cast away

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cast away

directed by robert zemeckis

jack rapke
robert zemeckis
produced by
steve starkey
tom hanks
written by william broyles jr.
tom hanks
starring helen hunt
wilson the volleyball
- usa -
twentieth century fox
distributed by
- non-usa -
dreamworks
december 7, 2000 (premiere)
release date(s) december 22, 2000
january 12, 2001
running time 143 min.
language english
budget usd$ 90,000,000
gross revenue $ 429,632,142 worldwide
imdb profile
for other uses, see castaway (disambiguation).
cast away is a 2000 film by 20th century fox and dreamworks about a fedex employee
who is stranded on a deserted island after his plane goes down over the south pacific. it is
unusual in modern cinema in that during most of the movie there is only one human
character. tom hanks would go on to be nominated for best actor at the academy awards
for his performance.

contents
[hide]
• 1 plot synopsis

• 2 cast away island

• 3 wilson

• 4 product placement

• 5 trivia

• 6 movie score

• 7 cast

• 8 notable award nominations

• 9 references

• 10 external links

[edit] plot synopsis

in the opening scene, a fedex truck rolls under a large sign reading "dick-bettina" to a
ranch-style texas residence where the driver takes for delivery a fedex package marked
with a custom logo in the form of angels' wings. these wings are also seen as freestanding
sculptures on the property and inside out-buildings. the woman sending the package, an
artist in a welder's suit, tells the driver she will have another one for him to take that
coming thursday. we see the package delivered all the way to a residence in moscow,
russia, to a man in a cowboy hat and robe. a russian woman who is with the man,
apparently on intimate terms, asks, "who is it from?". he replies, "my wife".
the film then cuts to chuck noland (tom hanks), a highly efficient fedex executive, as he
attempts to improve the performance of fedex's moscow branch. after imploring the
russian employees to live by the clock, chuck returns to the u.s. (tennessee) where he is
trying to guide a relationship with his girlfriend kelly frears (helen hunt) toward marriage.
it is obvious that chuck's harried professional life with fedex is making his relationship
with kelly difficult to sustain. their christmas together is interrupted by chuck being
called on a last minute business trip. he and kelly exchange gifts in the suv on the way to
the fedex hub, kelly giving him a family heirloom pocket watch containing a photo of
herself, and chuck giving her a number of joke presents before solemnly offering her an
engagement ring. she is too nervous to open it, and he walks off to the fedex jet saying,
"i'll be right back".

chuck on the island

while flying through a thunderstorm somewhere over the southern pacific ocean, chuck's
flight goes disastrously wrong and crashes into the nighttime sea in flames. saved by an
inflatable raft, chuck ends up stranded alone on a deserted tropical island. after
ascertaining the island is uninhabited, chuck's most immediate need is drinking water,
which he satisfies by drinking coconut water and later by storing rain water in the
discarded husks. his second immediate need is shelter, which he secures by draping his
raft over palmtree trunks and, later, by discovering small caves in the island rock. the
third task is food. he attempts to fish, but is wholly unsuccessful at the start. as time
progresses, his fishing skills increase. shortly after his first fishing attempt, he finds a
compelling need to produce fire, which, after great effort, many attempts and some injury,
he succeeds in doing.
fortunately for chuck, a few fedex packages from the plane wash up on the shore shortly
after he lands on the island. a short time later, the body of one of the flight crew also
washes up. having been without shoes since removing them while on the plane, chuck
takes the pilot's too-small shoes and dons them after cutting out the toes. he also
improvises some tools from items in the washed-up packages, in particular a pair of ice-
skates (which he uses to remove a tooth causing him great pain). chuck also finds a small
pocket flashlight amongst the pilot's possessions. around this time, at night, he sees a
light on the horizon, presumably from a search party. after realizing the futility of
attracting attention using the flashlight, he takes to the sea on the damaged life raft. his
escape attempt is thwarted by the high surf around the island's reef, and his leg is badly
cut in the process.
as time passes, it is clear that through determination and ingenuity chuck has risen to the
challenges of physical survival. it is also evident he is in a fragile mental state, relying
heavily on his memories of kelly.
one of the fedex packages bears the distinctive angels' wings custom logo observed in the
first scene. it is the package the artist mentioned she would be sending on the following
thursday. for some reason, this is the only package chuck does not open.
setting off into the ocean
four years later, a large piece of a molded plastic port-a-john appears on the shore. chuck,
now with a beard, long hair and wearing a loincloth, his body much leaner and
weatherbeaten, drags it up the beach away from the waves and contemplates it with some
intensity. eventually he uses this fragment as a sail for a new raft. it is also revealed that
somewhere during his third year of survival he has considered suicide as an alternative to
escape from the island.
after construction of the raft, chuck sets off into the ocean, desperately hoping for rescue.
by raising his hinged, makeshift sail (on which he has painted a replica of the angels'
wings logo) at a precisely timed moment in the curl of a wave, he pushes through the
rough surf at the reef break that foiled him years earlier. after sailing for an unknown
period of time over a distance of about 600 miles—when he is on the verge of death— he
is rescued by a passing cargo freighter.
on returning home, chuck must come to terms with the fact that everyone he was close to
had given him up for dead long ago and moved on with their lives. kelly has married and
had a child with another man (christopher noth), his dentist. after a dramatic scene in
which the pair comes close to resuming the romance, chuck reconciles himself to "losing
her all over again". in the film's short philosophical coda, chuck explains to his close
friend, "i've got to keep breathing. because tomorrow, the sun will rise. who knows what
the tide could bring?".
the film ends with chuck at a remote crossroads after delivering the one unopened
package from the island to the residence from the first scene (due to the long passage of
time, the package is being returned to sender). the sign over the residence has had the
"dick" portion of the "dick-bettina" name removed, but the angels' wings sculptures are
still there. no one is home, so chuck leaves the package propped in the screen door with a
note, which reads "this package saved my life." he returns to the crossroads a short
distance away, stopping his car to study a map. the artist, pretty, friendly, and around his
own age, drives up in an antique truck and says, "you look lost." she describes where all
the roads branching from the intersection lead. he thanks her, and as she drives away
chuck notices the angels' wings painted on the back of her truck. a long close up of chuck
smiling in the direction the truck had left closes the film. in addition the wind (symbolic
of the wind he used to escape the island) blows in the direction the truck went.
mamanuca islands

