LIFEBOAT
An incredible wave of claustrophobia permeates the tone of this movie, based on a story by John Steinbeck. The story itself is deceptively simple. A U.S. ship and a German U-Boat collide in the Atlantic during the Second World War. The survivors of the American ship gather on a lifeboat. They pick up another survivor along the way. He turns out to be from the U-Boat.
Sophisticated viewers expect characterization to come from the desperate and glib lines spoken and shouted by the passengers. Those viewers are not disappointed.
Making everything take place in such tight quarters creates a number of phobias, as well as the more rational fear of dehydration, starvation, drowning and murder. The irony is that the claustrophobia happens alongside a palpable display of agoraphobia. This was one of Hitchcock's first overtly psychological works, and while it was never a serious contender for his best, it's worth watching once.
An incredible wave of claustrophobia permeates the tone of this movie, based on a story by John Steinbeck. The story itself is deceptively simple. A U.S. ship and a German U-Boat collide in the Atlantic during the Second World War. The survivors of the American ship gather on a lifeboat. They pick up another survivor along the way. He turns out to be from the U-Boat.
Sophisticated viewers expect characterization to come from the desperate and glib lines spoken and shouted by the passengers. Those viewers are not disappointed.
Making everything take place in such tight quarters creates a number of phobias, as well as the more rational fear of dehydration, starvation, drowning and murder. The irony is that the claustrophobia happens alongside a palpable display of agoraphobia. This was one of Hitchcock's first overtly psychological works, and while it was never a serious contender for his best, it's worth watching once.
