I've been meaning to post this for a while as I've watched a few obscure bible films recently which aren't really all interesting enough to merit an entire thread for each, but a few of you will hopefully be vaguely interested in these (OK well I'm hoping at least PTC, Tim W & Mike H will be)


In The Beginning (2000 USA)
Starred Martin Landau as Abraham, which is interesting cos he played Jacob in Joseph which I'd seen a few weeks before. Something of a family resemblance (but then I suppose Landau is part of that particular family!).

I made notes on this film because its got a Moses section, and it was interesting that Abraham leaving Ur was depicted very much as an Exodus. (and IIRC the Exodus scene is very like a combination of the scenes from two The Ten Commandments films by DeMille)

I was surprised by the inclusion of a creation sequence (although I’d forgotten all about it until I just consulted my notes just then), but also surprised that it changed the days around a bit and that Adam was depicted in Christ like ways, and I liked the way the story was told as a community myth (in the proper sense) rather than as objective of the 1966 The Bible: In the Beginning (FWIW I recentley saw the African Queen and was interested how Huston’s love of creation and photographing animals was apparent in that as well.

It also included Jacqueline Bisset as Sarah / Sarai which I found interesting as she must have filmed this very shortly after filming Jesus where she played Mary – so she’s getting typecast as a mother of faiths (which brings to mind Pernilla August who’s played Mary in Mary the Mother of Jesus, and Anakin’s Mother in the Phantom Menace – I think it was Peter C that pointed out that she is probably the first person to be tyoecast as a virgin birthing mother! – but given Bisset’s back history its probably less likely that she will get typecast, more just a coincidence of two roles.

I was disappointed though that the story skips poor old Isaac’s life I was looking forward to seeing something on his young life rather than just him meeting Rebecca and then getting conned by Jacob

The Jacob and Joseph sections seem to have passed completely out of my memory and I don’t seem to have any notes for the Moses sections either. I think they were fairly uneventful but I’ll see if I still have them – it was after all why I bought the thing in the first place


David and Goliath (1960 IT/US)
This was a strange film which I’d not really hear of until it came up on ebay, but when I saw it starred Orson Welles I was really interested. Wll its no Citizen Kane, in fact it quite the reverse. It has such a B movie feel to it its hard to get over, particularly whenever Goliath appears it just feels a bit Star Trek.

Wells is criticised for being overly hammy – a touch unfair though its not a great performance. I couldn’t work out how the dubbing worked on this. At some points it seemed that Welles was speaking English and at some points it seemed that he’d don e it in Italian and dubbed over. One thing that made it hard to suss out as the way that quite often we saw the hearers face rather than the speakers. This quite an interesting device in itself seeing th reaction rather than what’s said, but obvisouly it means that the dubbing is less obvious, which is useful if you’ve making a film in a foreign language with a big US star and you want to maximise it in that market. There was a slightly annoying sub plot involving David and his childhood love who gets killed off early on, and again there’s a clear Jesus parallel as David does a clearing of the temple of sorts. However whilst the temple authorities are predictably outraged Welles is more intrigued and welcomes David into his court.


Jacob (1994 IT/US)
The star attraction here was a chance to see a filmed version of Jacob (although I has just seen a brief one), but also Sean Bean who is usually excellent, but, well suffice to say he’s not one to enter in our best accents discussion. Later on in the series (e.g. Jesus) The filmmakers let actors use their natural accents which seemed to work well as a device indicating that Bible people spoke neither with British or American accents. Here it was just distracting and a Yorkshire accent would have been ideal for Esau IMHO. Personally I felt this was a worthy effort. The relationship between the two brothers was well fleshed out, and some of the emotions were well explored, and it got me thinking about the relationship between the two sisters in greater depth.

That said a lot of what I got from the film was thinking things like “I’m not sure that is how it would have worked”, particularly the Leah - Rachel swap where the fact that it was consummated in the dark was made to seem suspect (particularly with a stupid lets have a secret signal thing with Jacob & Rachel). Personally, as I’ve looked into other cultures’ wedding rituals the chance for a father to pull a swap as Laban does is actually really easy. Which brings me onto my second point. The film made me realise how Jacob’s deceiving really did run in his family, although I also mused whilst watching it whether the emphasis on the story was originally on Jacob trying to cheat the system yet again rather than about Laban being dishonourable.

