St Peter (2005) DVD release (Starring Omar Sharif)

Omar Sharif starred in two of last year's Bible Films - the cinematically released One Night With the King and the TV series Ten Commandments (2006) and I've just caught wind of a third Sharif Bible film released in March of this year (although produced in 2005). St. Peter is another Bible film from the seemingly inexhaustible Lux Vide (who brought us The Bible Collection) and stars Sharif in the lead role. Here's the blurb from the press release:

As a dedicated follower of Christ, Peter spreads the message of the Christians across the land, often staying only a few steps ahead of those determined to persecute him. As tensions between the Christians and Romans grow, the apostles lose St. Paul to crucifixion. On the road to Damascus, Peter comes face to face with a stranger, who shows him that he must put himself on the cross, for only martyrdom can bring peace to Rome.

Back in 2005, there was a report in The Guardian about this film. Sharif's comments had apparently led an al-Qaida linked website to advise its readers to kill him. Sharif converted to Islam in the 50s, but said playing Peter was "so important for me that even now I can only speak about it with difficulty. It will be difficult for me to play other roles from now on". He also claimed "to hear voices" during filming.

Peter Chattaway has just reviewed the film for BC Christian News. It appears it's a mix of Acts of the Apostles and Quo Vadis? and whilst he finds Sharif as the 30 year old Peter unconvincing he does praise "the sensitivity of his performance".

It'll be interesting to compare this film with St. Paul (known as Paul the Apostle in the US) which I made a few brief comments about in my post on Galatians vs Acts in Film.

One Night With The King - Review

"There’s a temptingly simple definition of the epic film: it’s the easiest kind of picture to make badly." - Charlton Heston

The challenges of creating an epic film are so demanding that most filmmakers have been put off before they have even started. The rise of CGI has made creating epics a little simpler for those with big budgets at their disposal, but without that amount of cash, few independent filmmakers have managed to create pictures that are truly epic in size, scale and scope as well as in story.

Michael Sajbel’s One Night With the King, out today, is one such exception. Produced on a shoe string by Matthew Crouch, Richard J. Cook, and the screenplay’s writer Stephan Blinn, it’s a far better effort than anyone who watched their previous effort (The Omega Code) would have expected. This is one of the most visually impressive epics in years. Steven Bernstein’s lush cinematography captures the wonder of Jodhpur, India, and transforms it into a beautiful, distant world of long ago. The sweeping, exterior shots are truly awesome. So many bible films are made in Morocco and Italy at present that those locations have become synonymous with the Holy Land. But this story takes place elsewhere, in Persia, and by switching to a new location, the film captures the otherness of this strange land which would have been so different to the Jews who were first brought into exile there.

The interior shots are no less impressive. Aradhana Seth’s production design, most notably the palace interiors are so vast and impressive they make DeMille’s The Ten Commandments look like a school play. Multitudes of extras inhabit both the interiors and exteriors filling these shots with a life and vitality that CGI struggles to replicate.

Ultimately though, even the most impressive visuals in the world cannot compensate for poor acting, and it is here that the movie is a little uneven. Certainly the cast list features an array of impressive stars. One can't blame the publicity team for boasting about how their film reunites Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole for the first time since Lawrence of Arabia. In the end though it's difficult to decide which is more surprising, that O'Toole's appearance is as short as it is, or that Sharif's is so prominent. As one would expect, Omar Sharif turns in a solid performance, as does John Rhys-Davies as Mordecai. But all this would be largely irrelevant were it not also for an impressive debut performance by Tiffany Dupont. With only television work, and one supporting film role to her credit she effortlessly makes the transition to a lead role.

Sadly, the acting side of things is let down, badly, by poor performances by Luke Goss and Tommy "Tiny" Lister as Xerses and Hagai respectively. Goss is just plain awful. Unsure of his accent, and unconvincing both as a king, and as a lover he spoils almost every scene he features in.

Lister, on the other hand, is perhaps less to blame for his problems. One of his biggest attribute is his fearsome size, and the producers have done him no favours by trying to cast him against type in an ultra-sensitive, beauty-treatment-loving, girl’s-best-friend type role. Lister may have been able to pull this off had the dialogue he was given not so patchy. "You think a eunuch cannot know love?" and so on. Throughout the film, the dialogue is inconsistent, often being unsure whether to speak in "epic" language, or to use more every day dialogue. At one point the script has Xerses cram both into the same sentence; "know you how many nights I spent counting the stars to take my mind off of you".

The script is also at fault with the role of Haman. Whilst it cleverly and creatively links Haman, an Agagite, with King Agag, who Samuel slays in the opening act, it fails to flesh out the meaning of all this to him personally. Haman’s revenge becomes another of those long standing secret society affairs, and his character remains fairly one-dimensional. Ultimately, the bible finds some sympathy for him as he begs Esther for his life once his conspiracy is uncovered. But the film makes Haman’s pleas sarcastic, refusing to allow any ambiguity in the character lest the audience might find some sympathy for him, and question his execution. Haman remains, then, a one-dimensional villain, and the deep, throaty voice that James Callis utilises further renders this, somewhat ironically, as a shrill and shallow depiction.

