Films About Jews And Judaism

"Although long enough at 150 minutes, Scott’s epic is over an hour shorter than DeMille’s, and key events — including the Israelites’ descent into idol-worshipping chaos — have been skillfully elided, perhaps awaiting a “Kingdom of Heaven”-style director’s cut. The result feels less like a straightforward retread of the biblical narrative than an amped-up commentary on it: This “Exodus” comes at you in a heady and violent onrush of incident, propelled along by Alberto Iglesias’ vigorous score, teeming with large-scale crowd and battle sequences (which take on an especially rich, tactile quality in 3D), and packed with unexpectedly rousing martial episodes, including one where Moses attempts to train his people for battle. Some may well desire a purer, fuller version of the story, one more faithful to the text and less clearly shaped by the demands of the Hollywood blockbuster. But on its own grand, imperfect terms, “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is undeniably transporting, marked by a free-flowing visual splendor that plays to its creator’s unique strengths: Given how many faith-based movies are content to tell their audiences what to think or feel, it’s satisfying to see one whose images alone are enough to compel awestruck belief."

"“I never realized that this character (Moses, played by Christian Bale) had such a massive story. I didn’t know that he was a soldier, I didn’t know that he could have been, was rumored to be, close to the pharaoh Ramses,” played by Joel Edgerton."

"Scott credits Kane for bringing out the importance of Moses to Jews, Muslims and Christians. But “Jeffrey, I think, got tired, so I brought in Steven Zaillian.” Zaillian “looked at it, and said, fundamentally, 'I’m an atheist, I don’t think I’m the right person to even consider this,’ and … I said, 'On the contrary, Steve … you have the best qualifications to write this, revise this, clarify this, through your own mind being a nonbeliever. … Maybe you’ll become an agnostic by the time you finish the screenwriting.’”"

"But Passover, when Hebrew children whose doors are painted with the blood of lambs are saved, while Egyptian children die, is left as an act of God. “I couldn’t honestly devise anything else. I have to deal with it. I have to believe it,” said Scott. “I think it’s the first time I let it go into what you can put under the heading of real magic.” Some biblical films, like “Noah,” have stirred objections from conservative Christians, but for “Exodus,” Scott said, “I think I’ve heard they really like it. I think they accept the interpretation.” The one caveat is that “some are questioning the choice of the boy” as God speaking to Moses, he said. “I didn’t want to have beams from the sky and a voice,” said Scott. The late Orson Welles might have been able to do it, he said, “but you can’t do that today. You have to come from a different direction.”"

"Unlike the DeMille rendering, this one does not begin at the beginning but plunges us into the middle of the action, with Moses (Christian Bale) as an adult in the royal court. We eventually learn the backstory of how the Jewish child managed to find a home among the kings, but we’re introduced to him as a warrior and best friend of Ramses (Joel Edgerton). The first part of the movie cribs rather shamelessly from Gladiator, which began by sketching the rivalry between the emperor’s son and his favorite warrior. Here the aging Pharaoh, played by John Turturro, prefers his adopted son Moses to his own son Ramses. This tortured family drama was performed much more persuasively in Gladiator by Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix and Richard Harris. Despite an excess of mascara, Turturro is sympathetic, but he doesn’t fit all that comfortably into ancient Egypt."

"The New York Times A.O. Scott, comparing "Exodus" to this year's earlier biblical blockbuster "Noah," says that the latter film "may have been too strange for some viewers. 'Exodus,' by contrast, crowded with well-known actors, is nowhere near strange enough. More than anything else, it recalls the wide-screen, Technicolor biblical pageants of the 1950s and early '60s, bland and solemn spectacles that invited moviegoers to marvel at their favorite stars in sandals and robes." To be fair, he adds, "there is some good stuff here, too. Mr. Scott is a sinewy storyteller and a connoisseur of big effects. … But in the past, this director has also shown a knack for intimacy and intensity, for moments of feeling that stand out amid the fight-and-flight adrenaline rushes." Ultimately, "'Exodus' has the makings of a provocative study of power, rebellion and loyalty. To paraphrase a Passover song, that would have been enough. What we get instead is both woefully insufficient and much too much.""

"USA Todays Claudia Puig writes, "Swarms of flies, oozing pustules, alligator attacks and gaggles of frogs are vividly rendered in three dimensions in 'Exodus: Gods and Kings.' And yet this biblical epic is still bland, overly long and otherwise forgettable. … Those seeking memorable performances and a fresh approach … will want to look elsewhere." Puig adds that the "expensive-looking, massively staged spectacle, with elaborate costumes and ornate production design, feels bloated, by-the-book and lackluster, and is dotted with risible dialogue. … None of this feels new or fresh.""

"In a slightly more favorable review, the Chicago Tribunes Michael Phillips calls the movie "Not great; not bad. Those anticipating a camp hoot will be disappointed. For all his reliance on digital effects, director Scott's sensibilities lean old-school, and he has sense enough to keep everybody on screen in the same movie, working hard and earnestly and with a seriousness of purpose. And now and then, some wit." Phillips adds, "Momentous conversations periodically grind any retelling of the Moses story to a halt, but Scott keeps his head down, plows through and then gets out of the way while visual effects supervisor Peter Chiang and his slave army take it on home.""

