On rewatching this movie I was puzzled about a scene towards the end. In it Gene Hackmans character and Denzel Washingtons character are having a conversation while waiting for the comms antenna to be repaired. Hackman mentions a breed of horses that are entirely white, was this an effort to disconcert or insult Washingtons character or was it meant to imply that Hackmans character is simply a racist?
I found it strange because nowhere else in the film is it hinted that the confrontation and tension between the two main characters has a racial aspect.
I think that it is meant to imply that Hackman’s character has a blind spot and ignorance when it comes to race. The discussion is about Lipizzaner stallions, which are a particular kind of horse where some are taught to do what is basically synchronized dancing with others in a show. The horses that are taught are born black, but only get into the dancing troupe if their coats change to white. The troupe IIRC is called The Spanish Riding School and is based out of Austria.
Only 1 in 200 Lipizzaner horses from do not “grey out” to white by 7 years of age. Unless they are actually albinos, all white horses are born dark and grey out. In other words, if this were true, over 99% are qualified by virtue of color.
However, it is not true that Spanish Riding School mounts must be white - not only is a bay (bown with black mane & tail) is traditionally kept in the performing troupe – it is considered dire bad luck not to have one.
I stopped by to say the same thing. You can ID every scene of QT dialogue in that flick as a game. Like when Denzel and a submariner take five to discuss the Silver Surfer and Mobius’ Silver Surfer.
I always took that scene to be Captain Ramsey trying to intimidate Hunter through preternatural calmness amidst chaos. Never occurred to me that it could be a racial thing.
Right. I remember from one of Biography shows –it had to be the one on Denzel- Tarantino was brought in to add some more punch to the screenplay. His solution? He added a racist undertone to Hackman’s Captain Ramsey and infused the dialogue with sprinklings of the N-word and other derogatory phrasings.
Well Denzel’s career had reached the point where the actor had enough clout to stand up to the filmmakers and countered that this new angle contributed nothing positive to the film nor to the character portrayal and basically vetoed Tarantino’s input.
In the end, I think we would agree that Denzel was right.
I don’t think Ramsey was a racist. He seems altogether more classy, educated and smart than that. The fact that he recommends Hunter for further command during the subsequent court martial would indicate as much.
I think he deliberately threw that particular line out just to troll Hunter. Also possibly as a way to assert dominance. It’s his way of saying “I’m the boss here, you’ve lost, I can do whatever I want up to and including calling you a nigger in front of everyone, while you have to grin and bear it. Understood ?”.
The follow-up line when he says that horses can be taught to do anything by shocking them enough reinforces this - he’s saying Hunter should learn to do what he’s told unless he wants more boot up his backside.
Not to mention that it would make little sense in terms of theme to try and write one of the two as the “bad guy” (and making one a card-carrying racist would do just that). The whole point of the movie is that they’re both right, and both “the hero”.
Thanks, that makes sense, I was just surprised by that scene because at no other point in the film was race even referred to, even obliquely (that I can recall)
I do wonder how well Ramsey threatening to shoot a subordinate in order to pressure the weapons officer into opening the safe would go down during a board of enquiry though…and if he’d have gone through with it if his bluff had been called.
I thought the Captain was trying to goad the Commander into losing control, such as flying into a rage and assaulting the C.O., and then having an ironclad reason to relieve the X.O.
Both characters were asserting that they had legitimate reasons (i.e. within Navy regulations) for doing what they did during the incident. The crew was also split, some agreeing with him, others agreeing with the X.O. (It’s possible that the Captain was beginning to have a doubt.)
When I first watched that scene, I was like “whaaa?”, but after thinking about it, I think he was still looking for a way to resolve the situation. (Discrediting the X.O. in front of his supporters, having him relieved for cause.)
Didn’t they get that wrong in the movie; said the school was in Spain, or something like that?
I remember wondering why they struggled so much over that second message that got interrupted when they dove deep. They trailed a special antenna wire, it jammed, etc. Wouldn’t they have had to come shallow again before launching the missiles, and couldn’t they get the rest of the message then?
Gene Hackman said the horses were from Portugal, Denzel said they were from Spain. At the very end (after the court martial), Gene admits that Denzel was right.
They got a second EAM while diving to avoid the Russian Akula. This was interrupted because they went too deep for ELF. Gene’s plan was to come shallow to launch, and see if there was another EAM for them then. On Denzel’s suggestion, they started to deploy the radio buoy, and it started to receive another EAM, but the winch jammed. It made enough noise that the Akula found them & hit them with a torpedo, which broke every radio in the sub. From that point on, they had no way to receive another EAM until the radio tech fixed the radio, regardless of their depth. That’s where the conflict came in - Gene claimed his original order to launch was still valid, so he was going to launch immediately. Denzel claimed that since they knew there was another EAM being broadcast, they shouldn’t launch until they fixed the radio, even if that meant waiting past the time when the rebel Russians would have been able to launch their nukes against the US.
I remember it a bit differently than that, but close enough. In any case, why run the risk of stringing out that radio buoy to check for EAMs now if you have to come shallow to launch missiles and get the EAM then?
If there really was an EAM cancelling the launch, and they could receive it, they wouldn’t have to come shallow at all. The Akula was searching for them so they’d be in more danger if they were shallow instead of deep.
As I said, I remember it a bit differently. I thought they were in the process of going deep when the second EAM started coming in, but they didn’t receive all of it. Then it became a battle of wills between Hackman (who wanted to carry out the most recent complete orders, and launch missiles) and Washington (who wanted to complete the second EAM and see if it rescinded the launch order). I kept wondering why they were in such a strong disagreement, since they’d get the message in the process of coming to launch depth.
Well no, but they certainly didn’t plan on the winch breaking and making enough noise to expose their location to the Akula. If the winch hadn’t broken, they would have gotten the EAM cancelling the launch while they were still deep, evaded the Akula and egressed the area, and the movie would have been quietly over.