All in all, One Night With the King is a mixed affair, visually brilliant, and boasting some impressive acting and creative storytelling. For those points alone it certainly deserves to be seen, particularly on the big screen. Sadly, though, it also has its weaknesses. Whilst they are far from fatal they do detract from the undoubted quality of the film as a whole.

UPDATE: I have now posted my scene analysis

One Night With the King Faces a Further Delay

A while back I discussed One Night With the King, a film about Esther starring Tiffany Dupont in the lead role, and Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole. It was due to be released this Easter, after a number of delays had pushed it back from its original release date of 2004.

Sadly according to this unofficial website it looks like this film now won't be release until September 2006.

That site's guess is that the marketers of the film are waiting to see how Tiffany Dupont's new television series is received. On the other hand, I can't help wondering if they have decided not to compete with the Easter TV release of the new film version of The Ten Commandments, which also stars Omar Sharif. It certainly seems like the film is finished, and yet these delays (about 2 years worth now) are somewhat puzzling.

Genesis Films

This is an article I wrote for the Open Heaven Church website back in the days before this blog really existed. It's likely that the article will disappear from that site shortly, so I thought I ought to repost it before it disappeared forever.
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Of all the events narrated in the Bible, perhaps the hardest to picture, let alone understand, are those in Genesis. Whilst there have been several attempts by filmmakers to capture these formative events on celluloid, their most productive time was actually back in the silent period. The most comprehensive lists cite around 20 films on the various stories made during the silent period, and a further six in the first 10 years of the “talkie” period. By contrast, the past 70 years have only produced a similar number.

The first film made about a story in Genesis was the French film Joseph Vendu Par Ses Frères (Joseph Sold by his Brothers) made in 1904. Other notable films in this early period included 1928 silent version of Noah’s Ark (where allegedly some people actually died filming the spectacular flood scene[1]), and The Green Pastures (1936) a child’s daydreamed version of the stories she is hearing in Sunday School.

The Green Pastures was probably the first film to portray God, and certainly the first to portray him as a black man. Unsurprisingly the Ku Klux Klan were outraged and protested causing many theatre owners to refuse to show it. The Genesis scenes, being seen through a child’s imagination make no attempt to be realistic, but their gentle humour, and basic simplicity give the film a spiritual authenticity that is absent from the majority of these films.

Perhaps the best known Genesis film was made by John Huston in 1966. The Bible looked at the first 22 chapters of Genesis, starting with a wonderfully filmed creation sequence (voiced by Huston himself), and progressing through to Abraham and Isaac. The Bible was made at the end of the golden era of the biblical epic, and wisely avoids making this into a spectacular but camp, bathrobe drama. Instead its dark lighting gives much of the film a strange sense of the dawn of time, and the primitive nature of the cultures involved.

At the same time the literalism of the presentation will both find favour with those who take a more literal understanding of the “how” questions of creation, whilst also giving it the air of archetypal myth that adopt a more symbolic interpretation.

The Bible was the last Hollywood film based on the Old Testament for over 30 years, with the exception of Richard Gere’s 1985 turn as King David, (replete with his undignified monkey dancing in front of a returning Ark of the Covenant). Instead most bible films began to be made for the TV and the church market. Typical of this was the late seventies “Greatest Heroes of the Bible” series, which included the stories of Noah, The Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham, Joseph. Around the same time the American organisation Campus Crusade (who made the 1979 Jesus film) made Genesis. This was a word for word, bland narration of the whole book accompanied by fairly uninspiring images which lasted for four long hours. It’s biggest plus point was it’s use of Middle Eastern actors, but it’s no surprise that none of them subsequently became the new Omar Sharif.

The eighties were a dry old time for cinematic versions of the book. Only the intriguingly titled Italian film Adam and Eve: The First Love Story and Mrinal Sen’s Hindi adaptation of the first five chapters were even made.

The nineties were a different matter. With Phil Collin’s namesake rock band out of the way, the bible’s opening tome was back in business. Whilst there were many Genesis movies made over that decade the majority were made by the Italian-American based company Lux Vide. Lux Vide put together 11 Old Testament stories as part of their “Bible Collection”, which also includes three New Testament films Jesus, Paul and The Apocalypse (my review), as well as four largely fictional spin offs, (each loosely based on a marginal New Testament character). Four of the Old Testament episodes were based on the events in Genesis - Creation and Flood, Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, and all four have their points of interest. Abraham, Jacob and Joseph frequently pierce the Sunday School cocoon that surrounds many tellings of these stories, both in cinema and other media, by including stories such as The Rape of Dinah, and Judah and Tamar that are so awkward, real, embarrassing and controversial that they are usually excluded completely. And the performances of Richard Harris, Sean Bean and Ben Kingsley respectively are usually worth watching in their own right.

