28 - Friday. October 16, 1998 — North Shore News

Shooi the whale

CALL me confused.

Moby Dick is awhale of a novel, vet
Herman Melville's sca gong classic has
been made into a movie just (vice, fist
in 1956 and again this past vear.

Any English protessor worth his salt
will tell vou that Maly Dick or the
Whale contains everything a great work
of fiction should: a tragic hero (Captain
Ahab); a strong narrative {call him ERA
Ishnach): highfahitin’ themes (Good
vs. Evil, main’s mortality, Man vs.
Nature, Fate vs. Free Will; and
enough symbolism to make Ingmar
Bergman squeal. (So much, in fet, that most university
English Lit curriculums include a term long dissection of the
whale tale. Not surprisingiv, few of those who survive the liter
ary autopsy fist the novel among their favourites.)

Why then has Holipwood — always in search of an original
epic story — ignored the truly epic tle of the white whale?

Sure, the sight of harpoons piereing the majestic beast’s
blubber may oftend sensitive filmgoers, but no more so than a
war tlic like Saving Private Ryan, Full Metal Jacket or Platoon.

Perhaps it is because Melville's novel is long — 135 chap-
ters — andl is essentially two books in one: a chronological nile
taking the ship Pequad trom ity home berth of Nantucket to its
watery grave in the Pacific Ocean; and a cerology textbook,
with numerous chapters dedicated to hunting, catching, pro-
cessing and identifying the monstrous mammals.

But the former of the nwo stories within the novel is a
stand-alone tale of the rype ideally suited to the big screen,
complete with sailing ships beating against unrelenting seas and
sailors battling their demons, boch leviathan and otherwise.

Moby Dick has perhaps the single most recognizable apen-
ing senteace in the lexicon of English-language novels (“Call
me Ishmael.” Yet it’s only been able ro capture a filmmaker’s
passion nwice?

Call me contused.

MOBY DICK, i956

The first, and by far the best, of the svo Moby Dick films
has a creative and cast pedigree hard to beat.

Directed by the legendary John Huston, who co-wrote the
screenplay with science fiction master Ray Bradbury, this
colour version of the white whale tale does justice to Melville's
1851 masterpiece.

Gregory Peck gives a masterful pertormance as the increas-
ingly mad Captain Ahab — complete with white sear and
ragged beard — and Orson
Welles gives 2 riveting cameo
as Father Manple preaching
the Jonah and the Whale ser-
mon from a bowsprit pulpit
in New Bedford's Seamans’

Chapel. (According to David
Thomson’s biography
Rosebud, The story of Orson
Welles, the legendary actor-
director was paid £6,000 for
two days work, and did the
sermon in essentially one
take. Writes Thomson:
“Huston used a close-up to
cover Welles’ heartrending
‘For what is man that he
should live out the lifetime of
his God?’ Suddenly, we see
an old man, or one alert to
mortality. The last line is
nearly a whisper; it was the
most delicate thing Welles
had done in forty years... The
crew gave him an ovation
when he had finished.”)

Unlike che 1998 film,
Huston’s epic, shot entirely
in London, includes a few
musical numbers, with ram-
socked sailors bursting into
bawdy song at the drop of a
yard-arm. Gilbert and
Sullivan it ain’t, but the musi-
cal interludes seem somehow -

BOOK REVIEWS

Long story short

Whale chomped Ahab’s leg
in nwo,

“Hunt that beast!” he tells
his crew.

First, a welter of whaling
schmoose,

Then comes Moby and hell
breaks loose.

HESE'PR

Smashup! Ahab’s drowned in
brine,

Lashed to the whale by a
harpoon line.

Good {symbolic) with Evil
vies,
If you'd fathom it, you must
rise.”
~— from ShrinkLits by
Maurice Sagoff

Anorew McCrepie

14" ALL-S

KEEK ADA

fitting among Hustan’s sweeping shots,

Greenpeace factor

Yo be sure this is the bloodier of the
two flys, with actual shots of harpoons
being stuck in the wently creatures as they
roll about in the roiking red seas. Also, the
scene in which the crew of the Peguad
strip the blubber trom their catch to boil
down will have whale huggers reaching
for the FF button. Albin all however,
given the times, Melby Dick circa 1956 is
not as bloody as it could have been.

Fictional accuracy

Integral to Melville’s novel is Ahab’s
sceret crew, led by the mysterious
Fedallah. For whatever reason, simplicity’s
sake perhaps, Huston and Bradbury
ignored that entire story fine. Also
ignored is the plight of the voung cabin
boy, Pip. though his character isn’t as
essential. What isc ignored is that magi:
cal opening line, "Call me Ishmael.”

MOBY DICK, 1998

This film, though opening with that
same classic lead. departs much further
from Melville’s novel than did Huston’s
movie.

Produced by Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoctrope in
association with an Australia company, this version of Maly
Dick does neither the novel nor the 1956 filmy justice. Patrick
Stewart (he of Star Trek: The Next Generation tame) turns in
his tight fitting Captain Picard togs for the billowy guise of
Captain Ahab.

And while Anton Diether and Frane Roddmans’ screenplay
dees a better job of exploring Ahab's inner turmoil chan the
Huston- Bradbury script, Stewart's clean shaven, unweathered
face does lite to convey those emotions.

In viewing this film night after the 1956 version, it is appar-
ent director Roddman took many cues from Huston’s work.
The opening scene, for example, is a direct copy of the “56
film. Another shared aspect of the nwo films, however, is a
highlight of the new Blam. Ina clever casting stroke, Gregory
Peck plays the roie of Father Mapple, though wichont the
intense passion of Welles.

Greenpeace factor

See Melville paste 30

one of many that make the original much better than a recently-
released film chronicling Captain Ahab‘s pursuit of the White Whale.

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