The Prince of Egypt: The Musical (2022)

Shot in London's West End, the film of the stage production of the musical of the film is showing in UK cinemas at the moment. It's billing itself with a quote from Stefan Kyrias that "musical theatre doesn't come bigger than this" and even though it's been a hit on the West End where it played to packed out audiences, I'm surprised to see quite such a crowd turn up to see it on a damp Thursday evening in Leicester, with tickets twice the price of watching a standard movie.

Dreams works' The Prince of Egypt (1998) was a massive hit when it launched 25 years ago. The studio was just starting out, hadn't yet been defined by the Shrek franchise and the promise of The Prince of Egypt was quite something. The blend of traditional hand-drawn animation and restrained-but-tactical use of the emerging CGI made for some spectacular scenery and action sequences. 

Of course stage musicals, even filmed ones, are a very different medium to cinema and while there was an arena version of Ben-Hur some years ago the director of this musical, Scott Schwarz (son of the film's composer Stephen Schwarz) decided to take things in a different direction. Instead of simply compensating or making-do Schwarz leans into musical theatre's strengths, particularly dance and more expressionistic use of the stage and props. At the same time the stage's backdrops are video projected. 

Both the choreography and the backdrops produce rather mixed results. The opening number, "Deliver Us!" is strong and merges seamlessly in to "Hush Now my Baby". This ends with an incredible piece of chorography where the dancers reproduce the effects of the waves with incredible grace, energy and unpredictability which is simply astonishing. 

But then, as with the movie, we're introduced to the adult Moses and Ramses in the chariot racing scene. Yet instead of the whooshing, fast-cut action of the movie, Moses and Ramses are hoisted up by some of their fellow cast members and they bump around occasionally leaning left or right to indicate turning or avoiding obstacles. Compared with the opening number this is a major disappointment. I should add here I know little about stage-musicals or choreography, so if you do know about those things don't listen to me. I'm writing this just as a punter.

The video backdrops fare likewise, the room with the hieroglyphics, which created such a memorable scene in the movie is decorated entirely differently. This is a wise move because that scene is re-enacted with a mix of minor backdrop motion and (primarily) choreography and it works very well. But the detail of these decorations is nicely executed. At other times if feels much is lost from the days of traditional backdrop being pulled up or down behind the curtain. The changes are smoother, but it feels like the level of artistry has dropped. Also if there's an artistic reason why one of them looked like the screen ratio was wrong (an oval-shaped sun) then it escaped me.

These are some of the changes the musical (and specifically this production of it) makes to the film. The most notable is a number of new songs which again vary in quality, though they've not had the benefit of a quarter of a century of getting ingrained in my consciousness. There's nothing as instantly transfixing as "There Will be Miracles" (which is still great here), but one or two feel on par. 

We also lose "Playing with the Big Boys", which I was never particularly enamoured by. This is in part because the twin roles taken by Steve Martin and Martin Short in the movie are condensed into one. Hotep, played with real menace by Adam Pearce also has a greatly enhanced role. Rather than comic relief (although he does produce some, as well as a touch of magic) he's portrayed as more of the power behind the throne. His endorsement of Seti and his father's reign as Pharaoh has proved decisive and can easily be withdrawn. Pearce absolutely makes the most of his build and unsymmetrical features, effortlessly moving between contrasting moods like his voice which performs both some of the lowest notes in the production and some of the highest among the male cast. Apparently he's done Sweeney Todd, my favourite musical, in the past. I wish I could have seen that.

Another fantastic performance is Christine Allado's as a surprisingly sexy Tzipporah. Exhibiting both fierce and tender sides she is captivating in almost every scene she features in. And again, her role is enhanced from that in the movie where she pretty much disappears once Moses gets God. Here it's her and Miriam that provide Moses emotional support in the latter stages of the film. Aaron is relegated even further into the background. Alexia Khadime's Miriam brings real excellence to her songs, by far the stand-out performer. Luke Brady as Moses are Liam Tamne as Ramses are fine, and their emotional heft grows surprisingly as the film goes on, but it's the supporting characters who really steal the show.

