Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Torturro, Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, Aaron Paul

Every time Ridley Scott makes a movie I consider it a gift from a cinematic god, so of course I was pumped when I heard that Scott would be directing this biblical ‘Magnus opus’, it seems right up his alley for various reasons. Number one is the fact that he is a master at making the fantastic believable, no matter how complex or how out there, he can make it real. This is something a lot of directors’ continually try to attempt yet fail horribly at; just take one look at Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 B.C. (2008) and you’ll see what I mean. Secondly, Egyptian civilization, pyramids and huge columns have always formed a huge part of Ridley Scott’s film aesthetic. Actually, while watching certain scenes in Exodus, I got a few Blade Runner (1982) flashbacks. Take a look at Blade Runner again and you’ll see just how influenced by the Egyptian civilization Blade Runners art design was, you’ll see pyramids all over the place. So anyhow, with Exodus, Ridley Scott went from the futuristic pyramids seen in Blade Runner, to depicting the actual first pyramids ever made, which in a way brings Ridley Scott's cinematic career full circle.

From the pyramids in Blade Runner (1982) (above) to the pyramids in Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) (below)

Currently we’re going through a religious revival in Hollywood, I guess this is an attempt to infuse society with ‘belief’ as a way to reinforce religious ideals in society, something I’m completely against because I imagine, like John Lennon, a world without religion, where we can be the rulers of our own destiny. But  alas, we live in a world where the grand majority of people are under mind control, and religion plays a huge part of that. Yet, oddly enough I find these biblical movies fascinating anyways because I seem them for what they are, stories, fantasies meant to enlighten us entertain us and maybe show us a thing or two along the way; nothing more. So, this review comes from a non believer who still finds movies like this entertaining. I mean, I loved the heck out of Cecil B. Demille’s The Ten Commandments (1956)! That film is so entertaining, so theatrical and so freaking epic! Of course, Ridley Scott had a lot on his plate, he not only had the responsibility of pleasing all those millions of Christians out there by keeping things somewhat faithful to biblical cannon, he also had to turn in an entertaining film that surpasses anything we’d seen before in terms of spectacle. Question is, did he achieve it?

A lot of things went right with this movie, for example, its scope brought to mind those old biblical movies like Ben-Hur (1959) and Cleopatra (1963), these are films filled with thousands of extras and incredible sets, wardrobe an art direction. I’m happy to say that that’s the kind of film you get with Exodus: Gods and Kings. You certainly won’t feel like you are being short changed with this movie, you’ll see the millions up on the screen. The detail paid to minutiae, is amazing. The carvings on the swords, the thrones, the walls, is just stunning, you’ll believe this is the Egypt of the bible, the film is very convincing in my book.  

One of the things that matters the most for a film of this kind to be successful is that it has to be faithful to the bible, or else the core audience will boycott the movie. In this sense I predict that theaters will be packed with religious folks, as opposed to say a film like Noah (2014), which got everything wrong by changing the story around so much that it alienated its target audience. Religious people didn't get the Noah that they wanted, so they didn't exactly back the movie up, if anything some Christians went to see Noah simply to see how wrong Aronofsky got their beloved biblical tales. This does not happen with Exodus: Gods and Kings which sticks pretty closely to the bible. Sure Ridley Scott takes a few artistic liberties here and there, but overall the story you get is the story that’s in the bible. Moses becomes the leader of the Hebrews, becomes their savior and with gods help, he frees them from the oppressive choke of the Egyptians.

My only problem with the film is that the story is way too epic for one film. This story could have easily been divided into two or three films and it could have been told better. As it is, at times I felt like the story was going in fast forward, skipping important moments that you'd expect to see. We go through the ten plagues, suddenly boom, we’re traveling through the desert, suddenly boom, we’re at the red sea, and boom it’s Ten Commandments time. Biblical events feel rushed, and a lot of important moments where left out. For example, the moment in which Moses turns his staff into a snake, or the moment when the Israelites get tired of waiting for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai so they build their own god and start worshiping a golden calf, then god opens the ground and swallows them up for being unfaithful to him. Why leave stuff like that out? I guess the movie would have been  four hours long if they did, which is why I say this film could have easily been turned into two films.  This is the reason why DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956) was divided into two segments, with an interlude for you to go tinkle. In his version, DeMille didn’t cut corners, he told the full thing and took his sweet time to do it. He’s cut of the film is ten minutes short of four hours! The problem is that Scott decided to tell the tale in one film, and my opinion, the story suffered because of this. Ridley Scott either chose to tell an incomplete tale, or a lot of footage was left in the cutting room floor and we might get to see it eventually in a directors’ cut. Still, the film remains amazing, remains epic, it’s just missing certain key moments that only true Christian fanatics will notice were left out.

