DESCRIPTION:
Moby Dick: Ahab reveals his humanity and his madness.

In this scene just after the storm during which Ahab awes his crew by grabbing "ahold of St. Elmo's tail," and just before the final confrontation with Moby Dick, Capt. Ahab finally tries to explain to Starbuck the reason for his relentless, mad pursuit of Moby Dick. One gets the sense from Ahab's monologue here that revenge is not the only reason for this pursuit. It is the plight of all human beings to embark on mad pursuits which ultimately have no meaning. This is a classic movie scene because Ahab describes in beautiful poetic language how all of us, descendants of Cain, stumble about in the land of Nod, "bowed as though I were Adam staggering under the piled centuries since Paradise...." In this scene Ahab presents the classic view that everything is predetermined. "Fate is the handspring ... Starbuck, ye are tied to me. This act is immutably decreed. It was rehearsed by ye and me a billion years before this ocean rolled ..." He also makes an argument which essentially passes the buck to God for all his bad behavior by saying basically that "if even the great sun does not move but the mysterious power of God, then when a man breathes or acts, it is God breathing and acting.


This scene, of course, is from the 1956 film based on the classic American novel by Herman Melville. The film stars Gregory Peck as Capt. Ahab; Richard Basehart as Ishmael, and Leo Genn as Starbuck. Directed by John Huston; Screenplay by Ray Bradbury.