The other two changes are around the burning bush scene and the plagues. Here again the choreography does a lot of the heavy lifting, but it feels like too much weight is put on its shoulders. The idea of having a chorus of voices speak as the voice of God is theologically and artistically interesting, but somehow feels underwhelming. In similar fashion the plagues rush by, it's difficult to really discern when one ends and the next starts. Perhaps that's not a major issue, and perhaps the intent is to leave the audience experiencing a degree of disorientation to convey the experience of the ordinary Egyptians, but for me it fell a little flat, that is, at least until the final plague.

 The initiation of the Passover and the death of the first-born Egyptians is always a tricky moment in Moses dramas. How much sympathy can you give to Ramses and the ordinary Egyptians without making God seem like the villain? How much joy can the Hebrews experience without minimising the Egyptian suffering? Here the balance is stuck by the women of Egypt walking on stage cradling what look like their now lifeless babies. Then each in turn shakes out the blanket their baby is wrapped in and it cascades down, but the baby is gone. The blanket is laid out of a block before them and they fall to their knees behind it. It's an emotionally powerful scene, and a reminder of the suffering that happens to the ordinary people, and particularly the women and children behind the scenes of this conflict and countless others up to the present day.

I must admit I was a little caught off guard by the film's emotional impact on me. I sat on the front row of quite a big theatre and could therefore see even very subtle tears from the performers. This was one of the strengths of watching this as a film. I can't imagine most of these tears would be visible for those watching the event live in the theatre. Of course even though the film was shot while the play was being performed to a live audience, obviously the actors knew that it was also being filled. Were the tears part of their method, or a little extra for those of viewing in close-up ion a big screen.

With a filmed theatre experience like this, it's hard to know where the line falls between the responsibilities of Scott Schwarz as director of the play and Brett Sullivan's as director of the film. Most of the ones discussed so far will be down to Schwarz, but that still leaves an awful lot to Sullivan. 

Take for one example the one shot that really surprised me. Presumably it was Schwarz's decision for children of Israel to move down the aisle as part of the Exodus, but presumably it was Sullivan's decision to film this in a panning shot from in front of the audience. As the film audience we'd been aware of the live audience throughout, clapping and cheering in between numbers, for example, but the frontal pan revealed something else: they were all wearing covid-masks. This added a major note to the context of the film. We thought the audience were like us. But they weren't. They were those poor people struggling to put normal life back together again after the worst global health crisis of our lifetimes. Our past selves, perhaps attending a public event for the first time since lockdown. Perhaps nervous (as I was in my first post-covid theatre trip) of catching or spreading something. And that this happened at the moment the Israelites also finally received their (real and far more viral) freedom certainly added something.

That nuance is made all the more interesting given how the filmed-stage musical compares with the original movie. In the original, Ramses acts the way he does because he feels the weight of his father's warning not to be the weak link, but it's nevertheless framed as Ramses' decisions and the theme of personal responsibilities – particularly the different ways that Ramses' and Moses handle them. Here however, it's different. The musical lessens Ramses' responsibilities for his actions by  putting additional pressure on him. His father's warnings not only relate to maintaining continuity with the past, but also to his present situation and his family's future. Seti's dynasty's hold on power is fragile. He and Ramses rely on the political good favour of Hotep and the priests as well as other Egyptian aristocratic families such as that of his wife Nefertari and the people in general. For a while the emphasis shifts from personal responsibility to problematic power structures.

As anyone who has seen the musical will know [Spoilers: select text to read] faced with hunting down the Hebrews as they flee across the bed of the Red Sea, Ramses decides to let them go free, his kingdom will survive without them. Hotep and some soldiers charge on in ahead, As a result Ramses survives, and lives to rule without Hotep's malign influence. It's interesting how this changes things. Historically we know that Ramses was capable of political spin, but there's no evidence on the Egyptian side that an exodus of slaves did his rule any real harm. Moreover, in the original story Ramses is the representative of Egypt and is the bad guy. Earlier retellings of the story, including the 1998 film, have maintained that, but sought to makes a key element of the story an Anakin→Vader-type narrative. Now we're back to the uncomplicated bad guy again, only this time he's just an Anubis in sheep's clothing.* It's interesting to see how this appears to favour the benevolence of monarchs above that of priests. [End of spoilers].

