Moses On The Silver Screen

         

I have seen Cecil B. DeMille's epic drama The Ten Commandments and the DreamWorks animated feature The Prince of Egypt. Both are cinematic adaptation of the book of Exodus in the Bible, and both are incredibly epic. I have decided to compare and contrast the two. I wanted to compare them with The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible: Moses, but then decided that a) that would be one thing too many here, and b) Sunday School videos are designed for teaching purposes and not so much for entertainment (although I happen to be one of those freaks who watches educational films for fun). But I'm getting off topic here so let's look at the two feature films about Moses. 

 

I will be looking at four major components in this piece: Moses, Rameses, story, and the portrayal of God.

                                     

1. Moses

Moses in DeMille's classic is a heroic character, complete with huge biceps and good looks. He is brother to Rameses in this film. He exudes charisma and is the kind of guy you want to follow. He's portrayed at the beginning as a great prince, almost the heir to the throne (more like a rip-off of Radamès in my own not-so-humble opinion). He has it all; status, leadership, respect, and the love of the princess Nefertari. Of course all of that gets taken away when a) he finds out that his mother is Yocheved and not Pharoah's daughter (named Bithiah in this film), and b) when he kills an Egyptian overseer when the latter beats up Joshua (of the Battle of Jericho fame). He is left to die in the desert and ends up in the land of Midian where he meets Jethro the high priest, and marries the man's eldest daughter Tziporah. He lives as a shepherd for many years until God appears to him in the form of a burning bush. 

 

In the DreamWorks film, Moses is the everyman. He's still a handsome young prince at the beginning of the story, but he's not a heroic character. He's close with his adopted brother Rameses, and the two of them get each other into all sorts of mischief. However, after Moses finds out about his true origins (and accidentally kills an Egyptian overseer who was beating an old man), he flees into the desert. He finds himself in Midian where he meets Tziporah and her sisters, the daughters of Jethro. Moses marries Tziporah and lives as a shepherd until God meets him in the form of a burning bush.  

In both films, Moses finds out about his heritage many years after Yocheved sets him adrift in the basket. In reality, his older sister Miriam asked the princess if she could find a nurse for him. The princess said yes, and Miriam brought Yocheved. Moses would have gone to the palace after he had been weaned (around age six in those days), so he knew who he really was.  The main difference between Moses as done by Charlton Heston and Moses as done by Val Kilmer is that in The Prince of Egypt, Moses grows into his role as a leader.  In The Ten Commandments, he's a born leader.  In real life, he had a stutter which is why his brother Aaron did most of the talking at first. 

2. Rameses

Rameses II is portrayed as the pharaoh of the Exodus in both films. Today, however, he is considered by many scholars to be the least likely candidate. It doesn't help the Pharaohs were considered gods, and so their failures were never recorded by their own people. So we don't really know the identity of the Pharaoh to whom Moses said "Let my People Go!".

       In the 1956 film, Rameses is shown as cold and completely non-caring about anyone but himself. He is cruelty and harshness incarnate. In fact, before Plague No. 10, Moses says to him, “out of your own lips shall come the judgment.” Rameses doesn't stop and think at all and says after Moses has left the room, “Tonight, all the firstborn male Hebrews shall die.” Guess what actually ends up happening?

In the 1998 film, Rameses is a much more tragic figure.  And he has a very close relationship with Moses in the first half of the movie.  He is much more complex in his cruelty, which stems not from being cold-hearted, but from a desire to live up to his overbearing father's expectations. Seti says early on “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty.” And this frightens Rameses, who does not want to be that weak link that breaks the dynastic chain. He becomes obsessed with this fear, which not only makes him oppress the Israelites even worse than before, but also inevitably leads to his downfall.

3. Story and characters

The Ten Commandments is a four-hour epic drama. The story opens with the massacre of the Hebrews' male infants, moves on to Moses' life in Pharaoh's court, his exile and marriage to Tziporah, and then the details of the Exodus, including the bit with the Golden Calf. I've already made references to it twice, but the bulk of the first half felt like a massive rip-off of Verdi's operas Aïda and Nabucco (not that Nabucco is any more faithful to the Book of Daniel). The second half is more faithful to the historical account, although given the limited technology of the time, the plagues sequence is limited to the Nile turning to blood, hail raining down, and the Angel of Death smiting the firstborn.  We get the Exodus itself, the crossing of the Red Sea, the reception of the Ten Commandments, the Golden Calf, and Moses farewell at the end of his life. 

        The story is very complex, filled with many subplots and a whole bunch of composite and Original Characters. Sometimes this works and other times it doesn't.  An example of an original/composite character that works is Lilia. She is an original character written to be a love interest for Joshua. She is a young a beautiful woman who is captured and made a slave by Dathan. (In real life, Dathan was a dissenter who led a rebellion against Moses during the journey to the Promised Land. In the film, he's a Hebrew turncoat). Lilia endures so much for Joshua's sake and the Golden Calf scene is nearly made a human sacrifice.  She is saved, however, by the timely intervention of Moses and Joshua.  

  Joshua deserves mentioning here. Of all the characters in The Ten Commandments, his was the best done. He has such unshakable faith in the LORD, just like in real life. He will not let Lilia die in the tenth plague (both are firstborn), and despite Dathan's protests, he paints the Blood of the Lamb on the door posts of the turncoat’s house.