[edit] cast away island

monuriki
coordinates:

the cast away island is : monuriki, a member of the mamanuca-i-cake island group .
it is in a subgroup of the mamanuca archipelago, which is sited off the coast of viti levu,
fiji's largest island.
since the shooting of the film, it has become a famous tourist attraction.
a satellite image of the island is available to be seen here. [1]

[edit] wilson
main article: wilson the volleyball

"wilson" the volleyball

one of cast away's notable "characters" is "wilson," a volleyball from wilson sporting
goods. the volleyball is found in one of the fedex boxes. when chuck tries to make a fire
and cuts his hand, he angrily palms the volleyball and throws it. the blood from his
wound makes the hand-shaped mark that forms the ball's "face". this volleyball plays the
role of a mute, infinitely patient, non-living listener in the movie, providing chuck with a
companion for the 1,500 days he spends on the island. wilson is also slightly modified by
noland sometime during the four-year gap; a section of the volleyball above the face has
been removed and a coif of leaves has been inserted, serving as hair. from a theatrical
standpoint, wilson also serves to realistically simulate dialogue in a single-person
situation. chuck loses wilson after the volleyball washes off the raft and drifts too far out
to sea for chuck to be able to retrieve it. toward the end of the film, chuck is seen driving
with a brand new volleyball sitting in the passenger seat.

[edit] product placement

cast away is well-known for its prominent product placement marketing. in this case the
movie benefited two major brands: wilson and fedex. however, contrary to popular belief,
fedex did not pay the filmmakers anything for their presence in the movie, a fact which
the director has made clear in a number of interviews.
at the time of the movie's release, wilson sporting goods launched its own joint promotion
centered around the fact that one of its products was "co-starring" with tom hanks.
despite the fact that the plot revolves around the tragic crash of a fedex plane, the
company correctly guessed that the movie would not damage its reputation. fedex
cooperated closely with the filmmakers to ensure that all fedex materials seen in the
movie were authentic. chuck's "coming-home" scene was filmed on location at fedex's
home facilities in memphis, tennessee. according to an interview on the dvd release of the
film, fedex corporation did not pay for product-placement rights. however, the extensive
support that the company provided to the film can be considered a form of payment for
the placement.
some commentators claim that the use of the fedex brand and logo in its present form is
an anachronism, since the first half of the film was set in 1995 while fedex corporation
was officially titled fdx corp. at the time. (fedex corporation changed to its present name
in 2000, when noland returned). however, the brand "fedex" began to be used by the
overnight-courier division of the company in 1994. the complete absence of references in
the film to the old names that had been recently in use could still be considered a flaw or
a form of marketing benefit.