Overall, while it seems unlikely those who disliked the original film will be any more taken with this boomeranging adaptation, except perhaps for Sean Cheesman's at times inspired choreography. But for those who loved the original, or who are just intrigued by fresh adaptations of the biblical narratives, then this is certainly an interesting take on the original, both capturing enough of the essence of the original across the change of medium, while also bringing some fresh and distinctive elements.

The Prince of Egypt (1998)

It's fair to say that when DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg began dreaming up his new studio with his partners David Geffen and Steven Spielberg he would probably have been shocked to know his studio would soon become a byword for popular but unremarkable kids' films. Katzenberg already had a prominent role at Disney doing just that, but a combination of internal politics, his frustration at getting overlooked for promotion and his desire to see animation reach greater heights lead him to launch first the DreamWorks studio with Geffen and Spielberg and then to head up its animation wing.

"I didn't want us to tell fairy tales" Katzenberg explained at the time, "I wanted us to pick an interesting, dramatic, epic...embracing all the techniques of animation"¹ It was an artistic vision that Katzenberg's team on The Prince of Egypt really bought into. As Nicola LaPorte wrote in her book charting the birth of DreamWorks "for visual inspiration, the artists had studied the painterly visuals of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, nineteenth-century illustrator Gustave Dor&eacute's Bible woodcuts and Monet".² 

As if to underline the point Thomasine Lewis was commissioned to produce a "Movie Scrapbook" for the film which devoted a two page spread just to explain the film's emotional beat board and explaining how the "selection of colours for each scene was influenced by the emotional tone of that scene". "At the movie's darkest point, when Ramsees' son is killed, the film became monochromatic".³ I wouldn't claim to be an expert in the field of 'books written to tie-in to animated movies', but I can't think of many that would even think of going behind the scenes, let alone go into them in such detail.

The result of all this thought, care, love, referencing and attention to detail is a stunning visual experience. Created at a time when traditional, hand-drawn, animation was still strong, but CGI was finally getting to the stage where it could have an impact, the film blends the two techniques to great effect. It's as if hand-drawn knew it no longer quite had the dominance of its past and CGI had not yet got too big for its boots and so was still eager to serve.

Indeed despite voices being provided by household names such as Val Kilmer (Moses), Ralph Fiennes (Ramsees) and Michelle Pfeiffer (Tzipporah), the real stars are the incredible backdrops. Richie Chavez's sweeping deserts and Darek Gogol's towering architecture make Prince of Egypt seem bigger and more splendid even than films such as DeMille's Ten Commandments, Lean's Lawrence of Arabia and Wyler's Ben Hur; all of which are given notable tributes as the film progresses. As the Israelites prepare to leave Egypt 75 minutes in, the film's catchiest song - "There Will be Miracles" - strikes up a reprise. The accompanying images, revealing the extent of destruction wrought on this once great kingdom, flick by. Each "scene" lasts only a few seconds but many are so immense in scope that no live action filmmaker would dare to attempt them. In one sixty second section alone there are thirteen shots, many of previously magnificent structures now brought low. The cost of producing the sets for just one of these shots with live action - let alone all of them - would be impossible to justify for the brief few seconds for which they flicker across the screen.

Gogol's work is particularly notable for the way his dominating architecture is so interconnected with the Egyptian psyche. The Egyptian's all encompassing self-belief reflected in stone and marble, physically towering over the slaves building it, as if as an expression of their masters' systematic dominance. At times both Ramsees and his father Seti unknowingly match the shapes and poses of the art that both surrounds and honours them (see above). All of which forms a startlingly contrast with Chavez's more expressionistic mountains and deserts.

Yet the most celebrated sequence in the film takes place inside, as Moses' world begins to unravel with the sudden revelation that he is a Hebrew saved from the very man he had come to call father. The moving hieroglyphics scene is repeated in Prince of Egypt's prequel Joseph King of Dreams but it is not a patch on the original. Here, there's a combination of drama, inventiveness and technical mastery as the story hurries from one surface to another, simultaneously providing an objective account of the events that happened in the past alongside a subjective account of what Moses is feeling at that very moment. And then the the two threads merge as Seti coincidentally appears at Moses' side to offer an unconvincing justification which morphs into Hitchcockian strings and the camera fading to black.

