IIn the beginning, no, there wasn’t the word, though that was there too, but we’re talking the beginning of Hollywood’s mining of the Bible for on-screen spectacle — so, in the beginning there was Was Words. The 50s and 60s were the golden age of epic spectacle in Hollywood, with 1959 being Ben-Hur To be the jewel of a multicoloured crown.
The naval battles and chariot races still blaze a trail, as does Charlton Heston as the Jewish prince who is mistreated by his best friend, the Roman Messala (Stephen Boyd). Ben-Hur’s roaring frenzy of revenge only stops when he sees Christ forgive the men who crucified him.
the Golden Age
Although some stories of the day were taken from the Bible, including Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949) with Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr The Ten Commandments (1956) starred Heston as Moses, another prince in search of his heritage, with the fiery Yul Brynner as Ramesses and Anne Baxter as Nefretiri, and others more Biblical.
Dress (1953) stars Richard Burton as Tribune, who commands the unit that crucifies Christ and how the experience changes him. Quo Vadis (1951), set during the final years of the reign of the Emperor Nero, was the greatest fun thanks to Peter Ustinov’s turn as the emperor – I can see him staring through the emeralds in my mind’s eye. Quo Vadis“Where are you going”, are the first words St. Peter said to the resurrected Christ on the Appian Way.
Yvonne De Carlo, Charlton Heston and John Derek in a scene from the film ‘The Ten Commandments’ | Photo Credit: Archive Photos
Stanley Kubrick, as usual, followed suit, and Spartacus (1960), he did it in a brilliantly cool way. Set in, according to the voice over, “the last century before the birth of the new religion called Christianity,” the film about a slave who became a gladiator and led a rebellion against the pagan Romans (yes, yes, Ridley Scott’s the Gladiator (it also plays to similar tunes) stars the deliciously cleft-chinned Kirk Douglas as Spartacus. Ustinov does fun work as Batiatus, who recruits Spartacus into his gladiatorial school, but Laurence Olivier as Crassus and his famous line, “My tastes include both snails and oysters,” uttered as he rescues his slave from a bathtub, shocked and thrilled moviegoers.
The Digital Turn
The millennium saw a resurgence of swords and togas, starting with Scott winning multiple Oscars. the Gladiator in 2000. The connotations of Christianity were stripped away as we all bowed our heads and prayed to a digital god they created and CGI became king. All sorts of VFX magic was used, from increasing the height of the Colosseum model, to shooting animals on green screen and later compositing them into the frame. Russell Crowe plays Maximus, a Roman general forced into slavery, while Joaquin Phoenix as the evil, incestuous emperor Commodus is funnier than a certain clown.
The return of the biblical epic happened 10 years ago with Darren Aronofsky Noah (2014), in which Crowe played an Old Testament patriarch, as well as the reboot of The Ten Commandments And Ben-Hur. Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) stars Christian Bale as Moses and clashes swords with Joel Edgerton’s Ramses II. Foreigner Star Sigourney Weaver was also in the film as Queen Tuya. Ben-Hur (2016), starring Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell as Ben-Hur and Messala, wasn’t much fun.
Lack of imagination
Paul W. S. Anderson PompeiiThis movie, which came in 2014, was also very scary. This movie is based on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. game of ThronesKit Harington as a gladiator, yada yada. Carrie-Anne Moss and Kiefer Sutherland, among others, looked like they wanted to be buried by the ashes of Vesuvius. The film also proved that no matter how great technological advancements get, nothing can replace imagination, which is kind of comforting, because the day AI can make an entertaining movie will be the day Skynet truly takes over.
A scene from Paul W.S. Anderson’s ‘Pompeii’
HBO’s show ‘Ancient Greece and Rome’ was better portrayed on the small screen. Rome Depicting the power struggles of the time of Julius Caesar in two acclaimed seasons and Starz’s SpartacusCreated by Sam Raimi, this novel tells the story of a slave general who takes on the might of the Roman Empire over the course of three spectacular seasons.
Rome at the time of Julius Caesar provides much for drama with its battles, political machinations, and crisis of faith in the divine right of kings. Caesar brought Rome to its heights with his conquests and public works, but also paved the way for its destruction with his formula of bread and circuses
those who are about to die which dropped on Amazon Prime Video last month, while it is inspired by Daniel P. Mannix’s book of the same name, which also served as the inspiration for the Gladiator This movie was terrible, the CGI was not used with any imagination. Hopefully, Gladiator IIDirected by Scott, the film stars Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Connie Nielsen and Denzel Washington. The film will prove to be a great blend of cutting edge VFX and imagination. If not, we can always go back. Ben-HurGalley Slave No. 41, thrilling naval battles, and thrilling chariot races. Incidentally, the chariot races echo Anakin’s pod races in the galaxy far, far away. The Phantom Menace, No?
