(Classics) The Old Man and the Sea By Ernest Hemingway -BBC
[BBC Radio Dramatised version]
160K 67.6Mb mp3
Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, Hemingway's magnificent fable is the story of an old man, a young boy and a giant fish.
In a perfectly crafted story, which won for Hemingway the Nobel Prize for Literature, is a unique and timeless vision of the beauty and grief of man's challenge to the elements in which he lives.
Replies
This is the incredible performance by Rod Steiger, originally aired in 1999. This encode is from a rebroadcast in 2002.
Here's a bit more info about this performance and production:
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway
11 June 1999
In 1999, to honor Ernest Hemingway’s centenary, Hollywood legend Rod Steiger traveled to London to record this new dramatisation of The Old Man and the Sea: the classic fable of an old fisherman’s epic struggle for one last great fish.
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BBC Catches Writer's Very Old Man of the Sea
By Carol Midgley and Alan Hamilton
London Times, Tuesday, June 8, 1999
"’EVERYTHING about him was old. Except his eyes and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.’ They still are: the Cuban fisherman who inspired Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea is still trading on his immortality at the age of 102.
”Gregorio Fuentes' memories, particularly the father-son relationship that developed between him and the Nobel prize-winning author, have provided the driving force for a new BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Hemingway's tight and spare 1951 narrative.
”Bob Sherman, who has adapted Hemingway's original text to be read on radio by Rod Steiger, the American actor, tracked the old man down and interviewed him before beginning work on what is almost a sacred script.
”Señor Fuentes, retired from the sea, widowed for the past eight years and living in a bungalow in the village of Cojimar with his grandson Rafael, makes a modest living charging tourists and television companies $200 (£125) an hour to hear his anecdotes. For the BBC, he agreed to talk for the price of two Cohiba cigars.
”Señor Fuentes wore a baseball cap with his name embroidered on the rim. He was about to abandon the interview, pleading a debilitating respiratory disease, until he realised that it was the BBC he was talking to.
"’The book is quite difficult to adapt because it is written in an almost stream-of-consciousness way,’ Mr Sherman said. ‘But when I was talking to him, it became very clear to me how I would adapt it.’
”Hemingway's tale is that of an old Cuban's epic struggle to bring a giant black marlin to shore, fighting off sharks and the elements along the way. ’Hemingway was writing about the fisherman, but he was also writing about the perfect father-son relationship. This is the kind of relationship he would have loved to have had with his own son,’ Mr Sherman said.
”Hemingway was so devoted to Señor Fuentes that he named his son Gregory after him. Hemingway, who spent much of his life in Cuba, hired the young Fuentes to skipper his fishing boat, the Pilar, after hearing that he was the most accomplished boatman on the island. But for all the father-son theme, the fisherman was two years older than the writer.
”When Hemingway returned to the US in 1960 he gave Señor Fuentes a note that said he had ‘a sickness which would not get better’. The sickness was depression; a year later, ravaged by alcohol, diabetes and hepatitis, he killed himself with a shotgun at his home in Sun Valley, Idaho.”
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Dramatised by Bob Sherman
Rod Steiger as Santiago
Ramon Esteves as Manolin
Other parts were played by:
David Allister
Stephen Critchlow
Ben Crowe
Becky Hindley
Ioan Meredith
Harry Myers
Directed by Ned Chaillet
Thank You Bob for the details. I figured it was special when I first listened to it, but to find out why I felt that way is special in itself. thank You! ------------------------- R