This film has gotten some heat because supposedly it’s emotionless, but I disagree; I actually think it had a lot of emotion. There are some truly tender moments between Moses and his wife where we see a kinder, gentler side to the great leader. I guess what people are referring to is that Ridley Scott decided to go with a more believable way of telling this story, he avoided augmenting the supernatural elements whenever he could. I mean, sure we see lots of miracles happen (the ten plagues are simply amazing) but Scott found a way to explain most of them scientifically, they aren't just magical events. Even the parting of the Red Sea seems like the tide simply goes down in intensity till the people can simply walk through, Moses doesn't use his staff like it was a magic wand on this one. I guess we could say the film isn’t overly dramatic or theatrical and whenever it can it simply avoids the supernatural. This might take some as a surprise, especially for those who are expecting a huge special effects driven film or operatic performances. Here the effects are used with subtlety, yet when they appear they are a true wonder. Performances are also toned down when compared to Charlton Heston’s old time theatrics.

I enjoyed the amazing cast here, the only downside is that we have a lot of good actors in minor roles. John Torturro plays the pharaoh which took me by surprise. Ben Kingsley plays a Hebrew elder, but again, so underused. I mean, here we got Sigourney Weaver doing next to nothing on this film, same goes for Aaron Paul, but whatever, I hear the original cut of this film was reportedly four hours long, so we might be seeing more of these actors on a directors’ cut of the film, who knows. Final words is, Ridley Scott had a huge tale to tell here and even with these compromises I've mentioned, we still got an amazing film that can be appreciated by both the Christians who want to see their fantasies brought to life on the silver screen and by those film lovers who just want to see a good film. This is without a doubt a strong film and if you ask me, one of the best of the year.

Rating:  5 out of 5

  

Barton Fink (1991)

Title: Barton Fink (1991)

Director: Joel Coen

Cast: John Torturro, John Goodman, Judy Davis, John Mahoney, Steve Buscemi, Tony Shalhoub

Ask anybody who writes for a living and they’ll tell you, writing can be a noble, rewarding and even cathartic affair, but most of all, it can also be hell. In Barton Fink, the Coen Brothers captured this sentiment perfectly by telling the story of Barton Fink, a playwright who writes stories about “the common man”, the working stiff, Barton wants to be a voice for them. The good thing is that Barton’s plays are getting rave reviews; he’s finally getting a taste of success, of recognition. It’s at this same time that a Hollywood mogul offers Barton a job “writing for the pictures” paying him a thousand dollars a week. Barton accepts the job offer because he sees it as a way of making money that can later allow him to write more plays, not because he is thrilled at the idea of writing movies. So off Barton Fink goes to Hollywood. He stays at Hotel Earl, a name that sounds a lot like Hotel Hell, which I’m sure was the Coen’s direct intention. This is hell for Barton, because it’s where he intends to write his first screenplay, it’s where he intends to escape into the “life of the mind”. And so starts Barton Fink, a film that portrays Hollywood as a place filled with wound up, greedy and downright crazy people, a place that is not as glamorous as some might think.

So that’s the premise for Barton Fink, a film that’s a double edged sword because it’s both about the struggles of a writer and the hectic life of a Hollywood mogul, so it’s both a film about writing and about filmmaking. The life of the writer is covered by the character of Barton Fink, a character attempting to write his first screenplay. We follow him right down to that intimate moment when the writer sits in front of his type writer trying to write that first sentence, that first original thought, that first spark of an idea that will get that screenplay going. Barton Fink really goes into that mental struggle one must go through in order to write a story. This struggle has been addressed in many films about writing like Naked Lunch (1991) and Spike Jonze’s Adaptation (2002), it’s a common thing that writers go through: how to get started, where to begin. At times Barton just stares at the blank page, unable to type a single thing. Every little thing distracts him, he tries to write and a fly buzzes by. He tries to type and his neighbor comes knocking at the door. He tries to write and the wallpaper is peeling off the walls. When he does write, he writes about the same themes he’d write in his theater plays, he writes about “the fishmongers”, the working class; an interesting way in which the Coen’s point out how sometimes, all throughout their body of work, writers and filmmakers end up talking about the same themes  repeatedly. So be ready for a film that analyses the nature of writing and as a result, is a very brainy, complex film.  

