Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl part 4
As Act IV of Curse begins, Will Turner is locked up in the brig aboard the Black Pearl. He talks to Pintel about his father, Bootstrap Bill. Pintel informs Will, and the audience, that Bootstrap Bill wasn’t an evil pirate like Barbossa, that he “felt bad” about mutinying against Jack. He goes on to tell Will that Bootstrap Bill sent the cursed gold piece to Will in order to remain deliberately cursed. If that’s true, well, good going Bootstrap Bill, now your son is set to die at the hands of your cursed pirate friends. Finally, Pintel tells Will that Barbossa killed Bootstrap Bill for sending the gold piece to Will. Phew! I don’t think I’ve ever come across a smaller maguffin more responsible for more plot before, and the movie still has a half-hour to go.
Jack, for some reason, gets Norrington to lock Elizabeth up in one of the rooms on the Dauntless. I’m not sure what this gets him. Is he worried she’s going to screw up his plans to secure the Black Pearl? Everything else he does is designed to play out one way or another, and his scheme to get Norrington to attack Barbossa is clear enough, but I don’t see what he gets out of Elizabeth being imprisoned. It’s clear what Norrington gets out of it, he means to return Elizabeth to her life of propriety and constrictive dresses, so that she might then actively rebel against him.
Now we’re back at the Isle de la Muerte again, and Barbossa is ready to slit Will’s throat and lift the curse. Jack talks Barbossa into fighting Norrington before he lifts the curse — again, I’m not sure why. Jack should want Barbossa out of the way so he can get the Black Pearl, but if Barbossa is immortal when he attacks there’s no chance of that happening. Instead, Jack bargains to give Barbossa the Dauntless and let Jack have the Black Pearl. Why Barbossa should trust Jack, I have no idea — there’s nothing but bad blood between them — but he goes along with the bargain and sends his men to attack.
(On second thought, maybe all Jack wants is the crew of the Black Pearl out of the way while he turns the tables on Barbossa, which indeed he gets.)
For some reason, Jack pockets one of the cursed gold pieces. I still can’t figure that out, unless he’s buying himself a little immortality for the conflagration he knows is coming, after which he can put it back. His explanation, “Couldn’t resist, mate,” fails to convince me. The beat where Jack briefly turns into Skeleton Jack feels to me like something that came up in a story meeting — “Oh, and we should have a scene where Jack turns into a skeleton too!” “Why would that happen?” “Because it would look cool!”
Then comes the great boat-attack set-piece, which is pretty grand and exciting, not to mention actually quite violent, especially for a Disney movie. During the attack, Elizabeth, now dressed (by Norrington?) in a navy soldier’s outfit, but at least out of her constricting dress, sneaks out of her confinement and rows over to the Black Pearl. She sneaks aboard and frees the imprisoned crew of the Interceptor. Once they’re free, they refuse to help Elizabeth help Jack, or Will for that matter, leaving Elizabeth with nothing to do but row back to the island.
(I think it’s telling, and appropriate, that Elizabeth spends Act I in her father’s dress, Act II in Barbossa’s dress, Act III in her slip, and Act IV in men’s clothes. It perfectly describes her arc from bird-in-a-gilded-cage to woman-of-action [although, frankly, not that much action — there’s no reason, other than “giving her something to do,” that Elizabeth needs to rescue the crew of the Interceptor, and all the script really needs her to do is “be there” when the curse is lifted, so she can be reunited with Will]).
Meanwhile, Jack and Will fight Barbossa and some henchmen back at the treasure pile. All the separate fights, cut together with the ship invasion, is quite elegant and involving.
At the end of it all, Jack gets to shoot Barbossa, who gets to have his curse lifted. Will’s father’s blood debt is paid, but he has lost Elizabeth to Norrington. Given every opportunity to step up and “be a freakin’ pirate already,” Will, again, blows it. Jack, on the other hand, doesn’t have his ship — yet. His crew, obeying the “code,” which means whatever the script needs it to mean in any given scene, has gone off with it.
Back at Port Royal, Jack is about to be hanged. Will, finally, at long last, steps up and does something piratical — he frees Jack from the gallows. Jack is, to Will, a pirate and “a good man” (which is what Jack called Will’s father — geez, it really would have helped if we’d gotten even a glimpse of Bootstrap Bill!) and thus is worth sacrificing his life for.
Will says “his place” is “between Norrington and Jack,” suggesting, perhaps, that, even after all this, he’s still not really a pirate, but has achieved some sort of in-between state, a “good man” who sees the worth in everyone, whether pirate or soldier. Elizabeth then throws in her lot with Will, suggesting that she, too, has achieved some sort of state of balance between propriety and piracy. Jack dives back to the sea, and the Black Pearl, miraculously, appears on cue to take him away. (I had originally thought that Will had conspired to have the Black Pearl there at the hanging, but no, its appearance is completely coincidental, not to mention contradictory.)
