Ship of Fools (1965)
Very straightforwardly about the 2024 election.
“I wonder if it’s true that life is as stupid and meaningless as it seems to be on this ship,” muses the doctor of the Vera, Wilhelm Schumann (Oskar Werner). He’s dealing with a serious heart ailment and is existentially discouraged by the cruelties and vanities he’s witnessed from the fools on board.1 But the doctor’s also a fool, and he begins a doomed romance with activist/drug addict/fool La Condesa (Simone Signoret). He’ll be dead before the movie ends.
Some other fools: Mary Treadwell (Vivien Leigh) is 46 and coquettish but underneath is vain, icy, and brittle.2 Her story ends with her being almost raped by foolish failed baseball player Tenny (Lee Marvin)—but the indelible image of her is when, in a burst of cinematic surrealism, she goes from drunkenly stumbling down an empty hallway to busting out the Charleston. The moment is jaw-dropping in its execution.
But this is a Stanley Kramer joint so it also tackles larger social issues. The film takes place in 1933 and the “ship of fools” is one metaphorically lurching towards fascism. Herr Rieber (José Ferrer), a Nazi, is rooming with a Jew, Julius Lowenthal (Heinz Rühmann). Rieber’s foolishness is intolerance (relevant in 1965 and, y’know, still relevant in 2024), but Lowenthal’s dignity and civility in the face of prejudice also mark him as a fool.
Rating: 7/10, insert additional election day snark here.
Cast and Crew
Impressively, Vivien Leigh is #16 on AFI’s “100 Years…100 Stars” list despite being primarily a stage actress. I don’t think anyone on that list is more strongly defined by their peak—for Leigh, it was her roles in A Streetcar Named Desire and Gone with the Wind. That’s praising with faint damn, though: what characters are more iconic than Blanche DuBois and Scarlett O’Hara?
In the fourteen years between Streetcar and Ship of Fools, Leigh only made two films.3 She was busier on the stage, doing Shakespeare and winning a Tony for her performance in the musical “Tovarich.”4 But her bipolar disorder worsened, impacting her work and leading to the end of her marriage with Laurence Olivier. She was in poor health while filming Ship of Fools, but goddamn, every scene with her is electric. She died of tuberculosis in 1967.
This is an ensemble film with a deep cast, so we’ll provide some bullets.
Despite being fifth-billed, it was Oskar Werner who was this film’s nominee for Best Actor. We’ll see him next week in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
Lee Marvin went from the drunken physical comedy of Cat Ballou to mining pathos from that same drunkenness here.
Simone Signoret, who we last saw in Room at the Top, was nominated for Best Actress for her role as La Condesa.
This is the last film we’ll see from column favorite José Ferrer, though we’ve had plenty of opportunities to appreciate his work.
Michael Dunn received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for his role. He was 3’ 11’’ (he had medical dwarfism) and, besides this film, was known for playing Dr. Loveless on the TV show “Wild Wild West” (1965–1969).
Ship of Fools was based on a novel by author Katherine Anne Porter. You gotta know “Ship of Fools,” but Porter’s not a one-hit wonder: her “Collected Stories” (which included the work “Pale Horse, Pale Rider”) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The Trivia
The concept of a “ship of fools” dates to an allegory in Plato’s “Republic,”5 so today’s Trivia section is about Plato and his pals.
We’ll start by discussing Plato’s teacher Socrates (c. 469 BC–399 BC), a guy who (by his own admission) didn’t know anything.6 Socrates’ method for seeking truth (called the “Socratic Method,” natch) was to ask probing questions to stimulate critical thinking. Socrates didn’t author anything but was a huge influence on his students—so much so that he was sentenced to death for impiety and corrupting Athens’ youth. True to his ideals to the end, he didn’t repent, drank hemlock, and died.
Alfred North Whitehead said all European philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Socrates’ student, Plato (c. 429 BC–347 BC). Plato founded the Academy, a school in Athens that continued the Socratic tradition of inquiry and dialectic.7 Much of Plato’s work is structured as dialogues between himself and Socrates.
