The Ten Commandments (1956) – Special Collector’s Edition
(2-Disc Set/2004)
Picture: A-
Sound: B Extras: C+ Film: B+
As a general rule, I’m a fan of big movies and big
directors. But there’s big movies, and
then there’s big movies. Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments,
the classic 1956 remake of his own earlier 1923 film of the same title is just
that – a big movie! In a decade where Variety noted that most of
the blockbusters were Biblical epics like Quo Vadis, The Robe,
and Ben Hur – the most definitive of all Biblical epics with its
mega-blockbuster box-office returns and earning of 11 Academy Awards (a feat
that has only been tied twice, but never beaten by Titanic in 1997, and
most recently, The Return of the King).
For this reason, it’s interesting that in The Bible According to
Hollywood (see my review) Heston does not regard Ben Hur as a biblical
epic. Perhaps this is a rhetorical
move, but certainly, at best, it can only be taken tongue-in-cheek since it has
the most familiar characteristics of the biblical epic: the indulgent sense of
spectacle with its stunning vistas and sweeping locales; the flamboyant,
almost- period-but-not-quite investment in vibrant and colorful costumes; a
protagonist who takes the hero’s journey from the ordinary world of power,
privilege, and prestige through the desert of betrayal and brokenness, only to
return and ultimately embrace a theme of love, forgiveness, redemption – oh,
and let’s not forget Jesus! Though his
face is never shown – the last notable biblical epic to exercise this technique
– Wyler has not forgotten that Ben Hur is subtitled “A Tale of the
Christ”. But arguably the most defining
aspect of the mise en scene which makes Ben Hur a biblical epic is probably
simultaneously also the most overrated – Charlton Heston himself.
In reality, Heston has only been in three biblical epics
in the fullest sense of the word: Ben Hur, where he plays the title character; The
Greatest Story Ever Told (reviewed elsewhere on this site), where he plays
John the Baptist and, of course, The Ten Commandments. But it is precisely Heston’s role in The
Ten Commandments and his subsequent star persona which proceeded from this
portrayal that made the casting of Heston himself a seeming prerequisite for
directing a biblical epic, perhaps lending to the misconception of Heston’s
performing in more biblical films than he actually did. To complicate this misconception, even now,
Heston has lent his voice to Bill Kowalchuck’s recent 2003 animated version of Ben
Hur, and various CD and tape versions of the Bible. In addition, Heston has hosted at least one
biblically-based television series, and has done countless documentaries; and,
more recently, in Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine was referred to
by one the “experts” interviewed by Moore in regards to Heston’s presidency of
the NRA as “Moses himself” – a knowing nod to the socio-political ramifications
of Heston’s persona in our simultaneously waxing and waning Judeo-Christian
society.
Without question, Heston’s larger than life Biblical
persona stems directly from the power and magnitude of DeMille’s film, which is
only slightly reduced on disc. The Ten
Commandments is still an experience, and politics aside, one of the most
important and impressive films of post World War II/pre-Film School Generation
Hollywood history. This is not
necessarily because it gets its politics right – as if that were possible, but
because it tries to, both explicitly and implicitly. Whether accurate or not DeMille declares in no uncertain terms
his intent to direct a film that will promulgate and reinforce the convenient
ideology of the time, that while perhaps more urgent in 1956, at the height of
the Eisenhower era (1953-1961) – when the country was just beginning to come to
terms with its own injustices toward minorities, and later, women – proves
especially telling in regards to today’s administration. Though a common practice for DeMille, it is
interesting to consider how audiences responded to a cuff-linked director in a
three-piece suit, complete with a dangling timepiece as he stands in front of a
curtain in deliberate defiance of the fourth wall, stating:
The theme of this picture is whether man ought to be ruled
by God’s law, or whether they ought to be ruled by the whims of a dictator like
Rameses. Are men the property of the
state? Or are they free souls under
God? This same battle continues throughout the world today. Our intention was not to create a story but
to be worthy of the divinely inspired story created 3,000 years ago – the five
books of Moses. This technique would
later be repeated by Richard Donner in the 1978 Superman with the late
Christopher Reeve, but to a more aesthetic and less didactic end.
I can only imagine what it must have been like to
experience the full 3 hours and 39 minutes of DeMille’s spectacle in a movie
theater, but alas, I am much too young for that – and had to get acquainted
with this film on TV each and every Easter – that is, until the advent of the
DVD. Like Braveheart, Malcolm
X, Gandhi, and Schindler’s List, this is epic in every sense
of the word, beginning with a film length that like most Best Picture winners,
nominees, and prospective nominees spits in the eye of Syd Field’s and Robert
McKee’s well-marketed paradigms that privilege two hour running times, but that
is another story. DeMille was creating
spectacle here and he knew it. And he
did not apologize for it. I can respect
that, and for what it’s worth, ideology aside, the key moments here are great,
and are accompanied by and signified through equally memorable and
unforgettable images, from the massive exodus to the parting of the Red Sea –
even if multiple trips to Universal Studios revealing the tricks of the trade
and subsequent parodies do make it difficult to get past DeMille’s clever
special effects and Heston’s voice of God without an ironic snicker, unless, of
course, one is watching the film by oneself.
