Twenty Years On - Analyzing Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl & Its Legacy
And why it still matters
Few are the films that have had the kind of lasting impact that Pirates of the Caribbean Curse of the Black Pearl has. It launched sequel after sequel, each one well received by the public, each one in its own way a massive success for a time. This movie though was more than just a movie. It was a phenomenon.
It is difficult to describe the energy that swept over the world when this movie hit movie theatres at the time. It is difficult now to describe what it was like living in 2004-2005 back when year after year there was blockbuster hit after hit and each film had something great or important to say. Truly it was an important and great time in some ways with regards to cinema.
There was steep competition throughout the land- er waves. Never could anyone have predicted Disney might take this approach to cinema; a live-action film of a theme-park ride that was somewhat of a comedy but was a Stephen Sommers styled adventure-horror story about love, heroism and rising to greatness.
And yet at the time people should have expected it. Mummy & Mummy II were decent sized successes, Disney was then known for wise business and cinematic decisions and had been since about 1989 or so.
Pirates though was by no means a simple movie, as there were technically three leads; Elizabeth, William Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow. What made it so unique though was in how it balanced them out.
When we first meet the main couple they’re children, Gibb is an honest sailor (fearful of pirates no less), Norington is a stiff guy but honest and her dad is feeble and cowardly (somewhat of a subversion, but interestingly he gets an arc and becomes a truly interesting character in his own right). There’s a lot to ponder.
While there’s a lot of jokes now made and memes about Sparrow’s entry onto the set, when watching the intro of the character for the first time one gets a sense of something more than ‘live action Bugs Bunny’ as one critic described the character once (valid statement) but in this scene for many first seeing the scene, he oddly for some people to-day looked majestic.
There was a mystery, a majesty and a grandeur to Jack Sparrow. It can be seen in his condemnation of the other pirates, in his reaching an agreement with Will (and why). In a lot of ways he was a mentor character, while also being something of a trickster archetype who rises to the occasion and who seemed in spite of his strange behaviour and funny habits resolved to protect Will.
It is also interesting that Norington is in hindsight in contrast to the latter two movies he appears in, fairly… human. He’s reckless at times, sure he’s a snob of sorts but there’s a nobility, a kindness and even an honour to the character.
What is so beautiful in the movie is the character arc he and Jack get. Where at the start Norington is seemingly conceited (same goes for Elizabeth’s father), by the endscene in which we see him his remark about a man who cares for his art and craft as much as all things he might love is very moving, very wise.
As to Jack he sets out to reclaim his ship, all while seeking to in a weird way protect Will but he did consider trading Will in for the boat and made to do so only to then seek to protect him. He seems to have wished to kill Barbossa the most evil pirate at sea, and he succeeds in all these things.
In terms of the themes this movie has a lot in common with Westerns, as it is about freedom and the ability to go where the wind takes one.
That said, there is also the idea that a man should be prepared to do and risk everything for love itself; be it of a woman, for one’s country or for one’s freedom. Will does the first, Norington the second and Jack the third. Each of them are heroes in their own right, and each of them in any other movie would be the hero or the villain in any other, and each of them could be interpreted a million ways to sunday, but they instead function throughout the whole of the story as the protagonists in different ways.
Certainly one can argue Norington might be the least sympathetic, or it might be Jack, and in some ways the impulsive Will. But in the end it is through a combination of each of their heroic natures, each of their desires and each of their honour that victory is assumed (if by the skin of their teeth) from the villains.
This is a film that celebrates not simply personal honour or heroism, but strangely redemption. Jack may not have sought it out at the beginning but he did kind of achieve it, and when he hands himself over without a fuss and doesn’t blame Will or Elizabeth and he instead agrees to stand trial, he is in the end redeemed. He walks to his seeming grave with nary a word, which is a truly courageous thing to do. He could do a million things to save himself, such as steal a spare coin and hide away, he could kill the couple. But he doesn’t.
Norington wishes to condemn an innocent man to death, he wishes to condemn Elizabeth to death by passively accepting the situation as it is. And yet, he at the end bursts forward to rescue the man she loves (despite this being something he doesn’t want) and this after hurrying to her rescue despite his initial passivity and resignation. He is a man who fails initially and yet he rises to the occasion not just once but twice, and who rushes to the rescue of his men, saving the day.
Will Turner lashes out at Norington, breaks the law and steals a ship, only to prove himself willing to hand over Jack after the man has rescued him several times, so that he redeems himself in a way by rescuing him and deciding if need be to be hanged alongside him. There’s genuine heroism there.
And then there’s Elizabeth’s father who initially wishes to force his wish for Norington as a son-in-law upon her, only to at the end decide that maybe it is for the best, he accepts her choice and warmly comforts Norington, all while demonstrating he’s achieved a greater sense of wisdom and understanding of when to apply the law and when not to. Norington smiles and agrees and the two men decide to give Jack Sparrow a ‘five minute’ headstart of sorts.
Of course this is a Horror movie so there are pirate-zombies (LOVE this concept) and they are creepy, genuinely wicked and rather horrifying, far more so than the villains of the sequels were come to think of it. There is genuine menace, and genuine evil that looms about them. And genuine HATRED between them and Capt. Sparrow.
What is more is that they are irredeemable (in this movie at least), and are greedy, perverse and utterly full of hatred, they seem to fit every stereotype about pirates. In turn Jack’s crew get a redemption arc in the last minutes of the movie (really good turn there at the end).
While this isn’t the cleverest of movies, it is an exciting one full of a great deal of horror. The theme of redemption, of forgiveness is really interesting if somewhat subtly done and this is somewhat of an unexpected theme in Horror Fiction, especially Horror Movies. Yet it is a good one, and a very fitting one. One that frankly fits with the notions of honour and personal courage that radiate throughout the movie.
This is one of my favourites of that era, and one that I plan to revisit in future articles as every single one of the characters in this movie have a great deal of depth, complexity and personality and are worth studying and discussing in as much detail as possible.
The thing is - Pirates of the Caribbean did almost everything right, storyshowing wise. It would've been just an average pirate movie, had it not been for Johnny Depp's brilliant performance. For quite the long time, Depp was Pirates of the Caribbean and Pirates of the Caribbean was Depp. They couldn't now make a movie that captures audiences with another lead, like their planned new movie with a lame, boring girl boss, for example. Have you, by any chance, watched the old Sandokan movies?
Funny enough, I was working on a review essay of this film myself just the other week (perhaps I should just finish that, lol).
There’s so much I love about these films (well, at least the first three. The last few I didn’t really care for). Just all in all really well written. Plus, I’m a big historical pirate fan in general (if you couldn’t tell by my previous article on the subject), so this just added to that.
One of my favorite little nuances is Jack’s theme. It’s an old operatic tradition that many of the characters have a particular musical theme play upon their entrance. You see it in Star Wars as well as these films. It’s more subtle with the others but with Jack it’s more obvious. And boy is that music catchy. Hats off to Klaus Badelt for composing such a beautiful piece.