Anna Blasco 11/10/06 “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” The 1916 movie “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” is an important silent film. It is credited as being one of the first epic, big-budget movies of the silent era. Underwater photography and film was still relatively new as well, the first known underwater photographs being taken in 1893 by L. Bouton. Much of the most beautiful underwater shots in the movie were filmed by John Ernest Williamson, who in 1913 invented the “Williamson Tube” which took what is regarded as the first commercially successful underwater motion pictures. To add to this list of significance, the book “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Vernes on which the movie is based was written before seagoing submarines were a reality in 1870.

Captain Nemo hides in his submarine, seeking revenge and grieving over his lost family. The sub is his refuge, his home, making it very much a lived space. The main cabin is decorated, not institutionally, but like the sitting room of an eccentric and well traveled gentleman. In it is shown smoking his pipe and looking contemplative, playing his organ and entertaining his guests with his “magic window” to the sea. It is also a very private space, no one except Nemo and his crew ever being aloud on.

The crew of the nautilus are very similar to the workers in metropolis. They seem like part of the machine and do not really have other personalities. The difference between them is that Nemo’s men are happy to do their job. They love Nemo and are described as “loyal.” The submarine is truly an underwater utopia because they crew never rebels.

Also in a very utopian fashion, Nemo’s prisoners eventually come to appreciate him. At first they are upset at their capture and attempt to escape. Eventually, however, they decide to side with Nemo and are in awe by the beautiful underwater wold. The island girl is also help captive underwater, in the hull of the antagonist’s yacht. From this prison, however, she is promptly rescued by her lover.

Nemo’s submarine is a very feminine underwater space. It is portrayed as a magical place, himself as a “wizard.” The divers format the submarine at the time still had to be connected to the ship to breathe. This tube is very reminiscent of an umbilical chord, and the way the divers The divers must get in the water is though a vertical hatch reminiscent a birth canal.

In this movie, as in many the underwater is shown as a place for things that do not fit in rational above water society. Nemo roams underwater because of his secret reasons for revenge. When Nemo finally gets revenge he is buried along with his submarine underwater, never to return to land. The antagonist also dies at sea, enveloped in a fire that consumes his entire yacht. As with “Incredible Petrified World,” those sins that are too terrible for above ground society must stay underground.

The island girl, n the other hand, is welcomed back into the world of the above. She is domesticated, taught to act less like a wild animal by her lover. She may also have been the only character of lower class in the move up until is revealed that she is the daughter of Indian royalty. After this, she is able to come to the world above.