What is also impressive is the way the "camera" thinks like a real camera, occasionally leaving part of the shot out of focus, or placing certain objects or characters on the edge of the frame. There are zooms and shifts in the depth of focus all of which make the images feel like they are more real than they actually are. The burning bush is first observed by the shadows and flickers it casts upon the cave wall and only then do we get the slow pan right to reveal the thing itself.

Indeed what's strange is that the weakest part of the visuals is the part that the team seemed most excited about at the time - the special effects. The burning bush, for example, becomes less interesting once it is actually appear in shot. The attempt to make the parting of the Red Sea extra dramatic results in it being over-the-top, a little too showy; likewise the pillar of fire. The plagues are a bit of a mix also. Generally they are carried out effectively - the use of fast cuts and short shots adds to the impression of terror - and generally the Angel of Death scene is eerily unnerving, but not dissimilarly the odd moment feels over fussy.

But that's a minor criticism, even less so when you consider how badly much CGI from the era has aged. Which is just as well as The Prince of Egypt does rely on its visuals to carry a lot of the plot and themes, from the way the camera moves through the mists upto the giant carved face of Pharaoh at the start, through to the various montages that accompany the musical numbers. Indeed, due to the film's relatively short running time (88 minutes, compared to 150 minutes for Exodus: Gods and Kings and 220 minutes for The Ten Commandments) these montages carry considerable weight, making the film feel like less of a musical than most of Disney's output (though more, obviously, than the majority of Moses films).

The film breaks with The Ten Commandments in other significant ways too, particularly in its portrayal of the two princes. Whilst both films contrast Moses with his 'brother' Ramsees, their characters are very different. In DeMille's film, even as an Egyptian, Moses is upright and honourable, whereas his brother is proud, arrogant and scheming. Here however, whilst both brothers are prone to bouts of teenage irresponsibility, Ramsees' problem is his worry and self doubt. As heir to the throne, his father repeatedly reminds him that he is a link in a chain going back centuries. Ramsees is weighed down by his fear of being the Pharaoh who lets his ancestors down and sees Egypt slide into ruin. It's a bitter irony that it's this fear of failure that leads him down the very path he is so desperate to avoid.

In contrast, Moses is the carefree playboy, getting his brother into trouble. When he tells Ramsees that is problem is that he "care(s) too much" his brother counters "your problem is that you don't care at all". It's not that Moses is callous - life simply hasn't exposed him to suffering. However things change for him when, in his desire to be the centre of attention, he humiliates the women who will eventually become his future wife. He laughs uproariously, but then he notices the effect his loutish behaviour has had on his victim and he's struck by a sudden pang of guilt. Moses is a hedonistic playboy with a heart. His killing of the Egyptian (above) is an accident - again the result of him witnessing a kind of suffering with which he is totally unfamiliar.⁵ As he later reflects "I did not see because I did not wish to see".

Given the degree of personal transformation Moses undergoes after his encounters with Tzipporah and Miriam, it's perhaps no wonder that the Bible's own moment of Moses' conversion is rather truncated. God commissions him and then gets angry with him for failing to grasp the point is what ends up being a few seconds. Pretty quickly, then, Moses is back in Egypt warning his much-missed brother, outsmarting lightly-entertaining priests, dispatching plagues and leading his people to freedom. The sea parts and the people go through, taking a smattering of Egyptians with them, and the film ends with Moses standing above a huge crowd nursing a couple of stone tablets. It perhaps feels a little rushed, yet, like so many of the shots that have preceded it, it is nonetheless an indelibly majestic image.