"Ridley Scott is a director of extremes. He has made some extraordinary films, most notably Blade Runner, Alien and The Duellists, and he has made very ordinary ones too. Exodus: Gods And Kingsfalls well in the middle of the pack; its most obvious connection is to 2000's Gladiator, and there are some clear thematic echoes in this movie. It lacks Gladiator's full-on intensity and committed central performances, however; it's a mixture of the grand and the bland, and when it's not spectacular it's a little plodding."

"Scott gives the figure of Ramses time and space, and Edgerton embraces the role; it's not exactly a sympathetic portrait, but it's more rounded than you might expect. It's almost as if Scott and his four screenwriters (Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian) have a better understanding of the character's trajectory than that of Moses. The drama of Egypt, in general, seems to inspire them more."

"The story of Moses rising up against the Pharaoh Ramses and leading hundreds of thousands of Hebrew slaves out of Egypt to freedom is one with which we’re all extremely familiar. It’s the entire point of Passover. Scott is not reinventing the wheel here. Rather, he’s invented the biggest, shiniest, noisiest wheel imaginable, then he runs over us with it rather than inviting us along for the ride."

"Certainly, there’s an allure to seeing this sort of old-fashioned, biblical epic on the big screen–and indeed, within this proliferation of pixels, there is undeniable craft and heft to the massive set pieces and behemoth battles. From the costumes to the weaponry to the interiors, it’s obvious that Scott’s team took great care in considering and creating every detail. But the film as a whole (with a script credited to Adam Cooper & Bill Collage and Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian) feels overstuffed and over-glossed. Self-serious to a fault, it packs in more and more in terms of story and extravagant visuals while offering too little in terms of actual character development and engaging drama. When he’s been at his absolute best in his lengthy career, directing films like “Blade Runner” and “Alien” and even "Thelma & Louise," Scott has established himself as a visionary and a master of creating imagery that would go on to be iconic. “Exodus” feels oddly impersonal. It’s hard to tell what Scott’s point is here, beyond making his Academy Award-winning “Gladiator” look like an independent film by comparison. Earlier this year, “Gladiator” star Russell Croweplayed the title character in Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah.” That was a biblical epic which also was massive in scope but at the same time beautiful and strange; it stayed true to its source material but found an intriguing and challenging tone. It actually evoked emotion."

"In “Exodus,” the plagues are fun, briefly, and that’s about it. At least, the prospect of the plagues presents the promise of fun: “Eww, gross, a massive pile of frogs,” or: “Aww, yeah, here come the locusts.” But like so much else in the film, these potentially thrilling sequences of havoc and terror evolve into enormous swarms digitally divorced from their effect on humanity. (The boils, though–they remain. And they’re nasty.) It certainly doesn’t help that Christian Bale plays Moses in mostly stiff and detached fashion. (But hey, at least he’s more intelligible here than he is as a grumbling and tormented Batman). Here, he’s a quietly capable leader –a general among men, and in the eyes of the Pharaoh Seti (John Turturro), who raised Moses as his adopted son, clearly more capable to take over the kingdom than his own biological son, the preening and egotistical Ramses (Joel Edgerton). Despite the thick eyeliner, the shiny, bald pate and the radiant golden wardrobe, Edgerton is never quite flamboyant enough. He could have gone over the top with the role and helped breathe some life into this picture. He seems sadly uncomfortable."

"Exodus: Gods and Kings comes to us courtesy of 20th Century Fox, which is distributing Ridley Scott’s $140 million would-be epic. The producers this time around are Chernin Entertainment, Scott Free Productions, Babieka, and Volcano Films. The film opens wide in America on December 12th, 2014, and it has already opened in some overseas markets as of December 3rd. Over the next few months, it will of course attempt to play a two-sided game. On on hand, the film will be targeting the overtly religious moviegoers that have made quite a bit of noise this year. On the other hand, 20th Century Fox wants the general moviegoers worldwide who just want a major spectacle-filled blockbuster regardless of the film’s would-be religious dogma."

"While the visuals can only be described using superlatives, some bits involving interpersonal relationships could have been more developed. However, scenes involving Moses and Ramses are often electrifying. So is the 'burning bush' sequence. The battles will take your breath away – crashing chariots, splintering spears, flaming arrows, metal against metal and more gore than you'd expect to see. Ramses's cold-blooded disregard for human life is shocking. But then the Ten Plagues unleashed on the Egyptians by God as punishment are unrelenting in their devastation. The Nile runs blood red, overflowing with dead fish. Masses of flies spread dread and disease. Clouds of locusts ravage crops and a sinister shadow of death creeps across the accursed land like a cold hand. Exodus: Gods and Kings is 'spectacle' with a capital 'S' and in more ways than one, definitely epic."

