Word: claggart
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...scene for his tragic confrontation with society. Budd cries out, "Good-bye, 'Rights of Man,'" and the second lieutenant angrily but too obviously misinterprets the ambiguity. With ever more pain-staking care, the discontent of the "Avenger's" crew is endlessly thrust before the audience. Master-at-arms Claggart is not yet allowed to be more than a puppet of the director...
...Billy Budd, is authentically simple. When he prefaces his hanging with the slightly reminiscent cry, "God bless Captain Vere," he does not portray Christ; he is a touching, naive sailor unable to understand the evil around him. He seems insanely stupid, yet real, when he fails to understand Claggart's malice and vengeful eyes...
...Claggart (played by Robert Ryan) himself cannot comprehend the spectacle before him; he forces himself to see evil in Billy. In a pathetic scene, he exhorts Squeak to portray Budd as a mutineer. Ryan plays the perfect villain; watching a whipping delights him to the point of ecstasy...
...Falsely, Claggart accuses the sailor of plotting mutiny. Vere knows that Claggart is lying and, seeing a chance to trap him, he sends for Billy Budd to deny the charge. Billy, facing Claggart in Vere's cabin, struggles to speak, but can only make the terrible sounds of stammering. Suddenly, he gives action to his horror with a lunging, double-fisted blow that sends Claggart to the deck, dead with a broken skull...
...have failed. As Captain Vere, Peter Ustinov shuns mawkishness in his role of naval Pilate; he reveals Vere's humanity subtly, and when Billy's wonderful and cruel farewell rings out, Vere stands destroyed by what he has had to do. Robert Ryan is the terrible Mister Claggart who presides so zealously at floggings: once, after counting out ten lashes while a sailor is whipped, his mouth frames a silent "eleven." Then, standing alone at the rail, he continues to strike his own flank with his rattan crop, privately counting out lash after lash in seething frustration. Ustinov...