Posted on 04/10/2006 7:18:20 AM PDT by Watershed
Director Robert Dornhelm is painfully aware that there may be a large audience out there eagerly waiting to hate his new version of "The Ten Commandments," premiering Monday and Tuesday, April 10-11, on ABC.
After all, the story of Moses leading the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt has been told before, and unforgettably, by Hollywood showman Cecil B. DeMille in his ultralavish 1956 production starring Charlton Heston as Moses. Adapted from a variety of religious novels, that earlier version introduced a number of extraneous characters and story lines to the biblical account, yet a fair number of fans today regard DeMille's epic with near-reverence.
(In fact, ABC is hedging its own bets, airing DeMille's version on Saturday, April 15, just days after this new "Commandments.")
Small wonder, then, that Dornhelm initially declined when executive producer Robert Halmi Sr. came to him with the project.
"My first reaction was, 'Why? Why should I be the sacrificial victim who gets slaughtered?' " Dornhelm recalls. "To do a television version of this huge epic (seemed foolhardy). Then I saw (DeMille's version) again and thought it really wouldn't be that hard to top, not to sound immodest. Then, when Mr. Halmi told me he wanted to make it as real as possible, that made it even more interesting."
Halmi's own interest in revisiting the story of the Exodus arose from his conviction that great stories need to be retold for new generations every 35 years or so. "And I wanted to do it as reality," Halmi says. "My characters are real. The location is real. There is as much reality costumewise, researchwise [as we could manage]. I had three different religious advisers, a Muslim, a Christian and a rabbi, going through every word of the script. I wanted to be more true to the story and its characters."
That meant, in turn, examining the principal character of Moses as a human being, not the powerful icon Heston portrayed in DeMille's account. It was Ron Hutchinson's script that helped persuade actor Dougray Scott to sign on as Moses.
"You tell people you're playing Moses in 'The Ten Commandments' and they just go, 'You're what?'" Scott says, laughing. "But I thought the writing was just terrific. I knew Ron Hutchinson from his days as a playwright in London. He was terrific then, and he has become a really good Hollywood scriptwriter. He did a great job with that story, I think, examining it from a point of view that I don't think the audience ever has seen before. Certainly it's very violent, because it really tries to capture that period of history.
"Instead of the iconic figure that Charlton Heston portrayed, you get to see and even kind of smell what Moses must have gone through."
The new version charts mostly familiar territory, especially in its first half, tracing Moses' narrow escape from death as an infant to his encounter with the burning bush and subsequently, his confrontations with the Pharaoh, Ramses (Paul Rhys), leading to the emancipation of the Hebrew slaves and their long, frustrating quest in search of the Promised Land.
Whereas Heston's Moses was a towering, thunder-voiced pillar of authority, Scott's Moses is plagued by self-doubt. He is virtually horrified to learn that God has selected him for such a formidable task, since he is painfully aware of his inner flaws.
"The character starts off at quite an intense pitch and then becomes even more intense," Scott says, "so that was the challenge for me, to see how far we could take this character on his emotional journey, this arc that he goes through and his relationships with everyone: with himself, his family, his tribe and, of course, God. Moses has to deal with his fear, his paranoia, his loneliness, his pain, his anger, his temper and his lack of compromise. He's unrelenting, and a very multilayered human being, albeit an extreme one."
Give Scott full marks for his commitment to the role, since the inner torment of his Moses comes across unrelentingly. The big question, of course, is whether viewers will want to spend three or four hours with such a tortured soul.
If some viewers ultimately find this remake too much of a downer, Dornhelm is OK with that, as long as they come to his "Commandments" with an open mind. It's the zealots who insist DeMille's version is somehow untouchable that make him see red.
"I find that notion offensive, myself," he says. "I was really impressed with [DeMille's version] when I saw it as a young boy, because it was such a wonderful cinematic extravaganza. But it was what it was. The only thing missing was Esther Williams performing one of her water ballets in the Nile. It was a show, first and foremost. And it still works very well for some people who love that spectacle. But to me, if I am talking about important issues like faith, spectacle is the last issue that I would like to deal with.
"Just because there has been this huge, colossal canvas painted with one man's vision doesn't mean we can't retell it. We've been retelling every silly police drama a million times, and nobody questions why. I've been asked this question: Why would you redo such an important masterpiece? And the answer is always, if it's a good story, and there is something we can learn from it, there are always new ways to interpret it and to gain new perspectives on it."
You > Note: this alleged event also took place well before there was a *Christian* religion.
Muslims were consulted, I presume, because the Moses story shows up in the Koran.
