Robert Zemeckis’s “Cast Away,” which quickly reached us, was released in the States around Christmas and has already grossed $149 million. It has become the most successful film in Tom Hanks’s career, surpassing “Saving Private Ryan.” Nominated for a Golden Globe, it could easily win an Oscar. This is truly impressive and unexpected.
Hollywood seems to be returning to its roots. Although Daniel Defoe published “Robinson Crusoe” in 1719, Zemeckis and Hanks’s “Cast Away” is not literary. It contains little text and lacks a specific genre – just a bit of everything. It is cinema in its purest form, where it’s clear where the $90 million went, and it feels well-spent.
The Modern Robinson Crusoe
A postmaster (Tom Hanks) lives by the minute, by the ring of his cell phone, by the schedule of airline flights. His entire life, including his fiancée (Helen Hunt), holidays, and gifts, is regulated externally – by the company, by technology. Then comes a plane crash over the sea, and the postmaster spends four years on a deserted island. Everything collapses, but “Cast Away” is made in such a way that it’s not just the life of a single postmaster that falls apart.
The Unforgiving Nature
Firstly, you feel uneasy even during the crash. Nature too realistically mocks man, punches him in the face, throws him around, breaks him, carries him away, so that no viewer will want to fly anywhere anytime soon. Secondly, the warm island is not at all welcoming. Of course, it’s funny when Hanks struggles with a reinforced concrete coconut, makes fire, and tries to catch fish. It was similarly funny in Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat with the tin can that later resembled a devilish smile. But in this case, the laughter is somewhat nervous. Hanks only needed a little – to eat and drink – and not to seek adventures, but even such “little” is no easier alone now than it was a thousand years ago.
The Loneliness
Thirdly, when the postmaster invents a friend in the form of a Wilson-brand basketball, it really becomes about friendship, betrayal, and separation, and in the end, you want to cry. In short, the film captivates by touching on the fundamental necessities of any modern person.
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The Hanks-Zemeckis Connection
Hanks and Zemeckis have long been a reliable duo. Hanks is a direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln, and his entire biography from childhood leads him straight to becoming a father figure of the nation. Zemeckis is also capable of anything, a versatile and hardworking filmmaker, and he made a pure genre film like “What Lies Beneath,” for example, in between filming “Cast Away.” If they wanted, both could afford not to escalate the situation, to do without cheap tricks. Hanks didn’t gain 20 kilograms before “Cast Away” for nothing, and then lose them again. He was testing his own strength, just as “Cast Away” tests the strength of a standard postmaster. Wilson, by the way, is the last name of Hanks’s current wife, the mother of his children, meaning there is nothing superfluous or artificial in the film. The ending is a bit drawn out, but not everything can be perfect. However, the corpse of the pilot washed ashore is not for plot development. There was no radio transmitter in his pockets. It turned out that the pilot was simply bloated, greenish, and needed to be buried.
The Power of Cinema
The film’s programmatic minimalism, the simplicity of relationships amidst the wild complexity of filming, leads to a completely epochal conclusion. Cinema as such is an exam in strength of spirit. If it already exists, it includes everything – waves, downpours, whales, airplanes, logging, rope making. That’s what cinema was invented for. And one more conclusion is useful to us. Surprisingly, when Hollywood now starts a blockbuster, it’s enough to come here to Russia for a teaser, to demonstrate strength and far-reaching intentions. The film begins in Red Square, the first five minutes everyone diligently speaks Russian and wears earflap hats. Red Square is quite fitting for deserted islands.