Moby Dick

Plot synopsis:
Ishmael travels in December from Manhattan Island to New Bedford with plans to sign up for a whaling voyage. The inn where he arrives is overcrowded, so he must share a bed with the tattooed Polynesian Queequeg, a harpooneer whose father was king of the (fictional) island of Rokovoko. The next morning, Ishmael and Queequeg attend Father Mapple's sermon on Jonah, then head for Nantucket. Ishmael signs up with the Quaker ship-owners Bildad and Peleg for a voyage on their whaler Pequod. Peleg describes Captain Ahab: "He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man" who nevertheless "has his humanities". They hire Queequeg the following morning. A man named Elijah prophesies a dire fate should Ishmael and Queequeg join Ahab. While provisions are loaded, shadowy figures board the ship. On a cold Christmas Day, the Pequod leaves the harbor.
Ishmael discusses cetology (the zoological classification and natural history of the whale), and describes the crew members. The chief mate is 30-year-old Starbuck, a Nantucket Quaker with a realist mentality, whose harpooneer is Queequeg; second mate is Stubb, from Cape Cod, happy-go-lucky and cheerful, whose harpooneer is Tashtego, a proud, pure-blooded Indian from Gay Head, and the third mate is Flask, also from Martha's Vineyard, short, stout, whose harpooneer is Daggoo, a tall African, now a resident of Nantucket.
When Ahab finally appears on the quarterdeck, he announces he is out for revenge on the white whale which took one leg from the knee down and left him with a prosthesis fashioned from a whale's jawbone. Ahab will give the first man to sight Moby Dick a doubloon, a gold coin, which he nails to the mast. Starbuck objects that he has not come for vengeance but for profit. Ahab's purpose exercises a mysterious spell on Ishmael: "Ahab's quenchless feud seemed mine". Instead of rounding Cape Horn, Ahab heads for the equatorial Pacific Ocean via southern Africa. One afternoon, as Ishmael and Queequeg are weaving a mat — "its warp seemed necessity, his hand free will, and Queequeg's sword chance" — Tashtego sights a sperm whale. Immediately, five hidden figures appear whom Ahab has brought as his own boat crew. Their leader, Fedallah, a Parsee, is Ahab's harpooneer. The pursuit is unsuccessful.
Southeast of the Cape of Good Hope, the Pequod makes the first of nine sea-encounters, or "gams", with other ships: Ahab hails the Goney (Albatross) to ask whether they have seen the White Whale, but the trumpet through which her captain tries to speak falls into the sea before he can answer. Ishmael explains that because of Ahab's absorption with Moby Dick, he sails on without the customary "gam", which defines as a "social meeting of two (or more) Whale-ships", in which the two captains remain on one ship and the chief mates on the other. In the second gam off the Cape of Good Hope, with the Town-Ho, a Nantucket whaler, the concealed story of a "judgment of God" is revealed, but only to the crew: a defiant sailor who struck an oppressive officer is flogged, and when that officer led the chase for Moby Dick, he fell from the boat and was killed by the whale.
Ishmael digresses on pictures of whales, brit (microscopic sea creatures on which whales feed), squid and — after four boats lowered in vain because Daggoo mistook a giant squid for the white whale — whale-lines. The next day, in the Indian Ocean, Stubb kills a sperm whale, and that night Fleece, the Pequod's black cook, prepares him a rare whale steak. Fleece delivers a sermon to the sharks that fight each other to feast on the whale's carcass, tied to the ship, saying that their nature is to be voracious, but they must overcome it. The whale is prepared, beheaded, and barrels of oil are tried out. Standing at the head of the whale, Ahab begs it to speak of the depths of the sea. The Pequod next encounters the Jeroboam, which not only lost its chief mate to Moby Dick, but also is now plagued by an epidemic.
The whale carcass still lies in the water. Queequeg mounts it, tied to Ishmael's belt by a monkey-rope as if they were Siamese twins. Stubb and Flask kill a right whale whose head is fastened to a yardarm opposite the sperm whale's head. Ishmael compares the two heads in a philosophical way: the right whale is Lockean, stoic, and the sperm whale as Kantean, platonic. Tashtego cuts into the head of the sperm whale and retrieves buckets of oil. He falls into the head, and the head falls off the yardarm into the sea. Queequeg dives after him and frees his mate with his sword.
