Do you think there is supposed to be any 'sexual' bond between the characters Jake Holman & Po-Han in the movie or just ship buddies? I'll have to watch the movie again: I think there may be some desire between the Candice Bergan character & Jake, but I don't think anything comes of it.
shareNo. Jake took him under his wing. It was all part of his reawakening - to see the Chinese as people and not just 'slopeheads', as he first referred to them. There was definate desire between Jake and Shirley.
"Thus, we began our longest journey together."
Adult Scout, 'To Kill A Mockingbird'
I agree. I was about to write the very same thing. Luckily, scruffy58 wrote it for me.
Come on, the movie was filmed in 1966. This is not 'Brokeback Mountain' time.
Jake Hollman lived in a bigoted timeperiod. He expressed his own bigotry by calling the Chinese 'slopeheads'. I still don't know how that term originated. It lasted through the Korean War and then disappeared from usage.
But what touches me about Jake Hollman is this kind of redemption. Jake overcomes his own ingrained bigotry to feel sympathy for Po Han. He protects Po Han and takes him under his wing, teaching him much about tending the ship's engines.
This was a subtle message of Christianity that I hoped people would pick up on. We humans can use our intelligence to overcome our base, primitive tribal and racial prejudices. Remember, every human being on this planet is from the same homo sapien species. It's our external appearance, adapted to climate, and our different cultures and languages, that are the cause of much ethnic suspicion and it doesn't have to be that way.
In America our race relations are poisoned today. Everything is literally in black and white, no pun intended. Either you're a hard core racist or you're a progressive, liberal free-thinker who loves all mankind. Give me a break. We all swallow the cultural bigotries relevant to ourselves growing up. Some of the worst racist strife can be seen in today's high schools where the students pride themselves on being ultra-liberal. I see it all the time in the local newspapers about race fights in high schools, not necessarily involving teen gangs all the time. And these kids all claim to be progressive and liberal and hate so-called racists like George Bush. Huh? Weren't you kids just in some huge altercation in the cafeteria against kids of a different racial background, requiring the summoning of the Los Angeles Police in twelve squad cars and the riot suppression force? You're never too young to be a hypocrite.
My point is not to say that we all go out and suddenly become Mother Theresa. I'm saying, think about it closely. Maybe there is a better way to live together in this world today. Can't we all get along? Certainly we can, if we want to.
I considered that thought, when I was younger (first saw it in the 70's as a teenager), mainly because of the Navy's gay inuenndo/stereotype. However, having lived to be as old as Holman... and beyond, I can see that sex had nothing to do with that relationship. Holman took pride in doing a "good job", be that engineering or coal shoveling. If he was going to do something, it was going to be all out. In teaching Po-Han how to do his job correctly, Holman learned that competence has nothing to do with race, only opportunity and guidance. Holman caught Teacher/Coach fever. Po-Han was his protege. Every teacher loves their star pupil.
I also notice how they have Holman go to a brothel, right off the bat. This is done to establish where his sexual interests and work ethics lay. i.e. You pay for a girl, then you go to work.
"What rotten sins I've got working for me. I suppose it's the wages." -Bedazzled (1967)
You god damn queers always want to start trouble dont you?
shareI honestly don't see it. The relationship is one of elder brother, younger brother, mentor and student. However, I can appreciate the question because the two actors had the most extraordinary screen chemistry, eclipsing by far any chemistry one might discern between McQueen and Bergen.
shareYeah, I agree with that. In fact, the movie should have followed the book a little more in respect to Jake and Po-Han. In the book, if I recall correctly, Po-Han had a wife and home and Jake visited him there often.
I agree the chemistry between McQueen and Bergen isn't all that great, probably because McQueen really wasn't that great an actor, and Bergen was still young and very stiff. McQueen had great "star" presence on screen, but Spencer Tracy he wasn't.
"McQueen had great "star" presence on screen, but Spencer Tracy he wasn't."
