Friday, September 14, 2012

Moby Dick (1998)





I've been meaning to view this on a wildlife Friday for some time now, and it seemed a fitting follow up to Grizzly Man.  This was a made for television movie of the famous Herman Melville novel of the same name, originally airing in 1998.  Aside from the Jonah story from the Bible, which is woven into the Moby Dick story and delivered in a sermon by Father Mapple, this is one of the original and most dynamite animal attack stories.  The production features a monster cast, with Star Trek: NG's captain and Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart as Ahab, Silence of the Lambs and Monk actor Ted Levine as Starbuck, Henry Thomas, of ET fame as Ishmael and a whole boat full of others to fill out the cast.  Sometime Maori actor Piripi Waretini, who assays the role of Queequeg, is actually a Melville scholar in real life.  And, of course, the special appearance by film's most memorable Captain Ahab, Gregory Peck as Father Mapple, preaching his Jonah sermon from a pulpit fashioned after the bow of a whaling ship.









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