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The Ten Commandments (1956)
Rate:
10
Viewed:
2/08, 3/22
2/08:
Having seen The Ten Commandments many times in installments on TV during Easter time, I finally took the chance
to see it all in full.
It's one of the finest movies made, a wondrous spectacle with the outstanding hallmarks of what makes an epic. The
parting of the Red Sea by Moses is a sight to behold, the clincher for the film's lone Academy Award win. It's still
unbelievable for 1956.
The acting is impeccable, and even more so are the settings and thousands of extras and animals. Cecil B. DeMille's
bold, extravagant direction set the bar so high that it's difficult for the wannabe biblical epics to meet. Sadly,
The Ten Commandments would be the last film of his illustrious directorial career.
Charlton Heston will always be the King of Epics. The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, and
El Cid, he's simply
the best. But the most outstanding performance of the show goes to Yul Brynner as Rameses II. It's difficult not to be
impressed by him. Next is the beautiful Anne Baxter as Nefretiri, the former lover of Moses turned pharaoh's wife. What a
fine job she has done.
All in all, I wish there were more biblical epics like The Ten Commandments.
3/22:
As the final film by Cecil B. DeMille before his death in 1959, The Ten Commandments is a moving
biblical epic work of art.
It's rare the quality of a screenplay could be so good that it's close to Shakespeare's works, but that's the case for this
film. If the cast wasn't of high quality, the lines would've sounded theatrical. The Ten Commandments received seven
Oscar nominations but...only one win. What the heck? The Best Picture award went to Around the World in 80 Days, but I
guarantee you that the other one is far more memorable today, even after sixty-six years.
Speaking of Oscars again, not one single thespian received a nomination. It's a huge surprise. There are some standouts,
but if you have to ask me who gave a stronger performance: Charlton Heston or Yul Brynner, I'll have to say it's no
contest: Yul Brynner. It's fair enough he did win the Best Actor Oscar during the same year but for a different film:
The King and I. Cedric Hardwicke, Anne Baxter, and Edward G. Robinson are tremendous as Seti, Nefretiri, and Dathan,
respectively.
According to IMDb: "When Yul Brynner was told he would be playing Pharaoh Rameses II opposite Charlton Heston's Moses and that
he would be shirtless for a majority of the movie, he began a rigorous weightlifting program because he didn't want to be
physically overshadowed by Heston."
There are outstanding scenes, especially when there are monuments and thousands of extras and animals involved. But it can
be annoying at times when the principal characters stand in front of the traveling matte. The best and most
amazing scene of all time is when Moses parted and then unparted the Red Sea which clinched the film's lone Academy Award for
Best Visual Effects, going to John P. Fulton, the third and final of his career. It took approximately six months of work.
The story is great and all, but it didn't happen for real. In fact, Moses never existed. There is a complete
absence of archaeological and historical evidence to support any of the events as portrayed in The Ten Commandments. The
Israelites were never in Egypt, the bondage didn't happen, and there was no Exodus. To drive the point further, Dr.
Michael D. Coogan, lecturer on the Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School, said, "There is no historical evidence outside of
the Bible, no mention of Moses outside the Bible, and no independent confirmation that Moses ever existed."
Israel Finkelstein, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and his colleague Neal Silberman, had
stated: "We have no clue, not even a single word, about early Israelites in Egypt: Neither in monumental inscriptions on walls
of temples, nor in tomb inscriptions, nor in papyri." William Denver, professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology
at the University of Arizona, added: "No Egyptian text ever found contains a single reference to 'Hebrews' or 'Israelites' in
Egypt, much less to an 'Exodus.'" Another said, "Moses could not have parted the Red Sea, not only because it violates the laws
of physics and there was no Moses, but because there was no Red Sea to cross since Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula share a common
land border in the northeast."
All in all, The Ten Commandments is the best biblical epic picture ever made.