Monday, August 1, 2011

Moby-Dick on the Small Screen

You may remember that my summer reading project last year was Melville’s Moby-Dick (which I LOVED, of course). Tonight, the Encore network is showing a new, two-part movie based on the book.  I would be dubious—since I’m not sure I’ve ever watched anything on Encore before—but Hank Stuever, the excellent and tough T.V. critic of The Washington Post liked it.  William Hurt and Ethan Hawke play Ahab and Starbuck.

"So is this a good “Moby Dick” or a really cheesy “Moby Dick”? I happen to think it’s a great “Moby Dick.” Better than John Huston’s “Moby Dick”? Well, no. And yes. (And definitely better than the Patrick Stewart TV movie more than a decade ago.)

"This is the “Moby Dick” for fans of the 2003 film “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”; it’s also the “Moby Dick” for those of us who think Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” is the best version of “Moby Dick.” This version — bloodier, action-packed — was financed by German producers and filmed mostly at sea, in late 2009, off the coast of Malta, on a meticulous replica of a 19th-century whaling vessel, Ahab’s legendary Pequod."

Read more here. (Ignore the lame headline: “There Whale Be Blood,” hardee har har.)