Cast Away
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| Cast Away | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert Zemeckis |
| Produced by | Jack Rapke Robert Zemeckis Steve Starkey Tom Hanks |
| Written by | William Broyles Jr. |
| Starring | Tom Hanks Helen Hunt Wilson the Volleyball |
| Editing by | Arthur Schmidt |
| Distributed by | - USA - Twentieth Century Fox - non-USA - DreamWorks ImageMovers |
| Release date(s) | Image:Flag of the United States.svg December 7 2000 (premiere) Image:Flag of the United States.svg December 22 2000 Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg January 12 2001 |
| Running time | 143 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD$ 90,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $ 429,632,142 worldwide |
| IMDb profile | |
- For other uses, see Castaway (disambiguation).
Cast Away is a 2000 film by 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks about a FedEx employee who is stranded on an uninhabited island after his plane goes down over the South Pacific. It is unusual in Hollywood cinema in that during most of the movie there is only one human character. Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his performance.
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[edit] Plot synopsis
In the opening scene, a FedEx truck rolls under a large sign reading "Dick & Bettina" to a ranch-style Texas residence where the driver takes for delivery a FedEx package marked with a custom logo in the form of angels' wings. These wings are also seen as freestanding sculptures on the property and inside out-buildings. The woman sending the package, an artist in a welder's suit, tells the driver she will have another one for him to take that coming Thursday. The audience sees the package delivered all the way to a residence in Moscow, Russia, to a man in a cowboy hat and robe. A Russian woman who is with the man, apparently on intimate terms, asks, "Who is it from?" He replies, "My wife."
The film then cuts to Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a highly efficient FedEx executive, as he attempts to improve the performance of FedEx's Moscow branch. After imploring the Russian employees to live by the clock, Chuck returns to the U.S. (Tennessee) where he is trying to guide a relationship with his girlfriend Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt) toward marriage. It is obvious that Chuck's harried professional life with FedEx is making his relationship with Kelly difficult to sustain. Their Christmas together is interrupted by Chuck being called on a last minute business trip. He and Kelly exchange gifts in the Jeep on the way to the FedEx hub, Kelly giving him a family heirloom pocket watch containing a photo of herself, and Chuck giving her a number of joke presents (hand towels, a journal) before solemnly offering her an engagement ring. He tells her to wait until he gets back on New Year's Eve to open it, and walks off to the FedEx jet saying, "I'll be right back".
While flying through a thunderstorm somewhere over the southern Pacific Ocean, Chuck's flight goes disastrously wrong and crashes into the nighttime sea in flames. Saved by an inflatable liferaft, Chuck floats helplessly on the ocean until he is brought to a deserted island. Unfortunately for Chuck, the canister that was supposed to stay attached to the raft containing the search-and-rescue beacon that would be needed to help rescue him, was caught in the wreckage of the aircraft, and was left behind as Chuck floated to the surface.
After ascertaining the island is uninhabited, Chuck's most immediate need is drinking water, which he satisfies by drinking coconut water and later by storing rain water in the discarded husks. His second immediate need is shelter, which he secures by draping his raft over palmtree trunks and, later, by discovering small caves in the island rock. The third task is food. He attempts to fish, but is wholly unsuccessful at the start. As time progresses, his fishing skills increase.
A short time later, the body of one of the flight crew also washes up. Having been without shoes since removing them while on the plane, Chuck takes the pilot's too-small shoes and dons them after cutting out the toes, creating sandals. Chuck also finds a small pocket flashlight amongst the pilot's possessions. Chuck then buries the pilot in a shallow grave, showing respect by covering the man's face with a life jacket. He also scratches a primitive headstone into a rock facing that rises above the grave.
Around this time, at night, he sees a light on the horizon, presumably from a search party. After realizing the futility of attracting attention using the flashlight, he takes to the sea on the damaged life raft. His escape attempt is thwarted by the high surf around the island's reef, and his leg is badly cut in the process.