Then perhaps that tendency may diminish, or then again maybe not.
But as cheesy as some of what this disc may present may
seem, it is important to remember that this is what movies were before CGI, and
with the exception of such films like Spartacus or Ben Hur, I
have to admit that what is accomplished here or say in Scorsese’s Gangs of
New York is much more impressive in terms of mise en scene than anything
conjured up by Lucas or Spielberg at the computer level. This is no dig. Unlike many critics, I am an avid fan of both Lucas and
Spielberg, but in terms of the pure art of framing extras and directing action
that actually takes place in front of the camera both DeMille and Scorsese at
least up to this point have them both beat.
They don’t make movies like this anymore, and I’m grateful that DVD
presents a format that promises to record at least some of what DeMille managed
to accomplish onscreen.
This is not a perfect film though, but it does set the
standard for what most critics would come to know as the biblical spectacular,
or epic. Just to indicate his
influence, even some of DeMille’s more whimsical choices become stock clichés
of latter biblical films. Like for
instance his Egyptians that more times than not speak in British accents, or in
the case of Brynner, what debatably might be categorized as “Russian”. This would later be Wyler’s same choice when
it came to casting the Romans in Ben Hur, and Martin Scorsese with his
own unique penchant for language would do the exact same thing with his Romans
in The Last Temptation of Christ (please see “The Word Made Flesh vs.
The Word Made Cinematic” at www.areyoufishing.org). Accordingly, for the musically inclined,
also pay attention to the sequence where Moses’ mother is rescued from certain
doom, and you might hear a couple of musical chords that are repeated in
DreamWorks’ animated The Prince of Egypt, which in my opinion is the
best film on Moses yet.
But on another note, while I did get a kick out of Cedric
Hardwicke’s portrayal of Sethi as he works the room like a cunning 20th
century politician in the first act of The Ten Commandments, the
persistence with which these biblical epics always find some sort of way to
subjugate African races is quite troublesome to me. Here, we have a throng a half-naked black actors playing
Ethiopians dancing around and paying tribute to Egypt within the diegesis of
the film, but at the purely image level what we have is a host of Africans, and
presumably some African-Americans, paying tribute to a host of Europeans in
1956 for their great providence! This
is only complicated by the flawed Western conspiracy, which for decades now has
tried to argue that Egypt and its heritage is separate from the rest of
Africa. This is how a Liz Taylor and
not a Dorothy Dandridge could come to play Cleopatra in the early 60’s. And I would go so far as to suggest a subtle
American slavery subtext at work when the very attractive Ethiopian woman has
her personal dialogue with Charlton Heston’s Moses. (And let’s not forget when “Moses himself” states in Bowling
for Columbine that thanks “to dead white guys” Heston has his right to bear
arms!) This same subtext is also
indicated in the prevalent whiteness and Eurocentricity of The Ten
Commandments, a film that takes place mainly in Africa – about Africans and
Semites – and for the record, Egypt is a part of Africa, in spite of what
Western textbooks want to argue. (Chalk
up one point for KRS-One!)
Eventually someone must confront the Judeo-Christian Anglo
man with his Eurocentric, ego-centered, vain insistence that all history be
rendered from his perspective, resulting in Orson Welles as Othello, Charlton
Heston as Moses, Yul Brynner as Rameses.
I mean Hollywood couldn’t even hire an actress of both black and white
descent to play just that in Sirk’s Imitation of Life!
But this is not new.
We see the same sort of racial pandering as early as 1923 in DeMille’s
earlier version of The Ten Commandments when the intertitles name all of
the races that are represented in the tribute to the white Egyptians, and as
late as 2004 in The Passion of the Christ, when in what on the surface seems a
raceless production, Gibson goes out of his way to depict an African slave in
Herod’s court, and an African spectator to the scourging who winces at Jesus’
torture, as if to suggest through a bizarre manipulation of the Kuleshov effect
a contrast between African slavery and Jesus’ own torture. I could write these off as hapless
coincidences if casting were not such a crucial part to the film director’s occupation
– even the casting of extras, when there reactions shots are crucial to the
affect of a scene.
