I have this vague sense that I should have many of the big, significant, epic, important, well-loved, etc., movies on hand in my DVD collection. While I may turn to, say, "It's a Wonderful Life" infrequently, knowing it's there grants some peace of mind. It's similar to living in Manhattan, where you know you can get a roast beef with Russian dressing at 3AM, but you may only do it once or twice after school.
So, I recently got the 1956 version of "The Ten Commandments", self-styled "Greatest Event In Motion Picture History", so big it takes two RSDL DVDs and still has almost no room left for DVD extras beyond three trailers. I watched this in two sittings -- the intermission is where the disks are split, and, even with the overacting and the earnestness made all the more glaring by our irony-laden times, it's still a fantastic movie. It's held up well over the decades. I believe this is also the first time I've seen the film in a theatrical, widescreen format. All the previous viewings were on TV, during the annual Passover/Easter showing of the film on ABC. I don't quite remember how it looked on these occasions, but I kept imagining Moses waving his staff at an offscreen Pharoh. Actually, the aspect ratio was at 1:66, so it couldn't have been that bad.
I'm not sure what to say about the film. Yes, it diverges widely from Exodus, with three lines of Biblical verse extrapolated into three hours of movie. The plot and its more famous scenes have seeped in through cultural osmosis. The robed and bearded Charlton Heston holding the Commandments is referenced and parodied, from Mel Brooks to the Simpsons. Even if you've never actually sat down to watch the movie, these images drift in our collective subconscious.
In this sense, it's difficult if not impossible to watch the film without some amount of self-reference and cultural commentary. The MST3K-style thought bubble above Heston's head, while God is inscribing the Commandments, asking, "Hey, God, what about the right to bear arms?" is the most obvious. The notion that Moses should have stuck around to become Pharoh and then freed the slaves -- changing the system from within -- is the most post-1960s. An notion that Joshua could really have used some project management software during the Exodus is perhaps the most late 1990s. And, really, why did people continue to listen to Dathan after each of his suggestions proves somewhat unsound by a series of literal acts of God? Such thoughts and audience commentary makes for a more rolicking film. And our sensibilities about how films should look has changed, letting in chuckles at the most inappropriate moments. The most wince-worthy moment is when the Red Sea parts, and there are these three women on a rock, looking across the screen in windswept, forearm-to-forehead awe. Actually, I'm sure this scene looked ridiculous and wince-worthy in the 1950s.
The political context of the film is somewhat ambiguous to me. They talk about freedom from slavery, and the freedom of God's law. The introduction by Cecil B. DeMille makes it feel like there's an anti-Communist slant to things, which is not surprising given the time it was made. There are other parts here and there which almost suggest the Civil Rights movement, which was getting underway at the time. It's not clear how conscious Hollywood would have been of such, though. I suppose it's because the film's main topic, the release from bondage and oppression, is simply resonant for America.
I should touch on the special effects. While they're not quite believable nowadays, they do well in the test of invoking a bit of awe. I guess it's all in how they're used in conjunction with the writing and music. Perhaps even more impressive to a fin-de-millennium audience are the scenes done without computer effects. In particular, there are those moments when you go, oh, my god, there are thousands of extras there. The craft of filmmaking simply awes in different ways.
As for the rest of the DVD, we only get three trailers to the film. These trailers span decades, actually, ranging from the original trailer, to a 1960s rerelease, to one for the 1980s rerelease. Subsequent trailers have gotten shorter and shorter. Interestingly, the first trailer doesn't really look like what we'd think of as a trailer. Instead, it feels like a mini-documentary, where someone talks to you about how the film was partially shot on location, how all these Biblical scholars and historians were consulted to insure "historical accuracy" in the script (contrast this to the recent "Noah's Ark", which had a Hercules-Legendary-Journeys style subplot with Lot coming at Noah as a patch-eyed pirate, or so I've been told), to the props of the Commandments used in the film. I didn't actually see the end of it: it's over fifteen minutes long, far greater than anything that would appear on, say, Entertainment Tonight these days.
I suppose I should at least briefly talk about DVD quality. The picture is very good, but my television sucks, so this isn't going to be liek the usual DVD review which rates picture quality. I can only tell if the image really, really blows (e.g., The Last Emperor) and nothing else. There is the standard stereo soundtrack, and a remastered Dolby 5.1 one, so you can hear, say, the Hebrew slaves shuffling around and making bricks out of your surround sound speakers.
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