The Rime of the Ancient Mariner a salvation story. The poem's structure is multi-layered text based on Coleridge's interest in Higher Criticism. "Like the Iliad or Paradise Lost or any great historical product, the "Rime" is a work of transhistorical rather than so-called universal significance. This verbal distinction is important because it calls attention to a real one. Like The Divine Comedy or any other poem, the "Rime" is not valued or used always or everywhere or by everyone in the same way or for the same reasons." George Whalley, in his 1946–47 essay, "The Mariner and the Albatross", suggests that the Ancient Mariner is an
Three Crowns of the Sailor cinematic works that Ruiz is drawing on in the film: from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798), Erich Maria Remarque's "The Night in Lisbon" (1962) and the writings of Hans Christian Andersen, Robert Louis Stevenson, Selma Lagerlöf, Karen Blixen, Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar to the Orson Welles films "The Lady from Shanghai" (1947), "Mr. Arkadin" (1955) and "The Immortal Story" (1968). Although "Three Crowns" has become one of Ruiz's best-known works and is regarded as one of his most accessible films, when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival it had a high