Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
Dutch postcard by Young Media Group. Image: Walden Media / Independent Films. Poster for Around the World in 80 Days (Frank Coraci, 2004) with Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan and Cécile de France was based on the novel by Jules Verne.
Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French author of adventurous travel stories using new technologies, to go to many parts of the earth and to unknown regions such as the deep sea, the bowels of the earth, and the moon. Verne is often seen as the father of Science Fiction. This is probably due to the fantastic nature of his stories, which, however, were usually inspired by the knowledge that existed at the time. Many of his books have been filmed.
Jules Gabriel Verne was born in 1929 in Nantes, France. He was the eldest of five children of Pierre Verne, a Parisian lawyer from a family of lawyers, and Sophie Allotte de la Fuÿe. His father wanted Jules to succeed him, but Jules' heart was set on the sea. The story that Verne only travelled in his stories is untrue. He made a train journey to Scotland and crossed the ocean in the first large steam-sailed passenger ship, the Great Eastern, to visit North America, including Niagara Falls. When he had earned a lot of money with his books, he bought a luxury yacht, Saint Michel III, with a crew of ten, and sailed the Mediterranean with it, making trips to England, Ireland, Holland, and Scandinavia. In 1847, he went to Paris to study law. In 1857, he married Honorine de Viane, a widow who already had two daughters. In 1861 they had a son, Michel Jules Verne. Although Verne had finished his law studies, he wanted to become a writer. He wrote comedies in verse and prose, some of which were performed. In Paris, he met famous authors such as Alexandre Dumas père and his son, Alexandre fils, who gave him writing advice. In 1862, he came into contact with the publisher Jules Hetzel. He had the plan to publish a popular scientific magazine. Verne had already published short stories in the illustrated family magazine, Musée de Familles. Hetzel's magazine Magasin d'Éducation et Récreation would publish most of Verne's novels in instalments and would subsequently publish his travel descriptions in the new series 'Voyages Extraordinaires', for which he entered into a contract with Verne for two to three books a year. The first published scientific novel, as Verne called his work himself, was 'Cinq semaines en ballon' (Five Weeks in a Balloon). That novel was his breakthrough in 1863 and was published in several languages. Verne was already happy that he had reached his ideal and a steady income. Therefore, he did not negotiate too much with the publisher, who would earn much more from Verne's novels than the author himself. The Verne family settled in Amiens in 1871. Verne became a famous man. But at home, there were worries. His marriage was not happy and his difficult son Michel gave him many worries. Due to tensions in his early years, he suffered from stomach and facial pain. One evening an overworked cousin, whom he supported financially, fired at him with a revolver at low range. The wound on his left leg did not heal sufficiently. He had to walk with a stick. From 1888 onwards, Jules Verne served for sixteen years in the Amiens town council for the Republican party, where he devoted himself to education and the theatre. In 1905, Jules Verne died in Amiens at the age of 77, his grave is in Amiens.
Jules Verne had a Spartan way of working. He got up at five o'clock and worked on a book afterwards. In the afternoon, he could be found in a library documenting himself through books and magazines. In this way, he built up a collection of 20,000 fiche cards, from which he derived information for his stories. Verne had a technical interest, but his love was mainly for geography. In 'Les enfants du capitaine Grant' (1867-1968; The Children of Captain Grant'), the geographer Jacques Paganel is the somewhat absent-minded but all-knowing companion of the travelling party that is searching for the lost captain through South America, Australia, and New Zealand. The interest in science and the belief in technical progress were great in the nineteenth century. There were plenty of travel journals, also from the century before. 'Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours' (1973; Voyage around the world in 80 days) has been Verne's most successful novel, later also through film adaptations. By the time of his life, half a million copies had been sold. It first appeared as a serial in Le temps. Verne derived the itinerary from a magazine article and from a book about a trip around the world, published shortly before by William Perry Fogg, whom we know as the enterprising traveller Phileas Fogg from the story. Even more lucrative than the fame he achieved with this were the revenues from putting the story on stage in a grand spectacle with real elephants on the stage, which became an enormous success. France began to become familiar with the concept of submarines. At the 1867 World's Fair in Paris, a model of Le Plongeur (the diver) was on display, on which the illustrator of '20,000 Miles Under the Sea' based his work. The vessel operated on compressed air and proved very impractical. The nature of the deep sea could be studied in books and articles. While writing, Verne discovered a follow-up story in the newspaper Le Petit Journal about a journey in a small submarine powered by electricity. It had been written by a member of the Amiens Scientific Academy, Verne's hometown. That Verne did not always test his imagination against reality is shown in the description of the submarine Nautilus. In the illustrations, the vessel appears narrow and closed, while inside there appear to be large spaces for a library, a dining room, and a large round window offering a view of the deep sea. Scientists, mostly stubborn and described with humour, are part of the crew and travelling companions. On the other hand, there is the engineer, a know-it-all, but often an inscrutable and fearsome man. Like Captain Nemo, inventor and pilot of the Nautilus, and Robur, skipper of the electricity-powered aeroplane the Albatross. This streamlined zeppelin-like airship has rows of propeller masts on its upper deck, powered by an electric motor.
