MOBY DICK
John Huston's film from Herman Melville's book
Identification sheet:
1956
Running time: 115 minutes
Direction: John Huston
Scenario and adaptation: John Huston and Ray Bradbury
Production/Studio: John Huston, Moulin Pictures/Warner
Sound Track: Philip Dtainton
Main characters:
Gregory Peck starring Captain Ahab was the most innovating of his roles, for this actor has always played phlegmatic and self-controlled gentlemen whereas Captain Ahab is a possessed character, haunted by the idea of killing the White Whale.
Richard Basehart, being 42 at that time, plays the narrator, young Ishmael, who grows to adulthood as long as the story goes, like in an initiatiory journey.
Orson Welles has a special appearance in the film, playing Father Mapple in Nantucket, a minor role at the beginning of the film.
John Huston, adapting "unadaptable tales":
From Melville's story, in which we have highlighted the metaphysical aspects of the White Whale, Huston has taken a coherent and highly rythmical cinematographic story where a light and humourous introduction (Ishmael goes tawords the port to find Queequeegg the Indian and the frightenening whaler) contrasts with the serious development of the plot. This change of mood is carried out by Father Mapple's long sermon, inspired by the biblical chapter where Jonas is taken by a whale:
"The preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah - 'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.'"
The first-person narrator, young Ishmael, has been kept but in order to get "a headway plot", Huston has got rid of many chapters devoted to cetacean classifications, for they were indeed very difficult passages for a Hollywood film, and has favoured fishing scenes where action almost races out of control.
Huston's style in adapting the classic is quite visible, for he has managed to get the best out of story which was meant to be read and has made a film not only to be seen but also to be thought about. Notice here Ray Bradbury's contribution. He is nothing less than the prolific writer of major science fiction books, such as The Martian Chronicles (1950, published in England under the title The Silver Locusts) and Farenheit 451 (1953).
Throughout his career, John Huston has got stuck with these "unadaptable" texts. That's what he usually does! He has tried his luck with Tenesse William's play The Night of the Iguana (filmed in 1964), Lowry's novel Under the Volcano and his last film of 1987 base on James Joice's The Dead (last tale in Dubliners, published in 1914).
Whales and cinema:
A whale swallowing up Jonah is undoubtedly the basis of this predilection for the sea monster, the biggest living mammal. Disney has used a whale to make Pinocchio disappear, whereas Collodi chose a shark. More recntly, Hollywood has moved many youngers with Willy, a killer-whale who befriends a young boy.