''Leviathan'' is a 2012 American documentary directed by
Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Lucien Giles Castaing-Taylor (born 10 January 1966, Liverpool, United Kingdom) is a British anthropologist and artist who works in film, video, and photography.
Biography
Castaing-Taylor received his B.A. at Cambridge University and his PhD at ...
and
Véréna Paravel
Véréna Paravel (born 21 April 1971 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland) is a French anthropologist and artist who works in film, video, and photography.
Biography
Verena Paravel was born in 1971. She is an anthropologist, artist and filmmaker who wor ...
of the
Sensory Ethnography Lab The Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at Harvard University is an interdisciplinary center for the making of anthropologically informed works of media that combine aesthetics and ethnography. Production courses associated with the SEL are offered throug ...
at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
. It is a work about the North American fishing industry. The film was acquired for U.S. distribution by
The Cinema Guild
The Cinema Guild Inc. is a film distribution company. It was established by Philip and Mary-Ann Hobel, producers known for their work in documentaries and features, including the film ''Tender Mercies''.
Since 1968, the Cinema Guild has been a ...
. The film-makers used GoPro cameras and worked twenty-hour shifts during the shooting of the film.
Reception
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
reports 84% approval for ''Leviathan'' based on 51 critics, and the film also holds an 81/100 average on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
. Peter Howell of the ''
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...
'' said the film "plunges us into the sights and sounds of this visceral business", using "
ny waterproof cameras that could be clipped or rested upon people, fish or objects…to capture the film’s raw images and natural sounds. Edited together into a non-linear and virtually wordless whole, it creates a briny immersive effect that is almost hallucinatory." Dennis Lim of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' noted that the film "conveys the brutal toll that the enterprise takes on the workers and on the ocean, and it could even be read as an environmental parable in which the sea threatens to exact its revenge on humanity. But none of this is explicit in the film, which avoids exposition and context, unfolds almost entirely in the dark and often verges on hallucinatory abstraction. Where most documentaries prize clarity, this one attests to the power of estrangement." Melissa Anderson of ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
'' opined that "
e density of aural and visual stimuli overwhelms—and liberates."
N.P.R. critic
Stephanie Zacharek
Stephanie Zacharek is an American film critic at ''Time'', based in New York City. From 2013 to 2015, she was the principal film critic for ''The Village Voice''. She was a 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist in criticism.
Early life
Stephanie Zachare ...
was less complimentary, calling the film "a self-conscious tone poem concocted from oblique camera angles, shots held longer than it takes a tadpole to reach maturity and nighttime images enhanced with a psychedelic glow. An alternate title for it might be David Lynch, Gone Fishin'."
The film won the Michael Powell award for best British feature at the
Edinburgh International Film Festival
The Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) is a film festival that runs for two weeks in June each year. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival. EIFF presents both UK and international films (all ti ...
as well as the Experimental/Independent Film/Video Award at the
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) is an American film critic organization founded in 1975.
Background
Its membership comprises film critics from Los Angeles-based print and electronic media. In December of each year, the organiza ...
Awards. It was presented within
Maryland Film Festival
The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each May in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival ...
2013 as a favorite film of Baltimore-based filmmaker
Matthew Porterfield
Matthew "Matt" Porterfield (born October 6, 1977) is an American independent filmmaker. He has made four feature films to date, ''Hamilton'' (2006), ''Putty Hill'' (2011), ''I Used to Be Darker'' (2013) and ''Sollers Point'' (2017). ''Putty Hill' ...
.
Accolades
Michael Powell Award for Best British Film, Edinburgh International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival - Fipresci Jury Award
Locarno International Film Festival - Ficc/Iffs Don Quixote Prize Special Mention
Vienna International Film Festival - Standard Audience Award
Cph:dox - New:Vision Award
Sevilla International Film Festival - Non-Fiction Eurodoc Award
Ridm - Best Cinematography and Best Sound in an International Feature
Belfort International Film Festival - Grand Jury Award
Belfort International Film Festival - One + One Award
Belfort International Film Festival - Documentaire Sur Grand Écran Award
Torino Film Festival - Internazionale.doc Best Film Special PrizeI
Los Angeles Film Critics Circle - Douglas Edwards Independent/Experimental Award
Independent Spirit Awards - Stella Artois Truer than Fiction Award Nomination
Milan International Film Festival - La Giuria Giovani
Milan International Film Festival - Giuria Audiodoc
Silver Puma for Best Film in Ficuman
True Vision Award True/False Film Festival
Pre-Production
Castaing-Taylor has had a connection with the fishing industry due to his father working in the shipping industry.
''Leviathan'' was initially planned to be mainly about the fishing industry on the land portion of the process, however it was changed to the sea only due to the change in interest by the film-makers. The direction of the film was to highlight the contrast between the past and present of New Bedford.
The production on land took place at local factories and net/ice production dredges.
Shooting took place 200 miles off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The area of New Bedford has a history of being the whaling capital of the past, and is presently the largest fishing port in the United States.
Moby Dick also took place here.
Over the course of filming ''Leviathan'', Castaing-Taylor got sea-sick and Paravel went to the emergency room numerous times.
Trips on the boat took place over six intervals of two-week periods.
''Leviathan'' was shot in two months aboard the boat, consisting of six trips in total.
Use of GoPros
While filming, the director's first camera was lost at sea and they had to resort to their auxiliary cameras, GoPros.
The images produced by the GoPros created after-images of haunting qualities due to the lack of clarity within the lens.
According to Castaing-Taylor, “It activated the viewer’s imagination much more.”
Academic
Castaing-Taylor created Leviathan within Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab with his associates and students. The Sensory Ethnography Lab (S.E.L.) is a Harvard-based laboratory that focuses on reinventing ethnographic film and documentary. Castaing-Taylor began the lab in 2006 to combine the departments of anthropology and visual and environmental studies at Harvard. He has this to say about the program: “It takes ethnography seriously. It’s not as though you can do ethnography with a two-day, fly-by-night visit somewhere. But it also takes ‘sensory’ seriously. Most anthropological writing and most ethnographic film, with the exception of some truly great works, is so devoid of emotional or sensory experience.” Above all, he added: “It takes what art can do seriously. It tries to yoke it to the real in some way.”
See also
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New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast (Massachusetts), South Coast region. Up throug ...
References
External links
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* {{Cite web , last=Dowell , first=Pat , date=March 16, 2013 , url=https://www.npr.org/2013/03/16/174404938/leviathan-the-fishing-life-from-360-degrees , title='Leviathan': The Fishing Life, From 360 Degrees , work=
Weekend Edition Saturday
''Weekend Edition'' is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio (NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program ''Morning Edition''. It consists of ''Weekend Edition Saturday'' ...
, publisher=
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
Non-narrative films
American documentary films
2012 films
2012 documentary films
Documentary films about fishing
Documentary films
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
Water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
Films about water
2010s English-language films
2010s American films