And the wrestling with God scene was interesting.


Joshua at Jericho (1977? US)
This was one in a series of ten “Greatest heroes of the bible series”. Again I was particularly interested in how this film handled the story – I find Joshua the hardest book I the OT to come to terms with and have major questions about it. Perhaps as expected the film skews the story to make killing at Jericho acceptable, and only shows bad men getting killed rather than all the inhabitants including the children.

And what bad men they are shown to be. On top of how they come across in the bible they also kidnap all the Israelite children and sacrifice most them to Baal. Their king is that typical kind of Bible Epic incompetent ruler, fat, incapable, childish reliant on bad men weak etc. A cross between Prince John in Disney’s Robin Hood and another Ustinov monarch Nero in Quo Vadis – only a pale imitation of either. By the time he’s hammed his way through a few scenes one’s more than happy to consign Jericho to a total wipeout (save Rahab and kin) just to get him to shut up.

But basically the film not only glosses over the difficult issue, but actually ditorts the story to cover it up.


Judgement of Solomon (1977? US)
This was another one in the “Greatest heroes of the bible” series. Here the story focus is on the wranglings over who will take over as Israelite king, and once Solomon has had his piece of wisdom then the moaning tribal leaders all acknowledge him as their king and kill Adonijah. Pretty boring really especially as its more additional subplot than biblical story – The film’s biggest merit is that it reminded me of the Simpson’s take on it starring Homer as Solomon.

“They both claim ownership of this pie”
“The pie shall be cut in two … each man shall be given…death. - I’ll eat the pie”


Should really post about Joseph as well but its too long ago. Main points of interest were the earlier stories that are usually missed out for their incorrectness. Rape of Dina and Judah and Tamar, and Kingsley’s performance was great as expected. And an interesting take on Potiphar’s wife – made me think Julianne Moore would be good in the role for some reason.


Well that’s all really. Any comments?

Matt

FWIW, MattPage, we already have a thread on Genesis movies, in which I posted my own review of Jacob and Joseph, among others. I am surprised to realize that I completely forgot all about In the Beginning, though. (Then again, only HALF of that film is about Genesis, the other half being about Moses, as you note.)

: . . . Abraham leaving Ur was depicted very much as an Exodus.

Interesting. I really should get around to watching this film some time.

: I was disappointed though that the story skips poor old Isaac’s life I was looking
: forward to seeing something on his young life rather than just him meeting
: Rebecca and then getting conned by Jacob

Well, you have to admit, there isn't a whole lot to tell -- and what there IS, comes off like a rehash of events in the life of Abraham. That kind of recurrence is certainly possible historically, but on a dramatic level, it's kinda dull. (I think the only really "unique" experience Isaac had was that episode with the wells -- which, incidentally, came to mind the first time I saw Lawrence of Arabia and Omar Sharif's first appearance in that film. Some things never change!)

Yeah I was quite keen to see the wells episode. FWIW the story covered neither Isaac or Abraham's unfortunate tendency to pass their spouse off as their sister, so it would have been dramtically acceptable even if it leaves a question mark over authenticity (I would have though though that if this story belonged only to one of these two patriachs then it would be more likely Isaac than Abraham)

Matt

I saw the second half of Samson and Delilah on New Year's day. My brother in Law and I were amused by its billing of a story about a character with "Herculean" strength :s .

It was pretty lame - a few nods to DeMille (like DElilah played as a rich coutesan with leopards prowling around her apartment - a la Mary Magdalene in TKOK)).

It starred Maxvon sydow and Jose Ferrer (I think) as Philistines, but really it was all about showing as much of Samson and delialah's flesh as anything else. Samson had a Mullet, which was amusing, particularly as je's never meant to have had it cut ("here is your nazarit vow you must keep it short on the sides and never have the back cut"). We are also not shown Samson lying to deliah about the secret of his strength, and so she catches him first time, and she doesn't cut his haor very short, just does what any self respecting woman would do if her man had a mullet, and give hima short back and sides.

And when Samson pushed the temple pillars over it wasn't really obvious why everyone died, as they weren't in covered seating (I wondered this about DeMille's too IIRC)

THe film Story of Samson has never really interested me much for some reason.

Matt