Me > What you say here is bit troublesome to me. More accurately, what you DO NOT SAY is troublesome to me.
I note that you gave concession to the Muslims and their Koran (the Moses story shows up in the Koran), but none to the Christian religion and their Bible.
The Christian Bible contains the Old and New Testament inclusive of the Pentateuch and the Moses story - which you apparently think has nothing to do with Christianity. From beginning to end, in the New Testament the story of Moses is assumed everywhere.
True Christians believe the Old and New Testaments - we're not talking about the religious left here - they believe the story of Moses as devoutly as do the Jews.
So, yes, the makers of this movie have good reason to include Christian opinion. And not just Muslim opinion as you seem to think.
"Archaeology and the Exodus" by Rabbi Ken Spiro
No outside corroboration for the myth of exodus.
Me > Hmmm. Re my post 62, I'd say Christians - again, not the liberal left - believe the story of Moses even more than Jewish Rabbis.
To be fair, this Rabbi is of the same catagory with liberal left Christian preachers. Conservative Christians and Jews believe the story of Moses.
"The Heston version was a remake of DeMille's 1923 version."
I didn't know that. Bet it didn't have color ;)
IYO do you think the Heston version was better or worse than the 1923 original?
"And let's face it, finding actors the likes of Vincent Price, Edward G. Robinson or Yul Brynner is going to be nigh impossible..."
That's a fact!
Nah, today we have actors thrilled to play the roles of gay cowboys. Can you imagine ANY of the GREAT actors willing to play trash roles like that? Even Sidney Poiter REFUSED to play certain roles and he was a struggling actor. He put it this way, he never wanted do a movie that would make his parents ashamed of him. He never did.
No kidding, We'll probably see Alex Baldwin as Pharaoh.
OK, maybe the car chase scene was a bit of a stretch...
ping
> I note that you gave concession to the Muslims and their Koran (the Moses story shows up in the Koran), but none to the Christian religion and their Bible.
Yes, and? Nobody is questioning the relevance of the Moses story to Christians. Some seemed to be questioning the relevance of it to Muslims.
Had the film makers consulted with Hindu religious leaders, *that* would be a head-scratcher.
> the Moses story - which you apparently think has nothing to do with Christianity.
And you leap to this interesting conclusion... how?
> So, yes, the makers of this movie have good reason to include Christian opinion. And not just Muslim opinion as you seem to think.
And how do you come to the conclusion that I think only Mulsims are right to consult on this? I'm frankly curious as to the thought process that led you to that astonishing conclusion.
> We'll probably see Alex Baldwin as Pharaoh.
I vote Christopher Walken for Pharoah.
William Shatner taking the Edward G Robinson role.
Anthony Hopkins as Moses.
Kosh Naranek as God Almighty.
Oh, yeah...
I hope Chuck Heston hunts down those responsible for this and............
.....no wait, I was confusing the 10 Commandments with El Cid......sorry.
Yea but ever since I saw Billy Crystal's comedy bit on Edward G. Robinson's character Dathan as an Egyptian from Brooklyn, I can't watch those scenes with Robinson in them without laughing. And Brynner's take on the Pharoaoh "So let it be written, so let it be done!" was just a little over the top also. But it DID have a cast of thousands!
I think from the contemporary Egyptian point of view Moses probably WAS treated like a lunatic--he gives up a cushy life as an adopted member of the royal family to fight and live with slaves. Without the faith of a true believer and an understanding that he is following the will of God that wouldn't make much sense.
Those modern entertainment liberals just didn't like Charleton Heston becasue of his NRA and Republican connections.
If Moses was alive today, I DOUBT he would have been an anti-gunner OR a Democrap.
Ok, Orion, no problemo. If I read you wrong, my bad. Your post 22 seemed to give concession to Islam for their belief of the Moses story, but not Christianity. At least that is the way I took it. Sorry.
I did, however, take the occasion to drive home the point. Aka the Moses story is intrisic to Christianity. Every kid in America who has ever been to Sunday School remembers the story of Moses being taught them on flannelgraph.
correction. Your post 29, not 22
Prince of Egypt was good, but this one sounds like they are trying more to undermine faith than build it. The faithless can not do movies like this because they just don't understand what they are talking about.
I like the idea. DeMille really glossed over a lot. My simple reading of my Bible shows that Moses was indeed quite a flawed person. To me that makes it all the greater that he could lead his people to freedom. If he could do it, there's hope for the rest of us.
For the religious it has even greater meaning: If God can choose such a flawed person for greatness, then there is definitely hope for every man to do great good by God's will.
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