Of the four, Genesis: Creation and Flood (1994) is possibly the jewel in the crown. Certainly it is strikingly different from the more traditional and straightforward tellings of the story that the other films give us. Instead of attempting to emulate the pattern of the earlier The Bible, or of the other films in the series, Genesis: Creation and Flood sets it’s own course. Covering the first eight and half chapters the film shows us the stories through the eyes of an old man telling his grandson the history of his people. Paul Schofield narrates in all but a few passages, only occasionally interrupted by a female counterpart.

The narration is accompanied by a striking series of images, occasionally interspersed by shots of Grandfather and the child, and other members of their family. It is an unusual effect. As Peter T Chattaway notes how normally you would be able to “follow any film's basic narrative thrust with the sound turned off… Genesis would fail that test”.[2]  In other words the narration shapes how the images are perceived. In a sense, this is like the act of creation itself, bringing form and order to the otherwise chaotic and unintelligible. The slow pacing of the film also gives it a meditative feel, enabling the audience to let the images wash over them whilst highlighting the words that drive them, and bring them meaning. This relaxed pace also brings a level of internal calm and thus transports the viewer to another time and another place far more effectively.

Ultimately then Creation and Flood is far more poetic than any of it’s predecessors, and it is ironic that a film which is essentially driven by such a narrative and literary work is ultimately so unliterary and poetic as a final product. It’s also interesting how the stress here on the story being passed down from generation to generation reflects the oral tradition that preceded and underlies the written text we have today.

Another film that takes this community narrative approach was a made for TV movie In the Beginning (2000). Martin Landau headed up a strong cast, playing Abraham; just four years after he had played Abraham’s grandson Jacob in the aforementioned Joseph. At over three hours, In the Beginning had plenty of time to cram in a number of these stories, and as a result, it could afford to continue well into Exodus. The creation scene here is also told by way of a flashback, but the sequence is so overloaded with explosive special effects, and cheap modern documentary footage it completely strips the event of its mystery and gravitas.

The end of the millennium brought with it a flood of biblical stories, and Genesis films were no exception. Chief amongst the offenders was another TV movie Noah’s Ark (1999), which was almost as unwelcome as the events it depicts. It is difficult to imagine what motivated the production of this film. Its attempt to weave futuristic elements into a pre-historic myth backfires more spectacularly than a seventies Robin Reliant. The bizarre futuristic elements evoke Kevin Costner’s mega flop Waterworld. Had that film been a success this at least could be called a cheap cash in, but as it was a commercial disaster that cannot have been the driving factor. Similarly terrible is the ludicrous attempt to pass off its idiotic amalgamation of the stories of Lot and Noah with the ridiculous off-hand comment “by the time they finish the story of Sodom and Gomorrah they will probably say we weren't even there."

The only potential merit of the film is that it solves the debate on God’s foreknowledge for ever. Noah’s Ark is so bad that if God had known the flood would spawn this stinker, he may have opted for another method of world destruction, (or at least have made sure that this was destroyed along with everything else). Frankly, it deserves every “wooden acting” joke that critics can throw at it.

Another poorly executed Genesis film is the straight to video Prince of Egypt  prequel   Joseph King of Dreams. The film does have some good points, notably the dream sequences which certainly benefit from a more creative and more expressive medium. However, the tiresome songs quickly become so dull that ultimately you begin to wonder if a spell in prison like Joseph’s might be far preferable.

Perhaps the best Genesis film of recent years (and of all time) is Cheick Oumar Sissoko’s La Genèse(1998). Sissoko’s film tells the story of Abraham’s family from an African perspective, and as a result, it is recorded in the Bambara language of Mali, spoken by only few million people. As a result La Genèse understands the nomadic tribal context in which these stories are set, far better than any number of  Hollywood films, and brings with it a number of fascinating insights.

It also refuses to lionise its protagonists, and emphasises just how dysfunctional this family was at times. Too often these characters have been stripped of their humanity, and shown simply as one dimensional heroes. La Genèse gives a more realistic picture which honours the God who uses such ordinary, broken unreliable people to further his will, and offers us hope that he can use us as well.

La Genèse is also beautifully filmed capturing the wonderful landscapes, and capturing something of the empty space that typified the world several thousand years ago. Nevertheless, at times the film is very stark and brutal in what it captures – starring unflinchingly at some of the more earthy elements of the story.

It’s the ability of this film to bring a new angle to well known and familiar stories that makes it so valuable. There have been many films on the various Genesis stories, but only a handful bring something insightful, interesting or challenging. Of these three stand out in particular. The Bible (1966) simultaneously shuns the worst excesses of the 50s and 60s Biblical Epics whilst subverting some of the genre’s standard features. La Genèse (1998) brings the tribal context to the fore, exploring the stories with an authenticity that is largely absent otherwise. Finally, Genesis: Creation and Flood (1994), offers us the chance to reflect on scripture anew as it draws attention to the poetic nature of the text.  

