The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“

Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by TeaDrunk on Sunday October 11, 2020 @04:14PM (#24748738)

One of the things that weirded me out about the cutting of the film was how the guys family was treated- in a way the guy appeared to completely abandon his job, leaving to the ocean and forcing his wife to raise their child essentially alone while he went and had awesome underwater experiences reliving his childhood and becoming one with nature. It’s of course easy to leave and become one with nature if you force all the duties of being a human in society(taxes, cleaning, groceries, raising a child, etc.) onto someone else (in this case the wife).

I highly doubt that’s what actually happened but that’s essentially the first 10-15 minutes of the documentary and really took me out from the main portion, which was the friendship being formed. Then I couldn’t stop thinking whenever I saw this- the octopus is dealing with her life all day, risking life and limb, and in her periphery is a guy who is escaping his everyday life and making someone else deal with it.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by hombre_fatal on Sunday October 11, 2020 @07:26PM (#24750002)

I downvoted this for the tiring HNism of assuming the worst about someone. You have no clue about what his family situation was like, but you're squinting your eyes at the shadows on the wall to draw your own narrative about a mother left alone with bills and groceries while he's out backstroking in the ocean, and then wringing your hands over your own invention.

It's HN's god of the gaps. Except god, it's some awful, unredeemable character trait that someone else must have that explains the bit that we see.

Let's even assume for a second you're right. He saddled his wife with everything while he stalked a common octopus. Now let's assume he's honest in the movie and he indeed came to understand his place in life and became a better dad and husband than he would have ever been. So what?

Someone in this thread calls the movie "wealthy adventure porn", but this thread is aspersion porn. Just like if I decided to lambast you for spending your precious time on this earth judging some guy from the HN comment section instead of being the man that you and your family deserve (to be clear, I think such a judgement is ridiculous).

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by gitrog on Monday October 12, 2020 @03:40AM (#24752260)

By that logic anyone disagreeing with a comment is guilty of some "nth level of negativity porn".

He admits to not being able to be a good father to his son. No one mentioned bills and groceries - that is not what raising a teenager entails - that's something you added to fit your narrative. It's a simple, specific criticism that is half addressed in the film and for some people not sufficiently resolved.

It's hardly assuming the worst about him.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by Chris2048 on Monday October 12, 2020 @12:12PM (#24755953)

OP doesn't even say it was the case, and that "I highly doubt that’s what actually happened" - but that this was the impression he got from the movie. Hence it's neither aspersion nor "god of the gaps" - unless theists commonly argue that they also highly doubt god exists?

So, Can I downvote you for assuming the worst about OP? Or for casting aspersion about HN and its "-ism"s?

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by TeaDrunk on Monday October 12, 2020 @11:26AM (#24755372)

I literally said that it's likely untrue in reality but that that's how it's depicted in the documentary. It opens with a guy being so burned out that he abandons being a father to his son and goes swimming every day and how much he loves swimming in the ocean and how awesome that is for him. That's a narrative, editing decision that baffled me!

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by gitrog on Sunday October 11, 2020 @04:27PM (#24748826)

I had exactly the same feeling. I didn't sympathise with the guy's situation either. South Africa has massive inequality problems and this guy is living the life in one of the most expensive places you can live (easily rivaling European cities) and he abandons his family over writer's block?!

All of that also made me question the entire narrative of the friendship with the octopus. I'm sure it's possible, but it's also easy to edit things to fit a narrative if you're a documentary film maker. I'm probably just being cynical though...

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by albalus on Sunday October 11, 2020 @04:41PM (#24748906)

Yeah I agree it really seemed like a wealth adventure porn but some of the moments he recorded, like when the shark chases left me speechless at the intelligence...problem solving skills in the face of dire consequences...shattered my cynicism a bit.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by ViViDboarder on Sunday October 11, 2020 @05:08PM (#24749119)

Yea. It felt a little off to me as well. At the end he tried to spin it about him leaning to spend time with his son... by ignoring his son.

I dunno. I just couldn’t empathize with the guy.

Despite that, the story of the octopus was incredible. If they had cut out 100% of the autobiography, I think I’d have enjoyed it more.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by blunte on Sunday October 11, 2020 @05:56PM (#24749450)

As a person grows more imbalanced internally, their impact on those around them can go from positive to neutral to negative. If fixing this imbalance requires a leave of absence, (and especially if they return whole and balanced), the gap can be well worth it.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by inasio on Sunday October 11, 2020 @05:27PM (#24749243)

With 10C water you can only be down there for at most half an hour (especially not wearing a wet/dry suit), so he likely had time for his family and the other less fun parts of life.

That said, I found it a bit surprising that in his small window of time down there he managed to be at quite a few critical events in the octopus' life.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by miles on Friday October 16, 2020 @01:24PM (#24802962)

> With 10C water you can only be down there for at most half an hour (especially not wearing a wet/dry suit)

He worked up to spending as long as 2 hours in the water on good days[0]:

"[I]f I've had a bad day or I haven't slept well or I've had an injury, I go in the water and it's very difficult for me to thermoregulate. If I've had a great day, I've slept well, I'm feeling strong, I can stay in for a very long time, up to two hours. But if I'm compromised mentally, I can sometimes be cold within 20 minutes."

[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/10/15/923915545/filmmaker-finds-an-...

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by runamok on Sunday October 11, 2020 @07:33PM (#24750038)

My wife had a similar comment which surprised me because we are both fairly individualistic and have our own hobbies and passions we spend a lot of "me time" on such as learning to paint and cycling/running and ahem hacker news. I replied that it probably was an hour or two per day most likely at the most although obviously the work spent to stitch the story together obviously took way more time.

I think every human being deserves an hour or two to themselves most days if they need it regardless of their other career and life pressures. If you are rearing a child together you need to try to spell your mate to allow them that too.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by TeaDrunk on Monday October 12, 2020 @11:28AM (#24755397)

I'm down for "an hour or two me time" and 100% agree. It just wasn't made clear in the documentary, so the viewer can only go off evidence provided.

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Re:The Making of “My Octopus Teacher“ by robert-brown on Sunday October 11, 2020 @08:09PM (#24750231)

I saw the film with two women who had essentially the same reaction, hating both Craig and the film. What exactly was he suffering from? Perhaps we're supposed to have unbounded sympathy for every 50-ish male?

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