Browse: Home / Dad to the Bone: CRIMSON TIDE — A New Series by James Williams

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Lunch Links: EVIL DEMON GOLFBALL FROM HELL!!!
  • Commercials You Can Hear
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of November 1970
  • Film on the Internet: DRAGONWYCK
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of October 1970

Dad to the Bone: CRIMSON TIDE — A New Series by James Williams

Posted By Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott on December 1, 2022 in Features | Leave a response

In June, I became a father for the first time. A lot of things changed in my life all of a sudden, but the most important one was that I was now expected to have a collection of dad movies to watch with my new daughter. It was a moment I had been unknowingly preparing for a long time.

The “dad movie” has had a resurgence in the public consciousness in recent years, mostly attributable to a dearth of new releases that could fit comfortably alongside the canon of midbudget action, comedy, and sports movies that occupy the DVD shelves of the nation’s fathers. But what makes a “dad movie” is strangely amorphous; to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s thoughts on pornography, the concept is difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. What I’d like to do with this column is not find a set of rules that dad movies have to follow, but examine some of the canonical classics in depth, see why they appeal to dads, and maybe discover some newer releases that younger fathers can add to their own repertoire.

It’s fitting then, that the first movie this column will be examining is Crimson Tide, directed by Tony Scott and starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman. Scott and Washington’s long-running collaboration was a particularly fruitful one. Separately, they could be considered dad movie royalty: the genre’s ultimate auteur and its biggest star. But with their movies together, they have maybe contributed more to the aesthetic definition and feel of thye dad movie than anyone else. It’s fitting that they have Hackman on hand as well; with The Conversation and The French Connection, Hackman established himself as the biggest dad-movie star of a previous generation. Seeing them together in  Crimson Tide feels like a baton being passed.

Considering how Scott became synonymous with a certain type of action cinema, it’s shocking that some of the tensest moments in Crimson Tide generate suspense out of Hackman and Washington’s dialogue. The script (credited to Michael Schiffer, but with uncredited rewrites from Quentin Tarantino, Steve Zaillan, and Robert Towne) does great work laying out the differences between the two from the beginning: Hackman’s Captain Ramsey is hot-headed, impulsive, instinctual. He even hires Washington’s Lieutenant Commander Hunter, an intellectual with no combat experience, because his dog likes him. Later, when a missile from an enemy sub knocks out communication before Ramsey can receive confirmation to launch the nukes, the differences between the two men will boil over into a power struggle with the fate of the world on the line. Scott expertly uses the action scenes to ratchet up the tension to unbearable levels, but is able to make a climax out of something as simple as two men waiting for a response on the other end of the line.

Beyond its aesthetic value, it is easy to see why Crimson Tide quickly became a dad movie staple. War movies have infinite dad movie appeal, and the philosophical conflict at the center is thought-provoking enough to make you wonder what you would do in the same situation (the movie is smart enough to put us on Hunter’s side, but also give Ramsey’s point of view a weight and logic that can’t be ignored). And for Washington and Scott, it was the beginning of a collaboration that would lead to further dad movie glory. 

Next time: With The Whale coming out, it’s time to go back and examine the last time Darren Aronofsky made a small, intimate character piece, The Wrestler.

Posted in Features | Tagged Dad to the Bone, Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, James Gandolfini, James Williams, Tony Scott, Viggo Mortensen

About the Author

Sam “Burgundy Suit” Scott

Sam is a features writer for Looper and studied writing under Kevin Wilson at Sewanee: the University of the South. He’s been a staff writer for The Solute since its launch in 2014 and editor of the Year of the Month series since 2017.

I don’t know how to put this, but he’s kind of a big deal. He has many leather-bound books and his apartment smells of rich mahogany.

Now on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/user/creators?u=23744950

  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

Related Posts

Year of the Month: James Williams on THE FISHER KING→

Dad to the Bone: James Williams on EXCALIBUR→

Year of the Month: James Williams on MY BLOODY VALENTINE→

Dad to the Bone: James Williams on the JOHN WICK series→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    35461 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    28155 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    26763 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    26631 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    20689 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • Years later, Johnson would use these techniques to film Star Wars actors interacting with golfballs that would be replaced by Porgs or some shit.

    Lunch Links: EVIL DEMON GOLFBALL FROM HELL!!!

    September 28, 2023 / The Ploughman
  • One . . . two . . . three!

    Commercials You Can Hear

    September 27, 2023 / Gillianren
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of November 1970

    September 27, 2023 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Film on the Internet: DRAGONWYCK

    September 27, 2023 / ZoeZ
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of October 1970

    September 26, 2023 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!