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[1] Various reports of this, the best online can be found at www.jimusnr.com/Noahsark.html

[2] www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/bc.cgi?bc/bccn/0501/artvideos

Noah adaptations p02:Origins of the flood story

Michelangelo's "The Deluge" (1508-11) from the Sistine Chapel ceiling

For many people it's a surprise to learn that the biblical story of Noah is itself something of an adaptation. Archaeologists have unearthed an evolving flood story tradition from the ancient near east written on cuneiform tablets. Even allowing for a very conservative date for the writing of Genesis – i.e. if written by Moses roughly around the time of Ramesses II (13th century BCE) – it goes back hundreds of years before Genesis was written. There are at least three different key phases in this evolution,¹ but each features remarkable similarities with the Noah story.

An evolving tradition?

Of course there are a number of ways of interpreting this data. The author of Genesis (and personally I don't think it was Moses, but more on that in a future post) might have come across these earlier stories and decided to adapt them for his own purposes, or it might be that (as a literal dating of Noah places him earlier than any of these texts) all these documents are referring to an earlier event, but unsurprisingly the details have changed in some of them over the centuries.

It's worth saying that flood stories have turned up all over the world, with over 300 stories where "the near-destruction of humanity results from a great flood".² Obviously floods were not uncommon, and could be catastrophic, and clearly those best placed to survive them would have been those with boats, so this widespread phenomenon is perhaps not surprising. Nevertheless, there's a particular  pattern here where a divine presence sent a flood to drastically reduce the human population, but a particular man was chosen to survive as well as those close to him. After the waters subside "the broken bond between the gods and humanity was restored... by a sacrifice of ark animals offered by the flood hero".³

Moreover, these three main phases all relate to the Ancient Near East and whereas many of that 300 are almost entirely different and not so soundly attested to, these contain notable similarities and have been preserved on a variety of clay tablets which have been carbon dated back to pre-biblical times.

 

When we look closely at these accounts, including the one in Genesis, we can see the evolution of the story from the oldest of these three traditions through to the Noah story, which is the most familiar to most people today. 

The Epic of Ziusudur

The Epic of Ziusudur, also known as the "Sumerian Deluge" or "Eridu Genesis" survives in a third of clay tablet from the seventeenth century BCE, though there are indications that the original version dates from sometime before 2000 BCE and that even this is dependent on earlier incarnations. Despite the fragmented nature of this tablet, the basic story survives: Following the creation of humans and animals, the gods send a deluge, but Ziusudur is warned, builds a boat, and when the sun appears again he offers an animal sacrifice to the gods.⁴

The Atrahasis Epic

The Atrahasis Epic is thought to date back to around 1750 BCE,⁵ and its "basic elements...closely resemble those of Ziusudra".⁶ Humans are created, now from clay, the gods send a deluge only this time the chosen survivor is Atrahasis along with his family and the animals. Like Ziusudur's story the flood lasts for seven days. Moreover where lines are missing in the Epic of Ziusudur, the Atrahasis fills in the gaps. It's explicitly stated that the animals are taken aboard and there are details about how the boat is to be constructed.

Recently, a further clay tablet containing a version of the Atrahasis epic re-surfaced which provides some interesting additional details. The main talking point that emerged from the newly translated tablet was that it seemed to indicate that Atrahasis's vessel was a round coracle, rather than the typical ark shape (significantly longer than it was wide, with a bow and a stern).⁷ However, of greater interest for the present study is that the gods' words to Atrahasis specifically instruct him to "Destroy your house, build a boat".⁸To those of us with brick houses today, and probably those in cities even then the instruction to destroy the house seems odd, but Finkel argues that Atrahasis's "house is made of reeds, strong and willowy, that can easily be recycled to a plait a lifeboat if that is what is needed".⁹ Such reed houses and reed boat were still common in southern Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), until the latter part of the 20th century particularly in the marshy region near where the Tigris and the Euphrates merge.¹⁰

The suggestion to recycle is probably driven more by urgency than by environmental concern. Nevertheless, by the time of the biblical account -- where an enormous amount of time is available to build the ark -- the command to recycle has disappeared.

The Gilgamesh Epic

Finally, there is the Gilgamesh Epic, "arguably the first great work of world literature",¹¹ dating somewhere from the second millennium BCE, though essentially the flood stories are only found in the most complete version dated 650BCE. "The  account in Gilgamesh has clearly drawn heavily upon Atrahasis... and there is evidence of dependence in terms of phraseology, content and structure".¹² Perhaps the biggest indicator of this is that the story of the flood forms only one part of the epic (tablet 11) and is set in the distant past.

Like Genesis, the epic as a whole is not about the flood hero. Instead the story is about a ruler, Gilgamesh, and the ark survivor is now called Utnapishtim (apart from one occasion where the author tellingly reverts to calling him Atrahasis), who enters the scene relatively late in proceedings (tablet 10 of 12). Attempting to learn the secret of Utnapishtim's immortality, Gilgamesh sets out to find him and only then does Utnapishtim reluctantly disclose his story of being granted eternal life after surviving the flood. The flood narrative has become a sidebar to the main story. Most of the Atrahasis Epic remains intact, but now when the boat lands it does so on a mountain, and a dove, a swallow and a raven are dispatched to determine if there is any dry land. 

