Mark Turner MOBY DICK is famed as one of the greatest and most difficult to read novels of all time. The tale of a man obsessed with the destruction of a legendary white whale that took his leg and left him scarred has long been considered an allegorical tale of good and evil, looks at the differences in class structure and discusses the existence of God. At 822 pages that's a lot to transfer to a movie that last only an hour and 56 minutes but somehow it was done.The story itself tells the tale of a young seaman named Ishmael (Richard Basehart) who signs aboard the ship Pequod, a whaling vessel run by one Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck). Ishmael is bunkmates his first night before they sail with a tattooed harpooner named Queequeg who has a set of shrunken heads on hand in the room. The two start off tentative but become fast friends as Queequeg teaches Ishmael the ways of the ship.Eventually Ishmael meets the famed Captain Ahab who promises his crew to return with their ship filled with whale oil and success for all on board. But Ahab is a strange sort who also has an ulterior motive. He doesn't just seek whales but one in particular, a white albino whale feared by all and known as Moby Dick. The desire to find the whale is one filled with revenge as it was Moby Dick who took the leg from Ahab on another voyage.The majority of the movie takes the time to set up the final confrontation between man and beast. Segments on dry land before the ship sets sail include a scene set in a church where the pastor preaches from the bow of a ship installed in the church. That pastor is played by Orson Welles who is nearly unrecognizable. The journey of the men, the harsh penalties for wrong doing and the long wait to find the whales they seek all take up a portion of the time.When the great white whale is finally found Ahab promises those who follow him untold fortunes if they will but help him destroy the whale. His obsession with the whale becomes their own and all seem to set aside not just the fortune in whale oil they've already filled the ship with but their own safety as well. Larger than the ship they sail on the white whale seems as determined to insure none of them leave alive and the battle between man and beast is on display.The movie is a mixed bag, entertaining for some and tedious for others. That it is a well-made film that tackled the chore of bringing the novel to life is worth noting and for that matter makes it one worth seeing as well. While the cast does a great job it is Peck who stands out as the near mad Ahab, determined to have his revenge at all costs.The effects for the time are amazing to witness and the sequences involving the whale are fantastic. Done before the days of CGI as it would be accomplished now, the movie here offers practical effects. The whale is a terrifying sight to behold and imagining what it would be like to confront it on its own ground would be something I for one would choose to avoid.Twilight Time is releasing the film in blu-ray format and as with all of their titles limiting it to just 3,000 copies. If interested make sure you pick yours up right away.
ElMaruecan82 Even without reading "Moby Dick", I could tell that the movie adaptation wasn't exactly as powerful an experience as the book. John Huston is one of the greatest American directors but "Moby Dick" is rarely mentioned among his most memorable works, even Gregory Peck wasn't fond of his performance as Captain Ahab. With all these elements chained together, the movie pulled a "Pequod" by quickly sinking in relative oblivion while the book is still regarded as one the all-time masterpieces of American literature. This is no "Gone With the Wind" or "Godfather" case where literature and cinema converged toward the same heights of greatness.So, I can only judge "Moby Dick" through its cinematic merits and certainly appreciate it a little more than someone who read Herman Melville's epic. And to some degree, this was the kind of thrilling and exciting adventure film I expected from John Huston, a heroic tale of bravely unconscious seamen challenging Mother Nature to accomplish deeds marked by the seal of secular traditions… and practical needs, just like hunting was driven by hunger and necessity. But when it ceases to be necessity, it becomes something that defies logic, common sense and ultimately, God, which then embarks us over the tumultuous waves of human soul with the Ocean as the Sierra Madre and a white whale as the gold that ignites the fire of greed and hubris in men' eyes.This 'gold-like' fervor is like a chromatic leitmotiv as the quest for Moby Dick is materialized by a golden coin promised to the first sailor who'll spot the animal, and it's like the object tainted the film in sepia as if it embraced the fiery excitement pumping in these men's veins. And while it gives the film a special texture, it also makes it look like one of these Disney documentaries or made-for-TV movies, something of B-level, that fitted a gem like "Beat the Devil" but the not the spectacular ambitions of "Moby Dick". I wonder how the film would have looked in black- and-white, especially one of such deep religious undertones and with a gallery of fascinatingly tormented characters.Indeed, Ahab, Ishamel, the story of Jonas are all familiar to Biblical