beauty, handsomeness, and goodness
by
Douglas Messerli
E.
M. Forster and Eric Crozier (scenario, based on the story by Herman Melville),
Benjamin Britten composer), Basil Coleman (director) Billy Budd / 1966
[BBC Opera TV broadcast]
No
matter how many times I read and see operatic and cinematic productions of
Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, I leave the work with both anger and
tears, furious with Captain Vere’s inability to cease his allegiance to the
strict codes of British Naval law, and devasted by the death of the truly beauteous
innocent Billy who represents what even the evil Claggart, Master-at-Arms,
recognizes is “beauty, handsomeness, and goodness.”
It is almost as if Melville’s work has
stood for all these years as a kind of tragic pattern for all things that Billy
represents, particularly the love he proffers all of his fellow sailors and
officers, both symbolic and what we can only imagine, down below and behind the
action of the work, as literal sexual pleasure, being destroyed by others who are
envious or simply cannot tolerate all the beauty and goodness he represents. It
is after all, the very plot that gay film critic Vito Russo argued permeates
nearly all films involving queer figures. Acceptance of the love of a beautiful
man evidently is not to be found—at least in the earliest of film portrayals.
And, arguably the pattern begins right here, with the final work of the US literary
genius.
Although I set out in these pages of this
trek through the history of queer cinema in part to prove Russo, who I so
admire, had not recognized the much larger picture, I have to grant him, that
at heart, is was sadly correct. The endless rules, laws, and patriarchal
structures created over the centuries made has made it nearly impossible for
those who are female, sexually, and/or racially different, to say nothing of
those of different cultural classes or religious persuasions, from the male heterosexual
norm to survive without punishment or death. The privileged remain so even
today.
Were
it that all Billys were as lovely to look at as Terence Stamp in the 1962 film
version. But in opera the voice matters, obviously, far more than the human
body in which it is carried, and Peter Glossop playing Billy in the 1966 BBC TV
broadcast is not difficult to look at. Yet I can never quite forgive Britten
for turning Billy into a baritone instead of giving him his rightful tenor
register. Evidently the composer simply felt that giving a tenor voice to both
Vere (played by his lover Peter Pears) and Billy would not result in enough
aural variation and perhaps put them on equal ground, which we all know they
never could be, despite Vere’s fondness for him.
The opera begins with Vere, now looking
back, vaguely attempting to justify his actions and explain himself as a reader
of books, while at the same hinting at his own failures.
And right from the beginning Britten
forces us to perceive the injustice of conditions on the Indomitable, where the
officers literally stand guard and torture the sailors as they sing one of the
most hauntingly painful refrains of opera in “O heave, O heave away, heave,” as
they holystone (scrub or scour a ship's wooden decks using a block of soft
sandstone) the deck. Their poignant cries speak of their endless labor and the bristled
rattans of the officers reveal their brutal power.
The first lines of the libretto, after
the preface, establish a world of abuse and violence, which ends with the
novice (Robert Tear) being flogged for minor infringements, a boy now totally
unable to walk.
Scene One
(Early morning. A cutter has gone to
board a passing
merchantman. An area of the main-deck
is being
holystoned by some sailors (the first
party), in the
charge of H.M.S. in the charge of the
First Mate)
FIRST
MATE
Pull, my bantams! Pull, my sparrow-legs!
That's right!
Pull with a will! Bend to it, damn
you!
CHORUS
(First Party)
O heave! O heave away, heave! O heave!
(A
second party of men, including Donald, arrives
dragging holystones. It is led by the
Second Mate)
SECOND MATE
Here is the spot, men! Look at the
main deck!
Stains on the deck of seventy
four.
Get' em off, you idle brutes!
Soon
after, they are called into different duty to pull in the cutter, with cries of
“and sway…and sway…and sway!”
Having pulled the cutter into yard, they
continue they deck work, in the midst of which a chorus of cabin boys come pushing
their way through the impressed sailors, sure of themselves and given special
permission obviously for the pedophilic wonders they perhaps offer the officers,
again behind the curtains of Melville’s homoerotic drama.
