"For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee, ye damned whale."

I’ve had an image in my head that I’ve wanted to create into an illustration for a while, but as it involves a whale and boat I feel like it’s imagery which is probably a bit Moby Dick-seque - even though I’ve never read nor seen Moby Dick and don’t really even know what it’s about. But I figure instead of dropping my idea or trying to protest that it has nothing to do with Moby Dick, I should just learn the story and roll with it. I am an illustrator after all which involves illustrating existing stories! Unfortunately I don’t have the inclination right now to plough through a 650 page book as I already have a stack of books that I actually want to read, so I decided to cop out a bit and familiarise myself through a movie. I figured they’d be plenty as it’s such a famous book, and was pretty shocked to see that that’s not the case at all and so quickly settled on the 1956 version starring Gregory Peck.


Fun fact: I’m actually terrified of whales! I’m not scared of sharks or things that could actually hurt me, and I know that whales aren’t man hunters and are actually supposed to be quite kind and inquisitive and I even enjoy imagery and illustration involving them, but I can’t help but be terrified of them all the same. It’s their size, you see - I have quite severe megalophobia and huge things give me full on panic attacks, including whales. And that was another reason I’ve spent my life avoiding Moby Dick, and why I went for an older movie as I hoped the effects would be less realistic and so less terrifying for me.

And I was right! I spent the entire movie dreading the scenes with the whale but they were fine - which isn’t to say they were bad, I love old movie effects and much prefer them to CGI, but they were endearing in their way as it is clearly not a real whale to my relief. And I enjoyed the final battle. I feel like a modern adaptation would of rushed the showdown between Ahab and the whale and we’d have a 45 minute overly drawn out and tedious action packed CGI battle - but instead the battle is saved for the final 5 minutes, with the rest of the film pacing us, preparing us, forcing us to feel Ahab’s and the crew’s anticipation at knowing what’s in store. Apparently Gregory Peck was slated a lot for his role as Ahab, and even he himself cringed at his performance in later years feeling he was miscast. Whilst I fully admit this is my introduction to the character and I have nothing else to base his performance off of, I can certainly say that I enjoyed it, his manic obsession was palpable.

I'd seen The Lighthouse (2019) back in January and couldn’t help but draw several parallels with some scenes, which is something that I really love about consuming media; when you’re able to make those connections and spot the influence and see everything come together full circle, and there were several instances where Ahab was on screen that made me think of Willem Dafoe's character especially (I haven't reviewed The Lighthouse as I was so-so on it, but I feel like it's one of those movies where it takes a few watches for it to all come together so maybe I'll write about it in the future as I did love the imagery.)

The only real drawback for me is that I could of really done without seeing white men pretend to be Polynesian and Native American. It’s the worst aspect of old movies to be honest, and not knowing the story beforehand I wasn't expecting it. I take partial responsibility for that as if I had known there were indigenous characters then it’s a pretty safe bet it’ll be a white guy in face paint, but it's a shame nonetheless and does mar my enjoyment. There's also some scenes of real whaling which is it's own yikes, but I'm not completely sure what was real and what wasn't which is perhaps a blessing?

I’m still not sure if Moby Dick is where my illustration lies just yet, I’m going to read the book of Jonah to make sure I’m not getting confused, but I'm happy to at least have discovered a new movie out of it! (and I got to learn where Starbucks got its name from!)