Meanwhile, FedEx packages have been washing ashore -- wreckage from the crash. Chuck had been sorting the packages, as he had done in his life prior to becoming a castaway -- perhaps to help him retain a semblance of normalcy in his life and likely, in the beginning, out of a belief that he would soon be rescued.
After many days, perhaps weeks, have passed, Chuck begins to open the packages. He finds videocassettes, divorce papers, ice skates, a dress, and a volleyball. With these seemingly random assortment of items, Chuck begins to improvise tools. One item which he uses in many different ways is the pair of ice-skates which he uses as a tree-cutter to craft spears. Chuck uses the dress as a net to fish with. And the papers and cardboard become bed liners.
One of the FedEx packages bears the distinctive angels' wings custom logo observed in the first scene. It is the package the artist mentioned she would be sending on the following Thursday. For some reason, this is the only package Chuck does not open. One can surmise that not opening this package, again is an attempt to connect with his "pre-castaway" life; seeing that package is a connection to his profession, to events just prior to the fateful trip which landed him in this lonely situation.
Shortly after Chuck's first fishing attempt, he finds a compelling need to produce fire, which, after great effort, many attempts and some injury, he succeeds in doing. Interestingly, upon injuring himself to the point of bloody hands, Chuck accidentally makes a handprint on the volleyball, which he then fashions into a face resembling flames. He perches the volleyball nearby and uses him/it as a friend -- talking to him, sharing details regarding the plane route and crash, attempting to identify his present location. Chuck is seemingly losing his "grasp" on reality -- but the introduction of his volleyball friend makes sense; it gives him company on the lonely island and this volleyball friend stays with him for years to come.
As time passes, it is clear that through determination and ingenuity Chuck has risen to the challenges of physical survival. It is also evident he is in a fragile mental state, relying heavily on his memories of Kelly. Through the crash, Chuck was able to retain the pocketwatch with Kelly's picture. He often gazes upon this picture garnering comfort in lonely times and motivation to go on.
After a while, Chuck realizes that a tooth-ache he has developed on the island will not go away unless the tooth is removed. He has developed an abcess. Chuck talks to Kelly's picture about the problem and to his volleyball friend whom he has now named "Dr. Wilson" (Wilson, after the manufacturer of the volleyball). Eventually, Chuck and his "friends" determine that the tooth must come out. He uses the ice skates he found earlier to forcefully knock the tooth out. He is successful, but the pain knocks Chuck out.
Four years later, we see Chuck expertly tossing a spear into the water, killing a fish to eat. The picture quickly goes into the cave in which Chuck now sleeps. It shows that Chuck has made a myriad of pictures of Kelly on the cave walls, and made a box to hold his possessions.
One morning, Chuck wakes up to hear a loud banging noise in the distance. Chuck shouts at Wilson, (the volleyball he opened four years ago and made into his friend) to shut up. He realizes that Wilson is still "asleep", and goes to investigate. Outside, Chuck finds a large piece of a molded plastic port-a-john caught on the rocks in the surf. Chuck, now with a beard, long hair and wearing a loincloth, his body much leaner and weatherbeaten, drags it up the beach away from the waves and contemplates it with some intensity.
Eventually he uses this fragment as a sail for a new raft. While trying to make rope with the hibiscus plants on the island, Chuck eventually runs short of plants. Wilson "reminds" Chuck about the thirty-feet of extra rope on the summit of the island. After climbing the large cliff, Chuck hoists a totem that was hanging off of the rope, which, after Chuck removes from the totem, reveals a Noose Knot that shows that during his third year on the island, (Chuck said to Wilson a short time later after the subject was brought up, that "It was what? A year ago?") Chuck considered hanging himself on top of the summit to stop the endured physical and emotional pain of being stranded on the island. After the subject of Chuck's attempted suicide was brought up, Chuck has a "fight" with Wilson and, in anger, tosses him out of the cave's hole. At first, Chuck is satisfied with this deed, but realizes he has lost his friend and freaks out. He runs out of the cave to search for Wilson, and find him bobbing in the surf. Relieved, he shouts "Never again!"
