The Bible . . . In the Beginning

Released by Twentieth Century Fox in 1966, The Bible . . . In the Beginning was produced by Dino DeLaurentis, the Italian mogul who made just about every kind of film during his lengthy career but is probably most famous, or infamous, for the 1976 remake of King Kong.

The subtitle (. . . In the Beginning) was hastily added to warn audiences that this was not an attempt to cram the entire Old and New Testaments into one three hour film. The movie might have been more accurately titled Genesis, but that title would have been familiar only to those who have actually read the Bible rather than bought a copy to place on the coffee table beside a bowl of plastic fruit.

The movie opens with God creating the heavens and the earth. Of course, we don’t see God, only lots of multi-colored mist and fog with a few clouds thrown in followed by shots of mountains and oceans and trees. Today, when more eye dazzling effects can be achieved on a computer, the opening is impressive for director John Huston’s deep-voiced reading of text from the King James Bible. That’s Huston again voicing the unseen serpent in the Garden of Eden who instigates man’s fall. The music, the subtle use of strings and foreboding flutes – the work of composer Toshiro Mayuzumi – adds a lot to this scene in which Michael Parks and Ella Bergryd play Adam and Eve.

Banished from the garden, the couple follows God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, giving birth to Cain and Abel. Cain is played by Richard Harris, but Abel is swiftly murdered and appears too briefly to warrant the presence of a high-priced star.

We soon move on to the story of Noah, and here the movie gets positively surreal since Noah is played by John Huston who continues to serve as narrator. We now have Huston talking to himself. A mob of heathens mock him as he builds the ark, and we can tell they’re heathens because of their colorful garb, quite a contrast to Noah’s dull sackcloth. The ark, though nicely made, looks too small to accommodate one male and one female representative of every living creature, but their entrance is the highlight of the film. Elephants, giraffes, monkeys, tigers, ducks, birds, turtles, and so on, all board the ark in pairs, doing so with none of the chaos found in the hallway of an elementary school when a class lines up to visit the bathroom. This sequence is cleverly and sweetly done, with one of Noah’s daughters running after a turtle that loses its way.

Once the rain falls and the ark rises, Noah remains calm, but then he’s also the director, less at the mercy of God than the film’s budget. Flooding the world has its advantages, but it does not drown out evil. Naughty man builds the Tower of Babel under the direction of Nimrod who “stores up thunder and wears the lightning like a crown.” The tower, more than likely a matte painting or a miniature, is quite a sight, as is Nimrod himself, played with heavy mascara by Stephen Boyd.

Ten generations later, Abraham is born and looks like George C. Scott. His wife, Sarai, looks like Ava Gardner. Scott was allegedly drunk during filming and his inebriated pursuit of Gardner raised the ire of director Huston. The tension may explain why this segment seems longer and slower paced than the others. When three angels appear to tell Abraham to rescue his brother, Lot, from Sodom and Gomorrah, these apparitions are portrayed by an ethereal Peter O’ Toole. Of course, Sodom is a hotbed of sin, filled with homosexuals and scantily clad women, all wearing exotic makeup and cavorting about to the sound of demented laughter and cracking whips. Scott and O’ Toole summon all their acting skills to convince us that they are offended.

The Abraham segment, culminating with the near sacrifice of his son, Isaac, concludes the film.

The screenplay is credited to Christopher Fry who salvaged, without screen credit, the script for Ben Hur. The credits for The Bible say that Fry was “assisted by Jonathan Griffin, Ivo Perilli, and Vittorio Bonicelli.” That seems like a lot of writers for a script built upon words from the book for which the film is named.

The Bible . . . In the Beginning doesn’t overwhelm with either its effects or dramatics, but it holds the attention, entertains, and adheres closely to scripture.