In terms of The Ten Commandments, there are the
biblical inaccuracies that, as in many literary based films, more kindly are
referenced under the auspices of poetic license. For those who care, no, the Bible does not specify that the
Hebrew who Moses defended was Joshua, but I am grateful that Philo and Josephus
do get some play here through some of DeMille’s other textual indulgences. I will not go into detail here, but this is
not history. Though it is important to
consider that in 1956 with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls being less
than a decade earlier, biblical archaeology at the time must have been held in
a much higher regard than it is held in certain key critical circles today.
DeMille very shrewdly uses this regained ground for the
Bible to reiterate certain political points for democracy that must have made
him quite popular not only in America but abroad with didactic lines like: “Is
life in bondage better than death?”, or when Joshua states, “God made men, men
made slaves,” or when Moses declares, “It is not treason to want freedom.” In keeping with this, DeMille’s very obvious
political status is made quite apparent in The Making of The Ten
Commandments (see my review) when newsreel footage reveals that he is
received in Egypt with all the pomp and circumstance of an American ambassador,
even down to being greeted by the nation’s leaders when he arrives on his
plane.
Yet it is not the politics of this film that make it great
– you could probably learn more about what was going on in America in the 50’s
from this film, than from newsreel footage – it is the lush mise en scene, with
its longer, wider takes and spectacular sets and cinematography. By this same token, the Egyptian girls who
accompany Moses adopted mother-to-be as they bathe come across more like the
50’s teenagers of a Douglas Sirk melodrama than historically reminiscent
treatments of Egyptian youth culture, but maybe this is the point. Historical films are always more about the
present than the past.
But what a present this was. This is studio filmmaking at its very best, and though the
opening scene plays out more like bad theatre than cinema, even down to curtain
in the background, the spectacle of DeMille’s work is fun to look at. And though I have seen violence treated much
more graphically in later films, especially post 1967, it is still quite
jarring to see Hebrew women huddle over their dead infants, as Egyptian
soldiers move away cleaning their weapons – a noteworthy instance of minimalism
in a maximized film.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is from the
restored version of the film that brings back its depth, detail and color
richness. Unfortunately, it also brings
back the obvious studio lighting, the only visual flaw that haunts the look
throughout. The film was shot in the
large frame VistaVision process the studio was using instead of licensing the
Bausch & Lomb/20th Century Fox sensation CinemaScope, which was
launched by the big biblical epic The Robe (1953), but was inferior in
picture quality in every way to VistaVision.
Loyal Griggs, A.S.C., shot the film and having had many years of special
effects cinematography alone, was the perfect choice for the kinds of “special”
moments this film required. He had shot
with the format before on the original We’re No Angels the year before
and That Certain Feeling earlier the same year, so he was as qualified
as anyone in Hollywood to help DeMille pull this film off. He continued to be one of Paramount’s top
cameramen for a few more years before they sadly phased the format out.
The film has been issued in later 2.20 X 1 70mm theatrical
releases, but information has been often missing in various sides and the usual
35mm copies. The color is by
Technicolor on the film, but the three-strip dye-transfer type was only used
for the first series of 35mm trade-downs, while the color in the larger format
films is always far above 35mm and still anything any digital HD format (even
at 4,000 progressive scan lines) could possibly compete against. As we have said before on many occasions,
the same applies to dye-transfer Technicolor in any-sized format. With all that said, this looks really
good. The original multi-channel stereo
sound has been remixed for Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and is not bad and though
the music by the recently deceased Elmer Bernstein holds up, this film deserves
DTS treatment. This is a favorite score
of his among fans and even a CD would be a good idea when Paramount does the
HD-DVD version later. At least the
elements are in good shape and the film can be appreciated right now in this
set.
For its slight flaws, however, this disc is still an
important part of anyone’s collection as far as the film goes. In terms of special features, though
Katherine Orrision’s commentary is informative, the producers here were a bit
on the stingy side, since not counting the commentary the special features can
be viewed basically in like a half an hour.
The Making of the Ten Commandments (see my review) is a better
source for background information on this film than the features here, which is
the most disappointing aspect of the disc, especially for a film so important
to film history. The disc is a bit
understated in regards to the film’s greatness, apart from a quick blurb by
Leonard Maltin on the packaging. But
like the actual ten commandments, maybe the film speaks for itself. If there ever was a film to so capture the
optimism, propaganda, spectacle, politics, and grand achievement of the
Hollywood studio system, The Ten Commandments is it. And that alone should make this disc is a
keeper.
- Gregory Allen
Gregory Allen -- filmmaker, scholar, and critic -- is an
assistant Professor in the Cinema and Digital Arts Department at Point Park
University, and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of
Pittsburgh. He also oversees the
student film production organization The Sprocket Guild www.sprocketguild.org and can be contacted at info@sprocketguild.org.