After construction of the raft, Chuck writes on a rock, "Chuck Noland was on this island for 1500 days. Tell Kelly Frears in Memphis Tennessee, I love her", to be read later if he did not come back home alive. After this, the wind begins to blow north, signaling Chuck's time to sail. By raising his hinged, makeshift sail (on which he has painted a replica of the angels' wings logo) at a precisely timed moment in the curl of a wave, he pushes through the rough surf at the reef break that foiled him years earlier. After Chuck beats the tide, he takes one last look at the island, which disappears into the clouds.
A few days later, Chuck comes sailing next to a whale (Robert Zemeckis stated that this was symbolic because whales were very close to humans in intelligence, and that nobody had seen him for four years, making the whale the first). During a harsh storm, the rope holding down the makeshift sail breaks free of the raft. As it flies away in the wind, the two parts of the plastic flutter together, symbolizing the idea of an angel that had been formerly represented by the depiction of the angel's wings. After a few days, Wilson gets loose from the raft, and the current carries him away.
Chuck desperately tries to get Wilson back, but is unsuccessful, shouting "I'm sorry, Wilson!" Chuck is now alone on the raft, sobbing over the loss of his friend. After losing Wilson, Chuck lets the raft drift aimlessly on the sea. After drifting for an unknown period of time over a distance of about 600 miles — delirious and on the verge of death — he is rescued by a passing cargo freighter.
On returning home, Chuck must come to terms with the fact that everyone he was close to has given him up for dead long ago and moved on with their lives. Kelly has married and had a child with another man, Jerry Lovett (Christopher Noth), a dental surgeon who had performed a root canal on Chuck several years earlier. After a dramatic scene in which the pair comes close to resuming the romance, Kelly realizes that she made a commitment to her husband Jerry and says goodbye to Chuck. Chuck later tells a friend that he "lost her all over again." In the film's short philosophical coda, Chuck explains to his close friend, "I've got to keep breathing. Because tomorrow, the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"
This part of the film also has one of the more ironic scenes. As a Welcome Home gesture, Chuck's fellow employees throw him a party at work, with a Desert Isle theme, complete with a variety of seafood. Chuck looks at it in almost disgust, having had to eat practically nothing but seafood for the past four years. He also picks a lighter and flicks it on and off a few times, watching how easily fire could be made, remembering the difficulties and cut hand while trying to make fire on the island.
The film ends with Chuck at a remote crossroads after delivering the one unopened package from the island to the residence from the first scene (due to the long passage of time, the package is being returned to sender). The sign over the residence has had the "Dick" portion of the "Dick & Bettina" name removed, but the angels' wings sculptures are still there. No one is home, so Chuck leaves the package propped in the screen door with a note, which reads "This package saved my life." He returns to the crossroads a short distance away, stopping his car to study a map. The artist, pretty, friendly, and around his own age, drives up in an antique truck and says, "You look lost." She describes where all the roads branching from the intersection lead. He thanks her, and as she drives away Chuck notices the angels' wings painted on the back of her truck. A long close up of Chuck smiling in the direction the truck had left closes the film. In addition the wind (symbolic of the wind he used to escape the island) blows in the direction the truck went.
[edit] Time on the Island
According to the gravestone labeled "Albert Miller" (the aircraft crew member whose body Chuck found in the surf after he climbed the large cliff he attempted suicide on), Chuck began his four years on the island in 1995. In the movie, it states that Chuck was on the island for four years. Chuck was apparently on the island from December 26 (assuming the family dinner was on Christmas Day), 1995 to February 2, 2000, a period encompassing 1500 days. (Although, when Chuck is calculating the best time to leave, in the cave, his calculations might seem to suggest it was in March or maybe even April that he left; this would mean, though, that he was on the island almost a month, at least, longer than 1500 days [possibly a "continuity" movie error].)
In the movie, before Chuck tries to return home on his raft, Chuck writes down on a rock, "Chuck Noland was on this island for 1,500 days." If this information is accurate, it would mean that Chuck was on the island for 4 years and 39 days, or 4 years, 5 weeks and 4 days, which does not include the time Chuck spent rafting on the ocean or the time spent floating on the life raft prior to landing on the island.
