http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/13/movies/tv-weekend-talk-about-obsession-ahab-is-back.html
By Caryn James
Published: Friday, March 13, 1998
Before the lowly sailor Ishmael sets foot on the whaling ship the Pequod, or sets eyes on Captain Ahab, another character in Melville's ''Moby-Dick'' prepares him for the meeting: ''He's a grand, ungodly, godlike man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen.''
No description captures better the mad, grandiose Ahab portrayed by Patrick Stewart in the USA mini-series based on one of the classic more-talked-about-than-read novels. Monomaniacal, raging against the universe, Ahab stomps around on an ivory peg leg, obsessed with killing the white whale that cost him that leg. He draws his crew into a battle that is part seafaring adventure, part poetic philosophizing.
Ahab and adventure are equally important in this new film, which is ambitious in scope though not artistry. There are two extreme ways to adapt ''Moby-Dick'' for the screen. One is to turn it into ''Jaws'' with a whale, a simple action picture. The other is to try to plumb the unreachable depths of Melville's ambiguous characters. This version takes a cautious middle ground and achieves a nicely produced, intelligent, storybook version. The two-part mini-series works as a rousing family entertainment, with a sensibility so straightforward and old-fashioned that in an earlier day it might have opened with the image of a book's pages turning.
Henry Thomas plays the narrator, who gets off to a shaky start by rushing and swallowing his famous opening line, ''Call me Ishmael.'' But he soon works well enough as a surrogate for the viewer, taking in a strange new world. Onshore, he meets and becomes friends with the harpoonist Queequeg (Piripi Waretini). With his tattooed face and top hat, his magic chants and his bravery, Queequeg is among the film's liveliest characters.
In a warm bit of casting, Gregory Peck, who played Ahab in John Huston's 1956 film version, appears here in a long episode as Father Mapple. His voice still incomparably rich, he preaches a sermon about Jonah and the whale while standing in a pulpit shaped like a ship's prow.
Though revered as the restrained Captain Jean-Luc Picard on ''Star Trek: The Next Generation,'' Mr. Stewart assumes a volatile Lear-like manner here. For a while Ahab, with his Shakespearean soliloquies, seems over the top, as if Mr. Stewart is pitching the madness so high he'll have nowhere to go. But as the film gains intensity, Ahab's manner seems commensurate with the violence of nature that surrounds him.
As Starbuck, the First Mate whose reason holds out against Ahab's mad pursuit of Moby Dick, Ted Levine gives a solidly powerful, modulated performance that balances Mr. Stewart's tempestuous one. ''Talk not to me about blasphemy, man,'' Ahab yells at Starbuck in one of many scenes in which Melville's words punctuate the action. ''I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.''
With its $20 million budget, the film vividly recreates the texture of life on the sea, with soaring views from the top of the ship's mast. Sunday night's episode ends with the first sighting of Moby Dick. Monday's episode moves faster and works better. It includes a stunning night scene in which the men hunt Moby Dick by lamplight, the better to see his whiteness in the black sea. The whale itself is not glimpsed often, which is just as well. That approach preserves the enigmatic quality Melville insisted on; more to the point, it helps disguise how fake the whale looks. As pure action, the film roars in Part 2, as the Pequod is caught among ice floes and survives vicious storms at sea (though the editors should have snipped those few shots in which water splashes on the camera lens and it looks as if we're watching the action from behind a rainy windshield).
Despite its family appeal, ''Moby Dick'' has an appropriately brutal, bloody ending. It is a fitting conclusion to a film that eventually captures Ahab's grand tragedy.
'The Larry Sanders Show'
HBO, Sunday night at 10
There's no escaping the fact that an inbred, ''aren't we smart, we're so ironic'' quality dominates ''The Larry Sanders Show.'' It's also true that the series, with its mock talk show and backstage maneuvering, is immensely clever about Hollywood posturing, backbiting and insecurity.
On Sunday ''Larry Sanders'' returns for what its star, Garry Shandling, has said will be its final season. The episode begins with Mr. Shandling's perpetually insecure Larry Sanders fearing he will be replaced by Jon Stewart. Winona Ryder is a guest star, though as usual the show is stolen by Rip Torn as Sanders' hardened producer, Artie, and Jeffrey Tambor as his corny sidekick, Hank. So far there has been no mention of an ugly real-life lawsuit: Mr. Shandling has sued Brad Grey, his former manager and an executive producer of ''Larry Sanders,'' for mismanagement; Mr. Grey has countersued. When the ''Larry Sanders'' people portray Hollywood nastiness, they know what they're talking about.
MOBY DICK
USA, Sunday night at 8
Teleplay by Anton Diether and Franc Roddam, based on the novel by Herman Melville; Mr. Roddam, director; David Connell, director of photography; Mr. Roddam, Kris Noble and Steve McGlothen, producers. A Whale/Nine Network Australia Production and United Kingdom/Australia co-production in association with USA Pictures. Robert Halmi Sr., Francis Ford Coppola and Fred Fuchs, executive producers.
WITH: Patrick Stewart (Captain Ahab), Henry Thomas (Ishmael), Ted Levine (Starbuck), Gregory Peck (Father Mapple), Piripi Waretini (Queequeg), Hugh Keays-Byrne (Mr. Stubb), Shane Feeney Connor (Mr. Flask), Michael Edward-Stevens (Dagoo) and Norman D. Golden 2d (Pip).
