In this film, director, narrator, and star, Mark Blumberg conducts the research he failed to do for his eleventh grade English class assignment on Moby Dick. Now, Blumberg has read Herman Melville’s singular work Moby Dick, is very captivated by the story, and decides to complete the report he should have done for his teacher. Blumberg explores the process of reading, the written word’s importance today, the influence of Moby Dick, and Herman Melville himself. The documentary also follows Blumberg’s relationship with his wife, sister, and brother throughout the film.
The film begins in a high school English class where an adept teacher is assisting students grappling with reading Moby Dick-- a book written in 1851. She stresses that the work contains tough language, complex sentence structures, and flashbacks. It is more than a whaling story and can be theological and meditative as well. As one professor puts it, “getting through Moby Dick makes you members of a club”. In the New Bedford Museum, New Jersey, a Moby Dick reading marathon is taking place with readers covering 141.8 words per minute to finish the 25-hour marathon.
Blumberg meets the great, great, great, grandson of Herman Melville, Peter Gansewoort Whittenmore and the great, great, great granddaughter Elizabeth Doss. Doss completes a play called Poor Herman and performs the part of Herman Melville. Blumberg and Peter visit the Arrowhead Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts where the curator gives information on Melville’s early life and marriage. Blumberg also visits Melville’s home near Mount Greylock, Massachusetts where Melville met and became friends with Nathaniel Hawthorne; there, he writes Moby Dick. Blumberg also discovers the Mixed Magic Theater where a play adapted from Moby Dick uses Melville’s language on the top deck while on the lower area a young gang speaks in a language adjusted for modern times.
Turning to the act of reading, Blumberg consults with philosophy professor John Cleary who points out after Socrates, the oral tradition of passing down knowledge was replaced by the written word, and, Professor Cleary suggests with literacy can be forgotten. Now, society is moving from literacy to digital memory. Expert Mary Ann Wolf states that reading is an unnatural act and that the brain must create new circuits for reading. The brain links perception with cognition and children need to create these links by fourth grade or deep reading will be jeopardized. In the final scene, Blumberg meets with his family to reflect on the film. While the information on Melville and the science behind reading is interesting, the film lacks overall cohesion. Optional. Aud: H, C, P.