[edit] Cast Away island
| Monuriki | |
| Coordinates: |
|---|
Cast Away island is actually Monuriki; a member of the Mamanuca Islands. It is in a subgroup of the Mamanuca archipelago, which is sited off the coast of Viti Levu, Fiji's largest island. It has become a famous tourist attraction following the film's release.
A satellite image of the island is available to be seen here.
[edit] Wilson
One of Cast Away's notable "characters" is "Wilson," a volleyball from Wilson Sporting Goods. The volleyball is found in one of the FedEx boxes. When Chuck tries to make a fire and cuts his hand, he angrily palms the volleyball and throws it. The blood from his wound makes the hand-shaped mark that forms the ball's "face". This volleyball plays the role of a mute, infinitely patient, non-living listener in the movie, providing Chuck with a companion for the 1,500 days he spends on the island. Wilson is also slightly modified by Noland sometime during the four-year gap; a section of the volleyball above the face has been removed and a coif of leaves has been inserted, serving as hair. From a theatrical standpoint, Wilson also serves to realistically simulate dialogue in a single-person situation. Chuck loses Wilson after the volleyball washes off the raft and drifts too far out to sea for Chuck to be able to retrieve it. Toward the end of the film, Chuck is seen driving with a brand new volleyball sitting in the passenger seat.
[edit] Product placement
Cast Away is well-known for its prominent product placement marketing. In this case the movie benefited two major brands: Wilson and FedEx. However, contrary to popular belief, FedEx did not pay the filmmakers anything for their presence in the movie, a fact which the director has made clear in a number of interviews.
At the time of the movie's release, Wilson Sporting Goods launched its own joint promotion centered around the fact that one of its products was "co-starring" with Tom Hanks.
The plane crash scene caused FedEx Corporation to have "a heart attack at first", according to Gayle Christensen, director of global brand management for the company. However, FedEx decided the movie was a "risk worth taking because the story of the brand was very positive," she said, adding that the movie helped increase FedEx's brand awareness in Asia and Europe.[1] FedEx cooperated closely with the filmmakers to ensure that all FedEx materials seen in the movie were authentic. Chuck's "coming-home" scene was filmed on location at FedEx's home facilities in Memphis, Tennessee.
Some commentators claim that the use of the FedEx brand and logo in its present form is an anachronism, since the first half of the film was set in 1995 while FedEx Corporation was officially titled FDX Corp. at the time. (FedEx Corporation changed to its present name in 2000, when Noland returned). However, the brand "FedEx" began to be used by the overnight-courier division of the company in 1994. The complete absence of references in the film to the old names that had been recently in use could still be considered a flaw or a form of marketing benefit.
Another product placed in the film is the soft drink Dr. Pepper, which Chuck is shown drinking on the plane before the crash, and again after his return to civilization.
[edit] Film notes
The producers made up a list of seemingly useless items that would be in the packages that Noland recovered: party dress, ice skates, divorce papers, video tapes, etc. They turned this over to a group of survival experts, who decided what the protagonist might be able to do with them: fish net, axe, etc.
The CEO at the end of the movie is actually Fred Smith, the real-life CEO of FedEx.
In a panel discussing the movie, Director Robert Zemeckis jokingly said that the final unopened package at the end contained a waterproof, solar-powered satellite phone.
Production was on hiatus for about a year to allow Tom Hanks to lose some weight and grow his hair. During that period, Robert Zemeckis used the crew to produce and direct What Lies Beneath.
The filmmakers actually burned down several trees on the island for the movie. In return they were required to plant three new trees for each one they burned down.
[edit] Cultural references
A FedEx advertisement in the United States features a character who survived an ordeal very similar to Chuck Noland returning an unopened package to its owner. She tells him that it contains "silly stuff" such as a GPS Receiver, satellite phone, seeds, fishing rod and a water purifier. [2]
Wilson Sporting Goods manufactured a volleyball with a parody of the handprint face on one side, it was sold for a limited time during the movie's initial release.