readers but for average viewers, they carry the secret beneath Ahab's obsession with that white whale, something that borrows from centuries of a tormented relationship between men and the sea, an attitude torn between defiance to God, and temptation to greed and to hubris. Ahab is the dark soul of humanity in the shoes of heroic sailors. Such emotional resonances might have benefited from a black and white cinematography, with bigger contrasts. I can imagine the same film with the same look than "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", but then I'll be likely to extend my "what if" questioning and wonder if John Huston wouldn't have played the part of Ahab better. He intended to cast his father Walter, who won the Oscar for "Sierra Madre" but he ed away in 1950Gregory Peck himself was surprised that the director, then in this mid-forties and who inherited some of his father's persona, didn't play the tormented Captain himself, and we can delightfully imagine Ahab as a younger 'Noah Cross'. But the studios wanted a big name and Peck went for it. Ahab doesn't appear until twenty minutes of a powerful build-up on his larger-than-life persona, almost equaled by the haunting church scene and the sermon delivered by unrecognizable Orson Welles. But as I often said with Peck, he's a hit-or-miss actor, comfortable with heroic and noble characters but less with men of Ahab's psychological amplitude. In a performance that looks like a constipated version of Abraham Lincoln, Peck doesn't strike as an emotionally enraged and obsessed man, except in some scenes but too few to be notable.Leo Glenn who plays Starbuck is more restrained and engaging for empathy but his acting creates a more awkward contrast with Peck's theatrical approach. Strangely, as he approaches the fateful meeting with the whale, there's a light of ion that starts igniting his eyes, and the film gets more captivating. It's just as if we were witnessing the slow descent into hell in the same pace as Peck's getting in Ahab's ivory leg. And when the inevitable climax comes, Peck can finally implode his rage in the final confrontation and take his crew to a suicidal mission. And the gallery of ing characters composing the crew is perhaps one of the best things about "Moby Dick".The story is told from the narrator's standpoint "Ishmael", played by Richard Baseheart who's the perfect foil for more colorful and memorable characters such as Harry Andrews as Stubb, Fiedrich Von Ledebur as the giant, goodhearted Native and first-class harpooner. It is just regrettable that the one character who had to be as memorable as Dobbs didn't elevate the material to an experience of the same intensity. Huston always cared for characters who, while not succeeding, pushed their personal quest to their most extreme limits, a film like "Moby Dick" about the ultimate romantic collective failure, could only be directed by Huston, but needed a denser actor to direct the boat.So, while John Huston and Ray Bradbury's adapted screenplay and the special effects did justice to the story, it doesn't strike the sensitive chord you'd expect from Huston. Interestingly, "Moby Dick" was made the same year than another sea-themed movie: Louis Malle's "World of Silence" and in one of its most gut-wrenching moments, you could see sailors being gratuitously cruel with sharks and the massacre being justified in voice-over by the secular hatred between men and sharks. And this was a documentary movie released during a time where environmentalist issues started being raised.I hated that moment, but I could understand it. Maybe that's the essence of Melville's novel. But this five-minute sequence from Louis Malle's documentary said more about John Huston's adventure epic.
grantss Great adaptation of Herman Meville's classic novel. The story of Captain Ahab and his constant quest to hunt and kill the great white whale, Moby Dick.A timeless tale on the irrationality, unproductiveness and futility of revenge.Gregory Peck is excellent as Captain Ahab, and shows that he can act the villain. Excellent direction by John Huston - the pacing is perfect and the drama is built beautifully. Good special effects, for 1956. The dialogue, especially Ahab's, is a bit overly melodramatic, but that would be the only flaw.
edandjillh The beauty and strength of this version of Moby Dick is first of all it was originally filmed in black and white. You know they say when you photograph/film a man in color you photograph his clothes. When you photograph a man in b/w you photograph his soul.Secondly, and most importantly, is the ability of the film to capture the very essence of Ahab's obsession and how he is able to instill that obsession into the very souls of the crew, as if they were lined up, with anticipation, waiting their turn to be possessed . Total mesmerization. Even after Ahab's death.The fear you have as a viewer is watching the enigmatic space between the crew and Ahab slowly shrink till he has consumed them and they will follow his quest blindly with no sign of logic or reason.Obviously the writer hopes we identify with Ishmael, the only survivor, which he is, not because of any luck or good fortune, but because he is supposed to represent the thin line between free will and whatever demon any man can become obsessed with to his utter destruction.