The Pequod next gams with the Jungfrau from Bremen. Both ships sight whales simultaneously, with the Pequod winning the contest. The three harpooneers dart their harpoons, and Flask delivers the mortal strike with a lance. The carcass sinks, and Queequeg barely manages to escape. The Pequod's next gam is with the French whaler Bouton de Rose, whose crew is ignorant of the ambergris in the gut of the diseased whale in their possession. Stubb talks them out of it, but Ahab orders him away. Days later, an encounter with a harpooned whale prompts Pip, a little black cabin-boy from Alabama, to jump out of his whale boat. The whale must be cut loose, because the line has Pip so entangled in it. Furious, Stubb orders Pip to stay in the whale boat, but Pip later jumps again, and is left alone in the immense sea and has gone insane by the time he is picked up.
Cooled sperm oil congeals and must be squeezed back into liquid state; blubber is boiled in the try-pots on deck; the warm oil is decanted into casks, and then stowed in the ship. After the operation, the decks are scrubbed. The coin hammered to the main mast shows three Andes summits, one with a flame, one with a tower, and one a crowing cock. Ahab stops to look at the doubloon and interprets the coin as signs of his firmness, volcanic energy, and victory; Starbuck takes the high peaks as evidence of the Trinity; Stubb focuses on the zodiacal arch over the mountains; and Flask sees nothing of any symbolic value at all. The Manxman mutters in front of the mast, and Pip declines the verb "look".
The Pequod next gams with the Samuel Enderby of London, captained by Boomer, a down-to-earth fellow who lost his right arm to Moby Dick. Nevertheless, he carries no ill will toward the whale, which he regards not as malicious, but as awkward. Ahab puts an end to the gam by rushing back to his ship. The narrator now discusses the subjects of 1) whalers supply; 2) a glen in Tranque in the Arsacides islands full of carved whale bones, fossil whales, whale skeleton measurements; 3) the chance that the magnitude of the whale will diminish and that the leviathan might perish.
Leaving the Samuel Enderby, Ahab wrenches his ivory leg and orders the carpenter to fashion him another. Starbuck informs Ahab of oil leakage in the hold. Reluctantly, Ahab orders the harpooneers to inspect the casks. Queequeg, sweating all day below decks, develops a chill and soon is almost mortally feverish. The carpenter makes a coffin for Queequeg, who fears an ordinary burial at sea. Queequeg tries it for size, with Pip sobbing and beating his tambourine, standing by and calling himself a coward while he praises Queequeg for his gameness. Yet Queequeg suddenly rallies, briefly convalesces, and leaps up, back in good health. Henceforth, he uses his coffin for a spare seachest, which is later caulked and pitched to replace the Pequod's life buoy.
The Pequod sails northeast toward Formosa and into the Pacific Ocean. Ahab, with one nostril, smells the musk from the Bashee isles, and with the other, the salt of the waters where Moby Dick swims. Ahab goes to Perth, the blacksmith, with bag of racehorse shoenail stubs to be forged into the shank of a special harpoon, and with his razors for Perth to melt and fashion into a harpoon barb. Ahab tempers the barb in blood from Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo.
The Pequod gams next with the Bachelor, a Nantucket ship heading home full of sperm oil. Every now and then, the Pequod lowers for whales with success. On one of those nights in the whaleboat, Fedallah prophesies that neither hearse nor coffin can be Ahab's, that before he dies, Ahab must see two hearses — one not made by mortal hands and the other made of American wood — that Fedallah will precede his captain in death, and finally that only hemp can kill Ahab.
As the Pequod approaches the Equator, Ahab scolds his quadrant for telling him only where he is and not where he will be. He dashes it to the deck. That evening, an impressive typhoon attacks the ship. Lightning strikes the mast, setting the doubloon and Ahab's harpoon aglow. Ahab delivers a speech on the spirit of fire, seeing the lightning as a portent of Moby Dick. Starbuck sees the lightning as a warning, and feels tempted to shoot the sleeping Ahab with a musket. Next morning, when he finds that the lightning disoriented the compass, Ahab makes a new one out of a lance, a maul, and a sailmaker's needle. He orders the log be heaved, but the weathered line snaps, leaving the ship with no way to fix its location.