However, Gilgamesh does introduce one further element to the story: environmental concern. Both within the flood narrative itself, and in the rest of the Gilgamesh Epic, the poem carries a sense that human activity is endangering the balance of nature. Gilgamesh is attempting to shore up his kingdom by strengthening the city at the expense of the countryside and other elements of nature. This threatens the gods, who are not unlike nature spirits. so "when he goes to extremes by destroying the Cedar Forest, he activates, unawares, the retaliation of Nature".¹³

This environmental concern also explains the gods rather Malthusian thinking behind their previous attempt to cull human numbers with a flood. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time" Gilgamesh expert/translator Andrew George explained:

...there is the idea of a view of ecology or the environment in which human beings do not, as in the Bible, have dominion over the Earth, they’re actually part of a world which is very carefully balanced and there are opportunities for them to endanger this balance by cutting down cedar forest, by growing too fast in numbers...¹⁴

This idea is also picked up by Martin Puchner who finds Gilgamesh concerned "more with population control and the relation between humans and their environment".¹⁵ 

Mark Sentesy takes things further. For him "the  Epic of  Gigamesh represents an  important ecological  event: the  emergence of  the culture  of the   Anthropocene" (which he defines as "the planetary impact of human beings").¹⁶ In his efforts to stabilise the flow of food and water, Gilgamesh throws Ishtar out of the city, "the goddess who most of all embodied his culture’s  experience  of nature".¹⁷ This represents "a turning point...a break with nature".¹⁸ 

So these ideas of depleting resources, deforestation and overpopulation, some of which obviously crop up in Aronofsky's Noah (2014), go back more than three thousand years, such that they precede the more typical date given for the final text of Genesis.

How do these relate to Genesis?

As I mentioned above, the traditional view was that Moses wrote the Book of Genesis. While opinions vary as to which Pharaohs are the ones referred to in Exodus even the earliest would have been written after the Babylonian and Sumerian accounts had been recorded. For those who ascribe to Mosaic authorship I will leave it to you to reconcile the evidence.

The more standard position within scholarship on the Hebrew Bible (including most conservative scholars) is that the Pentateuch / Tanakh was compiled in the post-exilic period (Persian Period), i.e. sometime after 539 BCE with some going later even  than that. If this is true then it seems most likely that the Babylonian version of the flood story went through a process of adaptation until they became the Noah story we have today. 

That "process of adaptation" will be what I go into in my next post on the subject, before latter posts look at how the Noah story itself has been adapted, particularly in film.  

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1 - A fourth document, Book 2 of Berossus' "Babyloniaca", is sometimes added to these discussions as it to hales from the Ancient Near East and bears similar features to the Noah story, but we know it only from quotations in the work of other authors (such as Josephus and Syncellus) and the time frame (3rd century BCE) seems to be considerably after Genesis found its final form.

2 - Bailey, Lloyd R. (1989) Noah: The Person and the Story in History and Tradition (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press) p.6 counting the stories discussed in Theodor Herzl Gaster, (1969) Myth, legend, and custom in the Old Testament; a comparative study with chapters from Sir James G. Frazer's Folklore in the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Row), pp.82-131.

3 - Stavrakopoulou, Francesca (2021) God: An Anatomy (London: Picador), p.213.

4 - Lendering, Jona (2020) "The Great Flood" on Livius. Last updated 12th October 2020. Originally created in 2007. https://www.livius.org/articles/misc/great-flood/ 

5 - Finkel, Irving (2014) The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood, (London: Hodder), p.104.

6 - Collins, Matthew A. (2017) "An Ongoing Tradition: Aronofsky's Noah as 21st-Century Rewritten Scripture" in Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch and Jon Morgan (eds) Noah as Antihero (Abingdon/New York: Routledge) p.10.

7 - Finkel p.123-56.

8 - Finkel p.115.

9 - Finkel p.118

10 - Finkel p.116-8

11 - Puchner, Martin (2022) Literature for a Changing Planet,  (New Jersey: Princeton University Press) p.14.

12 - Collins p.10

13 - Sharif, Azad, Birzo Abdulkadir and Mohammad Ismail Saeed (2019) "Nature’s Retaliation in the Sumerian Epic Gilgamesh: An Ecocritical Study" in Journal of the University of Garmian. Vol 6 (2), pp. 396-403. p.403.

14 - Andrew George speaking in the extra material for the podcast section of BBC Radio 4's In Our Time programme. Episode titled "Epic of Gilgamesh", originally broadcast (and then released as a podcast) 3rd Nov 2016.

(Andrew George)

15 - Puchner, p.18.
 [A summary of this part of his argument is available online at https://lithub.com/martin-puchner-on-the-climate-lessons-from-the-epic-of-gilgamesh/]

16 - Sentesy, Mark (2022) "The Ecological Predicament of the Epic of Gilgamesh". Unpublished. October. pp1-2. Available online - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364185309_The_Ecological_Predicament_of_the_Epic_of_Gilgamesh.