It is for his righteous mockery of the
cabin boys that the novice is flogged by Squeak (Robert Bowman), a sailor
turncoat who works underground for the Claggart with special benefits.
Early in the opera, we meet Billy,
impressed with 2 other men, the first a frightened protester, Red Whiskers (Kenneth
MacDonald), who insists they have no right to impress him, since he is a decent
tradesman with a wife at home. The sailing master, has already been skeptical
of the men they have impressed:
SAILING
MASTER
We seem to have the devil's own luck.
Nothing
worth
have these days. Diseased, hungry grumblers,
sweepings
of the stews and jails, lackeys and pimps,
mechanics
and lickspittles. -
Ah!
He is given the job of forepeak, but is
clearly of little worth, as the Sailing Master observes:
SAILING MASTER
Little use to use, but we must keep
him.
We seem to have the devil's own
luck.
Take him away.
The next offering, Arthur Jones, a weaver
is once more seen of little worth and given the position at forepeak (the
extreme forward part of the interior of a ship's hull, located just below the
deck within the V-shaped angle of the bow) as well.
But the third man called forward, William
Budd, is by his own definition, an “able seaman.” If he can’t read, he
nonetheless can sing. But when asked his home, a question without an answer, he
begins to stammer, a slight flaw immediately noted by both the Sailing Master
and Master-of-Arms Claggart (Michael Langdon).
He quick recovers, however, defining
himself quite nicely:
BILLY
a... a... foundling!
Ay,
it comes and it goes... or so the chaps tell me.
Don't you worry. Foundling,
that's the word. Foundling. I'm a
fou-ou-ou-oundling.
Found
in a basket tied to a good man's door,
the
poor old man.
And
soon after they all agree, Claggart and the First Lieutenant in particular,
that Billy is a “special find.”
CLAGGART
A find in a thousand, your honour.
A beauty. A jewel.
The pearl of great price.
FIRST LIEUTENANT
We need many more like him.
CLAGGART
Your
honour, there are no more like him.
I have seen many men,
many
years have I given
to the
King, sailed many seas.
He's a
King’s bargain.
He is immediately assigned a position
opposite of the two others before him, as foretopman, to which the exultant Billy
sings his first short aria:
Billy Budd, king of the birds!
Billy Budd, king of the world!
Up among the sea-hawks,
up against the storm.
Looking down on the deck,
looking down on the waves.
Working aloft with my mates.
Working aloft in the foretop.
Working and helping, working and sharing.
Goodbye
to the old life. Don't want it no more.
(He shouts seawards)
Farewell to you, old comrades!
Farewell to you for ever.
Farewell, Rights o' Man.
Farewell, old Rights o' Man.
Farewell to you for ever,
old Rights o' Man.
(The Chorus echoes Billy off stage)
The officers immediately associate his song,
however, with Thomas Paine’s treasonous “The Rights of Man,” not with his former
ship, and mark him for watching, which ultimately is one of the reasons why
Claggart demands squeak attempt to engage with him in mutinous behavior. But
obviously, this only the superficial reason as we shall soon discover.
I have spent so much time on this early
scene simply because he basically defines everything else that follows. We see
here Claggart’s recognition of Billy’s special qualities, but also begin almost
immediately to sense he fear and horror of witnessing just such a “King’s bargain,”
something he knows that he himself will never be. He stands apart in everyway
from the beauty, handsomeness, and goodness of Billy like Iago to Otello’s valor
and charm. And like Iago, he recognizes almost immediately that he must destroy
the very man he perceives as “A beauty. A jewel. The pearl of great price.”
One of the wonders of this very first
filmed production of the opera, is that in the BBC TV filming they seem almost
to have created a full ship, zooming into various chambers aloft in the officer’s
quarters, on deck, and below in the sailors hold of hammocks. This is one of
the few staged productions that makes a believable argument for a full running
ship in which the action takes place. We sense the several levels of power that
underlies the entire work, from Billy’s
Into
this miasma of fear and horror, wherein the head officers, Vere, Redburn (John
Shirely-Quirk), and Ratcliffe (David Kelly) discuss recent mutinies aboard the
Spithead and the Nore, they all agree that vigilance must be maintained, but
yet are pleased to hear the sailors below, led by Donald and Billy singing
chanteys that demonstrate a community and coherence which helps to protect the
ship from just such mutinous acts. Their major agreement, once they have
drunken several glasses if sherry, is the xenophobic expression of “Down with
the French.”