The Pequod is now heading southeast toward Moby Dick. A man falls overboard from the mast. The life buoy is thrown, but both sink. Now Queequeg proposes that his superfluous coffin be used as a new life buoy. Starbuck orders the carpenter take care it is lidded and caulked. Next morning, the ship meets in another truncated gam with the Rachel, commanded by Captain Gardiner from Nantucket. The Rachel is seeking survivors from one of her whaleboats which had gone after Moby Dick. Among the missing is Gardiner's young son. Ahab refuses to join the search. Twenty-four hours a day, Ahab now stands and walks the deck, while Fedallah shadows him. Suddenly, a sea hawk grabs Ahab's slouched hat and flies off with it. Next, the Pequod, in a ninth and final gam, meets the Delight, badly damaged and with five of her crew left dead by Moby Dick. Her captain shouts that the harpoon which can kill the white whale has yet to be forged, but Ahab flourishes his special lance and once more orders the ship forward. Ahab shares a moment of contemplation with Starbuck. Ahab speaks about his wife and child, calls himself a fool for spending 40 years on whaling, and claims he can see his own child in Starbuck's eye. Starbuck tries to persuade Ahab to return to Nantucket to meet both their families, but Ahab simply crosses the deck and stands near Fedallah.
On the first day of the chase, Ahab smells the whale, climbs the mast, and sights Moby Dick. He claims the doubloon for himself, and orders all boats to lower except for Starbuck's. The whale bites Ahab's boat in two, tosses the captain out of it, and scatters the crew. On the second day of the chase, Ahab leaves Starbuck in charge of the Pequod. Moby Dick smashes the three boats that seek him into splinters and tangles their lines. Ahab is rescued, but his ivory leg and Fedallah are lost. Starbuck begs Ahab to desist, but Ahab vows to slay the white whale, even if he would have to dive through the globe itself to get his revenge.
On the third day of the chase, Ahab sights Moby Dick at noon, and sharks appear, as well. Ahab lowers his boat for a final time, leaving Starbuck again on board. Moby Dick breaches and destroys two boats. Fedallah's corpse, still entangled in the fouled lines, is lashed to the whale's back, so Moby Dick turns out to be the hearse Fedallah prophesied. "Possessed by all the fallen angels", Ahab plants his harpoon in the whale's flank. Moby Dick smites the whaleboat, tossing its men into the sea. Only Ishmael is unable to return to the boat. He is left behind in the sea, and so is the only crewman of the Pequod to survive the final encounter. The whale now fatally attacks the Pequod. Ahab then realizes that the destroyed ship is the hearse made of American wood in Fedallah's prophesy. The whale returns to Ahab, who stabs at him again. The line loops around Ahab's neck, and as the stricken whale swims away, the captain is drawn with him out of sight. Queequeg's coffin comes to the surface, the only thing to escape the vortex when Pequod sank. For an entire day, Ishmael floats on it, and then the Rachel, still looking for its lost seamen, rescues him.

Tags: revenge, suspenseful, violence, sci-fi

Review:
You end up asking why Ahab was prepared to give his life for catching or killing the great albino whale.
The whale is Ahab's grab for the eternal brass ring, one that eludes him time and again.First: Best motion picture score I've ever heard for a TV Movie.
When I sat down to watch a new version of an old classic, I was not quite certain what to expect,particularly from a TV movie.
Not only was the acting superb, but the cinematography was beautiful and the soundtrack stirring.Patrick Stewart was quite compelling as Ahab and his rendering of a man possessed by his inner demons was excellent.
Ultimately, though, most readers find a two pronged story which is search for God on one hand (Ahab's need for revenge and Ishmael's need for purpose and love, note that both names also refer to biblical characters) and is the passionate bonding between males on the other.
Unfortuneately, it is in these two areas that the movie does not quite portray the book with due respect.Now, there is plenty of bonding and Ishmael does sort of get jostled around as per normal, but Melville did not want this to be the standard group of "older men ragging the new".
As for the search for God, the movie has some of the key scenes to suggest Ahab wants to slay the greatest of God's creatures because he feels his life has been failed and to suggest needed to get away because his life had no meaning.