That's an interesting comparison, since McQueen was a disciple of the "less is more" style of acting that Tracy perfected.
As for the OP, I see no reason to believe that relationship between Holman and Po-Han was anything other than as mentor/friend.
"I don't need a bodyguard. The body I've got isn't worth guarding" - Groucho Marx
McQueen was great with body language and facial expressions, but he hated having a lot of dialogue. Somehow I can't see McQueen doing INHERIT THE WIND.
share"McQueen was great with body language and facial expressions, but he hated having a lot of dialogue. Somehow I can't see McQueen doing INHERIT THE WIND."
True - McQueen's strength as an actor was with body language, expressions, etc. He didn't have a great speaking voice and knew it, so he compensated by emphasizing the other aspects of film acting. He was able to use his voice well enough to add to his detached persona.
Tracy, though, had a great voice - especially as he got older and it became more raspy.
"I don't need a bodyguard. The body I've got isn't worth guarding" - Groucho Marx
Nor can I see Tracy, whom I revere, doing Jake Holman.
Cinema is not theater, as McQueen well understood, and the unerring authenticity of his performance in The Sand Pebbles was based on his intuitive grasp of how the body, subtle facial expressions, and silence can be used to brilliant effect when developing a character. I strongly recommend the DVD commentary by Richard Crenna, which calls attention to many of these subtle but powerful moments. Crenna, a fine actor in his own right, was awestruck by McQueen's performance in SP.
Had McQueen been an indifferent actor, he wouldn't have been nominated for an Oscar against the likes of Paul Scofield.
Candice Bergen, incidentally, was only 19 during the filming of SP, and rather tightly wound on the set. McQueen invited her to his house to loosen her up but as she later admitted, the SP shoot was an intimidating experience for which she felt ill-prepared. Later, critics panned her performance as "wooden". Her unease, rather than McQueen's abilities as an actor, better explains the lack of screen chemistry between the two stars.
Just in case anyone here wonders, Steve McQueen is one of my favorite movie stars, and most of his films among my favorites too, but I have to be honest; he had a great screen presence, but if he were a truly great actor, he'd have done theatre. As far as I know, once he got into TV, then movies, he never went on stage. McQueen was a good movie actor, and sometimes -- when well-directed -- very good, but he was limited, mostly because, I think, he limited himself.
share"....but if he were a truly great actor, he'd have done theatre."
Perhaps. But stage actors are often overly theatrical in their film performances (Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton are two examples). By the 1960's, when McQueen was at his peak, few actors of his level of stardom did much stage work.
"McQueen was a good movie actor, and sometimes -- when well-directed -- very good, but he was limited, mostly because, I think, he limited himself."
That's essentially true; McQueen avoided roles where a lot of dialogue was needed. He was also extremely particular about the dialogue he was given, avoiding words that sounded strange or that had lots of r's and s's in them. When filming "The Towering Inferno", McQueen refused to say a line with the words "ping-pong balls" and had it changed; he was known to do such things on most of his films.
"I don't need a bodyguard. The body I've got isn't worth guarding" - Groucho Marx
McQueen was great with body language and facial expressions, but he hated having a lot of dialogue. Somehow I can't see McQueen doing INHERIT THE WIND.
I think McQueen and Bergen were perfect in their roles! A proper young woman, in a foreign land in the 1920s was likely to be very much like the woman Bergen portrayed! And the same goes for a lot of young men, leaving a hard/troubled life to be in the navy- many would have been a bit sullen and not very talkative. The problem is, most actors are extremely outgoing and so most characters end up being similar, when in real life, the average person is a lot less talkative.
I can't imagine those characters being done in any other way! That awkwardness between McQueen and Bergens' characters just adds to the sadness, knowing that they really had an interest in each other, but they were on such different paths that it could have never worked out, even if he hadn't died. Just as in real life things don't always work out like in some fairy tale.