The sailors, on the other hand, see Vere as
a kind of dreamer hero, “Starry Vere,” as Billy discovers, feeding his desires
to become coxswain to him.
But already, Claggart’s dark actions have
become to have negative effects, Billy discovering Squeak rummaging through his
kit, and physically challenging him. Claggart, recognizing that Squeak has
bungled it, claps Squeak and in irons, finding no way out of the situation but
to declare:
Handsomely
done, my lad.
And handsome is a handsome did it, too.
But, we quickly realize it is all pretense
as quickly reveals to the viewer his real moral dilemma in one of the most
remarkable arias of the entire opera:
CLAGGART
O
beauty, o handsomeness, goodness!
Would
that I never encountered you!
Would
that I lived in my own world always,
in
that depravity to which I was born.
There
I found peace of a sort, there I established
an
order such as reigns in Hell. But alas, alas!
The
lights shines in the darkness comprehends
it
and suffers. O beauty, o handsomeness, goodness!
Would
that I had never seen you!
Having
seen you, what choice remains to me?
None,
none! I'm doomed to annihilate you,
I'm
vowed to your destruction.
I
will wipe you off the face of the heart,
off
this ship where fortune has led you.
First
I will trouble your happiness.
I
will mutilate and silence the body where you dwell.
It
shall hang from the yard-arm,
it
shall fall into the depths of the sea,
and
all shall be as if nothing had been.
No,
you cannot escape!
With
hate and envy I'm stronger than love.
So
may it be!
O
beauty, o handsomeness, goodness!
You
surely in my power tonight.
Nothing
can defend you.
Nothing!
So may it be!
For
what hope remains if love can escape?
If
love still lives and grows strong where I cannot enter,
what
hope is there in my own dark world for me?
No!
I cannot believe it! That were torment to keen.
I,
John Claggart,
Master-at-Arms
upon the "Indomitable",
have
you in my power, and I will destroy you.
Claggart now uses the totally broken
Novice, threatening him again with flagging if he does not attempt to entice
Billy into a mutinous action with gold coins with which he provides the seducer.
Billy is not at all seduced, and sends the
man on his way, seeking out one of his best friends Dansker (Dennis Wicks) to
explain what has just happened to him.
Dansker, perhaps the wisest man on the
ship, realizes what is happening and attempts to explain to his naïve friend that
Claggart is not to be trusted and has it out for him, or, as he puts it, is “down
on him.”
DANSKER
I
want nothing of yours, Baby, no, nothing -
nor
your youth, no, nor your strength, no,
nor
your looks nor your goodness,
for
Jemmy Legs is down on you.
BILLY
Jemmy
Legs? - The Master-at-Arms?
DANSKER
Ay,
he's down on you!
BILLY
But
Jemmy Legs likes me.
He
calls me that sweet pleasant fellow.
He
gives me the smile and easy order when we meet.
And
when I gave Squeak that drubbing,
"Handsomely
done" was all he said and he smiled.
No,
he likes me. They all like me.
DANSKER
No
use - he's down on you.
BILLY
And
the life suits me, it suits me.
I
couldn't wish for better mates.
Ay!
and the wind and the sails and being
aloft
and the deck below so small and the sea so wide
and
the stars seeming all to sway.
DANSKER
Beauty,
you'd better go back. For Jemmy Legs is
down
on you, he's down on you!
This dark interchange brings tears to one’s
eyes, as we see Billy, the believe attempting to struggle with a reality
outside of his truly innocent perspective. Dansker, whose close relationship
with Billy is revealed in his constant affectionate nickname of “Baby,” cannot
even convince the blind Billy of how evil works. Who of a certain age can
possibly ever expect to reveal to youth, especially trusting and believing young
men, that there are shadows out there filled with men who do not wish them
well? I was just such an innocent, but unlike Billy, I was saved from the
surrounding fomenting evil I world. Billy is not.
