Les Dix Commandements

If you imagine something as a historical Hollywood epic, it could be this movie. The religious aspect is quite emphasized here, but it is also quite cool how it is filmed. There are grand scenes, some visually impressive, although it doesn't look as good today, but overall it fits well. Charlton Heston as Moses was an excellent choice. (12/01/2015)

In its day, a national event. Taking inflation and currency development into account, The Ten Commandments is the 5th highest-grossing film in American cinemas of all time with almost 900 million in box-office receipts (by the way, the top two are Gone With The Wind and Star Wars). Unfortunately, Cecil B.de Mille seems to have been stuck in the silent era. The whole film has a kind of static theatrical stylization, even during long scenes the camera doesn’t move from the same place, leaving the actors to recite their dialogues in a mechanical manner, full of unnatural pathos. After almost 4 hours, this stiff pathos and lack of directorial inventiveness, which would have refreshed the film a bit, becomes quite tiresome. Still, I give it 4*, perhaps for the aura of old, seductively megalomaniacal Hollywood that permeates the whole film. The plethora of high-end studio sets is almost breathtaking. And the special effects? The Oscar for visual effects was, I believe, well deserved. The animated rear projections, which look spectacular and not at all out of place (as was usual at the time) and the sequence of the march across the Red Sea is absolutely breathtaking and unique for its time (even today it’s very evocative). I can't really fault the visuals, but considering the exorbitant runtime, it's hard to repeat this epic Old Testament "trip" a second time. (23/03/2008)

The longest among the longest classic great movies fulfilled my expectations to the tee. Megalomaniac sets, hundreds of extras, breathtaking rear projections and top actors dressed in beautiful period costumes. But the inventiveness of the direction is not even close to William Wyler’s or David Lean’s and The Ten Commandments, though majestic and almost flawless narratively, formally speaking, is like a poor relative of the very best big movies of the period. What I mean mostly is the static staging of the scenes in interiors – the special effects and the climactic action sequences (in particular the parting of the Red Sea) are still superb. And Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner couldn't be cast better. 80% (14/05/2020)