Moby Dick

Moby Dick is one of my favorite novels & the 1950's film adaptation is one of my favorite films. There is something about the novel that I can read it again & again & never tire of it, always finding something new. The 1950's film is like that too--I must have seen it a dozen times at least & I could watch it again right now. So when I heard that a new version of Moby Dick would be on cable with Patrick Stewart, an honest-to-goodness decent actor, playing Ahab & Gregory Peck appearing as Father Mapple, I was delighted. TV-movies have a justified reputation for being of poor quality but on the cable networks, you are often able to find a gem mixed in with the mud & this sounded like it could be just such a gem.

Unfortunately, this Moby-Dick is a hideous disappointment. The film goes wrong right from the beginning with a buffoonish, incompetent performance by the guy playing Queequeeg & a sad performance by Gregory Peck. Peck looks nothing like the great actor who could dominate films of all different types from Moby Dick to Pork Chop Hill, to westerns, etc. Instead, he looks like an elderly man reading lines. And the guy playing Queequeeg, despite his pre-release hype, is a poor actor, incapable of the intelligent, dignified performance of Frederick Ledebur in the older film.

There is very little good I can say about this movie. It is quite likely even worse than the old John Barrymore version in which Barrymore, as Ahab, goes out in the Pequod, kills Moby Dick, & returns to New Bedford to get the girl. At least that film had the benefit of a sort of nostalgic old-time Hollywood humor. This film has...well...a shot of Queequeeg's naked buttocks for any who might enjoy it. And not much else.

A vulgar atrocity that is best forgotten.

As a long-time fan of the 1956 John Huston film I was looking forward to seeing a new interpretation of what is recognised as a classic of world literature.

What went wrong? Well, it might have helped if the makers had respected the audience's intelligence and used (as Huston did) as much of Melville's language as possible. Alright, all viewers will understand the meaning of a "flat calm sea", but surely a "soft and dirge-like main" is so much more evocative. Worse still, Ahab's major speeches ("pasteboard masks" and "mild, mild day") are chopped by the writers and thrown away by the direction, leaving us with a story about a man who for some reason wants to chase one particular whale, his true motivation is completely lost.

Patrick Stewart did a decent job as Ahab given the circumstances but with that loss of motivation he lost the mythical, superhuman stature the character needs to give the story greatness. Gregory Peck was fine as Father Mapple (again, the sermon was chopped down until it was meaningless, depriving the actor of his best opportunity to make a lasting impression).

The supporting cast are best described as nondescript, ranting their dialogue. Starbuck is completely miscast. His opposition to Ahab is shown by surly sulking and droning on about the financial purpose of the voyage. He doesn't seem to realise the true nature of Ahab's obsession at all. Even the small but crucial appearance of Elijah (where Royal Dano had two superb minutes in 1956) is turned into a caricature who adds nothing to the mythical dimension of the story.

The effects were adequate although, for some reason I never felt the Pequod was actually moving, even in the storm scenes. Strange that a film set on a small sailing ship should feel to static.

As for Moby Dick himself, I've always felt that in Huston's film he was a *character* with an individual personality. In this version Moby Dick is just a whale, and that sums up the failure of the film as a whole.

Nobody can expect Melville's novel to be brought to life on the screen; the story of the hunt is the bare skeleton of the novel; here, on video & TV, it's the whole whale, and a boorish and unpleasant whale it is. For 90 minutes everyone screams at everyone else (occasionally muttering darkly as if to catch their breath for the next shouting match). That in itself is enough to sink the movie. But also, the editing is terrible, the geography of the hunt is vague (except when the Pequod rounds Cape Horn in snow and ice), and the deeper implications of the novel are only hinted at in passing, as if to prove that the screenwriters are familiar with Melville's work. Read the book!!! Oh - the performances of Ahab and Starbuck are great. I think I'll watch this one again.

Usually I don't expect much out of movies made for TV. They're seven acts, instead of the traditional three, which makes plotting difficult. They work on miniscule budgets, and usually use actors on their way up or their way down. Not to be compared with theatrical motion pictures - apples and oranges. However, the exception proves the rule.

This is an epic telling of the Melville story. Okay, most of you probably had a bad experience reading the novel. You end up asking why Ahab was prepared to give his life for catching or killing the great albino whale. The answer is that Ahab and the Whale are inexorably bound in life. The whale is Ahab's grab for the eternal brass ring, one that eludes him time and again.

First: Best motion picture score I've ever heard for a TV Movie. Second: This picture is filmed like a theatrical, meant to be projected on a large screen. Third: My dear friend, Patrick Stewart who doesn't know how to give a bad performance. Patrick, like the whale is a force of nature, not to be denied. I've directed Patrick on a number of occasions and there's none of the nonsense you hear about the whims of great actors. Patrick comes to work prepared and when he makes a suggestion you take it very seriously.

I don't care about the other online reviews putting the knock on Melville or his story. What have any of us done recently that will live for more than a century and a half. That my friends is the mark of greatness. It's an elusive butterfly that anybody who gives their life to the creative arts covets and strives to achieve. I give it a ten and defy any reader of this review to tell me why it deserves a scentila less.

TV movies are often flat and rushed. Not this one!

Patrick Stewart is amazing as Ahab. The actor slowly disappears and before our very eyes emerges a true monster -- a man who knows what he is doing and could stop himself, but does not. This is the real horror and tragedy of Ahab. It is also our own horror and tragedy because we all have within us what drives Ahab -- namely, pride and ego.

The FX are grand and the cast is excellent. It is a truly worthy re-make of the enduring classic.