Governor Swann, for some reason, provides a moral of sorts: “It’s okay sometimes to be a pirate.” I don’t understand what this means exactly, but I understand even less Norrington’s decision. After having been publicly humiliated by Elizabeth and Will, he suddenly goes completely against character and gives the Black Pearl “a day’s head start” before pursuing him. It’s one thing for him to turn gentleman and let Elizabeth go to follow her heart (after admiring Will’s — ahem — sword), but for him to let Jack and the Black Pearl go makes no sense to me.
Governor Swann turns to Elizabeth and warns her that Will is, after all, a blacksmith, but Elizabeth finally says the thing that Will has been too goddamned lame to say all through the movie: “No, he’s a pirate.” Elizabeth has finally gotten her wish — Will is a pirate, not because he’s ever admitted it, but because she’s made him one. Since he won’t step up and be one, and since she’s been down a long, long road in achieving his state, she is the one who must define him.
Jack, no longer needed by Elizabeth, swims to the Black Pearl, who, for some reason, has decided not to steal the ship after all. Even Anamaria, to whom Jack owes a ship, gladly hands it over to him. For a long time I thought that Will had somehow conspired with the crew of the Black Pearl to get Jack off the gallows, but no — their appearance in the harbor is completely coincidental, and completely inconsistent. As for the cursed pirates, we never learn what happened to them. Pintel and Ragnetti show up later, but what of the others? Surely Norrington didn’t treat them as nicely as he did Jack. Something tells me that the Isle de la Muerte has a lot more skeletons on its shores.
On second thought, maybe all Jack wants is the crew of the Black Pearl out of the way while he turns the tables on Barbossa, which indeed he gets.
Right. Jack wants them to kill each other off, or at least buy him some time so he can get to the treasure. This is another example of him looking out for himself and letting the incidental characters do his bidding (without their knowledge). Jack is constantly orchestrating and setting little events in motion and he needs to keep both sides (Norrington’s and Barbossa’s) busy so he can get to the cave and convince Will to trust his crazy plan (while fulfilling his vendetta against Barbossa).
I still can’t figure that out, unless he’s buying himself a little immortality for the conflagration he knows is coming, after which he can put it back.
That’s exactly it. Jack knows he can’t take Barbossa in a fair sword fight, so he pockets the gold piece so that while they’re fighting, he’ll be invulnerable. Barbossa recognizes this (“So what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgment Day and trumpets sound?”) but because they hate each other, they battle anyway. Jack is just biding his time till he can get Will in position to draw his own blood and deposit the coin so that he can return the one he’s stolen–and the curse will lift, causing all the pirates with mortal wounds (including Barbossa, now with Jack’s one shot inside his chest), to die because they are mortal once again. In some respects, Jack is doing Barbossa a favor. He’s been living so long without any sensation, any pleasure, that a return to humanity, even fleetingly, is a gift. Of course, Barbossa comes back to life in the third picture, so this moment is undercut a little bit.
Jack dives back to the sea, and the Black Pearl, miraculously, appears on cue to take him away. (I had originally thought that Will had conspired to have the Black Pearl there at the hanging, but no, its appearance is completely coincidental, not to mention contradictory.)
I think the Black Pearl shows up because they need to reinstate its rightful captain. They flee the Isle de la Muerta because the pirate code usually means ‘every man for himself’ and with Norrington’s soldiers and Barbossa’s cursed pirates, the smartest thing for the Pearl was to get out of Dodge. Now with that threat neutralized, they’ve returned to collect Jack. The mute pirate Cotton sent his parrot to the fort, I’m assuming, to see whether or not Jack could escape. If the bird returned without Jack shortly behind, the crew of the Pearl would know he’s a goner.
I think Sales pretty much summed up what I was thinking, yeah.
He goes on to tell Will that Bootstrap Bill sent the cursed gold piece to Will in order to remain deliberately cursed. […] Finally, Pintel tells Will that Barbossa killed Bootstrap Bill for sending the gold piece to Will.
So Bill was cursed with skeletal immortality, and then Barbossa kills him?
Excellent writeup of the film – I still wholly enjoy watching it (swashbucklin’ finery!), and this is certainly a fun dissection of the plot, which to put it as you say, is full of macguffins, “because it’s cool” and “well, just because” moments.