Some of the acting is pretty sketchy at times and there are a few places where the special effects flat out fail in their purpose, but overall the movie is worth watching.
Stewart plays a different version of Ahab than what I pictured, but at the same time his version has a lot of life and passion which is good.
I think some of the visuals were a little less gory than they should be (this is a violent tale with a good deal of blood and despair in the original) but most of the cues are there for those who have read the book.Because of such things as this, I almost feel as though one needs to read the book to fill in the gaps, or the story does not get the treatment it deserves.
As a long-time fan of the 1956 John Huston film I was looking forward to seeing a new interpretation of what is recognised as a classic of world literature.
Worse still, Ahab's major speeches ("pasteboard masks" and "mild, mild day") are chopped by the writers and thrown away by the direction, leaving us with a story about a man who for some reason wants to chase one particular whale, his true motivation is completely lost.Patrick Stewart did a decent job as Ahab given the circumstances but with that loss of motivation he lost the mythical, superhuman stature the character needs to give the story greatness.
As for Moby Dick himself, I've always felt that in Huston's film he was a *character* with an individual personality.
In this version Moby Dick is just a whale, and that sums up the failure of the film as a whole..
Now, while this is a pretty normal thing, most adaptations require changes, I must say that all the changes made here were for the worse.All the ways this movie/mini-series differs from the original book are bad.
Granted, the at times ridiculous language in the book does a bit of the same in the original, but not nearly as badly as the style of this adaptation.I feel that the whole core of the book Moby Dick is the character of Ahab, and his dual nature.
This version does itself a disservice by not following the original on this.The book has it's problems, it's long and tedious, but the story within is a far better one than the one told by this adaptation..
This made-for-TV version of Moby Dick misses the mark by a mile and then some.
All of Birbeck's points are valid, but I'll add a few of my own.Moby Dick is about a lot of things  obsession, revenge, objective evil, the nature of existence  the novel is so pregnant with meaning both within and below the text that it has become a byword for significant literature.
He has seen beneath the façade of mere things to glimpse a sublime Truth, which isn't simply a benevolent deity, but a horror show of forces vast, inscrutable and infinitely hostile.But Moby Dick is also about whaling.
Instead we get a rather unconvincing studio prop for a ship, miscast actors with slipshod direction for a crew, and the classically trained Patrick Stewart struggling with a wretched screenplay that preserves little of Melville's language.
Watch the 1956 John Ford production with Gregory Peck in the role of Ahab instead.
I rented this remake with high expectations.I was disappointed.In four hours, they failed to tell half the story Huston and Bradbury got so perfectly right in the 1956 classic.Huston's classic is a little dated, particularly in terms of special effects that look like the miniatures they in fact are.
While the CGI whale in this remake is a refreshingly-convincing manifestation of a 60-foot sperm whale, it's not Moby Dick.This movie is bright and colorful, and the whale's just a whale.
The cast doesn't come across as seasoned whalers, it feels like actors playing weekend yachtsmen, thanks in no small part to a script that can't seem to respect the intelligence of its audience.Moby Dick is a dark, slow story of building, brooding menace, which makes the moments of action all the more thrilling and terrifying.This remake captures none of the atmosphere or colorful character or menace of Melville's classic.
At its best moments, it's simply re-hashing moments that were were perfected 42 years before.If you want to see Moby Dick, see John Huston's 1956 masterpiece..
Any one who has read the book or seen the 1956 version are if for a terrible disappointment.
In essence, a waste of time.The 1956 version, though there are some deviations from the book, still gives the depth that Melville intended to portray.
True, Moby Dick may be snazzier in the recent version, but he is PURE white, and looks very plastic.
The big mystery of Moby Dick has always been "What possessed Ahab?" In this treatment one has to ask "What possessed the writer and director?" When John Barrymore was making movies they new that as long as he was on the screen, no one cared what they called the darn thing, and no one cared if the "flicker" and the book was two different stories.
The visual effects were terrible, the acting terrible and the story was nothing as the classic book or '56 adaption.
If you felt that John Huston's film of Herman Melville's immortal epic was too old hat for you, I think you'll find what you are looking for in here.
stunning photography, stronger acting, and dazzling special effects, Franc Roddam's Moby Dick, is not just one of the greatest TV movies but one of the greatest sea fearing pictures to come out of the last few decades.Moby Dick is one of those novels that everyone talks about but nobody has read.