Brian W. Fairbanks

© 2014 Brian W. Fairbanks


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Gladiator: Self-pity is not box-office

The 1950s were a time of great confusion for Hollywood. A government ruling forced the studios to relinquish their ownership of theaters, depriving them of a guaranteed showcase for their product. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), claiming subversive messages were being planted in Hollywood films, instituted a witch-hunt that gave birth to the still controversial “blacklist.” And a booming post WWII economy meant the American public could afford diversions other than movies, including television, which brought entertainment into the living room free of charge.

If Hollywood was powerless against the government and a vastly altered economy, it did meet the challenge of television. Cinemascope, a process that turned the once square movie screen into a huge rectangle, was introduced along with stereophonic sound. But Hollywood also needed blockbuster themes to fill that space, so they created the “spectacle.” You weren’t going to find a recreation of ancient Rome on I Love Lucy, or a slave rebellion on The Tonight Show, so the movies brought us The Robe, The Ten Commandments, and Ben-Hur.

The fact that most of these films had Biblical themes may have been a way for Hollywood to show HUAC that the industry was not as subversive as Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed, but it was also a way to sneak in something else TV couldn’t offer: SEX! Salome didn’t dance in a raincoat, and Bathsheba didn’t tempt David while wearing a flannel nightgown. "Historical accuracy” (as filmmakers loosely defined it) helped Hollywood slip a lot of cleavage past the censors.

Like any genre, the “spectacle” faded from view, partly due to changing tastes, but also due to economics. A "cast of thousands" actually cost millions, and so did all those sets and costumes. But in 1995, Braveheart showed how computer technology could turn an army of a hundred into an army of thousands. So now, at a still astronomical cost of $100 million, Dreamworks and Universal bring forth Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe, a recent Oscar nominee for The Insider, but still better known as Bud White, the short-tempered cop of L.A. Confidential.

What's it about?

In his one of his essays on Hollywood, author Gore Vidal (an uncredited writer on Ben-Hur) let the screenwriter whom he called the Wise Hack, explain the ingredients for a successful movie. The writers of Gladiator haven't strayed from the formula one bit.

"First you identify your characters. Then you show us your problem. Then you bring on your hero. Then you kick him in the balls. Then you show how he takes that kick. Does he feel sorry for himself? Never. Because self-pity is not box-office."

The problem in Gladiator is that the Emperor is dying. As his successor, the Emperor chooses a Roman General named Maximus (yes, Maximus. Names like Bob and Ralph never caught on in ancient Rome). Maximus is our hero. Ah, but the dying Emperor has a son, Commodus, who believes he is entitled to the title. So, before Maximus' appointment is made public, Commodus (commode?), murders his father, proclaims himself Emperor, then provides our hero with a kick to the groin by sentencing Maximus to death.

So, how does our hero take that kick to the groin?

Pretty well.

Maximus escapes execution, is sold as a gladiator (ala Spartacus), and soon becomes a big hit with the bloodthirsty crowd, and never does he show self-pity. Can his revenge against Commodus be far behind?

When a movie's running time is in the neighborhood of three hours, yes, it can be, and is, far behind, but we know his revenge is inevitable. After all, this isn't the first movie we've seen.

Whether or not Gladiator's box-office success is inevitable is another matter, but as "spectacles" go, it is sufficiently spectacular. If it lacks the inflated dignity of Ben-Hur and the passion of Spartacus, it easily outstrips any of those made in Italy "spectacles" starring Steve Reeves. There's plenty of violence, including beheadings, the cutting off of hands, and other forms of carnage. These aren't the kind of things Fred Astaire described in the song, "That's Entertainment!" but Fred is dead, my friends, and brutality is apparently what the people prefer these days.