17 - Sentesy, p.5

18 - Sentesy, p.1

The Ten Commandments (2006) - A review

Ask anyone you like to name an Old Testament Bible film and they will always give you the same reply. Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston. DeMille's film (until recently) towered above all other Bible films at the box office, and in the public consciousness, and still dictates the way the story of Moses is read and imagined two generations later.

It is in fact 50 years since the release of that film, and as a result someone has decided that it was high time someone re-visited the subject matter. Of course Moses hasn't been absent from our screens these last five decades. Straub and Hulliet's unusual adaptation of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron broke the deadlock in 1973, and was swiftly followed by Moses (1975) starring Burt Lancaster. Wholly Moses (1980) attempted to do for Moses movies what Life of Brian did for Jesus films, and the end of the nineties brought two more interpretations. Roger Young's lesser known Moses (1996) featured an incredible performance from Ben Kingsley and was one of The Bible Collection's finest films. Finally, in 1998, Moses was again a popular cinema icon again as Dreamworks produced its animated Prince of Egypt.

So whilst this is far from the first Moses film since Chuck Heston donned his huge white beard, it is the first film since then to dare to call itself The Ten Commandments and take on the multitude of connotations, evocations and comparisons that this title brings with it. And about time too.

Early on this film nails it's colours to the mast. This is going to be a very different version of the life of Moses. Whereas DeMille's film spent two hours getting to the point where the one time prince is banished from the land in which he grew up, this film gets to that point (just one and a half chapters into the book of Exodus) in 20 minutes. However, even in this short time it has already managed to build in a convincing relationship between Moses and his (fictitious) step brother Menerith.

The story slows down a bit once Moses reaches Midian, rescues Jethro's daughters and marries his eldest. The change of pace highlights a key theme that will emerge in this film. Here we see him adjust from city life to being a nomad in the desert. Later he will lead his people through a similar transition. Soon enough though Moses encounters God at the burning bush, and reluctantly agrees to do God's bidding for him in the court of the new pharaoh.

Aaron and the Israelite leaders take some convincing; Pharaoh, obviously, needs even more and Egypt is engulfed by the ten plagues (although only seven are present). The plagues have always interested historians and scientists alike, and numerous theories have developed giving natural explanations for them. Here, as with DeMille's film, such theories are toyed with. DeMille put them on the lips of the sceptical Ramsees. Here we hear some from the narrator (which brings with it a sense that his is unquestionable and objective), but others are shown and discredited before our eyes. It is an interesting mix, and leaves the viewer some scope to consider their own response.

The final plague, the death of the first born, has traditionally been given short shrift by Moses films. In DeMille's first version of The Ten Commandments (1923), Pharaoh's child is such a brat that the viewer can't wait for him to be killed off. Recent version have been more sympathetic, the Prince of Egypt stands out in particular, but this film moves things one a stage further. Not only are we shown an Egyptian (Menerith) who we can sympathise with who loses his beloved son, but there is a strong visual similarity between Ramsees' son and the early scenes of Moses as a boy. Menerith calls Moses' god a cruel god, and Moses is unable to argue with him.

As this film comes in two parts, it breaks just as the Israelites are crossing the sea, leaving most of the film for more unexplored territory. As a result we see episodes that are rare for films about Moses; the bitter waters of Marah, the provision of manna and quail to eat, water from the rock, the victory of over the Amalekites and the visit of Jethro. This scene is perhaps the most curious. The way the bible tells this scene, Jethro brings Zipporah and Moses's sons back to him, and then advises him to delegate out his work load. Here, agonisingly almost, Jethro's arrival contains no such marital advice, even though it means the breakdown of Moses's marriage. Instead he advises him to take the opposite course of action and "trust no-one". It's a strange variation on the story, and whilst Jethro is later proved right to a degree, such pre-figuring is unnecessary. Omar Sharif's wisdom would have been better dispensed along traditional lines.

It is this second half of the film that one gets the impression that the film makers really care about. Whilst the first half of the film is tightly wound so that it fits in as much as possible, the second half of the film is allowed to roam around new territory much like its subjects. New sub-plots are imported to give more of a sense of the challenges Moses faced in working this group of former slaves into a new nation. Some of these are more successful than others. When two of the Israelites commit adultery, and then try to cover it up with murder and perjury, the need for some sort of moral framework is nicely highlighted. On the other hand, the scenes of the Israelites developing an army to take on the Amalekites feel a little too reminiscient of Spartacus and Gladiator.

However, it is this emphasis on the need for Israel to transition from a group of slaves to a nation, which distinguishes this film from the other Moses movies. Most tend to focus on Moses initial successes, even though he actually led the Israelites for more than a generation, his accomplishments were far more than being the man who held a stick over the sea whilst God peeled back its waters.

On of the other things that this film considers is the development of monotheism. The realisation gradually begins to dawn on Moses that there is only one god, and that he is God of the whole world. There are many facets of this development; Moses first hearing about the Israelite God, encountering him at the burning bush, and his subsequent meditation on his name. Later on Moses notes that God is travelling with them outside of Egypt and his recollection of the story of monotheistic pharaoh Akhnaten brings things to a head. What is strange is the way that the film emphasises this aspect whilst also purging the story of its Jewish roots.