Herman Melville's 19th century New England maritime dialog would be difficult for most contemporary readers, but his story is just as strong in a movie form as it is in a 1000 page book, ergo a viewer could gain the same knowledge and understanding of all the themes, whaling, shipping and most of all human nature.I've never thought of Patrick Stewart as a great actor, but this is the strongest performance I've seen him give.
His Captain Ahab is more colorful than Gregory Pecks, sometimes going over the top, but he does a better job of portraying the old captain as a madman Henry Thomas and Ted Levine also give good performances, and even Gregory Peck makes an appearance.
Incidentilly this what the last movie he acted in.Even though the original Moby Dick is still impressive today, the special effects are weak and they show scientific inaccuracies regarding the movement of whales.
A good balance of CG and animatronic makes Moby Dick in this film, move more elegantly, like a whale rather than a rubber model.
Patrick Stuart wasn't bad as Captain Ahab, but not as good as Gregory Peck.
In the scene where Ahab is telling his crew that he will chase the "white whale" virtually around the world, Stuart felt the need to shout.
Patrick Stewart gives an outstanding performance as the tragic and obsessed Captain Ahab.
This cable telepic MOBY DICK suffers from not only a dull, stagy script, but builds very little, by way of any real suspense, as the movie progresses.
The performances ranged from lackluster to outright "pass the mustard" ham.Patrick Stewart, as Ahab, spouts a lot of his lust for revenge; and works the crew up for it, as well.
I have read the previous reviewers comments and I agree that the screenplay for this version of Moby Dick was "dumbed down" for an American audience.
Most Americans will even be unable to read Moby Dick all the way through and understand it.
I was never a fan of John Huston's version of "Moby Dick," but it's a veritable masterpiece compared with this dreary TV movie.
The CGI effects are supposedly an important part of the film, what with a computer-generated White Whale, among other things.
Really Bad. Moby Dick is one of my favorite novels & the 1950's film adaptation is one of my favorite films.
The 1950's film is like that too--I must have seen it a dozen times at least & I could watch it again right now.
So when I heard that a new version of Moby Dick would be on cable with Patrick Stewart, an honest-to-goodness decent actor, playing Ahab & Gregory Peck appearing as Father Mapple, I was delighted.
TV-movies have a justified reputation for being of poor quality but on the cable networks, you are often able to find a gem mixed in with the mud & this sounded like it could be just such a gem.Unfortunately, this Moby-Dick is a hideous disappointment.
Peck looks nothing like the great actor who could dominate films of all different types from Moby Dick to Pork Chop Hill, to westerns, etc.
And the guy playing Queequeeg, despite his pre-release hype, is a poor actor, incapable of the intelligent, dignified performance of Frederick Ledebur in the older film.There is very little good I can say about this movie.
It is quite likely even worse than the old John Barrymore version in which Barrymore, as Ahab, goes out in the Pequod, kills Moby Dick, & returns to New Bedford to get the girl.
Anyone who has seen Star Trek: First Contact would find it kind of ironic Stewart would be playing Captain Ahab.
I had never seen a Moby Dick movie or read the book (even though I had tried!), so I sat down in front of the box to watch the first part of this mini-series.
Unbelievably slow, with bad special effects and restricted scenery, the only good point about this remake was the acting.
But this time at least the part went to an actor of appropriate age.Patrick Stewart is best known to American audiences as Capt.
Especially awful is Patrick Stewart as Ahab.
But you really feel that you are at sea and not anchored in a shallow pond in Hollywood!In this day and age, that has created such really thrilling and expertly made naval stories like the Perfect Storm, this is really a stinker.Sadly not through a secondary cast, but awful directing, acting, filming and feel.Stewart should stay on his starships, and leave the seas be!.
Patrick Stewart has always had a talent for acting that far exceded that of any actor, and his performence as Ahab only strengthens that belief!
This new adaption is a true tribute to Melville's classic tale of a man's blood lust for revenge against the one thing that tormented his subhuman soul, MOBY DICK!.
I have to admit and this is probably blasphemy to some people here I am not a fan of the 1956 film, though I am a fan of the director John Huston, but I found it too slow for my liking and Gregory Peck I found dull as Captain Ahab.