==========
1 - Katzenberg from Making of documentary on DVD.
2 - "The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks.", Nicole LaPorte p.116
3 - Thomasine Lewis, "The Prince of Egypt: The Movie Scrapbook - An in-depth look behind the scenes" pgs 32-33
4 - As my 7 year old son put it "you don't have to get so angry".
5 - Perhaps it's just the way my DVD player works but it you watch this in slow motion the falling Egyptian goes up instead of down, allowing the "fall" to take longer. Again the contrast of the shots from below and the overhead shot from above is particularly effective.

Joseph, King of Dreams (2000)

Back in 1998, The Prince of Egypt was a surprise hit, not only turning in a profit, but launching a whole new animated studio to challenge the dominance of Disney. Hardly surprising, then, that two years later Dreamworks sought to cash in on their successful début by adding another film in the series, Joseph, King of Dreams.

At the time the term "prequel" was on the ascendency - Star Wars: The Phantom Menance was released just a year earlier. The fledging studio must have considered it made good sense. Having escaped from Egypt the story of the former Hebrew slaves is far less suitable for a children's film - 40 years in the desert lacks dramatic promise and Joshua's conquest of Canaan could hardly be classified as kiddie friendly. The Joseph story however was not only more suitable, but allowed the studio to rework some of what made the original film succeed, with the promise of more moving hieroglyphics and soaring, dramatic architecture.

Sadly, it was an unmitigated disaster. Joseph falls well short of both the quality and the entertainment of its predecessor. Furthermore, far from offering an additional, tidy, return, the film was released straight to video - still the only Dreamworks film to carry that particular stigma.

There are three main reasons why Joseph fails. Firstly, as if anticipating a lesser return, Dreamworks clearly cut corners. Whilst both Ben Affleck and Mark Hamill are relatively big names, the rest of the cast was largely unknown. In comparison Prince of Egypt boasted at least ten major stars. And whilst much of the animation is of a similar, if not better, standard, one or two of the dreams are rendered so poorly that they cast a shadow over the rest of the film. History has not been kind to turn of the century CGI, but even at the time Pharaoh's cows would give anyone nightmares. Corner cutting such as this isn't necessarily that obvious, but it often has the effect of permeating through a whole film, leaving it flat without any one thing clearly being out of place.

Ironically, the film's second major problem derives from those very aspects of Prince of Egypt which won it such acclaim. Again we have scenes of wall paintings coming to life and these are complemented nicely by some excellent early dream sequences. The problem is that these aspects were so striking and notable in the original movie that, here, they just feel derivative and unoriginal. There's a reason most magicians don't do their tricks more than once to the same audience: it's easier to reproduce a really good trick than it is to reproduce the experience of seeing it for the first time.

Perhaps the weakest aspect of the film, though, is the music. I read a quote recently that attributed 70% of film to the music. Whilst the occasional song in Prince of Egypt is a little mawkish, generally the music is pretty strong - the opening scenes in particular. Here almost all of the songs are dreary, forgettable, sub-par pop ballads, performed with very little heart or invention. It drags the film down again and again and leaves it bereft of soaring high points.

Which isn't too say it's all bad. Most of the animation is very good: indeed, one or two of the pieces of it are stunning. The Van Gogh inspired sequences with the sunflowers are particularly impressive. The characterisation is also fairly strong. Joseph's (voiced by Ben Affleck's) transition from spoilt brat to mature and forgiving man is well worked, relying on both a process and a epiphany or sorts.

It's also good to see an animated family film that doesn't have to resort to cute animals or fart jokes. Whilst Joseph has it's faults, there's never a moment that could have been improved by the simple addition of a cat with a quirky sense of humour. And if there is, perhaps, one too many montage it's almost forgiveable given the sleek efficiency with which they are executed. The opening song - miracle child is a particularly good example.

So whilst King of Dreams is no match for Prince of Egypt, it's a lot better than some of the films that Dreamworks have turned out subsequently. Ultimately, though, it's biggest problem is that it leaves you wishing you had watched the Moses film instead.

Books by Film Designers

I've had a query from a reader and as my own answer is a little long, but also not entirely adequate I thought I'd post it here in case anyone has anything to add, or in case it was of interest to other people.