McQueen hated learning lines, he had had very little schooling as a child, and he was dyslexic. Plus of course he was deaf in one ear. I consider The Sand Pebbles ( for which he was nominated for an Oscar of course) his finest film. Acting wise only Papillion comes close to it.
I first saw the movie when I was 12 years old and loved the relationship between Holman and Po-Han. It's been a while since I read the book but I do remember the relationship being questioned in the book. I have never seen it that way at all.
As for Steve McQueen's acting ability. I have never, ever seen another actor that can convincingly show that he has just woken up. He has one of those scenes in this movie, but I believe the best one is in Bullit.
"Whenever Mrs. Kissell breaks wind, we beat the dog."
you are correct. the relationship between Po-han and Hoh-mang was questioned in the book (very briefly, it ws only a couple sentences) by the Ensign. Lt Collins made it a point to mention that is why liberty and brothels were important to the Navy in those "less enlightened" days.
shareI like how EVERY relationship between two males becomes homosexual in the eyes of pretentious would-be film students and "queer theorists". Is it that hard to buy that two people could bond as friends?
"Whoever did this must be exterminated, and they must be exterminated by us."
OP needs to re-calibrate his/her gaydar really bad!
shareIn the book Holman and Po-Han get on quite well from the start and Holman starts to train him up very early.. Po-han was able to understand how the pipes connected but did not understand everything.
The reason for any lack of chemistry between McQueen and Bergen may be that she was supposed to be one of the few leading ladies in a movie that McQueen did not sleep with.
No, I don't see a sexual bond there at all, (Holman's relationship is strictly avuncular) but there's way more chemistry between them than there is between McQueen and Bergen. I'd go so far as to say it's one of the most emotionally true and affecting portrayals of male bonding (albeit asymmetrical) in the history of Hollywood.
shareNothing sexual at all, but I'll tell you what it was. It's something that few civilians ever experience or understand.
Most of you have seen Band Of Brothers and understand the comradeship that forms between men in combat. Combat is not the only place that the 'BOB effect' occurs.
I have experienced it myself. I was in the US Navy back in the early 70's, and went to war in the Tonkin Gulf 1972. I worked as a Boiler Tech. That's where the close friendships were formed, down in the shared adversity of the boiler room, and that is how those friendships are formed...shared adversity. In the boiler room, it's not the bullets and bombs of combat, it's the heat and physical danger.
Yeah, no one shot at us personally, but the bonds are just as strong, and the words resonate with us just as strongly: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother..."
My ignore list is much too long for a sig line. Do not assume you are not on it.
Regarding Jake and Po-han and a sexual bond - probably not. Regarding Jake and Shirley - I would say they're clearly lovers. The key moment in this regard occurs in the temple when Frenchy and Maily conduct their marriage ceremony with Jake and Shirley as witnesses. Afterwards, Shirley walks over to Jake and embraces him. The camera holds on Shirley's luminous face. And suddenly her expression changes from luminosity to pure carnality. The change occurs in her eyes. It's subtle and fleeting, maybe two seconds of screen time, but you can see it clearly if you're watching carefully. They walk off together and, IMO, become lovers within the hour. (Their new status, as lovers, is not shown explicitly in the sense of shots of them in bed, because the director's choice is to preserve some mystery, and because it's a 1966 film.) So, yes, "some desire" indeed. By the way, I disagree with people who say Candice is not good in this role and that the McQueen/Bergen chemistry is bad. I think she's just right - yes, she's wooden, but then, she's playing a somewhat repressed, overly-dedicated New England school teacher in 1926 who hasn't blossomed yet. That said, Candice should show signs of new physical freedom once she's become lovers with Jake. (One additional comment - another post describes how a couple of teenagers dissed this movie as "boring." I've been hearing for years about the declining attention span of Americans - I've always been a little leery of this theory - I have preferred to reserve judgement and have sought more evidence - well, I suddenly find myself mostly convinced of this phenomenon. A generation that could find this wonderful, powerful film "boring" is a generation that I'm worried about.)