Perhaps the biggest strength of this film, however, is the way it handles the difficult parts of the bible, and stares unflinchingly form the parts that today seem unpalatable. The most striking aspect of this is the character of Moses himself, who is deliberately played unsympathetically at times. When he is told as a child that he needs to master his temper, we expect this only to apply as far as his murder of the Egyptian, and are surprised when it continues unchecked. After his violent rescue of Zipporah and her sisters, he recognises that he has acted out of anger and how foolish that was. His confrontations with his fellow Israelites are frequently angry, and he holds some resentment towards the God he serves yet struggles to understand, throughout the film. Dougray Scott's portrayal is a far cry from Charlton Heston's noble prince turned sinless prophet. Yet there is, perhaps more biblical warrant for this occasionally petulant version of Moses than Heston's. When Heston tries to shrug off God's call, it seems more like modesty than anything else - the biblical Moses takes far more convincing, and is still arguing the toss three chapters later (Ex 6:12). Every time the people moan to him, he moans to God, even asking to die at one point (Num 11:10-15). The biblical Moses's anger continues throughout the story, causing him to smash the tablets of stone, and ultimately exclude himself from the promised land.

But the film is also unwilling to downplay the uncomfortable nature of other biblical episodes. After Moses returns from the top of Sinai it is he and his followers that kill everyone who continues worshipping the Golden Calf, rather than an act of God. Such parts of the bible should make us feel uncomfortable, and challenge our understanding of the bible. It is when bible films do this that they really prove their worth.

The film does have it's weaknesses. Dougray Scott's wig is far more distracting than any piece of costume deserves to be. Some of the actors chosen for the lesser parts (such as David Schneider and Richard O'Brien for British viewers) are so fixed by their previous roles as to make it hard to take them seriously. And a scene where Moses tries to cajole Joshua out of his apparently naive pacifism should have been left on the cutting room floor.

But, overall for a TV film it does so much right as well. There is plenty of interesting camerawork. When a defeated Ramsees finally agrees to release the Israelites, the low angled camera makes Moses appear to tower over him (right). There are a number of God shots, allowing the viewer to see things from his point of view from time to time.

Best of all it handles the biblical text in a way that manages to be both faithful enough to appease those seeking a very literal adaptation, whilst also presenting it in a way that is fresh and challenging.

The Ten Commandmentsis showing on ABC on the 10th and 11th of April. Cast: Dougray Scott (Moses), Omar Sharif (Jethro), Linus Roache (Aaron), Mía Maestro (Zipporah), Susan Lynch (Miriam), Karim Salah (Joshua), Naveen Andrews (Menerith), Padma Lakshmi (Princess Bithia), Paul Rhys (Ramses).
Directed by Robert Dornhelm, Written by Ron Hutchinson, Produced by Robert Halmi Sr., Laura Julian and Paul Lowin

The Ten Commmandments (2006) - Part 2 Scene Guide

The scene guide for part 1 on this new version of The Ten Commandments
was posted yesterday, and a proper review of the film will follow tomorrow.

Part 2
Egyptian army destroyed in the sea (Ex 14:23-28)
Israel celebrates destruction of the army (Ex 14:29- 15:21)
> non-scriptural episodes
Waters of Marah (Ex 15:22-26)
Manna and Quail (Ex 16:1-31)
Water from Rock (Ex 17:1-7)
> non-scriptural episodes
Victory over the Amalekites (Ex 17:8-14)
> non-scriptural episode
Jethro's visit (Ex 18:1-27)
> non-scriptural episodes
The Ten Commandments given to Moses (Ex 19 & 20)
The people worship a golden calf (Ex 32:1-6)
Punishment for following the golden calf (Ex 32:25-28)
The stone tablets are given to Moses again (Ex 33:1-5, 12-17)
Death of Moses (Deut 34:1-9)

A Few Notes
It is the second half of this film where it begins to distinguish itself from other films on the life of Moses. By compressing the opening 14 chapters of Exodus into the first 90 minute segment, it creates room in the second half of the film to explore more unfamiliar territory, notably the time Israel spent in the desert prior to the handing down of the Ten Commandments.

Only De Bosio's 1975 Moses film includes the victory over the Amalekites. A few films include the manna and quails, but this is the only film that I can recall showing the sweetening of the waters of Mara (although I think that is present in the six hour cut of the De Bosio film).

This is the only film that I can recall Moses sending Zipporah away between his return to Egypt in chapter 4 of Exodus, and the visit of Jethro in chapter 18. It was surprising, however, particularly given the presence of Omar Sharif, how this later section was handled.

More info on the new Ten Commandments TV Film

Peter T Chattaway has posted the full text of his interview with Katherine Orrison, the abridged version of which I commented on last week.

In this extended version, she mentions that ABC are running a new version of the Ten Commandments this April. There is some information up on the ABC website now. There is also an official website

There are a few points I'd like to make, based on the photos.

