On Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 12:33:41 PM UTC-10, TBerk wrote:

.
Of course they are from another time. But I'm watching Ben-Hur on TCM
right now and 'the Ten Commandments' is scheduled for the weekend on
the big screen at the Stanford Theater.
I continue to impress myself with the (re)watchability of these two
great films.
I watch them again and again, with some time in between viewings
admittedly, but they are like a film school semester to me.
They are long, run time wise, but there is time and repose and pauses
in them that make sense.
There is reference to historical events all around the principals,
events that looking back with hindsight stand tall in history. This is
said without any affiliation to any particular orientation, religion,
point of worldview.
In the Ten Commandments events happen from modest beginnings but swell
up to involve a whole peoples. In Ben-Hur it remains one man's tale
but his family's fortunes rise and fall with the things hat happen to
him, and in both the churning of history in the making to which they
are swept along as well as pivotal catalytic agents.
An easy comment made many times is that these films could never be
made today with the same grandeur and beauty, and while this may be
true what does the future hold?- with HD and a mature use of CGI and
(from _somewhere_) developed actors to inhabit characters both deep
and wide.
Perhaps not in our lifetime, but hopefully one day. Greatness will be achieved, achieved and surpassed.

TBerk

(Youtube upload):

"The Making of the Movie 'The Ten Commandments' (1956)"

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On Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 6:33:41 PM UTC-4, TBerk wrote:

.
...
An easy comment made many times is that these films could never be
made today with the same grandeur and beauty, and while this may be
true what does the future hold?- with HD and a mature use of CGI and
(from _somewhere_) developed actors to inhabit characters both deep
and wide.
Perhaps not in our lifetime, but hopefully one day. Greatness will be achieved, achieved and surpassed.

Part of what makes THE TEN COMMANDMENTS great is that when Moses
leads 10,000 people out of Egypt, he is really leading 10,00 people out of Egypt. That is to say, there are that many real people in the scene. (No,
I didn't count them, but the figure quoted for extras is 15,000; I'm
assuming not all of them were used in this scene.) (In THE MAN WHO
WOULD BE KING, you see a huge crowd of people following the heroes--and
they're people, not a CGI construct. It makes a difference. SPARTACUS
used 50,000 extras. GANDHI had 300,000 extras in the funeral scene.)

As for BEN HUR, I am among the (probably) few people who thinks the
chariot race in the 1925 version was more exciting than in the 1959 version.

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On Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 3:33:41 PM UTC-7, TBerk wrote:

.
Of course they are from another time. But I'm watching Ben-Hur on TCM
right now and 'the Ten Commandments' is scheduled for the weekend on
the big screen at the Stanford Theater.
I continue to impress myself with the (re)watchability of these two
great films.
I watch them again and again, with some time in between viewings
admittedly, but they are like a film school semester to me.
They are long, run time wise, but there is time and repose and pauses
in them that make sense.
There is reference to historical events all around the principals,
events that looking back with hindsight stand tall in history. This is
said without any affiliation to any particular orientation, religion,
point of worldview.
In the Ten Commandments events happen from modest beginnings but swell
up to involve a whole peoples. In Ben-Hur it remains one man's tale
but his family's fortunes rise and fall with the things hat happen to
him, and in both the churning of history in the making to which they
are swept along as well as pivotal catalytic agents.
An easy comment made many times is that these films could never be
made today with the same grandeur and beauty, and while this may be
true what does the future hold?- with HD and a mature use of CGI and
(from _somewhere_) developed actors to inhabit characters both deep
and wide.
Perhaps not in our lifetime, but hopefully one day. Greatness will be achieved, achieved and surpassed.

TBerk

(Recent Youtube upload):

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 1956 Cast THEN AND NOW 2022 INCREDIBLE Changed, Thanks For The Memories

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