Title: The Ten Commandments
Genre: Epic film
Running Time: 220 mins.
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Was it a must-see?
Before I go into detail, I have already picked-out my next movie and that is Mike Hodges’ Get Carter (1971). I love that I’m getting to watch films before the 90s. They are less familiar, more mysterious and so they make me more eager to watch. I generated a number even before watching The Ten Commandments in the interest of time. It took me a while to “get” my copy of this movie so I thought I’ll just “get” the next ones ahead, in order not to wait that long.
Now, for this movie. I’m sorry, this epic film. My first thoughts? The first scene you see is a text that says, “Overture” and you hear grand music for a few minutes. It was refreshing to see that they’ve given room for people to just hear the music chosen for the film. It sets the mood better and teaches the modern film-viewer something about patience. Certainly taught me. I never thought about it before but modern movies rarely give enough time for its accompanying music to breathe. Well, The Ten Commandments did.
It was also the first time that I watched a movie where the next scene after the overture featured a theater curtain, out of which the director himself came out to talk about the film before it started. Cecil B. DeMille struck me as a classic yet revolutionary thinker. Does that make sense? Maybe because the material of the movie is a classic story and yet the way he made it come alive in film was a revelation. And then, he said, “The story takes three hours and 39 minutes to unfold. There will be an intermission.” (And there really was, by the way.)
It got me thinking about patience again and taking the time to let the story feed your mind and letting the film breathe. Nowadays, a three-hour film isn’t considered that long anymore. Perhaps DeMille’s warning was necessary in the 1950s because three hours then meant too much. The world wasn’t as fast-paced and blurry then, I guess.
Another first is that the credits went on before the start of the movie, which I thought was considerate. At the end of the movie, you won’t care to read who worked for it. By the way, the ending was another text scene saying, “Exit Music.” I love it.
Anyway, I was already in bed, after a typical 8-5 workday when DeMille warned me of how long it was. I usually avoid sleeping late during a workweek but I had already started and stopping didn’t appeal to me. I thought, “It’s night, I’m in bed. Halfway into the first hour, I’ll be nodding off.”
Half-way into the second hour, I hadn’t blinked once. This movie just woke up something in my mind and kept me interested and unable to push the stop button. It makes me ashamed that the only work of Charlton Heston I ever watched until now was his guesting on Friends. He was simply brilliant as Moses. Would you believe I even had to force myself to stop the movie to continue the next day because it was almost midnight? And it wasn’t that it was a different take on Moses’ story. It stuck to the traditional, educated, long version, which bores many people, I presume. But oh dear, the dialogue, the acting, the wonders of technicolor. It was all so mesmerizing. Now I know why technicolor was such a big thing back then. It was a different world. Of course, my CGI-trained eyes (from watching movies, of course) knew when something wasn’t edited in as polished as our current technology allows. But putting yourself in the 1950s audience perspective, Wikipedia was right in saying that The Ten Commandments was DeMille’s most successful film. His last and his greatest.
This film is truly epic, truly deserving to be seen before you die.
Did I learn anything?
That Cecil B. DeMille is a splendid, intelligent director. One of my favorite authors is Ayn Rand and I only learned of DeMille through her biography. He was the one who gave her that chance (an extra in one of his films) that led her to where she got to. But I never sought to watch his films. Now I realize that was another crying shame.
Best moment:
A modern director wouldn’t waste numerous scenes on a part of the story that can be squeezed into one. DeMille took the time to portray exactly how the Israelites came out of Egypt, carrying their sick, their women, children, cows, geese, sheep, goats, carriages, their Egyptian spoils and even the bones of Joseph as a clamor of deep voices sang about him. Hundreds and thousands of Israelites, free at last from the bondage of slavery. That was best moment (not the parting of the Red Sea) for me.
Best line:
The best line wasn’t even in the movie’s script. It was in DeMille’s introduction:
“The theme of this picture is whether men are to be ruled by God’s law, or whether they are 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?”
The 1001 Movies Challenge 