By Sarah Duggan
If you're looking for some festive entertainment this Passover/Easter season, there's one Bible movie that stands as the benchmark of all others. Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments is 58 years old, but is still just as engaging and impressive as when it first toured as a road show feature.
Clocking in at over three hours, it still never drags. Every shot, every set, every throwaway line by an extra is carefully arranged.
The Ten Commandments is the boss because it has gravitas to spare. Characters move like reverent statues and yet are believable and interesting.
DeMille already had Bible cred because his 1927 silent film King of Kings basically invented the Jesus movie. Even so, he added an author's forward before the credits to assure audiences he was super serious about the Exodus story. It's the only movie I know of where the director parts curtains to explain both his thesis statement and his bibliography.
DeMille's stated goal is "Not to create a story, but to tell a story". To prove his scholarly cred he references ancient historians Philo and Josephus, and the credits list consultations with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, and Egyptian antiques officials. The decadent set design and attention to material culture detail show that DeMille did do his homework.
Moses' final wig and beard even imitate Michelangelo's famous Moses statue.
Is The Ten Commandments a Factual Account?
But is The Ten Commandments really a factual account plucked from the sands of time?
Not quite. Like all historical narratives, it reflects the concerns of its own era. In DeMille's case, his final movie tells us a bit about all-American post-WWII enthusiasm.
His title is non-sectarian, emphasizing the moral rules that are the basis of generic Judeo-Christian values. By the 1950s Jewish Americans were no longer viewed as a suspicious foreign Other. Instead, they had been grafted into the American ideal of patriotic, God-fearing folks who defend freedom against enemies like Communism.
The Cold War echoes in DeMille's prologue: "This is the story of the birth of freedom: are men the property of the state or are they to be ruled by God's law?"
Moses' final line quotes the Leviticus verse that's on the Liberty Bell: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, and to all the inhabitants thereof!" Just as 1850s abolitionists invoked Moses in their work against slavery, this 1950s movie hints that Moses would favor democracy over totalitarian governments.
Mid-Century Style
Politics aside, The Ten Commandments is a classic because it's a spectacle, full of mid-century artistic style.
Cited alongside museum collections are several contemporary novels about the Bible: Dorothy Clarke Wilson's Prince of Egypt (1949), Rev. J. H. Ingraham's Pillar of Fire (1859), and On Eagle's Wings by A. E. Southan (1937).
Romanticized novelizations of Bible stories were an enduring part of American pop culture from the nineteenth century, and DeMille continues that tradition with his dramatic posing, jealous triangles and star-crossed lovers. The Luxor-inspired costumes were designed by Edith Head, the queen of Old Hollywood hourglass silhouettes who outfitted practically every movie star.
Hollywood Glamour
I'm not complaining; the Hollywood glamour makes it a blast to watch. Thanks to the rival male leads, there is more fierceness than the screen can handle.
If you get tired of looking at awesome stuff, the dialogue is consistently epic. My current favorite is the constrast between Moses' and Ramses' management styles. Charlton Heston is inherently a mensch, negotiating enemies into friendship and worrying about slave morale. "Blood makes poor mortar."
Meanwhile Yul Brynner leans in so hard he might as well be ski jumping: "Envy is for the weak." He makes it clear what he wants from his subordinates. "You have a rat's ears and a ferret's nose. Add to these the eyes of a weasel."
Ancient Egypt is a man's world, and these guys are basically two business suits glaring at one another across a board room.
The Ten Commandments Drinking Game
The Ten Commandments was one of the Easter staples of my childhood, and my siblings and I realized early on that the gravitas is more fun when you're the interactive peanut gallery. We often spent those three hours counting how many times Charlton Heston denounced the slaves' "bondage." Here's an expanded version of our drinking game, for your adult beverage or grape juice and matzoa enjoyment:
Take a sip for:
- The words "bondage," "stiff-necked," or "Goshen."
- Restatement that Nefreteri must marry the future Pharaoh
- Either Prince of Egypt wearing a skirt/sandal combo that you could imagine buying from J. Crew
- Restatement of how smoking hot Liliah is
- The phrase "held me in his arms" to refer to some form of hooking up
- Dathan talking smack about Moses
- References to Ishmael or Priam of Troy
- "Ai-yah baskets!"
- "Are you a master builder, or a master butcher?"
- "So let it be written, so let it be done!"
Take a long drink when:
- Seti implies he prefers Moses to his own son
- Memnet is a total mood-killer
- Moses' hair changes
- The scene opens on a gaggle of women chattering about men
- Sephora is an smart and confident feminist. "I will not be displayed like a caravan's wares, for Moses, or any other man."
- Nefreteri tries to seduce Moses with a long speech about garlic and pomegranates
- DeMille intones another pseudo-Biblical dramatic narration
- Nefreteri becomes a heinous nag. "Do you hear laughter, Ramses?"
- Fire or snake special effects clearly start out as drawn animation.
Anxiously chug when:
- Yochabel almost gets crushed by that stone.
- Rameses and Nefreteri have their dramatic hate-kiss.
- Moses gets exiled and has a long thirsty walk through the desert.
- Risk-loving Joshua decides to hang around outside watching the Angel of Death arrive.
- The chariots look they're going to trample everyone at the Red Sea.
- The adorable kids and old people who left Egypt disappear, and the entire Israelite population becomes lusty twenty-somethings ready to worship the golden calf. Plus Aaron.
- Sephora's last conversation with Moses is about how much she loves him, and he says NOTHING. Gets me every time.
If you're still not convinced, here's a trailer:
0 Comments