Not all Jules Verne books have a geographical exploration as their subject. A well-known type of novel is the so-called Robinsonade. Adults or boys end up on an island, where they try to build an existence with the available resources and their knowledge like Robinson Crusoe did. Examples are 'L'Île mystérieuse' (1873-1875: The mysterious island) and 'Deux ans de vacances' (1886-1887; Two Years' Vacation). The latter is a story written for children. Also 'Un capitaine de quinze ans' (1877-1878; A Captain of Fifteen), in which the young hero embarks on an adventurous journey on a twisted compass, can be counted among these. In other stories by Verne, the events take place against the background of a historical event, a ghost story or a love story. A novel with a political meaning is 'Les cinq cents millions de la Bégum' (1879; Eldorado and the Monster Cannon of Steel City). In it, the inhabitants of a peaceful new French town are confronted with the threat of a new German town, entirely devoted to steel production. The enormous cannon, a predecessor of the Dicke Bertha from World War I, is both the symbol and the open danger. The Franco-German conflict after the war of 1870-1871 is clearly the background to this story. A book with a patriotic slant and with a warning is 'Face au drapeau' (1896; Facing the Flag) The story focuses on a new enormous explosive mélinite, invented by the French Eugène Turpin. The latter figures here as the mad inventor Thomas Roch. The publisher and writer were sued by Turpin, which they won, assisted by the well-known French lawyer and statesman Raymond Poincaré. The work Paris in the 20th century, from Verne's early years, also contains a sharp critique of an over-engineered technical society. However, the melodramatic and satirical story was unbalanced. Publisher Hetzel, therefore, did not wish to publish the manuscript, a decision to which Verne agreed. It was not until the 1990s that the text was found again and published. Verne is best known as the writer who "predicted the future". In his books, he described many things that were considered fantasy at the time, but later became reality in an impressive number of cases. He foresaw a journey to the moon that was first realised just over 100 years later during the Apollo programme. But there are also essential differences between this book and space travel. Jules Verne's moon travellers, for example, are shot with a giant cannon and not launched with a rocket. The moon travellers do not land on the moon either but fly around it and then return, something that would happen later in the Apollo programme with Apollo 8 (1968, planned) and Apollo 13 (1970, unplanned, after an explosion onboard). It is noteworthy that the launch site was also at Cape Canaveral and the place where Apollo 11 came down to earth was only a few kilometres different from the bullet in Verne's book.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
Dutch postcard by Young Media Group. Image: Walden Media / Independent Films. Poster for Around the World in 80 Days (Frank Coraci, 2004) with Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan and Cécile de France was based on the novel by Jules Verne.
Jules Verne (1828-1905) was a French author of adventurous travel stories using new technologies, to go to many parts of the earth and to unknown regions such as the deep sea, the bowels of the earth, and the moon. Verne is often seen as the father of Science Fiction. This is probably due to the fantastic nature of his stories, which, however, were usually inspired by the knowledge that existed at the time. Many of his books have been filmed.
Jules Gabriel Verne was born in 1929 in Nantes, France. He was the eldest of five children of Pierre Verne, a Parisian lawyer from a family of lawyers, and Sophie Allotte de la Fuÿe. His father wanted Jules to succeed him, but Jules' heart was set on the sea. The story that Verne only travelled in his stories is untrue. He made a train journey to Scotland and crossed the ocean in the first large steam-sailed passenger ship, the Great Eastern, to visit North America, including Niagara Falls. When he had earned a lot of money with his books, he bought a luxury yacht, Saint Michel III, with a crew of ten, and sailed the Mediterranean with it, making trips to England, Ireland, Holland, and Scandinavia. In 1847, he went to Paris to study law. In 1857, he married Honorine de Viane, a widow who already had two daughters. In 1861 they had a son, Michel Jules Verne. Although Verne had finished his law studies, he wanted to become a writer. He wrote comedies in verse and prose, some of which were performed. In Paris, he met famous authors such as Alexandre Dumas père and his son, Alexandre fils, who gave him writing advice. In 1862, he came into contact with the publisher Jules Hetzel. He had the plan to publish a popular scientific magazine. Verne had already published short stories in the illustrated family magazine, Musée de Familles. Hetzel's magazine Magasin d'Éducation et Récreation would publish most of Verne's novels in instalments and would subsequently publish his travel descriptions in the new series 'Voyages Extraordinaires', for which he entered into a contract with Verne for two to three books a year. The first published scientific novel, as Verne called his work himself, was 'Cinq semaines en ballon' (Five Weeks in a Balloon). That novel was his breakthrough in 1863 and was published in several languages. Verne was already happy that he had reached his ideal and a steady income. Therefore, he did not negotiate too much with the publisher, who would earn much more from Verne's novels than the author himself. The Verne family settled in Amiens in 1871. Verne became a famous man. But at home, there were worries. His marriage was not happy and his difficult son Michel gave him many worries. Due to tensions in his early years, he suffered from stomach and facial pain. One evening an overworked cousin, whom he supported financially, fired at him with a revolver at low range. The wound on his left leg did not heal sufficiently. He had to walk with a stick. From 1888 onwards, Jules Verne served for sixteen years in the Amiens town council for the Republican party, where he devoted himself to education and the theatre. In 1905, Jules Verne died in Amiens at the age of 77, his grave is in Amiens.