“Republic”: about education, the nature of justice, and the ideal state (a republic, as the name implies). “Republic” contains the allegory of the cave. Briefly: imagine you’ve only lived in a cave and all you’ve ever seen are shadows reflected on the walls of the cave; you’d think that the shadows were all of reality. But if you could leave the cave, you’d see that reality’s not just shadows, but is whatever casts shadows from outside the cave.8
“Symposium”: speeches from notable men (including Socrates, Alcibiades, and Aristophanes) on the nature of love.
“Apology”: this one accounts the trial of Socrates. Though it’s called “Apology,” it was more of Socrates saying “sorry not sorry” as he defended himself in court. In it, Socrates says “an unexamined life is not worth living.”9
You should be able to contrast Plato with his student Aristotle (c. 384 BC–322 BC).10
Aristotle also had a school: his was called the Lyceum and his followers were called the Peripatetics. Though now remembered primarily as a philosopher, Aristotle was also a scientist of the first rate, essentially starting whole fields (for one, he’s known as the “father of zoology”). Some of his noteworthy works are discussed below.
“Nicomachean Ethics”: named either for Aristotle’s father or son (both named Nicomachus), it’s about ethics and teaching you how to “flourish.”11
Aristotle’s works on practical and natural philosophy: “Physics,” “Politics,” and “Poetics.”
“Metaphysics”: Well, metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, so I guess that’s what Aristotle was gettin’ at with this one.
Aristotle’s called the founder of logic and his works on the subject are collectively known as the “Organon.” His work was updated by Francis Bacon in “Novum Organum” (1620).
A (sorta silly and not always true) way to remember who wrote what: the Aristotelian works have simple names of subjects you might take in school (y’know, poetics, politics, phys ed, physics, ethics). Anyway, like Socrates, Aristotle was accused of impiety, but instead of just takin’ it, he declared “I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy,” fled, and eventually died of natural, non-hemlock causes.12
Odds and Ends
José Greco, who flamenco dances in the film, is known for popularizing Spanish dance in the U.S.…a German mentions not having a “pfennig,” which is their word for penny (100 made a mark)…the characters dance to “Tales from the Vienna Woods,” a waltz by “waltz king” Johann Strauss II…the purser on a ship handles the passengers’ money…“Ship of Fools” is also a 1494 work by Sebastian Brant and a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.
Ah, and one thing to remember: no reasonable man ought to insist that these facts are exactly as I have described them.13
Those fools are described as “emancipated ladies, ballplayers, lovers, dog lovers, ladies of joy, tolerant Jews, dwarfs, all kinds.”
She delivers this heartbreaking line:
There’s a time when hearts grow cold and hard. Women lose their grace and become shrill. They run to fat or turn to beanpoles. Take to secret drinking. They marry men too young for them and get just what they deserve.
The Deep Blue Sea (1955) and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961).
“Toravich” means “comrade” in Russian.
Plato’s “ship of fools” is a political system not based on expert knowledge. The more things change, the more etc. etc. etc.
Of course, he was flexing: he figured that, since he knew he didn’t know anything, that he was wiser than those who didn’t know they didn’t know anything. That’s sorta what the name of our newsletter’s getting at too.
“Dialectic” is defined on Wikipedia as “dialogue between people holding different points of view […] but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argumentation.” Zero of the political conversations you’ve had over the last six months fit this definition.
This gets at Plato’s theory of forms: that everything on Earth is a specific and flawed copy of an ideal model that actually exists in another reality (i.e., outside of the cave). If you think this is wack, don’t worry—so did Aristotle.
“Apology,” is the second in Plato’s quadrilogy on Socrates’ trial, imprisonment, and death. The first is “Euthyphro” while the last two are “Crito” and “Phaedo.”
The order to remember: Socrates → Plato → Aristotle. And, since Alexander the Great was Aristotle’s student, you can stick Alex at the end of that progression. If it helps, note that they come in reverse alphabetical order (I swear, that does actually help me).
Aristotle also wrote “Eudemian Ethics,” but I’m not good enough at this to tell you the difference between the two. Oh, look—I don’t know something! I’m like Socrates!
Aristotle also said some phrases that still float around: “Well begun is half done”; “The best provision for old age is education”; “Man is by nature a political animal”; “One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one fine day.”
Yeah, I jacked that quote. It’s from Plato’s “Phaedo,” quoting Socrates.