Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World
Encyclopedia
Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World is a two hour documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
by Ric Burns
Ric Burns
Ric Burns is an American documentary filmmaker and writer. He has written, directed and produced historical documentaries for nearly 20 years, beginning with his collaboration on the celebrated PBS series The Civil War , which he produced with his older brother Ken Burns and wrote with Geoffrey C...
about the history of the whaling industry in the United States.
A film chronicling the American whaling industry from its origins in New England in the 17th century, through the golden age of deep-sea whaling, up to its decline following the Civil War
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
. Narrated by Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe
Willem Dafoe is an American film, stage, and voice actor, and a founding member of the experimental theatre company The Wooster Group...
, this film binds the story of American capitalism on the rise with a case study in maritime culture. The fate of the whaleship Essex -- which set sail from Nantucket in the summer of 1819 -- is interwoven with the story of a young Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, whose own imaginative voyage into the deep would give rise to one of the greatest works of American literature, Moby Dick.
Other voices heard in the film include Robert Sean Leonard
Robert Sean Leonard
Robert Sean Leonard is an American actor, who has regularly starred in Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Since 2004 he has played the role of Dr. James Wilson on the TV series House...
as Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, Josh Hamilton as Owen Chase
Owen Chase
Owen Chase was First Mate of the whale ship Essex, that was struck and sunk by a sperm whale on November 20, 1820. Chase wrote about the incident in Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex...
& Peleg Folger and Vincent Kartheiser
Vincent Kartheiser
Vincent Paul Kartheiser is an American actor known for playing Connor in Angel and Pete Campbell in Mad Men.-Early life:Kartheiser was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Janet Marie and James Ralph Kartheiser...
as Thomas Nickerson
Thomas Nickerson
Thomas Nickerson was a fourteen-year-old cabin boy on the Essex, who wrote an account of the ship's sinking and the three months that the crew survived at sea.-Overview:...
.
List of Awards and Nominations
31st News & Documentary Emmy Awards (2010) - Outstanding Nonfiction Series (nominated)History Makers Nomination Best History Production
International Documentary Association Awards Nomination