colors the squid looked terribly fake; you could see the wires and everything. Disney, a man known for quality, wouldn’t have such a joke released under his name, so he had them shoot the scene again. This time, during a storm, with the squid half underwater and darkness obscuring the flaws. Throughout this film, in fact, spectacular special effects are employed, take note of the realistic matte paintings, the creative set pieces, and the Nautilus models that journey through transparent tanks. It’s for these details that 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea won the Oscar for Best Special Effects. To go on a tangent here, in the book, the Nautilus fought not one, but many squids. I imagine that this would have been hard to film in 1954, but if a remake ever occurs, I can’t help but think that they may take this route.
In the course of the battle, Ned Land, able to use his harpoon skills at last, kills the squid and even saves Nemo’s life. It’s obvious at this point that Ned and Nemo don’t like each other. So the captain asks why Ned even bothered to save his life. Ned says that he doesn’t know, going so far as to refer to his act as a mistake. Eager to forget the whole thing, he gets drunk in his cabin. Arronax and Nemo butt heads again. Nemo doesn’t care for Arronax’s characterization of Ned as a hero for saving his life, “Actually, he regrets saving my life as much as I would regret saving his. The only difference is that I wouldn’t have tried.” Arronax says that Nemo refuses to accept any gesture of human compassion. Once more, the professor tries to catch Nemo’s hypocrisy, but once again, Nemo proves more complex than that. He says that goodness mustn’t be measured by individual acts, but by constant behavior. Arronax, being quite honest here, admits that humans make mistakes and Nemo seeks perfection. Nemo reveals that if human society had such perfection, he would be more than willing to share the secrets of his submarine. He says that he would like to give his secrets to Arronax, but he finds the professor to be too optimistic. Nemo taunts him, asking if he could persuade the nations of the world to lay down their arms and slave camps. Arronax, nervously, answers “yes.” As they reach Nemo’s secret island of Vulcania, wherein lies the secrets of the Nautilus, they find it surrounded by warships. Nemo points out the irony to Arronax, “There’s your answer, Professor. We’ve been ambushed by the very forces you wished to trade with.”
It turns out that the warships arrived after finding messages that Ned threw into the ocean via bottles. These messages gave away the longitude and latitude of Vulcania. Ned cheers, that he struck a blow for freedom, but Arronax is furious. Since, because of this, Nemo intends to destroy Vulcania, and thus, all of his secrets. Nemo sets off a bomb on Vulcania, it will be an explosion unlike any that the world has ever known. Nemo returns to the Nautilus, but not without getting a fatal shot from the invading soldiers. As we see the dying captain commandeer the submarine, the sea passes by him, like memories flashing before his eyes. Defeated, he retreats to his cabin, and to see his entire crew waiting for him. The Nautilus going on her last voyage, with water leaking everywhere, and everyone on it will die, even the prisoners. Arronax laments Nemo’s poor choice, saying that his aspirations would save the world. Nemo attempts to reassure him, “When the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass, in God’s good time.”
Nemo dies watching the sea, while the trio hastily escape before nearby Vulcania explodes. The professor tries to go back for his journal, but being that time is of the essence, Ned knocks him out. The three get into a small boat attached to the Nautilus. They row far enough to view the destruction of Vulcania from a safe distance. It is implied that this is a nuclear explosion. This nuclear subtext was added because the film was released during the height of the Cold War. The nuclear energy of the Nautilus was not added only to impress audiences at the time, but to also be relevant to audiences at the time. It is worth understanding that unlike the communist paranoia that permeated through the country, the nuclear fears were very real.
When Arronax sees the mushroom cloud over Vulcania, he realizes that Nemo’s caution was not without some truth. He thanks Ned for not letting him retrieve his journal. Perhaps he should. They watch solemnly as the Nautilus sinks below the waves, never to rise up, and Nemo’s final words eulogize the ship:
“When the world is ready for a new and better life, all this will someday come to pass, in God’s good time.”
What bothers me about these words, is that they imply the world could only achieve his technology once it was ready for a more moral civilization. While the lines haven’t lost their poignancy, we have repeatedly witnessed the abuse of science for terrible purposes. Perhaps Nemo’s words are referring to a choice that comes with every scientific discovery: We can either create wonders like the Nautilus or horrors like the mushroom cloud. Should our future priorities revolve more around destroying our opponents, or more advancing the lives of our citizens? This is Nemo’s challenge to society and it is part of what makes him one of the most complex characters ever put onto the silver screen.
Flaws? Well, the crew of the Nautilus is pretty bland and forgettable, just as they were in the novel. I only recall the first mate because of his bad haircut. Still, I would not trade a second of screen time to the crew. This is not their story. The film is stuffed as it is. The lack of women is also disappointing. The only female being the seal. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea is really a boy’s adventure movie, so any women added would have been accessories for the men, i.e. girlfriends, like the ladies Ned grabs in the beginning of the film (who’s names were Minnie and Daisy if you listened closely). This would have amounted to a distraction, undermining the film’s seriousness. No doubt, female audiences can still enjoy this story, its themes transcend gender lines. There are also the adventures in the book which were never filmed, such as the discovery of the Atlantis, or the journey to Antarctica. (On a side note, the USS Nautilus was also the first submarine to reach the North Pole). None of these flaws, though, ultimately ruins the film. It is a Disney film unlike any before it, and the company has yet to match it with anything since.
Originally published at http://sansuthecat.blogspot.com in 2014.