Firstly, this film, which has been billed as the most realistic, clearly seems to have in mind a far smaller exodus than those of DeMille. I think many scholars would agree that the numbers of Israelites stated in the bible are somehow symbolic and therefore larger than was actually the case. (See right)

Secondly, It's unclear which episode is being depicted in that photo. It may be some sort of pre/post Red Sea shot. On the other hand the three figures standing on a hill whilst Moses raises his arms, are reminiscent of the battle with the Amalekites in Exodus 17. Given that there is also at least one picture from a battle this would seem to be the case. Of all the various Moses films, only De Bosio's Moses (1975) shows this episode.

That said, it is somewhat remarkable that there are no pictures of the Red Sea (although it is on the poster mentioned in the story section), so perhaps this film is going to portray the Hebrews having a more active role in gaining their freedom. That said the picture of the parting of the sea in the poster looks like it is straight out of DeMille, which rather dashes my hopes that this film might show us a "Reed Sea" as we find in scripture.

Thirdly, there is a shot of the water turning into blood (below, right), which evokes an earlier Moses film, although I can't remember which, off the top of my head. The exodus picture in front of the city is also very reminiscent of both of DeMille's Ten Commandments films, although the numbers here, again, are much smaller than DeMille's.

There's not much shown of Omar Sharif, who is playing Jethro, despite the fact that his name has been the big draw used in the publicity. There is also one shot of the Ark of the Covenant, so that combined with the possibility of episodes from Exodus 17 mentioned above suggests that this film will go far further into the life of Moses than most, which usually draw to a halt once the Ten Commandments have been given.

There is a fair bit of blurb about the film on both sites. From the photos and reading between the lines a little, it seems that this film will bring a stronger emphasis on the role of Zipporah, who seems to disappear out of Moses life after she saves him with an improvised circumcision in Exodus 4. It is not until Exodus 18, that Jethro re-unites them. Even so, she is never mentioned again (by name at least).

It also appears that this will be yet another film which shows Moses not discover his true identity until adulthood. Whilst this is certainly viable, it would be nice to see another film where Moses grows up aware of his identity.

One subplot which sounds very interesting is Moses relationship, not with Ramsees himself but with, Menerith, his step brother and one of Ramsees's officials. Hopefully this means that Moses will be shown as more insignificant in the royal courts than is usually the case.

Overall then, there is much to look forward to. Whilst some episodes look to be telling the story in a very similar fashion to DeMille's two films of the same name, it is also clear that much of the story will be told in a different way.

The Ten Commandments airs on Monday April 10th (Part 1) and Tuesday, April 11th (Part 2) at 9/8c

One Night with the King

UPDATE: REVIEW - My review for this film is published here.

In searching out Old Testament films made in this decade for yesterday's post I found one I forgotten about - One Night with the King, a soon to be released film about Esther. (Thanks to Tyler Williams for his excellent Old Testament on Film list).

Anyway, I did a bit of information seeking about the film. It's got a very impressive cast list. Although Tiffany Dupont (who plays Esther) is unknown to me, Omar Sharif and Peter O'Toole are major stars, albeit of yesteryear, whilst John Rhys Davies (from the Indiana Jones, and Lord of the Rings trilogies), and John Noble (also from Lord of the Rings) are also established actors. The only worrying name on the cast list is Luke Goss, who's best known to Britons as the drummer from Bros.. Apart from anything he really doesn't look the part of King Xerxes (Goss is blonde).

The official site for the film contains a four minute trailer, stills, a bit on the story, a cast list, and some making of documentaries which I've not had the chance to watch yet. They also seem to be trying to replicate the marketing strategy of The Passion (as did the marketing team for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) by encouraging people to sign up as volunteers to market the film. As this is a film with appeal to Christians and Jews they talk about how they want the film to "inspire a godly world-view through the entertainment medium", which doesn't have quite the same edge as the hard sell The Passion's marketing team were able to give their film.

There are a few other sites of interest. There is a decent unofficial fan site - www.queen-esther-movie.com, and an early article on the film from The Guardian, which reveals a interesting few details (such as the fact that the film cost $16m to make), before focusing in on O'Toole and Shairf. The Guardian claims this film is the first time they have worked together since Lawrence of Arabia (although the IMDB lists three others).

Two further things I'd like to highlight. Firstly, the release date for the film was put back a whole year. Originally set for release around Easter in 2005, it was moved back to September, and then to Christmas, and now it seems the release date will be March 2006 - in time for the Jewish festival of Purim.

Secondly, the source material for the book seems to be Tommy Tenney's novel Hadassah: One Night With The King. This suggests many things. Tenney is a evangelical Christian writer, best known for his book "The God Chasers" - a book I have a number of concerns about (although I admit I have never actually read it). This confirms the impression I got from the official site that this is not only a film aimed at the devout, but made by the devout. Indeed Gener8Xion was also responsible for making Christian Movie The Omega Code.

There's some discussion of this film at Arts and Faith, and blog post from Peter Chattaway.

Matt