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Gregory Peck on a voyage of obsession as Ahab hunting Moby Dick |
Director: John Huston
Cast: Gregory Peck (Captain Ahab), Richard Basehart
(Ishmael), Leo Genn (Starbuck), Orson Welles (Father Mapple), Friedrich von
Ledebur (Queequeg), James Robertson Justice (Captain Boomer), Harry Andrews
(Stubb), Bernard Miles (The Manxman), Noel Purcell (Carpennter), Edric Connor
(Daggoo), Meryn Johns (Pelog), Joseph Tomelty (Peter Coffin), Francis de Wolff
(Captain Gardiner)
There might be fewer books that lend themselves less to being
turned into a film than Herman Melville’s monumental Moby Dick. Perhaps the greatest of all American novels, its’ the
story of New England whaler the Pequod’s
Captain Ahab’s obsessive quest to kill Moby Dick, the great white whale that
took his leg. But it’s also an intense intellectual and spiritual journey into
the nature of humanity, which has thrown the book open to multiple
interpretations, even more tempting with a book that defies explanation. Try
capturing that on film.
John Huston’s Moby
Dick is a noble attempt, more criticised at the time than it probably
deserves, with the visual language of film unable to ever capture the
metaphorical weight of the original novel. What Huston needed to do is to try
and capture some of the spirit of the novel, bring its central story to life
and make a film that ideally makes you want to search the book out. I would say
Moby Dick succeeds on that score.
Reducing the monumental novel (often described as one of the
great “unread” books in people’s homes) to under two hours, brings out the
narrative, stressing the surface story as an adventure on the high seas, a
doomed quest under an obsessive captain. The detail of the reconstruction of
the whaling ship, its operations on the sea (including some graphic slaughter
of some, fortunately, fake whales) and the atmosphere of the time is
brilliantly reconstructed. The film is staffed by an extraordinary collection
of actors, whose faces speak of lives led in salt-spray.
So, starting with the idea that no film could ever capture
the depth and richness of the book, Moby
Dick is a decent, smart enough attempt. The key themes are there in
strength. It captures obsession and the idea of the ship being a sort of
microcosm of society, led astray by a leader who has his own passions at heart,
over and above the well-being of the crew, but has enough magnetism to pull the
crew with him nevertheless.
Huston laboured long and hard to bring the film to life, in
a wrestle with Melville. Even adapter Ray Bradbury claimed he had “never been
able to read the damn thing”, with Huston and Bradbury clashing constantly
during the writing process. It works, and Bradbury’s adaptation is beautifully
done, but in a way John Huston himself was a sort of Ahab with the book as his
whale.
In fact you could argue – as many have – that Huston himself
was the natural casting for Ahab (take a look at Chinatown to see what I mean). A charismatic raconteur, ruthless
and fixated on his goals, that’s an Ahab we could buy into. Perhaps in that
world, Orson Welles – here giving a neat little cameo that avoids bombast as
Father Mapple – would have been the perfect director, marrying mastery of
cinema with a wonderful understanding of transforming literature into film.
Gregory Peck is the Ahab we do get. At the time the casting
was strongly criticised – people just couldn’t buy the straight-as-an-arrow
Peck as the destructively bullying Ahab. Peck himself remained strongly
critical of his performance here all his life. Separated from the time, Peck’s
performance is stronger than you anticipate, capturing a gruff fixation and
magnetic charisma that you can believe pulls people in. Peck may strain a
little too hard for the elemental anger, but Peck’s Ahab has a bass richness, a
sort of inverted Lincolnish (he even looks a little like Lincoln) self-righteousness
that makes you believe he could rouse a ship to choose its own destruction.
Peck also brings a spiritually dead look to Ahab, a man turned from hope to
destruction. Huston teasingly keeps Ahab in reserve for almost a quarter of the
film until his first appearance, allowing the build in the audience’s
expectations.
The casting of the crew uses a fine selection of British and
Irish actors (the film was shot in Ireland), with Harry Andrews particularly
strong as jolly but non boat-rocking first mate Stubb. Leo Genn gets the
meatiest material as Starbuck, a decent, working man with a firm sense of
principle but who lacks any sense of the charisma needed to swing people to his
point of view. The film bumps up Starbuck’s role, centralising his growing
unease at Ahab’s madness, opportunities which Genn (nearly underplaying to
contrast with Peck’s theatricality) works a treat. Richard Basehart – a good
voice for narration but much less of a presence – gets a bit lost as Ishmael.
There is an intriguing bit of casting – something that would never happen today
– that sees Austrian aristocrat turned actor Friedrich von Ledebur play the
Maori-inspired Queequeg, a visual disconnect that is more than a little
distracting for a while.
Moby Dick is
beautifully filmed and assembled, even if Huston throws in the odd obvious shot
– sun beating down on the ship, a close up of the whale’s eye. It has a unique
look – on the remastered blu-ray – with the image reflecting the faded,
bleached look of whale prints (an effect achieved by superimposing a
black-and-white negative over a colour one, draining most of the colours our),
which gives it a great deal of visual interest. It’s never going to replace the
book – but honestly what could? As an exploration of the ideas at its heart it’s
wonderful – and a great prompt to pick it up – but with a marvellous sense of
life on sea, a stirring score and a wonderful sense of intelligent construction
it more than works.
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