U.S.

Movie Makes Waves In This Seaport

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 29, 2000 / 12:25 PM EDT / CBS

In this fishing village, 35 miles north of Boston, the sea is a way of life.

And last week's St. Peter's fiesta is a celebration of that life.

The harbor was full and for one rare day, everyone was home, on dry land, reports CBS News correspondent Jon Frankel.

Fishing is all that matters here. It is a religion, right down to the blessing of the fleet, a highlight of last week's fiesta. It seems everyone in Gloucester is related to the sea.

"There is just something about it," says Joe Ciaramitaro, known in the village as Captain Joe. "Once you get on the water and you live on the water, it just becomes a part of you, I guess."

The oldest fishing village in the U.S., Gloucester trace sits roots back 300 years, long before the best-selling 1998 book The Perfect Storm made it famous. A
film based on the book is set to open at theaters across the country Friday.

The true-story book portrays the human drama on board a fishing boat called the "Andrea Gail." Caught in a monstrous storm off the coast of Newfoundland in 1991, the boat, which came from Gloucester, went down with six men aboard.

Leena Novello is the mother, daughter, sister, and widow of fishermen and knows what the sea's siren song does to her loved ones.

When the fishermen in her family are home on land for more than three days, she says, she begins asking about when they're going back out because "it seemed like everything has bothered him. They want to be out in the ocean."

For all the bounty the village has taken from the sea, it has given back far too often.

Stories similar to the sinking of the swordfishing boat that was lost during the so-called Perfect Storm, are all too familiar to residents. About 10,000 Gloucester fishermen have been lost at sea, several of them after the Andrea Gail went down almost a decade ago.

Angela Sanfilippo, president of the Gloucester Fishermen's Wives Association, says that while the Andrea Gail's story is no more tragic than any other, author Sebastian Junger's book did Gloucester's fishermen a service by reminding the world how dangerous their livelihood is.

But it is not the fear of storms that scares them most. It is the economics of fishing and government regulations.

"With the regulations the way they are," says Marc Ring, who has spent his whole life on the sea. "There is more mental stress to try and go fishing now than there is than physical stress."

Ring no longer makes the long trips hundreds of miles off the coast, because it's not worth the time and the risk. When the fish population was depleted, the federal government set limits on how many pounds of fish can be brought into port. Anything over the quota has to be dumped back.

For example, a day boat is permitted to bring in only 400 pounds of codfish. "If they leave at 4 in the morning, they may have 400 pounds by 8 in the morning," Ring says. "They're all done for the dy."

As a result, new generations of fishermen like Frank and Joe Ciaramitaro are struggling to survive in the business their grandfather, Captain Joe, started in the 1940s.

"There was millions of pounds of fish coming in here on a daily basis," Frank says of those days."And now we're lucky to get a million pounds of fish for a couple of months."

But the new firshermen don't give up easily. After a seven-day trip, Captain Peter Russo of the "Jessica D." has returned with a full bounty, proof that the regulations are working and there still is a future in fishing.

"I'm seeing the fish come back," he says. "I am. You know, they can't tell me otherwise, 'cause I'm out there every day."

Ever since the book made the best-seller lists two years ago, the curious have wandered into Gloucester. During filming last year, people flocked to the Harbor Loop, where a mock-up of the Crow's Nest, a local hangout, was constructed for and stars George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg mixed with the locals.

And though the glamour of having such stars in the city made for heady days, locals say Gloucester is too firmly rooted in its past to start reinventing itself as a fashionable tourist spot.

"The community is pretty sure of itself, and it's not too intimidated by the outside world," says Mike Costello, head of the Chamber of Commerce. "It seems to me that's been Gloucester since the beginning."

While residents had nothing to do with creating the movie, Costello says, once it came together, businesses could either ignore it or incorporate it.

Many chose to use it. Gift shops have movie-related displays, tours highlight scenes from the book and movie, and the chamber includes the movie in its brochure.

"You don't want to trivialize it," Costello says. "You don't want to be seen as taking advantage of it."

But some residents feel that's just what's happening.

"I do have mixed feelings about some people making money off a tragedy," says fisherman Susan Booth. "But like I say, it's going to happen."

Mary Anne Shatford, sister of Andrea Gail crewman Bobby Shatford, says she doesn't think her brother's death has been exploited. In fact, she sees The Perfect Storm book and movie as overwhelmingly positive.

"I think it's put Gloucester on the map," she says. "Maybe it's even helped the fishing industry. It's been very good for the city."

But Gaetano Brancaleone, a retired Gloucester fisherman, says the fishing community needs to put the Andrea Gail tragedy behind it so its residents can continue to do their dangerous job

"We're trying to forget," he says. "We don't try to forget in the heart, but in the mind we do, because we're trying to make a living."