In those rare moments when heads aren't flying off of necks and the blood ceases to flow, Gladiator is often a feast for the eyes, but the role that computers played in the making of the film is obvious once too often. Even when it's not obvious, somehow the "spectacle" isn't as impressive when you know it was generated at a keyboard, rather than built brick by brick by human hands. The somewhat washed-out colors of the sloppily choreographed battle sequences suggest the influence of Saving Private Ryan (also a Dreamworks production), and the script shows the influence of spectacles past with one notable difference. If there is even one fleeting reference to Christianity or anything Biblical, I missed it. There's no longer a Senator Joe McCarthy to appease, and, besides, "political correctness" demands that every religion be given equal time. Self-pity isn't box office, and neither is alienating a ticket buying customer whose own beliefs, or lack thereof, do not gel with the storyline.

Russell Crowe is both strong and sympathetic in the lead role. In beefing up for the film, he wisely resisted the temptation to look like he just stepped out of a Beverly Hills health club. He manages to look like an authentic gladiator rather than a Playgirl centerfold. A good actor who has yet to achieve stardom, Crowe isn't likely to get a better shot at the big time than this.

The rest of the cast is also quite good. Certainly, any movie that finds room for both Richard Harris (as the dying Emperor) and the late Oliver Reed (who died during filming) already has much in its favor. Like Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, and Christopher Walken, Harris and Reed are born "characters," and, as such, don't need much assistance from the screenwriter. These two are almost always worth watching.

Even this early into the year 2000, I can safely say that Ridley Scott's film is not the best picture of the year. But since Hollywood loves an epic, it won't surprise me if the voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences smile broadly on Gladiator next year, just as it honored Mel Gibson's forgettable Braveheart in 1995. If Gladiator isn't worthy of the best picture Oscar, it's still a pretty good, generally thoughtful, if predictable, entertainment. In other words, it's exactly what Mr. Vidal's Wise Hack recommended.

For those of us old enough to remember the glory days of the "spectacle," the main appeal of Gladiator may be that it's kind of nostalgic. For younger viewers, it may provide a good introduction to the genre. It certainly beats another sequel to Scream.

Brian W. Fairbanks

Originally published at Paris Woman Journal
© 2000 Brian W. Fairbanks


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Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven

In Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, the winner of four 1992 Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, people die just as they have in dozens upon dozens of westerns but with one difference: whereas even the most minor characters killed off in westerns of the past were permitted to die with some dignity, in Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood, directing from an original screenplay by David Webb Peoples, is not concerned with appearances. People die wherever their killer finds them.

In one scene, a man is plugged full of bullets in an outhouse. He spews blood while defecating, his arteries emptying along with his bowels. John Ford, and even Sam Peckinpah, would have let their characters make more graceful exits, at least letting them pull up their pants, but Eastwood makes no concessions to decorum. If the scene was choreographed, it was only to insure that it did not appear rehearsed. One does not watch the scene and express admiration for the "cool" or dramatic way in which the victim stumbles to the ground. In Unforgiven, being killed is an ugly, painful humiliation, almost as much for the killer as it is for the victim.

The plot of Unforgiven is a simple one: a prostitute’s face is slashed by a cowboy who takes offense at the woman’s having laughed at his "small pecker." When the sheriff (Gene Hackman) refuses to punish the crime in a manner that the women consider appropriate (he merely demands that the cowboy repay the saloon owner for the loss of income that will result from the slashed hooker’s diminished appeal to customers), they band together to offer a reward to anyone who will administer a more violent and permanent punishment.

Soon, a young arrogant figure calling himself the "Schofield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvetz) rides onto the Kansas farm of William Munny (Eastwood), a once sadistic killer now reformed through the love of a wife whose grave Munny is seen digging during the opening credits. "I’m not like that no more," Munny tells the Kid, but with two small children and a failing farm to support, Munny eventually accepts the Kid’s offer to join him in pursuit of the "whore’s gold," but only after enticing his former partner, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman), to share the journey into Big Whiskey, Wyoming, and, of course, sharing the reward.

As they make their way to the town where Sheriff Little Bill Daggett rules in an especially brutal manner when not building a house, on the porch of which he dreams of "drinking my coffee and watching the sunset," Munny and Logan remember their wild and unconscionably violent days which they now regret and believe are safely behind them. Munny is not convinced, however, and continually expresses shame and horror at his past cruelties. He is a haunted man, not at all eager to feed the Kid’s hunger for details about the art of killing.

