Moby Dick
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Movie Reviews of Moby Dick
Movie Review: "A White Whale I Say" ~ A Luciferian Allegory Played Out On The High Seas
Summary: 5 Stars
Released in '56, `Moby Dick' is one of the film classics of the fifties. Surprisingly the film quality is rather drab at times with the appearance of old newsreel footage. This is generally the case with the shots aboard the Pequot showing billowing sails or the ship from a distance. Yet at other times it's quite artistic and mesmerizing such as; the close-up portrait cameos of the old women standing on the dock, or the brooding sermon delivered by Orson Welles at the beginning.
However there are two things that raise this film to a higher, mythic level. Those two things are the magnificent performance by Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab and of course the white whale. Peck delivers a signature performance as the obsessive and defiant sea captain willing to forfeit not only his life but his soul for one more opportunity to slay the great white solitary that haunts his thoughts and dreams.
Ahh..., and then there's the whale. Moby Dick is haunting, frightening and irresistible. He's gigantic, remote and seemingly unaware with the activities of Ahab and his crew thus symbolizing all the aspects of a divinity unconcerned with its creation. It's truly a cosmic confrontation between the sacred and the profane, immortality and mortality, God and Lucifer.
`Moby Dick' is a film that entertains on so many levels. It's a worthy addition to any personal DVD library.
Movie Review: Wordsmith, I set ye a task
Summary: 5 Stars
After having both navigated the treacherous waters of Melville's book and signed on to John Huston's cinematic voyage, there is only one conclusion an old salt can come to - John Huston was a genius. The screenplay he created with Ray Bradbury stands as perhaps the greatest adaptation of a work I've read/seen. Not that it is completely faithful to the letter of the book, but more to the spirit. The book is immense, it meanders marvelously as the story of an obsessive Captain unfolds, as the history of whaling and the legends of whalers are told. It is a classic, there is no doubt, but its length, breadth, and depth are as immense as the leviathan itself. To make a movie of it would take strength, fortitude, courage, divine guidance, and perhaps a touch of black magic. The way Huston and Bradbury make memorable scenes from Melville's raw material is amazing - from the foreshadowing speech of a madman to the conquering of Saint Elmo's fire, to the circling birds at the end. Huston the writer and Huston the director have forged the weapons to smite the whale and give life to a time long past, in a movie the likes of which we may never see again. Others have tried this same task, and alas, are little remembered, while Huston's version, alone, survives.Movie Review: Huston + Melville
Summary: 5 Stars
The best recreation nowadays of Melville's immortal novel was put in images by John Huston who wrote too the script in inspirated collaboration with the great science-fiction story-teller Ray Bradbury. Although we're talking of a condensed adaptation ( the book is full of historical reviews, philosophical arguments and includes a list of book quotations concerning whales and numerous appendixes about cethology ) Huston touchs the essence and all the high moments of this tremendous story plenty of biblic's resonances about an obsessive man who has sold his soul in his anxiety of hunting the whale Moby Dick, a white Leviathan, probably a symbol of his irrational and obstinate hope of revenge or maybe a number of our indifferent and cruel universe. Orson Welles, who had told several times his wish of shooting this unforgettable story, appears brevely as the father Marple at the beginning of the film. The experimental colour treatment of its images collaborates to the haunted tone that cross over all the film.
This DVD edition respects the original aspect ratio ( 1.33: 1 )
Movie Review: A 57 year old Joan of Arc fanatic comments on Capt Ahab
Summary: 5 Stars
"Make yourself necessary to somebody." --- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain." --- Emily Dickinson
Captain Ahab wasted his life by blaming his failure on a whale, "a dumb beast" as a character in the story called it. Melville made clear with foretelling comments in the opening pages of the book that Moby Dick was not God. Moby Dick was just a part of nature which in the end kills everybody in one way or another. There is no guilt or innocence in nature. So Moby Dick is white to symbolize this innocence by neutrality.
Ahab represents the fault of all of us to waste our potential and energy in the blame game rather than concentrating on constructive persuit. Moby Dick is a superlative object lesson.
For the constrast of a real life person who totally devoted herself to working for others, see "Joan of Arc by Herself and Her Witnesses", by Regine Pernoud.
"It pleased God that the English be driven away by a maid." --- Joan of Arc, trial testimony
Movie Review: To my mind the masterpiece of John Huston!
Summary: 5 Stars
Herman Melville was an avid admirer and exhaustive reader of William Shakespeare. This fact somehow fed the febrile imagination stating an obsessive chase between the nature's forces represented by Moby Dick the assassin whale that destroyed the existence of Ahbab.
This passionate conflict overcomes by far the limits of the anecdotic character and places us in the big stage: the man against the nature; the will facing the fate. The presence of Prometheus emerges clearly in this singular challenge.
Visually stunning, admirably played by Peck in one of his most smouldering performances ever made. And the additional presence of Orson Welles as the preacher in the first third of the picture and the masterful and inspired direction of John Huston make of this one of my 200 cult movies in any age.
Another point to remark resides in the fact this movie was chosen as an example of Leadership in the reviewed book: Movies for Leaders with these other films: Hoosiers, Bridge on the Kwai River and Wizard of Oz.