The Ten Commandments details
| Format: | U LOVEFiLM Instant |
|---|---|
| Starring: | Theodore Roberts, Charles de Rochefort, Estelle Taylor |
| Director: | Cecil B. DeMille |
| Genre: | Drama - General |
| Collections: | Almighty Movies, Silence is Golden, Silent Cinema, Tenuous Numbers |
| Title | Runtime | Certificate | |
|---|---|---|---|
The Ten Commandments |
2hrs 16 mins | U |
LOVEFiLM Instant Information
| Run time: | 2 hours 16 minutes |
|---|---|
| Rental release: | To be confirmed |
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Most helpful review
Great Biblical blockbuster
By Christinekay (29 reviews) from Southampton , 12 Nov 2010[Highly rated reviewer]
The film industry was still in its relative infancy when Cecil B de Mille made 'The Ten Commandments'. One of the first directors to understand how film worked, and how to hold the attention of its audience, he spent a fortune for the time on the production.
The film is essentially two stories, the first being the Prologue which shows the events leading up to Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. There was obviously no CGI technology in those days, and it must have been a thrill for contemporary audiences to have witnessed the spectacle of the flight from Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea on a big screen. De Mille was a perfectionist, and put a great deal of care into both the historical and spectacular aspects of the story - and it shows. Even now, many of the scenes depicted would thrill a modern-day audience.
The second part - the modern story - takes us to 20th century America, where we are shown the consequences of ignoring and disobeying the Commandments. It was a favourite trick of de Mille's to have a moral tone in his films, but at the same time, depicting the sins which led to his characters' downfall, in this case the dissolute son of a God-fearing woman and his equally principled brother, played by Richard Dix.
It is easy to laugh at silent films - people will say that the style of acting in many cases is too overwrought and lacking realism. In the same way, special effects are not as sophisticated are they are now, for obvious reasons. However, stop and think for a minute on the above - it was thanks to films like this that the cinema industry got going and garnered the huge audiences it wanted. As time went on, it managed to attract more and more personnel, technicians as well as actors, many of whom took up de Mille's ideas (and those of his equals) and added to them, ending up with the high-tech cinema we have now. Without him and his peers, would there have been a 'Star Wars'? 'Inception'? 'The Dark Knight'? 'The Ten Commandments' deserves our respect and attention not just for the film it is, but for the films where it paved the way ahead.- Was this review helpful to you?
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(1)Great Biblical blockbuster
By Christinekay (29 reviews) from Southampton , 12 Nov 2010The film industry was still in its relative infancy when Cecil B de Mille made 'The Ten Commandments'. One of the first directors to understand how film worked, and how to hold the attention of its audience, he spent a fortune for the time on the production.
The film is essentially two stories, the first being the Prologue which shows the events leading up to Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. There was obviously no CGI technology in those days, and it must have been a thrill for contemporary audiences to have witnessed the spectacle of the flight from Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea on a big screen. De Mille was a perfectionist, and put a great deal of care into both the historical and spectacular aspects of the story - and it shows. Even now, many of the scenes depicted would thrill a modern-day audience.
The second part - the modern story - takes us to 20th century America, where we are shown the consequences of ignoring and disobeying the Commandments. It was a favourite trick of de Mille's to have a moral tone in his films, but at the same time, depicting the sins which led to his characters' downfall, in this case the dissolute son of a God-fearing woman and his equally principled brother, played by Richard Dix.
It is easy to laugh at silent films - people will say that the style of acting in many cases is too overwrought and lacking realism. In the same way, special effects are not as sophisticated are they are now, for obvious reasons. However, stop and think for a minute on the above - it was thanks to films like this that the cinema industry got going and garnered the huge audiences it wanted. As time went on, it managed to attract more and more personnel, technicians as well as actors, many of whom took up de Mille's ideas (and those of his equals) and added to them, ending up with the high-tech cinema we have now. Without him and his peers, would there have been a 'Star Wars'? 'Inception'? 'The Dark Knight'? 'The Ten Commandments' deserves our respect and attention not just for the film it is, but for the films where it paved the way ahead.- Was this review helpful to you?
- (1) Yes |
- No (0)
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