Even though the Novice has been unsuccessful
with his bribe, Claggart intentionally attempts a meeting with Vere to try to
convince him that Billy is mutinous. Fortunately for us and Billy, the citing
of a French ship changes everything, as the impatient and frustrated sailors
suddenly come to life, out of the fog—both metaphoric and real—in which the
ship has been surrounded, the men coming for the first time “alive” as they
sing out their joy in finally being useful to the world which has enforced its
order upon them:
VERE
(putting
down the telescope)
A
Frenchman, seventy four and new rigged.
Three
miles off. Course Nor'-nor'-east.
Man
the braces, Mr. Flint.
(Whistles
sound off the stage)
SAILING
MAST
(shouting
trough a megaphone)
Man
the braces! At the double!
BOSUN
Ay,
ay, sir.
(A
team of haulers rushes in and
takes
ropes, and hauls with the Bosun)
Come
on, you lubbers!... and sway!
HAULING
PARTY
...and
sway! ...and sway! ...and sway!
CHORUS
This
is our moment we've been waiting for these long weeks.
For one of the first times in the opera,
the ship suddenly comes alive with both sailors and officers with a ready and
willing chorus all anxious to perform their duty, excited by the task, thrilled
by the idea of finally being brought into purpose instead of punishment.
They fire a cannon, but it misses by far
and before they can even imagine sending out another, the mist returns, the
French frigate having escaped into the fog.
The disaster is felt my everyone, but it
is Billy who becomes the figure punished, as the new quietude allows Claggart
to again obsequiously beg to speak to Vere, declaring Billy’s actions as
mutinous.
Vere well knows they are not true, but in
his mind has no choice but to call Billy to face Claggart’s charges.
Once again, Billy can perceive no evil,
cannot comprehend any fear. He imagines that Vere has called him to be his
coxswain and sings a song to him about his desire to care for the elderly Vere
in a manner that sounds very much as if he were prosing a kind of marriage, in
which he will look carefully for the rest of his life for the older man,
steering his boat always on an even coarse. It is a love song which Vere does
not have the nerve to consummate even through acknowledgment.
It is perhaps Billy’s true expression of
love that leads the commander to insist upon the confrontation. On one hand, he
now truly knows that Billy is no mutineer, and realizes Claggart’s falsehoods,
but as a representation of the volumes of British naval law, he also cannot
refuse, so he imagines, his duties; one wonders just how much homophobia is
overlaid upon his insistence that Claggart speak his lies directly to Billy.
But Billy, as we know (and as he knows
even if he doesn’t want to remember) can only stammer under pressure; he cannot
challenge his accuser and without any other recourse can merely reach out and
immediately deny the absurd accusation with brutal force, which his world has
shown him is the way all officials deal with something they don’t want to hear:
he slugs Claggart, killing him in the process.
Again by duty, Claggart calls for his
officers, holding an immediate court, testifying only for the precise facts of
the matter, while refusing to make any of the interpretations we and he know to
be the truth. In short, he attempts to remove his own judgment of the matter,
the only thing that does truly matter in this case. He betrays Billy, refusing
to speak the real truth by hiding under the shield of the literal facts.
Given his testimony, his fellow officers
have no choice but sentence Billy guilty of killing an officer, resulting in
his hanging by the yardarm, where even then he blesses his captain before being
dropped into death.
We do not see the hanging, we see only the
horrified and shocked faces of the sailors watching the death of their beloved
hero, followed by their wordless cries, basically roars of injustice which the
officers demand their soldiers immediately quell, as they usher them with
lighted tabors back into the dark den of their hammocks. The visual scene is
almost worthy of Eisenstein.
It is clear in the epilogue that Vere is
deeply guilt-ridden, but still maintains the falsehood of having no other choice.
Yet he still realizes his failure: “I could have saved him, I could have saved
him. But he has blessed me, and saved me.”
Los
Angeles, May 29, 2026
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (May 2026).
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