{"id":17615,"date":"2011-06-01T11:57:05","date_gmt":"2011-06-01T18:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=17615"},"modified":"2021-01-26T23:43:04","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T06:43:04","slug":"sailor-who-fell-from-grace-with-the-sea-the-1976","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=17615","title":{"rendered":"Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea, The (1976)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Morality is nothing more than a set of rules that adults have invented to protect themselves.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-From-Grace-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-From-Grace-Poster-189x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"189\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-17616\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-From-Grace-Poster-189x300.jpg 189w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-From-Grace-Poster-81x128.jpg 81w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-From-Grace-Poster.jpg 478w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 189px) 100vw, 189px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nWhen his widowed mother (Sarah Miles) falls in love with a sailor (Kris Kristofferson), a troubled young boy (Jonathan Kahn) is pressured by the bullying leader (Earl Rhodes) of his clique to seek revenge.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kris Kristofferson Films<\/li>\n<li>Revenge<\/li>\n<li>Sailors<\/li>\n<li>Widows and Widowers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nBased on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Sailor_Who_Fell_from_Grace_with_the_Sea\">a novel by Yukio Mishima<\/a> (whose troubled life was so effectively captured in <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=6203\">Paul Schrader&#8217;s highly unconventional biopic<\/a>), this relentlessly pretentious adaptation by writer\/director Lewis John Carlino &#8212; who transposed the story to a seaside village in England &#8212; is an unfortunate failure. Carlino clearly has lofty ideals, but the story&#8217;s provocative premise &#8212; with clear thematic parallels to <em>Lord of the Flies<\/em> and, to a certain degree, Frank Perry&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=5552\"><em>Last Summer<\/em> (1969)<\/a> &#8212; is so poorly executed that the entire affair comes across as merely exploitative and salacious. As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dvdtalk.com\/dvdsavant\/s1095sea.html\">DVD Savant<\/a> sums it up so succinctly, &#8220;When <em>The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea<\/em> turns to &#8216;dangerous&#8217; content, we get the feeling that it&#8217;s watered-down Mishima. It is as naive as a fairy story &#8212; schoolboys punish a man for not living up to their idealized image of the traditional values they&#8217;ve decided he represents &#8212; and numbingly literal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of the lead actors, Miles is marginally compelling as a lonely, sexually frustrated widow who clearly misses her dearly departed husband on multiple levels &#8212; a fact which Carlino ensures that we &#8220;get&#8221; by cutting his camera back and forth between a photo of said husband and Miles&#8217;s forlorn expression as she masturbates, all in clear view of her teenage son Jonathan (who has somehow managed to maintain a creepy peephole from his bedroom into hers for 15-odd years without her finding out &#8212; until she finally does, in one of the film&#8217;s most melodramatically implausible moments). Meanwhile, the choice to cast stoic Kristofferson in the title role probably sounded good on paper, but was ultimately misguided; while he functions nicely as a buff presence in his notoriously soft core lovemaking scenes with Miles, he never emerges as a viable character (though this could be at least in part blamed on the script, which may have wanted him to come across as simply a sexual &#8220;predator&#8221; invading Jonathan&#8217;s private &#8220;affair&#8221; with his mother). <\/p>\n<p>Kahn (who apparently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0434862\/\">never pursued an adult career in film<\/a>) is serviceable as Miles&#8217;s brooding adolescent son, but Rhodes &#8212; in a critical supporting role as his domineering playmate &#8212; is simply insufferable. His character clearly isn&#8217;t meant to be sympathetic on any level, but, as played by Rhodes, he simply comes across as a shrewish caricature of a bully rather than someone we&#8217;re intrigued by on any level. Meanwhile, the entire storyline surrounding Jonathan&#8217;s involvement with Rhodes&#8217;s clique &#8212; with its perverse yet provocative philosophical groundings &#8212; is handled purely for sensationalism, rather than with any genuine desire to understand these kids and their goals. We get it that Rhodes is a (possibly psychopathic) control freak who has brainwashed his followers into believing that one must strive towards some form of purity in life &#8212; but without any additional information (i.e., for those who haven&#8217;t read Mishima&#8217;s source novel), one is tempted to interpret their actions, in DVD Savant&#8217;s words, as simply &#8220;pubescent boys expressing their hormonal hysteria in the wrong directions&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Douglas Slocombe&#8217;s beautiful cinematography<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-Landscapes.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-Landscapes-1024x599.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"374\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-17617\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-Landscapes-1024x599.png 1024w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-Landscapes-128x74.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-Landscapes-300x175.png 300w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Sailor-Who-Fell-Landscapes.png 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo; despite its intriguing title and lofty literary origins, definitely feel free to skip this one. Listed as a Cult Movie in the back of Peary&#8217;s book. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0075161\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1976\/04\/12\/archives\/sailor-who-fell-a-film-after-mishimathe-cast.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dvdtalk.com\/dvdsavant\/s1095sea.html\">DVD Savant Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.eyeforfilm.co.uk\/reviews.php?id=6998\">Eye for Film Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thespinningimage.co.uk\/cultfilms\/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=755&#038;aff=13\">Spinning Image Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeout.com\/movies\/the-sailor-who-fell-from-grace-with-the-sea\">Time Out Capsule Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Morality is nothing more than a set of rules that adults have invented to protect themselves.&#8221; Synopsis: When his widowed mother (Sarah Miles) falls in love with a sailor (Kris Kristofferson), a troubled young boy (Jonathan Kahn) is pressured by the bullying leader (Earl Rhodes) of his clique to seek revenge. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Kris Kristofferson Films Revenge Sailors Widows and Widowers Review: Based on a novel by Yukio Mishima (whose troubled life was so effectively captured in&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=17615\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66302,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17615\/revisions\/66302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}