Robinson as Dathan, Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora, Debra Paget as Lilia, and John Derek as Joshua and features Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Sethi, Nina Foch as Bithiah, Martha Scott as Yochabel, Judith Anderson as Memnet, and Vincent Price as Baka, among others. The film stars Charlton Heston in the lead role, Yul Brynner as Rameses, Anne Baxter as Nefretiri, Edward G. Southon, and the Book of Exodus, The Ten Commandments dramatizes the biblical story of the life of Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of his real brethren, the enslaved Hebrews, and thereafter leads the Exodus to Mount Sinai, where he receives, from God, the Ten Commandments. Ingraham, the 1937 novel On Eagle's Wings by A. Based on the 1949 novel Prince of Egypt by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, the 1859 novel Pillar of Fire by J. DeMille, shot in VistaVision (color by Technicolor), and released by Paramount Pictures.
#THE TEN COMMANDMENTS MOVIE REVIEW SERIES#
Known for his work on “Blue” and “The Double Life of Veronique,” Preisner here has come in almost on tiptoe, choosing a minimal musical mode that haunts each part of the series just as its cumulative effect will haunt all who take it in.The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American epic religious drama film produced, directed, and narrated by Cecil B. “Six” also exists in an expanded version, called “A Short Film About Love.” The most overtly erotic of the group, it deals with a young peeping Tom (Olaf Lubaszenko) who falls desperately in love with the woman he spies on (Grazyna Szapolowska).Īside from Kieslowski’s themes and his skill, a key factor unifying these stories is the somber score by veteran collaborator Zbigniew Preisner. A gloss on the nature of murder, both by the individual and by the state, it features one of the screen’s most graphic killings, spread out over more than seven minutes. “Five,” for example, also exists in an 85-minute version (known as “A Short Film About Killing”), which won several major European awards. The two best known parts are more celebrated because each was made into longer versions as well.
![the ten commandments movie review the ten commandments movie review](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cb/11/e0/cb11e017e12a446831c0b50d414c1164.jpg)
The camera work is fluid and precise, and the films are so rich they seem to be feature-length though they’re not.Įach of the 10 films is identified only by its number, and though in the past each has been linked to a specific commandment, this was apparently never Kieslowski’s intention. His spare, minimal visual preferences dominate each episode. These despairing, ambiguous pieces are always emotionally unsettling, and that is due in part to Kieslowski’s complete assurance as a director. The acute probing of psychological states in the hope of uncovering a sliver of illumination is why “Dekalog” was made. A lifetime of small decisions makes adults the way they are, and in moments of crisis it’s often too late to become someone else. Resolving these problems is not the director’s concern but rather investigating the gap between the ideals represented by the commandments and the way we end up living our lives. “He chooses between greater and lesser evil.” “Man doesn’t choose between good and evil,” is how the director put it in interviews. Utilizing the gravity and precision of parable, Kieslowski places his characters in agonizing dilemmas, confronting them with problems that defy solution.Īs compassionate as they are pessimistic, Kieslowski and co-writer Piesiewicz understand that when human needs are in conflict, life is without easy choices. What elevates “Dekalog” is not only that it deals with the most serious questions of life, death and belief but that it knows how passionate and dramatic these explorations can be made. Originally made for Polish television, “Dekalog,” as its name hints, is not one film but 10 segments, each between 56 and 62 minutes long, all co-written with Krzysztof Piesiewicz and all having the Ten Commandments as thematic source material. 9, its first theatrical appearance in 15 years, with a Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-Ray release to follow, all in a new digital transfer taken from the original 35 mm camera negative.
![the ten commandments movie review the ten commandments movie review](http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/blu-ray_reviews53/ten_commandments_blu-ray_/large/large_ten_commandments_blu-ray_4x.jpg)
Also dampening enthusiasm was the almost 10 years the film spent in a kind of video-release limbo, completely unavailable to American home viewing audiences.Īll that is about to change as “Dekalog” opens at the Cinefamily on Sept. Its great Polish director died 20 years ago, and young (age 54), so there have been no new films to keep his name alive. The reasons this exceptional work is not better known are not hard to find. Of these Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1988 “Dekalog” is one of the greatest. There are great films everyone celebrates, and then there are great films few people remember.