[edit] trivia
this section contains a list of trivia items.
the section could be improved by integrating relevant items into the main text and removing inappropriate
items.
this section has been tagged since june 2007.
• the producers made up a list of seemingly useless items that would be in the
packages that noland recovered: party dress, ice skates, divorce papers, video
tapes, etc. they turned this over to a group of survival experts, who decided what
the protagonist might be able to do with them: fish net, axe, etc.
• in the "making of" content of the dvd, the producer states the film was shot on
modriki island in fiji at 17.609175° s 177.033777° e.
• a fedex advertisement in the united states features a character who survived an
ordeal very similar to chuck noland returning an unopened package to its owner.
she tells him that it contains "silly stuff" such as a gps receiver, satellite phone,
seeds, fishing rod and a water purifier. watch the commercial here
• the ceo at the end of the movie is actually fred smith, the real-life ceo of fedex.

• in a panel discussing the movie, director robert zemeckis jokingly said that the
final unopened package at the end contained a waterproof, solar-powered satellite
phone.
• lloyd braun of abc studios pitched the idea of a television series based on the
movie, obviously titled: cast away: the series. that show later evolved into the hit
abc show lost. the pilot episode of the show was the most expensive pilot ever
produced and fearful abc executives subsequently fired braun, ignorant of the
success to come for lost.
• production was on hiatus for about a year to allow tom hanks to lose some weight
and grow his hair. during that period, robert zemeckis used the crew to produce
and direct what lies beneath.
• maximonline.com named the airplane crash in cast away #6 on its list of "most
horrific movie plane crashes."
• the filmmakers actually burned down several trees on the island for the movie. in
return they were required to plant three new trees for each one they burned down.
• a reference to an earlier robert zemeckis/tom hanks film forrest gump is when
chuck is on the plane ride home and he asks the stewardess for a dr pepper, in
forrest gump, this was forrest's favorite beverage.
• ups was originally offered the chance to be the featured shipping company in this
movie. ups declined because they didn't like the idea of one of their planes
crashing.
• in the 2006 video game far cry instincts: evolution, set in a tropical south pacific
location, there is a hidden island containing an easter egg: a small wrecked boat,
two corpses, rocks laid out to spell "help!", and a volleyball resembling wilson
(except in the game, instead of a bloody handprint on the ball, it is a footprint)
• the movie was spoofed in family guy. it shows peter on the raft with wilson (the
ball). peter keeps yelling, "wilson! wilson! what are we gonna do now? wilson!
wil-" at that moment the ball interrupts saying, "my name is voit, dumbass!!" it
also shows peter looking at a pocket watch. looking at the picture in the watch, he
begins to cry. "i miss you, captain cave man," he says. the picture in the watch
dipicts captain cave man in a similar pose as helen hunt in cast away.
• another reference to cast away can be seen in the 2005 cgi animated film
madagascar featuring the voice talents of ben stiller, chris rock, jada pinkett-
 smith and david schwimmer. in a beach scene, the lion character, alex (voiced by
stiller) is injured trying to erect a makeshift "lady liberty". in his frustration, he
turns to a volleyball resembing wilson (instead of a red handprint it features a red
lion's paw print) and then he says "shut up, spalding!", then he swats the ball
away. this is an obvious parody.

[edit] movie score

• the film's minimal score was composed by alan silvestri for which he won a
grammy in 2002. the film's soundtrack is most notable for its lack of score while
chuck is on the island. there is no music at all until he escapes, which is used to
resemble the lack of civilization on the island. a pseudo exception to this could be
said to be the scene where tom hanks' character creates fire, in which he sings
"light my fire" by the doors, among others. the tracks for the score are as follows:
1. "cast away" - 3.44
2. "wilson, i'm sorry" - 1.39
3. "drive to kelly's" - 3.54
4. "love of my life" - 1.47
5. "what the tide could bring" - 3.39
6. "crossroads" - 2.08
7. "end credits" - 7.29

[edit] cast
• tom hanks – hanks' performance earned him an academy award nomination for
best actor.
• helen hunt

• wilson the volleyball

• valerie wildman

• geoffrey blake

• jenifer lewis

• chris noth

• nick searcy

• lari white - bettina peterson

[edit] notable award nominations
• 73rd academy awards: best actor in a leading role (tom hanks), best sound

• bafta awards: best performance by an actor in a leading role (tom hanks)

• golden globes: best performance by an actor in a motion picture - drama: for

which he won (tom hanks)
• screen actors guild: outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role
(tom hanks)
• mtv movie awards: best on-screen team (tom hanks and wilson)