Matt, I know that many of the better films through the years have hired great designers who did their research and created outstanding and accurate fashions, props and sets for their films. What I need are photos that will provide me with some details. It’s my hope you may have the names of some books from both American and foreign publishers. An added hope is maybe some of the designers actually wrote some of these books. Thanks.

My immediate thought was of Henry S. Noerdlinger's book "Moses and Egypt" (pictured above) which describes itself as "The Documentation to the Motion Picture The Ten Commandments". It was published in 1956 by University of Southern California Press as an accompaniment to Cecil B. DeMille's second pass at The Ten Commandments. Noerdlinger was the official researcher for the film and goes to great depth in his research although sadly DeMille then left most of it out in the final work.

Whilst I'm sure there are other such books from the period, I personally don't know them. I have various books released as movie tie ins from Bible films, but most of these are more glossy books of publicity stills rather than works related to the design. It's certainly possible that some of these are still around, but I suspect it's something that wasn't popular at the time.

The other book in the above photo is more in line with what is desired, and it, too, is from a Moses film, 1998's The Prince of Egypt. It styles itself as a "Movie Scrapbook" and the front cover explains that it is "An in-depth look behind the scenes". Inside it takes various looks behind the scenes, including one called "Creating the Design". From memory similar books have been released for other more recent Bible films, though if they have I don't think I have any.

Actually though these things are far more likely to pop up as extra features on the DVD/Blu-ray discs. Special editions of most of the major Bible films have been made, and are often full of this sort of information - The Passion of the Christ for example is packed with this extra features of this sort, as also is The Miracle Maker. These obviously aren't quite still photos but if someone is just trying to get a general impression then film is as good as a book, and still pictures can be achieved from screen grabs on your PC/laptop. If you don't have any software that does this, then I'd recommend VLC which is open source (and therefore free), widely used, and well thought of.

If anyone has anything to add, please do chip in in the comments below. I know I've been a bit slow recently in moderating comments, but I'll keep a special watch out over the next few weeks.

One More Bible Film Related to the British Museum

Following on from last week's post Bible Films and The British Museum I managed to think of one more Bible film that had been influenced by artefacts such as we find in the British Museum. 1998's The Prince of Egypt contains a memorable sequence where Moses dreams about hieroglyphics coming alive to portray his childhood escape from death. It's true that the sequence could have been influenced by any display of hieroglyphics, or even just the knowledge of them that exists in the wider culture, but nevertheless...

The trio went well by the way. In the end there were 7 of us including me, and whilst the New Testament items are less impressive that those from Assyria and Babylon, and we were flagging a bit by that part (not to mention being shut out of the crucial rooms just as we were closing in on a jar from Qumran), it was an enjoyable and successful trip.

Alex von Tunzelmann on Prince of Egypt and Greatest Story Ever Told

I've mentioned before Alex von Tunzelmann's hugely enjoyable Guardian series Reel History. (In fact, I may as well give it its own label). Well, as with last Christmas she celebrated the festive season by review two Bible films - The Prince of Egypt and The Greatest Story Ever Told.

She's a bigger fan of Prince of Egypt (Entertainment grade: A– to Greatest Story's E), but ranks the Jesus epic higher in terms of it's history (C as compared to the Moses film's D). As ever they are written in style that manages to be light-hearted, perceptive, history geeky and enjoyable all in one go. Take for example her shrewd take on the depiciton of Mircales in Greatest Story:

Lazarus is raised from the dead in long shot, so you can't really see what's going on. The feeding of the 5,000 and turning water into wine are mentioned, but not shown. "The next thing we know, they'll be calling him the Messiah," complains a Jewish leader. "And that's not all." "What else?" asks Pontius Pilate. "He walked on water." "Get out!" Historically speaking, this is fine: there's no independent evidence for any of the miracles. Cinematically, it's more of a problem. If the director was concerned about excluding the sceptical audience, you've got to wonder why he picked this subject. Because, if you don't go in for God, this is just three hours of the musings of a first-century Middle Eastern hippie. A few whizz-bang moments would really have livened things up.

These are two films which have been criminally under-discussed by this blog. The Prince of Egypt didn't even have it's own label until just now. The Greatest Story Ever Told does, but there's precious little there except my podcast review.