The Enigma of Benito Cereno

Based on real events, official records, the novel by Herman Melville & the Journal of Amasa Delano

Screenplay by Stewart Rein

 

Research

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The Sailors

The archetype of the 18th-century sailor is that of a figure veering between potential extremes of patriotism and treachery, obedience and subversiveness, as was acutely observed in an experienced mariner's advice to a new recruit: 'There is no justice or injustice on board ship, my lad. There are only two things: duty and mutiny - mind that. All that you are ordered to do is duty. All that you refuse to do is mutiny' (Weibust 1969 p.372; Rediker 1987 p.211).

The sailor's 'foreignness' was often the actuality. The lower deck community was transnational, multilingual and ethnically heterogeneous, though this is rarely, if ever, acknowledged in visual imagery. Hence his interiorization - that is, in Foucault's terms, the function of reducing his otherness - relied heavily on representation: he was 'shut away' in the pervasive stereotypes popularized in theatre, novels and images.

Contact:

Stewart Rein, Lotus Films, 213 Muench Street, Harrisburg, PA 17102

Tel: 717 773 4810 Fax: 717 238 2232 Email: childsr1@live.com

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