An example of a character that didn't quite work was Nefertari. It's not that she was a badly done character; she's a fascinating character. She has to choose between the man she loves (Moses) and the man she marries (Rameses). The problem is that the character seemed like a better fit for an Aïda spin-off than for a Bible retelling (she had Amneris written all over her). It also doesn't help that we don't really know what Nefertari's relationship was Rameses really was. This leaves the door open for some ridiculously dramatic speculation.  

The Prince of Egypt is also an epic but it is a much more intimate drama. The story centers around Moses and his relationship with his adopted brother Rameses. The story opens with Pharaoh's army slaughtering the Hebrew boy babies, and Yochevod setting her infant son adrift in the basket. The basket is retrieved by the bathing Queen Tuya who adopts the child and names him Moses. She already has a little boy names Rameses. Moses and Rameses grow up close, and naturally wreak havoc together. But as the events transpire, the two are separated. When Moses returns after years in the desert, Rameses is Pharaoh, but Moses has been called by God to lead the Israelites out of slavery and into the Promised Land. This puts them at odds.

       Given the advanced technology, this film was able to show a full plagues sequence (yes, I will admit it, that part is my favorite). We also get the Exodus, but only up the Red Sea. And the film with only a brief shot of Moses with the Ten Commandments.

This film sacrificed a lot of historical accuracy, but in the process, it also brought out another important Biblical Truth: The cost of being a disciple.  Moses loses his relationship with Rameses when he decides that God should take precedence in his life.  But he also gains so much more than he left when he leads Israel out of Egypt. 

The only actually OC's in The Prince of Egypt were the high priests of Ra Hotep and Huy (in real life Jannes and Jambres), and these two primarily functioned as comic relief.  Sometimes the antics came off in a way that probably didn't fit the story in some places. That didn't prevent them from being intimidating in their Villain Song “Playing with the Big Boys, Now”, however; good thing Moses snake ate theirs.  Hotep and Huy work well in the film.

Both films expanded the role of Tziporah; The Prince of Egypt especially gave her a prominent role. She's the one who accompanies into Egypt when he goes to confronts Pharaoh. While The Ten Commandments sticks to Aaron accompanying Moses like in real life, Tziporah is seen coming with Moses and staying with him in Goshen. She is also at Sinai when the Israelites sin with the Golden Calf (they used her Greek name in the film for some strange reason). But she stayed in Midian in real life.

       Aaron's role in both films is rather interesting. While The Ten Commandments stuck to what happned, in The Prince of Egypt, his role is reduced and he has lost his faith in God. But both were well done. John Carradine or Jeff Goldblum; I'll take either one.  Miriam does not get much screen time in DeMille's feature, but in the DreamWorks version, is shown as a woman who will not let go of her faith. She sees in Moses who he is and what he is to be, even when he does not at first recognize her.

Both films did beautifully with the plagues sequence.  The 1956 film skims over the bulk of them due to the technical limitations of the day, but the ones it does show are terrifying.  The 1998 film shows all ten, although it telescopes nine months into several days, and shows plagues two through nine all combined into one major disaster.  And they both culminate in the Death of the Firstborn, the most important plague of them all (not only was it the one that convinced Pharaoh to release the Hebrews, it pointed forward to Jesus dying in our place on the cross).  And both films show the Angel of Death as a silent moving cloud.  There is no music in that scene at all.  

                                           

4. Portrayal of God

This is the most important component of the bunch. I care very much about whether or not the director is reverent in their depiction.

     The Ten Commandments features God with the stereotypical booming basso profundo.  I cannot be too hard on the special effects; at the time they were considered cutting edge.  Still, the Burning Bush still merely looks like just a bush with a light placed inside.  But while I found the Pillar of Fire utterly cartoony, I still thought the scene where God writes the Ten Commandments was amazing (maybe it was the words being written out in fiery bursts on rocks that I liked).  
                                                              

In The Prince of Egypt, Val Kilmer's own voice was used for the voice of God.  It makes sense because God often speaks in a still small voice.  The Burning Bush was given a very supernatural feel to it.  In this film, God's presence is very palpable.  He embraces Moses through the fire of the Burning Bush.  And in the Red Sea sequence, the Pillar of Fire actually shoots up out of the water to block the Egyptian army. 

Which of the two do I prefer?  The faith element in The Prince of Egypt feels much more alive and reverent than in The Ten Commandments.  One of biggest themes in the DreamWorks picture is keeping faith even in tough times, whereas DeMille's tale is meant to be an epic.  So with that said, The Prince of Egypt is the one I prefer (certainly it's the one I've seen most often).  That doesn't mean I don't like Cecil B. DeMille's classic; I quite enjoyed it.  But the business with Nefertari was a huge distraction for me and the faith element didn't feel as real.  

To be fair, DeMille and DreamWorks were writing for different audiences.  DeMille was writing for an audience who knew the story inside and out to some degree or another, and was going all out for Verdi-esque spectacle.  The directors of The Prince of Egypt were writing for an audience that wasn't as scripturally literate, and made personal drama the focus of them film.  

Both are worth watching, but as that great sage Brother Juniper once said, "It can't compare withe the Book."