On the Hollywood filmmaking side of things we get to see Barton meet film producers, which are portrayed as a hectic bunch, always speaking at lightning fast pace, which perfectly captures the way Hollywood moguls think, always trying to be one step ahead of what’s hot, what’s in, always trying to stab each other’s backs first. If you know anything about Hollywood, then you know what a wrestling match it can be to write a film with some depth to it and then finding  someone willing to fund it. 90 percent of the time, all Hollywood cares about is making the next Transformers movie. There’s always that fight between the brainy writer and the money hungry producer. In Barton Fink Hollywood is a stampeding train looking for someone to ram and if this film is any indication, it’s the brainy, poetic writers artistic integrity that is on its tracks. Even though they’ll tell you they love you “kiss this man’s shoe!” in reality, they don’t want you to write a sad, fruity picture. As soon as he arrives to Hollywood Barton meets Jack Lipnick, a Hollywood producer who says he is where he is because he is meaner and louder than anyone else in town. Lipnick (which by the way sounds like “limp dick” and I’m sure this was intentional) wants Barton to write a film about wrestling in order to make a quick buck, but Barton doesn’t want to write a silly b-movie . In accordance with the persona of a writer, Barton is a more cerebral kind of guy, so Barton is confronted with a conundrum: should he write a commercial film about wrestling? A film that follows a formula? Or can he turn this would be film into a commentary on the struggles of the common man?  I enjoy how the film explores these ideas, this dichotomy: to make an intelligent film that can actually say something about life or to make a meaningless film that says nothing?

As is the case with practically any Coen Brothers film, the cast is top notch. On Barton Fink we have two great actors who take up a big part of the screen time and these are John Torturro and John Goodman, two actors whom the Coen brothers continually work with. These two characters are at the crux of what this film is about. On the one hand we have Torturro playing Barton as the brainy writer who struggles with his own mind; he is continually asking perfection of himself. ”Shouldn’t your first duty be to your gift?” He is a writer determined to do something worthwhile, sometime that matters. Though at the same time he comes off as a hypocritical character, at times advocating for the common man, but then not even listening to the stories that he might have to say, one could say that Burton sees himself as superior to the common man. He sees himself as more refined, than the common man. Then on the other hand we have Goodman playing Charlie Meadows, a guy who in the eyes of Barton represents the common man that he wants to write so much about. In a way, one feeds off the other. For example, Charlie enjoys talking with Barton because he’s an intelligent individual who always has something insightful to say. In Charlie’s eyes, Barton is not an idiotic sheep in the heard. To Charlie, Barton is special and he admires him for that. Barton tells Charlie things like “the life of the mind…there’s no road map for that territory…and exploring it can be painful” and Charlie just eats it up. For Barton, Charlie is the complete opposite. To Barton, Charlie is the quintessential common man, working for the system as an Insurance Salesman; a sheep in the heard, slaving away to have a little money with which to eat and drink his nights away. But boy, could he tell Barton some stories; unfortunately, most of the time Barton won’t listen to his stories, he just talks about himself. But they continually meet, bouncing off their musings on life. Their encounters lead to a very unexpected place.

An interesting aspect of Barton Fink is that it is a film filled with many symbolisms and possible interpretations; it speaks about many things at the same time. Ultimately, Barton Fink will end up meaning different things to different people, much like a David Lynch film. Actually, visually speaking this film has many homage’s to Lynch’s own Eraserhead (1977), starting with John Torturro’s crazy hairdo. Multiple interpretations aside, at heart, more than anything, the film expresses the frustrations involved with artistic compromise. The film itself has a very somber mood to it, very film noir, very dark…we get the feeling that Hotel Earl is indeed hell. Every character that stays in Hotel Earl is always dripping in sweat. The heat and humidity are extremely palpable here. “Sometimes it gets so hot I want to crawl right out of my skin” says Charlie at one point. One of the many interpretations for this film is that Hotel Earl is hell and that John Goodman’s character can be representative of either fascism, Satan or a figment of Barton’s own mind, take your pick! I’ve also read that since Barton lives “the life of the mind” that Charlie represents his physical side? There’s even another take on the film that says that Barton’s hotel room represents his mind and that everything that happens in the hotel is representative of what’s going on inside his head! So just be ready for a movie that’s open to various interpretations. All these wild interpretations make sense, especially when we take in consideration that the film takes a turn towards the surreal side of things.

It should be noted that Barton Fink came to be as result of the Coen’s suffering from writers block while writing the screenplay for Miller’s Crossing (1990). You see, writing Miller’s Crossing proved to be such a daunting task for the brothers that they took a break from it; a hiatus so to speak. Now, the Coen’s being such gifted writers, their hiatus involved writing another masterpiece, which ended up being Barton Fink, a film that won critical acclaim and numerous awards at the Cannes Film Festival! It’s a very special film that I place next to Sunset Blvd. (1950), Adaptation (2002) and Ed Wood (1994) as some of the best films about filmmaking out there. If you enjoy writing and would like to see all your struggles to get that script, book or play off the ground represented in a film, then do yourself a favor and check this excellent film out, the common man will be here when you get back.

Rating:  5 out of 5