Moby Dick
by John Huston
List Price:
Our Price: $8.24
You Save: $6.70 (45%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $4.25 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Gregory Peck, Harry Andrews, James Robertson Justice, Leo Genn, Richard BasehartDirector: John Huston
Brand: Sony
Producer: John Huston
Writer: John Huston
Producer: Jack Clayton
Producer: Lee Katz
Writer: Herman Melville
Writer: Norman Corwin
Writer: Ray Bradbury
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Moby Dick
DVD Review: Who IS this Ahab?
Summary: 2 Stars
I saw this movie last weekend, coming fresh from my second reading of the book, a reading that was twice as powerful as the first time I'd read it in college. I was expecting a good experience, though with the date of the movie I was prepared for some deviations from the novel. I was not expecting what I recieved in Huston and Bradberry's redaction of the plot.
Moby Dick is probably an unfilmable novel, but the scenes of action and the details of the 19th century whaling trade make it understandable that a director would try anyway. And Huston and Bradberry start off well, collapsing some of the sprawling episodes in the beginning of the novel to one place and time. You lose nothing by keeping all the action in New Bedford and indeed the opening gains a bit in power. However, even here there are some serious missteps, such as allowing for a glimpse of Ahab walking the streets of New Bedford. In the novel Ahab is only talked about, not seen, for the first 100 pages or so. This helps to keep tension around the character growing, so that when he does appear he is as much myth as man. It also parallels the greater absence of the title character, who of course never appears in the flesh until the last three chapters of the novel.
Once we get aboard the Pequod, the script loses faithfulness in ways that are quite harmful to the suspense of the plot and to the philosophic issues dealt with in the novel. Ahab appears too frequently, especially at the beginning...and only his monomanical speeches are kept. The more soul revealing soliliquies that make Ahab such a haunting and paradoxical character in the novel are excised and Ahab becomes all rage, more monster than man. This does a severe violence to Melville's character and his development. It's little wonder that Gregory Peck felt he couldn't bring this character to life in the movie....there's no real life in the writing.
The deviations from the novel are legion. The meetings with other whaling ships, which help to shape the legend of the White Whale in the novel, are cut down to two meetings, and not even two of the most important. The character of Flask is given short shrift...while Stubb's humor is never very evident (a fault of the actor as much as the script). Starbuck comes across as an office clerk rather than a brave, careful, and ultimately moral and nobel man. Pip is almost completely elided, which robs Ahab of some of his most touching and humanizing scenes. And though the removal of Fedullah, the satan figure of the novel, perhaps makes things a bit more realistic, it also makes the ending deeply problematic and makes the Corpusants scene lose symbolic power and Zoroasterian philosophical overtones. Even the Symphony chapter, which is included here in truncated form, is so truncated that you don't have time to fully see Ahab's humanity almost come back and most viewers probably never realize that Starbuck in this scene has almost convinced Ahab to give up the whale.
But most tragic and disturbing is the fact that Huston and Bradberry determine to show us Moby Dick too early....before the Pequod's meeting with the Rachel. Though I understand the need to telescope the three days chase at the end of the novel into one extended scene, by adding this earlier sighting, the power for the final confrontation with the Whale is destroyed and we never get that wonderful scene where the White Whale is first spied swimming in divine beauty. This image is perhaps one of the most important in an image ladened novel, and losing it weakens the identification of Moby Dick with God and with disinterested Nature, which is beautiful and terrible at the same time in Melville's world.
The primary problems I think with the movie reside in the screenplay, but there are also many problems with casting. Peck actually does a fine job with material that just isn't nuanced enough. He makes as much as he can over Ahab's few human moments, but they occur way to late in the movie to help us feel anything but empty for Ahab. Richard Baseheart is woefully miscast as Ishmael, impressing us less as the highly educated underachiever of Melville, and more of a straight out rube. Queequeeg is just way too old and way too stiff for his part. Stubb lacks humor and Starbuck seems more like Captain Bligh than like Melville's hero. Even the best things about the movie...the whaling scenes, leave us with a sense of incongruity. Whaling looks like jolly fun, while Melville makes it abundantly clear that it is life and death business.
So, even with the best of intentions, Huston is unable to deliver a movie that has any of the real impact of the Melville story. I am actually rather certain that noone can capture it in it's full power and nuance. However, I hope that in the future a director like Peter Weir, who's Master and Commander showed him capable of understanding the unique atmosphere of windpowered sailing, and who's Gallipoli showed him sensitive to the poetry in basic stories of survival, might decide to try his hand at the book. There's still a good movie to be made of this book, even if it can't include everything the author could.
Description of Moby Dick
MOBY DICK - DVD MovieBestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
For Whom the Bell TollsUniversal Studios; Release date: 1998-11-17; DVD
Best price: $7.77
Price in other shops:
Treasure IslandBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2003-04-29; DVD
Best price: $5.61
Price in other shops:
The Old Man and the SeaKoch International; Release date: 2005-07-12; DVD
Best price: $7.44
Price in other shops:
Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (Two-Disc Special Edition)Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2003-05-20; DVD
Best price: $5.66
Price in other shops:
Mutiny on the Bounty (Two-Disc Special Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2006-11-07; DVD
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
The Old Man and the SeaOld; Release date: 2001-03-13; DVD
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
Captain Horatio HornblowerWarner Brothers; Release date: 2007-03-06; DVD
Best price: $10.95
Price in other shops:
Captains CourageousWarner Brothers; Release date: 2006-01-31; DVD
Best price: $10.95
Price in other shops:
Moby DickUni; Release date: 2011-10-04; DVD
Best price: $12.84
Price in other shops:
Moby DickRelease date: 1998-08-18; DVD
Best price: $49.33