Billy Budd (1962)

[wmcclain]

Billy Budd (1962), produced and directed by Peter Ustinov.

Young Billy is a good-hearted and simple-minded merchant seaman. He is illiterate and doesn't know how old he is or where he was born, but is well-liked on the friendly ship Rights of Man. Things change when he is impressed aboard the warship Avenger, an entirely different environment.

With acute irony, the first words we hear from Billy are when he sings a halyard shanty, "Hanging Johnny".

1797 is during the war against Napoleon and revolutionary France; mutiny is in the fleet and discipline on the warship is kept by the brutal Master of Arms Claggart. The men hate him and the officers dislike and mistrust him, but he does a necessary job.

Claggart is an impenetrable mystery: the cruel man who cannot be reached or softened, who hates Billy for his goodness. He persecutes him until...

Accused of treason, Billy lashes out and kills Claggart. I think it is one of the great moments in film: Robert Ryan's shocked expression at being struck, then his smile of satisfaction as he realizes Billy will hang, then the fading as his glance shifts sideways into death.

The officers want to excuse Billy but the captain, who also likes the young man, talks them around. By the rules, Billy must die. Officers are not allowed their own standards of compassion or decency; their oaths and uniforms override that.

Billy is martyred for the good of the Royal Navy. In the book the sailors keep track of the beam from which he died as it moves from ship to ship, yard to yard. They carve little slivers from it as holy relics.

Adapted from a play, itself from Herman Melville's novel, this is in some ways dialogue-heavy treatment, but the conversation is good. The issues grab us and we don't mind hearing them talked out.

Many familiar faces:

• Terence Stamp plays the handsome, innocent sailor perfectly. Not overacting, but undoubtedly aware of his appeal, the hearts he is melting. He became famous for this role and many young women wanted to know him. Roommate Michael Caine said that his job, as loyal friend, was to act as air traffic controller, easing one date out the back door as another entered the front. (The credits say "Introducing", and although the IMDB lists Term of Trial (1962) first from the same year, he says he did that film after and it was a terrible experience).
• Robert Ryan: as always, one of the essential actors of that era. His Claggart is the picture of demonic malevolence.
• Peter Ustinov: produces, directs, gets a screenwriting credit, and plays the Captain who is not unkind, but who sees his bitter duty more clearly than anyone else on board.
• Melvyn Douglas (The Old Dark House (1932), Ghost Story (1981)) and Ronald Lewis (Scream of Fear (1961)) as seamen.
• John Neville (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)) and David McCallum (The Great Escape (1963)) as officers.

Photographed by Robert Krasker (Brief Encounter (1945), Odd Man Out (1947), Senso (1954), The Third Man (1949)).

Available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive. The commentary track has Steven Soderbergh interviewing Terence Stamp. Many great stories, although they don't seem to be watching the film closely.

[Swithin]

So after all these years, I finally saw Billy Budd. It's an interesting film, with good performances for the most part, and good ambience. I have a few problems with it:

Why on earth did they pick Robert Ryan to play the evil, tormented Claggart (the Satan figure to Stamp's Christ figure)? The sailors (with one exception) are all British. Why have a main character with a conspicuously American accent? Was it to set him apart? Was it because director Ustinov was getting back at Hollywood for casting so many villains with English accents (often as Romans)? If it was simply because he wanted Ryan for the role, why couldn't Ryan do an English accent? After all, the other American actor in the cast -- Melvyn Douglas -- plays The Dansker and gives us a Danish accent. (Btw, I don't think Ustinov was very good in his big speech in the court-martial scene.)

Of course, the novel gives us this description of Claggart:

"Nothing was known of his former life. It might be that he was an Englishman; and yet there lurked a bit of accent in his speech suggesting that possibly he was not such by birth, but through naturalization in early childhood."

But still, Ryan's accent is definitely American.

Although the obvious homoeroticism in the novel is alluded to in the film, it's not quite as present. In the film, Claggart causes the soup to be spilled; in the novel, it's an accident. Note the word "ejaculate" in the text and remember that with Melville, every word is carefully chosen:

The ship at noon, going large before the wind, was rolling on her course, and he [Billy], below at dinner and engaged in some sportful talk with the members of his mess, chanced in a sudden lurch to spill the entire contents of his soup-pan upon the new scrubbed deck. Claggart, the Master-at-arms, official rattan in hand, happened to be passing along the battery in a bay of which the mess was lodged, and the greasy liquid streamed just across his path. Stepping over it, he was proceeding on his way without comment, since the matter was nothing to take notice of under the circumstances, when he happened to observe who it was that had done the spilling. His countenance changed. Pausing, he was about to ejaculate something hasty at the sailor, but checked himself, and pointing down to the streaming soup, playfully tapped him from behind with his rattan, saying in a low musical voice peculiar to him at times, "Handsomely done, my lad! And handsome is as handsome did it too!" And with that passed on. Not noted by Billy, as not coming within his view, was the involuntary smile, or rather grimace, that accompanied Claggart's equivocal words. Aridly it drew down the thin corners of his shapely mouth. But everybody taking his remark as meant for humourous, and at which therefore as coming from a superior they were bound to laugh "with counterfeited glee," acted accordingly; and Billy tickled, it may be, by the allusion to his being the handsome sailor, merrily joined in; then addressing his messmates exclaimed, "There now, who says that Jimmy Legs is down on me!"

In any case, I'm glad to have finally seen the film.

[Allhallowsday]

I'd say your problem with the film is valid, but small. I think USTINOV saw his own character as a weakling, and maybe Claggart as an American. ROBERT RYAN was very good at playing menacing... perhaps why the choice. I found the film disturbing enough to avoid it now.

[TikiSoo]

Although the obvious homoeroticism in the novel is alluded to in the film, it's not quite as present.

Wow I must be a real dolt- I didn't catch any of that.

ROBERT RYAN was very good at playing menacing... perhaps why the choice.

Good point! I've only recently discovered the vast joys of Ryan on film, most likely the reason why I recorded/watched this.
I really liked this movie when first seeing it a few years ago....time to give it another view to see what I had first missed!