W.W. Beuchchamp (Saul Rubinek), a writer, "of books," as he repeatedly tells those who ask, is as eager as the Kid to hear of the exploits of such merchants of death as Munny, as well as English Bob (Richard Harris), a cold-blooded killer whose romanticized biography Beuchchamp is writing. The elegant Bob arrives in Big Whiskey with Beuchchamp in tow, eager to collect the bounty, but instead of living up to the title that Beuchchamp has given him, "The Duke of Death," Bob gets a severe dressing down from Daggett who exposes the fraud behind English Bob’s legend, in addition to beating the fanciful gunfighter senseless. As Bob lies defeated in Daggett’s jail cell, the cruel yet affable sheriff debunks the myths of the West’s quick-draw and short-tempered killers, including one of Bob’s victims, a man called "two-gun," not, as Beuchchamp believes, because he carried two pistols, but because he had an especially large penis which he once placed in the wrong woman’s holster, leading to his demise at the hands of the jealous Englishman.

With Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood casts a cold objective eye on the realities of the West after the gunsmoke from decades worth of Hollywood westerns has cleared. There are no heroes in Eastwood’s vision, only men and women whose flawed spirits take their toll on the flesh, their own and others. There’s good and bad evident in the best and the worst of the people in Big Whiskey, but it’s the ugly - the ugliness of vanity, revenge, money and death - that Unforgiven emphasizes.

The performances are impeccable. As Munny, Eastwood, often dismissed as a "star" who gets by on his charismatic presence in lieu of acting, offers the finest performance of his long career. Twenty-eight years after A Fistful of Dollars launched him on the road to superstardom, Eastwood’s William Munny could be the laconic and mercenary Man With No Name, now aged and mellow, and mournfully looking back, finally feeling the pain his recklessness had caused others. Gene Hackman’s Oscar winning Little Bill is a man who exploits his sheriff’s badge to maintain an egotistical control over the town, rather than to keep the peace. Morgan Freeman provides the compassionate balance that keeps Munny from drowning in his self-pitying nightmares, and, as the Schoefield Kid, Jaimz Woolveet embodies the youthfully ignorant bravado that Munny and Logan dropped before the Kid was born.

There is also Richard Harris whose marvelous portrait of English Bob compensates for the shameless mugging he has engaged in through a string of unworthy, career killing projects in the two decades preceding this deserved comeback. The rest of the cast, including Frances Fisher as Strawberry Alice, the hooker who proposes that the women seek revenge, and Anna Thompson, the "cut whore," are also excellent.

And then there’s long, lean Anthony James as Skinny, the saloon keeper. Twenty five years earlier, James made his film debut as Ralph, the man behind the counter of the diner where Warren Oates liked to sip Coke and eat pie in another Oscar winner for best picture, In the Heat of the Night. James is one of the great unheralded character actors of our time, and his presence is always welcome.

The cinematography by Jack Green, editing by Oscar winner Joel Cox, sets by Harry Bumstead, and music score by Lennie Niehous (centered on "Claudia’s Theme" written by Eastwood) are all first-rate. The personnel behind the scenes are all regulars in Eastwood’s Malpaso company, and it is interesting to note that Eastwood is the only major director--in fact, the only director currently working--to shun the possessive credit ("A film by...") that was once reserved for the absolute giants of the craft--Hitchcock, Ford, Hawks--but is now claimed by every traffic cop who steps behind a camera. Eastwood recognizes the art of filmmaking as a collaborative effort, one which a director leads but surely cannot do alone. Perhaps Eastwood’s generosity is what makes his team continually strive to deliver their absolute best. With Unforgiven, they have.

Brian W. Fairbanks

© 1999 Brian W. Fairbanks


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