The Black Pearl coming back was a bit odd – I remember seeing it the first time and going “Neat, they decided to come back!” but then realised “wait, why did they come back just this second?!” – a throwaway line about conspiring with Will would have been enough – after all, they could have easily found and contacted him secretly and known what day this would happen.
Norrington (who’s character I liked in this film – a fair character, if not without silly faults being all proper, at least is not a silly caricature of the navy) sadly did come off a bit silly not going after them right away – it’d have been much more fun I think to have them immediately start chasing – after all, it’s not like he’s got a wedding to prepare for. It is also a shame we miss out where the Black Pearl crew went as you say – many didn’t in fact get stabbed in the big o’ battle. Good points raised 🙂
I like Sales on Film’s idea of Jack really having a plan with the gold piece – it might not be his style to suggest outright he had a plan but he must have thought about it beforehand.
Going on from this though, the second and third films are, while some fun set pieces at times, character-ruining – Norrington goes barmy, as does Swann (a real waste! both good actors and could have been so much more then comic relief), the Pirates go barmy (and useless), the plot goes Utterly Barmy (cannibals, gods, sea monsters, death limbo, and tenuous excuses for constantly stupid betrayals…meh), and it makes no sense whatsoever in any way. If you’re going to write them up I wish you the best of luck making sense of it! I liked this film by itself, and don’t mind just ignoring the further plots.
Elizabeth spends Act I in her father’s dress, Act II in Barbossa’s dress, Act III in her slip, and Act IV in men’s clothes.
Oh, this is good.
pj: Yeah, I guess Bootstrap Bill was cursed, then thrown overboard — with a cannon strapped to his bootstrap. Not a good deal at all for Bootstrap.
I don’t think I’ve ever come across a smaller maguffin more responsible for more plot before
Bilbo’s ring of invisibility.
Re Bill being cursed and thrown overboard – I thought this was neatly explained when the undead pirates walk across the bottom of the sea (which was exactly the thought that crossed my mind at the time – aha! we’ll see Bill yet), and it explains how he gets into the (more prosaic version of) Davy Jones’ locker.
Jack taking the coin was my favourite moment in the whole movie. We know it’s a ruinous thing to do, we know he’s not telling us why he does it. He’s in for the big gamble.
I thought about the One Ring, but I thought it just did the one thing — send Frodo to Mordor to destroy it. I mean, I know there’s miles and miles of backstory there, but it’s not like the ring changes hands a half-dozen times during each one of the movies and does different things to everybody who comes in contact with it.
the curse will lift, causing all the pirates with mortal wounds (including Barbossa, now with Jack’s one shot inside his chest), to die because they are mortal once again.
Making the notion of Jack stealing one to protect him in a fight rather un-sensical…
@Noumenon:
Jack was immortal for as long as he needed to be. He didn’t want to take the chance of the already-immortal Barbossa killing him before Jack got the opportunity to corner him (at the opportune moment) and use his one shot. As long as Jack wasn’t in the process of taking a mortal wound when the curse was broken, his plan for protecting himself was sound (or sound enough, anyway, since – gasp! – we know Barbossa doesn’t stay dead).
I enjoyed all three movies, but they only made sense to me one way: they’re stories told by a woman in a harbor town to her son, who she had after one night with a sailor. The whole thing is just to explain to the kid that, no, his dad wasn’t some random tar, he was a Magic Pirate who Can’t Come Home to See Them because of Blah Blah Magic Pirate Nonsense but Loves Them Anyway.
Re the ring: I think it does quite a lot of work – it helps Bilbo steal from the dragon, causes Boromir’s downfall and death, actuates the plot, calls the ringwraiths (and makes Saruman send the big orc guys to the woods, sorry, blanking on name there), makes Frodo visible to Sauron and therefore calls in threats as needed, and secures Gollum’s cooperation.
Now I’m wondering if I can come up with a truly protean maguffin.
“It’s okay sometimes to be a pirate.”
Does he actually use the word “okay?” Would that have been in use in the film’s (approximate) time period?
While pirates can be fun, when you think about what pirates actually *do,* pirate hero-worship doesn’t take you very far:
“It’s okay sometimes to rob people with the threat of violence.”
“It’s okay sometimes to be a rapist.”
“It’s okay sometimes to be a murderer,” etc.
What Governor Swann says is something like “On the rare occasion, an act of piracy can be the correct course of action.” Which, no, given the context of the time, makes no sense at all.
It’s piracy that actually gets Elizabeth rescued, and removes the threat of the Black Pearl and the undead pirates.
Funny and smart, but wow. You watched this movie how many times and you still don’t understand it? Anyway, regardless of it’s actual quality, there aren’t any plot holes in this movie. Don’t believe me? Ask away.