It took me a long time--decades, in fact--to warm to Herman Melville's story "Billy Budd," written in 1891. The writing is dense, the pacing unsatisfactory, the characters more symbols than human beings.
But the movie brilliantly overcomes all these difficulties. The casting is perfect. The then-unknown Terence Stamp seems to have been born for his role as Billy Budd. Nobody could play psychopathic villains like Robert Ryan, a vastly under-appreciated actor, and his portrayal of the villainous master-at-arms, Claggart, may be his finest performance. Melvyn Douglas, in his final role, gives great support as Billy's mentor. Peter Ustinov, whom one might think too soft and distractable to be a British naval captain, turns out to be the ideal embodiment of Captain Vere, whose real attitude toward Billy's "crime" is one of the great enigmas of the story.
You don't need to know a thing about Melville to be thoroughly absorbed by this film. It raises basic questions about the conflict between morality and legality, and the resolution of the problem here, like the process itself, will stick with you for a very long time.
But the movie brilliantly overcomes all these difficulties. The casting is perfect. The then-unknown Terence Stamp seems to have been born for his role as Billy Budd. Nobody could play psychopathic villains like Robert Ryan, a vastly under-appreciated actor, and his portrayal of the villainous master-at-arms, Claggart, may be his finest performance. Melvyn Douglas, in his final role, gives great support as Billy's mentor. Peter Ustinov, whom one might think too soft and distractable to be a British naval captain, turns out to be the ideal embodiment of Captain Vere, whose real attitude toward Billy's "crime" is one of the great enigmas of the story.
You don't need to know a thing about Melville to be thoroughly absorbed by this film. It raises basic questions about the conflict between morality and legality, and the resolution of the problem here, like the process itself, will stick with you for a very long time.