It does start off slow, but picks up at the end, and while I found Moby Dick adequately menacing in the 1956 film this whale I didn't care for as much.
Along the way there are some improvements too, Patrick Stewart is wonderful in the title role, actually capturing the demonic presence of Captain Ahab much better than Gregory Peck, who gives a confident performance as Father Mapple in a role that suits him better I feel.
The acting was good but the script was hugely long with none of the wonderful suspense and effects of the original film.
By the way, Moby Dick IS the greatest novel of all time, in case you didn't know, although Melville was on some mighty fine mushrooms when he wrote it..
I know the book and I know too, that it starts slow, but with all understanding for the attempt, to be "true" to this great piece of literature: In the movie the tempo on the start went on my nerves.Nevertheless I like "Moby Dick" very much.
However, this version of "Moby Dick" is a little hard to take seriously.
A previous reviewer noted that they took so much out of the story that no character seems to have any motivation.But still, it's a pretty fun romp seeing the men sailing around the world on the Pequod, looking for the whale who bit off Ahab's leg.
Gregory Peck returned to Moby Dick, this time in the one scene role as Father Mapple to give a farewell performance in the same work he did 42 years earlier as Captain Ahab.
It was a great part to cap his career with and he received much acclaim.Taking over the Ahab part is Patrick Stewart as the demon obsessed whaling ship captain who sees a giant albino sperm whale as the root of all evil.
But the point of the whole story is how the charismatic Ahab infects the crew of his ship the Pequod with his own madness.First mate Starbuck is played by Ted Levine best known as Captain Stottlemyre on Monk.
And the novel's teller of this tale is played by Henry Thomas all grown up now and best remembered as the young lad from E.T. Ishmael calls and the story has not slackened a bit.Some wonderful cinematography of the Tasmanian Sea where this story was filmed.
In Peck's own Moby Dick the part had been similarly unforgettably done by Orson Welles.A lot of the subtleties in Herman Melville's great novel had to be glossed over for the big screen.
"Moby Dick" was one of the most boring books ever written.
I think this movie did a great job in depicting the finer points of "Moby Dick".
So,I purchased the film for only $3.99I remember reading Moby Dick in my 8th grade Jr.High class and I also remeber that I didn't like it, and I remeber wondering why this story had been so popular for so many years, and I remeber wondering why it had became such a timeless classic.
Dispite the fact that I didn't like Moby Dick as a novel, for some reason I though I might Enjoy this film.
Seeing how I only had $4 bucks invested in it - it seemed that I couldn't go wrong.I ended up liking everything about this film but the story.The Music is first rate, the costumes are great,The acting is very well done.
Captain Ahab chases a Albino(White) whale all over the world because he is own a revenge quest to kill the great white whale nick-named Moby Dick.
I guess the best way to make a movie thats not very good is to base it on a classic novel that not very good to start with.I gave this film 6 out of 10 stars- only because the production,Music, cast and crew did a very fine job.
it the story Moby Dick that stinks.
Well, the special effects aren't up to much - but it seems unfair to pillory a film for such things, the whale itself is fairly impressive...but the main problem is with the liberties taken with the story.
Some examples : Moby dick appears half way through the film, where he occupies the last three chapters of the book.
Patrick Stewart was obviously brought in as a name to lend the film some credibility, but is not an obvious choice for the role, and doesn't look particularly convincing, although at least he tries.If you haven't read the book, there is probably an interesting enough 3hrs for you here, if you have - save yourself the frustration and keep well away!.
This television film is a mix of good intentions and missed opportunities, that results in an acceptable but not brilliant version of Melville's book.
Patrick Stewart is fine as Ahab, and gets to deliver some of Melville's best lines wonderfully.
Ted Levine is a terrific Starbuck, with a real emotional depth to his performance that is probably the best thing in the movie.
But the dramatic scenes near the end of the book, with Ahab listening to the fatalistic prophecies of Fedallah, concerning the outcome of the hunt for the White Whale, are excluded, and what could have been a truly inspired adaptation becomes a pretty good version, but not the great work it could have been.Overall, a good adaptation worth seeing, but the 1956 John Huston version, though not as detailed, captures more of the awesome, wild tone of the original.