Jules Verne had a Spartan way of working. He got up at five o'clock and worked on a book afterwards. In the afternoon, he could be found in a library documenting himself through books and magazines. In this way, he built up a collection of 20,000 fiche cards, from which he derived information for his stories. Verne had a technical interest, but his love was mainly for geography. In 'Les enfants du capitaine Grant' (1867-1968; The Children of Captain Grant'), the geographer Jacques Paganel is the somewhat absent-minded but all-knowing companion of the travelling party that is searching for the lost captain through South America, Australia, and New Zealand. The interest in science and the belief in technical progress were great in the nineteenth century. There were plenty of travel journals, also from the century before. 'Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours' (1973; Voyage around the world in 80 days) has been Verne's most successful novel, later also through film adaptations. By the time of his life, half a million copies had been sold. It first appeared as a serial in Le temps. Verne derived the itinerary from a magazine article and from a book about a trip around the world, published shortly before by William Perry Fogg, whom we know as the enterprising traveller Phileas Fogg from the story. Even more lucrative than the fame he achieved with this were the revenues from putting the story on stage in a grand spectacle with real elephants on the stage, which became an enormous success. France began to become familiar with the concept of submarines. At the 1867 World's Fair in Paris, a model of Le Plongeur (the diver) was on display, on which the illustrator of '20,000 Miles Under the Sea' based his work. The vessel operated on compressed air and proved very impractical. The nature of the deep sea could be studied in books and articles. While writing, Verne discovered a follow-up story in the newspaper Le Petit Journal about a journey in a small submarine powered by electricity. It had been written by a member of the Amiens Scientific Academy, Verne's hometown. That Verne did not always test his imagination against reality is shown in the description of the submarine Nautilus. In the illustrations, the vessel appears narrow and closed, while inside there appear to be large spaces for a library, a dining room, and a large round window offering a view of the deep sea. Scientists, mostly stubborn and described with humour, are part of the crew and travelling companions. On the other hand, there is the engineer, a know-it-all, but often an inscrutable and fearsome man. Like Captain Nemo, inventor and pilot of the Nautilus, and Robur, skipper of the electricity-powered aeroplane the Albatross. This streamlined zeppelin-like airship has rows of propeller masts on its upper deck, powered by an electric motor.
Not all Jules Verne books have a geographical exploration as their subject. A well-known type of novel is the so-called Robinsonade. Adults or boys end up on an island, where they try to build an existence with the available resources and their knowledge like Robinson Crusoe did. Examples are 'L'Île mystérieuse' (1873-1875: The mysterious island) and 'Deux ans de vacances' (1886-1887; Two Years' Vacation). The latter is a story written for children. Also 'Un capitaine de quinze ans' (1877-1878; A Captain of Fifteen), in which the young hero embarks on an adventurous journey on a twisted compass, can be counted among these. In other stories by Verne, the events take place against the background of a historical event, a ghost story or a love story. A novel with a political meaning is 'Les cinq cents millions de la Bégum' (1879; Eldorado and the Monster Cannon of Steel City). In it, the inhabitants of a peaceful new French town are confronted with the threat of a new German town, entirely devoted to steel production. The enormous cannon, a predecessor of the Dicke Bertha from World War I, is both the symbol and the open danger. The Franco-German conflict after the war of 1870-1871 is clearly the background to this story. A book with a patriotic slant and with a warning is 'Face au drapeau' (1896; Facing the Flag) The story focuses on a new enormous explosive mélinite, invented by the French Eugène Turpin. The latter figures here as the mad inventor Thomas Roch. The publisher and writer were sued by Turpin, which they won, assisted by the well-known French lawyer and statesman Raymond Poincaré. The work Paris in the 20th century, from Verne's early years, also contains a sharp critique of an over-engineered technical society. However, the melodramatic and satirical story was unbalanced. Publisher Hetzel, therefore, did not wish to publish the manuscript, a decision to which Verne agreed. It was not until the 1990s that the text was found again and published. Verne is best known as the writer who "predicted the future". In his books, he described many things that were considered fantasy at the time, but later became reality in an impressive number of cases. He foresaw a journey to the moon that was first realised just over 100 years later during the Apollo programme. But there are also essential differences between this book and space travel. Jules Verne's moon travellers, for example, are shot with a giant cannon and not launched with a rocket. The moon travellers do not land on the moon either but fly around it and then return, something that would happen later in the Apollo programme with Apollo 8 (1968, planned) and Apollo 13 (1970, unplanned, after an explosion onboard). It is noteworthy that the launch site was also at Cape Canaveral and the place where Apollo 11 came down to earth was only a few kilometres different from the bullet in Verne's book.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.