dir. by Cecil B. Demille
So I've never seen a Cecil Demille film before this. I knew that he was one of the heavy-hitters of 20th century film, specifically with his work on epic films like The Ten Commandments but I don't know that I'd ever actually seen an epic film either. If King of Kings is any indication of what they're like, I think they can be interesting films, though not necessarily my cup of tea.
King of Kings basically tells the story of the last weeks of Jesus's life--the passover entry to Jerusalem, the last supper, the trial and crucifixion, and the resurrection--because of the nature of the plot I'm not really going to go over whether or not I was surprised by the events of the story. I think Demille probably expected his audience to know the story going in and was more using this as a technical achievement for scale of a work than for any real innovation to the Christ tale.
So how are the technical achievements? Well they remind me a lot of Georges Méliès actually. There are lots of people on camera during shots all just sort of milling about, although where in Méliès it could sometimes be difficult to know where the focus of the shot was supposed to be, it's always pretty obvious in Demille, with the shots usually focused around a central structure (either architectural or a person standing amidst a crowd) and the extras sort of radiate out from there. Additionally, it was interesting to see the film use color. First time I've seen it during this project and while it's only there for the opening scene and the scene of the resurrection near the end, it's done pretty well.
That said, there's a very "of its time"ness about this movie. I didn't really see anything patently offensive around (though I may be overlooking something) but the new testament as presented in this film is very much the one that I think a lot of folks nowadays inherited from their grandparents. It shows a Jesus who is infallible, confident in his actions, and pretty much has this whole "being god's son" thing figured out. He kind of goes through the motions, really, and it is always clear to the audience that he's the one in the right being set upon by the droves of old-time Israel. I've not seen this other film, but from what I understand The Last Temptation of Christ is sort of the go-to example for a more modern interpretation of Jesus, and while it's tempting to just think of the portrayal in King of Kings as a relic, it's still a distressingly pervasive one, at least in the southeastern US where I'm originally from. There's no choice here, it's portrayed as so patently obvious that Jesus is in the right that anyone who chooses not to opt into this belief system is given a sort of villainous paint-job that removes all nuance from the situation.
Some other examples of this? Dear word, why didn't the other apostles throw out Judas Iscariot from the get-go? He's always scowling and looking like he's taking no joy in anything. Raising the dead? Bah! That's boring! Where's my gold?
Like, I know he's supposed to be the traitor, but it seems more like that role has determined everything else about the character, rather than the character growing into that role. Again, this is probably unfair to the film, which is clearly more classical than modernist in its presentation, but it just seems like aside from the technical achievements, that this film was aiming for an older audience even at the time of its release.
There's some impressive stuff here--the sets are well-designed, the music is pretty good and the large crowd scenes are very well-done, but at 2 and a half hours runtime (seriously, there are some scenes here that go on about as long as scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey), I'm not exactly chomping at the bit for the next Cecil Demille piece I'm going to be watching, which will be The Greatest Show on Earth.
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