Lloyd Braun of ABC Studios pitched the idea of a television series based on the movie, obviously titled: Cast Away: The Series. That show later evolved into the hit ABC show Lost. The pilot episode of the show was the most expensive pilot ever produced and fearful ABC executives subsequently fired Braun, ignorant of the success to come for Lost.
MaximOnline.com named the airplane crash in Cast Away #6 on its list of "Most Horrific Movie Plane Crashes."
In the 2006 video game Far Cry Instincts: Evolution, set in a tropical South Pacific location, there is a hidden island containing an easter egg: a small wrecked boat, two corpses, rocks laid out to spell "HELP!", and a volleyball resembling Wilson (except in the game, instead of a bloody handprint on the ball, it is a footprint).
The movie was spoofed in Family Guy. It shows Peter on the raft with Wilson (the ball). Peter keeps yelling, "Wilson! Wilson! What are we gonna do now? Wilson! Wil-" At that moment the ball interrupts saying, "My name is Voit, dumbass!!" It also shows Peter looking at a pocket watch. Looking at the picture in the watch, he begins to cry. "I miss you, Captain Caveman," he says. The picture in the watch depicts Captain Caveman in a similar pose as Helen Hunt in Cast Away.
Another reference to Cast Away can be seen in the 2005 CGI animated film Madagascar. In a beach scene, the lion character, Alex (voiced by Ben Stiller) is injured trying to erect a makeshift "Lady Liberty". In his frustration, he turns to a volleyball resembling Wilson (instead of a red handprint it features a red lion's paw print) and then he says "Shut up, Spalding!", then he swats the ball away.
In Behind Enemy Lines, a football is launched from the deck of an aircraft carrier. As the sailors lose the ball, which eventually falls into the ocean, somebody screams "WILSON!"
In the browser-based role-playing game Kingdom of Loathing, one of the familiars a player can choose is the Blood-Faced Volleyball.
[edit] Movie score
The film's minimal score was composed by Alan Silvestri for which he won a Grammy in 2002. The film's soundtrack is most notable for its lack of score while Chuck is on the island. There is no music at all until he escapes, which is used to resemble the lack of civilization on the island. A pseudo exception to this could be said to be the scene where Tom Hanks' character creates fire, in which he sings "Light My Fire" by The Doors, among others. The tracks for the score are as follows:
- "Cast Away" - 3.44
- "Wilson, I'm Sorry" - 1.39
- "Drive To Kelly's" - 3.54
- "Love of My Life" - 1.47
- "What the Tide Could Bring" - 3.39
- "Crossroads" - 2.08
- "End Credits" - 7.29
[edit] Cast
- Tom Hanks – Hanks' performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
- Helen Hunt
- Wilson the Volleyball
- Valerie Wildman
- Geoffrey Blake
- Jenifer Lewis
- Chris Noth
- Nick Searcy
- Lari White - Bettina Peterson
[edit] Notable award nominations
- 73rd Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks), Best Sound
- BAFTA Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks)
- 58th Golden Globe Awards: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama: For which he won (Tom Hanks)
- Screen Actors Guild: Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks)
- 2001 MTV Movie Awards: Best On-screen Team (Tom Hanks and Wilson)
[edit] References
- ^ "A look at some of the biggest hits in film and TV product placement", The Hollywood Reporter, 2005-04-28. Retrieved on 2007-11-25.
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvX7ovvf-LI Watch the commercial here.
[edit] External links
- Cast Away at Box Office Mojo
- Cast Away Clip plane crash scene
Films directed by Robert Zemeckis |
|---|
| I Wanna Hold Your Hand • Used Cars • Romancing the Stone • Back to the Future • Who Framed Roger Rabbit • Back to the Future Part II • Back to the Future Part III • Death Becomes Her • Forrest Gump • Contact • What Lies Beneath • Cast Away • The Polar Express • Beowulf |
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