Ron Howard's retelling of the real life story that preceded Herman Melville's classic fiction Moby Dick.
Ron Howard's retelling of the real life story that preceded Herman Melville's classic fiction Moby Dick.
I'm intrigued by it because it's such a great classic. And I know it's cliche, but honestly I can't imagine any cinematic production to be better than the actual book. My experience has always been, the better the book, the more disappointing is the movie.
Herman Melville > Ron Howard
Much of the book is a tedious detailed description of whaling.
"Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This arrangement is indispensible for common safety's sake; for were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again."
Half of the Book wrote:
Much of the book is a tedious detailed description of whaling.
As with David Foster Wallace, part of the pleasure is giving in to the sheer obsessiveness of the author. You wouldn't want all writers to be like that, but these guys make it work.
Looks like a remake of JAWS with a whale subbing for the shark.
Malmo,
This movie is based on the National Book Award winning non-fiction book by Nathaniel Philbrick. It's FANTASTIC! I, literally, read the book in ONE sitting! Great read.
But, you are sorta right that Meville based Moby Dick off of this real-life account of a whale attacking a ship called the Essex (which, according to Philbrick, would have been common knowledge amongst the locals of Melville's time).
I thought the trailer looked great! I'm looking forward to it!
But, if you're really into this, you can go into the "rabbit hole" of reading Melville, Philbrick, Owen Chase's autobiography (he was on the ship), etc., etc., etc.
I am definitely interested in this. But I'd be really interested in a movie based on "Bartleby, the Scrivener".
David Foster Wallace's "details" are exceedingly more tedious and boring than Melville's. At least Melville had a very interesting story.
i was but the trailer looks horrible. much more like michael bay instead of typical ron howard.
H.S. Coach #64792 wrote:
Malmo,
This movie is based on the National Book Award winning non-fiction book by Nathaniel Philbrick. It's FANTASTIC! I, literally, read the book in ONE sitting! Great read.
But, you are sorta right that Meville based Moby Dick off of this real-life account of a whale attacking a ship called the Essex (which, according to Philbrick, would have been common knowledge amongst the locals of Melville's time).
I thought the trailer looked great! I'm looking forward to it!
But, if you're really into this, you can go into the "rabbit hole" of reading Melville, Philbrick, Owen Chase's autobiography (he was on the ship), etc., etc., etc.
I agree with you on Philbrick. "In the Heart of the Sea" is a great book.
I am definitely interested, but like a previous poster pointed out, I am expecting to be let down. I just don't see how you can do justice to Melville. In this case, it is not Melville, but you get the point.
We'll see.
Moby Dick is a personal favorite of mine, and anyone who has actually read the book would not complain about the excessive detail in certain chapters. Only someone who doesn't want to read it and is looking for a justification. The details are exquisite.
This will be one of those movies that I go see by myself during a long lunch from work. I would never be able to talk my wife into seeing this and going to the movies alone at night is kind of odd. One day I will just leave my desk and go see it without telling anyone. Anyone else do that?
Like others I have read the book its based on (not Moby Dick but In the heart of the Sea) and thought it a great read. Be interesting to see how they do this as the book covers a lot of ground (sea?) with the story of the survivors of the shipwreak fascinating and a lot more then just the story of a whale attack
Based on the book alone though I would be interested.
Tarantino to direct to give it an edge?
redux wrote:
I am definitely interested in this. But I'd be really interested in a movie based on "Bartleby, the Scrivener".
I am. If the movie is anywhere near as good as the book it will be great.
There have been movies based on "Bartleby the Scrivener."
What I'd like to see is Melville on a cooking show, talking about how delicious whale blubber is
Name them, please.
Echidna wrote:
There have been movies based on "Bartleby the Scrivener."
What I'd like to see is Melville on a cooking show, talking about how delicious whale blubber is
I finally got around to reading Moby Dick a few years ago, and was surprised to learn that the "white whale" (Moby, that is) doesn't even show up until near the end of the book. Perhaps the prequel will feature more of the book's namesake.
For anyone interested, the original account of the Essex was written by the first mate. It's available on amazon for 99 cents because it's in the public domain.
It's titled "Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex" and it was written by Owen Chase.
Distressing is an understatement.
White whale always reminds me of how Americans botched the naming of the Wijd (Dutch for wide not white) Rhino.
FROM WIKI: ...the origins of the name "white rhinoceros" is a mistranslation from Dutch to English. The English word "white" is said to have been derived by mistranslation of the Dutch word "wijd", which means "wide" in English. The word "wide" refers to the width of the rhinoceros' mouth. So early English-speaking settlers in South Africa misinterpreted the "wijd" for "white"