The New Bedford Whaling Museum's Moby-Dick Marathon is an annual non-stop reading of Herman Melville's literary masterpiece. The multi-day program of entertaining activities and events is presented every January. Admission to the Marathon is free.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Ray Bradbury interview

Moby Dick film poster
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Was Ray Bradbury a mercenary philistine with no appreciation for his literary source? Read Steve Biodrowski's 2008 interview in the magazine Cinefantastique, "Ray Bradbury on Adapting Melville’s Allegorical Sea Monster, Moby Dick."
Mr. Bradbury, who turns 91 in August, discusses his work with director John Huston to adapt our beloved book to a 2-hour film. In true Melvillian fashion, the story is not without its ambiguities and exigencies.
We note also that the hymn we sing in the Seamen's Bethel as part of the MDM, The Ribs and Terrors of the Whale, was composed by Philip Sainton as part of his soundtrack for the Huston/Bradbury film. (HT: blog-fellow Lemuel.)
Think back -- was it this movie that led you to reading Moby-Dick?
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7 comments:

  1. LemuelFebruary 5, 2011 at 10:05 AM

    Neat article -- it's easy to pile on Bradbury for his departures from the text, but his script does capture the drama of Ahab's vengeance. I assume that poster was for a rerelease of the movie when Jaws was in theaters.

    But to answer your question, yes, seeing the movie on TV when I was maybe 12 years old is what got me interested in reading the book. (It took me three tries before I finally got through the whole thing when I was 17. Needing to read it for school helped.)

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  2. Iron-bound BucketFebruary 5, 2011 at 11:36 AM

    Thanks for posting this. I was just talking to someone this week about Bradbury and his Moby-Dick connection.

    You can listen to Bradbury talk about writing the screenplay on Studio 360. The Moby-Dick episode is quite good (won a Peabody Award). It was that hour (or so) of radio that got me hooked on the novel, I came to Melville very late. I still haven't seen the film.

    Here's Studio 360 link.
    http://www.studio360.org/2009/nov/27/

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  3. GansevoortFebruary 5, 2011 at 12:18 PM

    That poster does seem to refer to "Jaws," but Huston's film was released in 1956, twenty-four years before the Spielberg spiel. I can't explain it.

    Thanks to Iron-bound Bucket for the link to the audio archive.

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  4. GansevoortFebruary 5, 2011 at 12:25 PM

    Forgot to add, Huston's original interest in Moby-Dick was as a vehicle for his father, Walter. Alas, Walter Huston died in 1950 -- if you've seen "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" or "Dodsworth," you can imagine the subtle, intelligent performance we might now have.

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  5. LemuelFebruary 5, 2011 at 5:37 PM

    That poster does seem to refer to "Jaws," but Huston's film was released in 1956, twenty-four years before the Spielberg spiel. I can't explain it.

    What I had in mind was a theatrical rerelease around the time that Jaws was playing. I don't know if they were still doing that kind of thing in the '70s. I know they did a rerelease of Around the World in 80 Days (1956) in the mid-'60s.

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  6. LemuelFebruary 5, 2011 at 5:39 PM

    It was that hour (or so) of radio that got me hooked on the novel, I came to Melville very late. I still haven't seen the film.

    You're lucky. I wish I could have experienced the book without having the film in my mind.

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  7. YnotFebruary 10, 2011 at 10:25 PM

    IMDb lists the various taglines for the Moby Dick 1956 film. "Before the shark there was the whale" is given as that of the 1976 US re-release of the film.

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