"Blood! Boils! Locusts! Humongous, ship-devouring Nile crocodiles! Great white sharks! Whoever thought overwrought biblical epics were dead deserves a face-full of locusts and will get one watching Exodus: Gods and Kings. Ridley Scott’s grand and goofy take on Cecil B. DeMille’s holiday chestnut, The Ten Commandments, is a scant two-and-a-half hours compared to Paramount Pictures’ 1954 three-hour-plus marathon, and while Exodus is not quite as much fun (the reflective properties of Yul Brynner’s pate are sorely missed), it is very much in the tradition of Fifties and Sixties-era Biblical epics – and much more entertaining than Darren Aronofsky’s recent Noah (2014 film)."

"That’s not to say faith leaders are going to urge congregations to flock to the theatres, however. Scott offers a secular out for every instance of the legendarily miraculous. Thus, the burning bush and everything that follows can be attributed to Moses (Bale, well-cast with his glower dialed up to 11) getting conked on the head by a falling rock after he’s cast out of Egypt by Pharaoh Ramses (Edgerton, resplendent in gold and kohl). There’s a wonderfully droll scene in Ramses’ court as his physician (Bremner, Trainspotting’s Spud) attempts to explain the finer points of how one plague logically leads to the next, via what we now call “bacteria.” Scott and his quartet of writers squeeze the Book of Exodus down to its most basic tenets, rendering it both a story of God-crossed pseudo-siblings and a thunderous series of generally awesome (as in “awe-inspiring”), CGI-assisted, action set-pieces. The parting of the Red Sea is preceded by a shot of Moses sleepily catching a glimpse of what appears to be a meteor crashing far out into the waves, which raises the question: Yahweh or tsunami? Or both? It doesn’t matter; the watery result is everything “epic” should be."

"Banish all memories of a hambone, harrumphing Old Testament Charlton Heston as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, the 1956 campfest that TV shoves at us during religious holidays. DeMille’s once-thrilling parting of the Red Sea plays today like CG primitivism. Director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) is determined not to make his Exodus: Gods and Kings old-hat. But he’s after way more than FX pow – although wait until you see that Red Sea heave in 3D and the damage done by those 10 deadly plagues, from crocodiles, frogs and locusts to the death of every first-born in Egypt."

""Exodus: Gods and Kings" is one film where spoiler alerts aren't necessary. Both the Bible and the big screen have so prominently featured the story of fearless prophet Moses and hard-hearted Pharaoh's refusal to let his people go that the events depicted in this latest reenactment will not be news to anyone. But that familiarity doesn't mean there aren't surprises to be had, and not always welcome ones. Gone, gone, gone is the traditional depiction of the Almighty as an unseen voice in the clouds: A snarky, querulous 11-year-old boy gets the call instead. Even more unsettling, the Red Sea doesn't dramatically part the way we've gotten used to; it just kind of fades away, only to come roaring back when no one is expecting it. Some nerve."

"Making extensive use of computer-generated imagery as well as 3-D (which, frankly, takes some getting used to), "Exodus" is heavily into pharaonic color and pageantry, giving us charging chariots, seething crowds, warring armies, the whole nine yards, often viewed from a god's eye overhead perspective. Despite the best efforts of all those writers, however, the dramatic side of "Exodus" alternates between being completely solemn and unintentionally silly, with lines of dialogue like a snarky Aaron telling his son, "This is your famous uncle Moses" being more the rule than the exception. In this it is not as far as it thinks from the gold calf standard of biblical epics, "The Ten Commandments," a story that Cecil B. DeMille liked so much he filmed it twice. As with the DeMille ventures, enjoyment here involves managing expectations and not taking things too seriously."

"While Ridley Scott is rightly hailed as a master cinematic world-builder, Exodus' ancient Egypt sometimes feels small and CG-heavy despite the use of practical sets, locations and swooping camera moves meant to convey an “epic” feel. The grandeur and scale of Rome that Scott's Gladiator conveyed is missing in his depiction of Egypt. More impressive, though, is his execution of the Ten Plagues, which are realized here as frightening elements worthy of a horror movie. As effective as the frogs and locusts sequences are it’s Scott’s depiction of the death of the first born that is especially frightening. But what should be the film’s most impressive and memorable set-piece, the parting of the Red Sea, feels rather underwhelming after the Ten Plagues. Perhaps you can't out-DeMille Cecil B. DeMille."

"Christian Bale as Moses – The adoptive son of Bithiah, the son of Amram and Jochebed, brother of Aaron and Miriam, the husband of Zipporah and father of Gershom, and the descendant of Levi (son of Jacob and Leah)"

"Joel Edgerton as Ramses II – The son of Seti I and Queen Tuya, and the husband of Nefertari"

"John Turturro as Seti I – The father of Ramesses II, the son of Ramesses I (Paramessu) and Queen Tuya's husband"

"Aaron Paul as Joshua – The son of Nun, and a descendant of Joseph (a son of Jacob and Rachel) and his son Ephraim"

"Ben Mendelsohn as Viceroy Hegep"

"Sigourney Weaver as Tuya – the mother of Ramesses II and Seti I's wife"

"Ben Kingsley as Nun (biblical figure) – Joshua's father, and a descendant of Joseph (a son of Jacob and Rachel) and his son Ephraim"

"Anna Paquin as Alison Kantrowitz"

"Liev Schreiber as Marty Kantrowitz"

"Viggo Mortensen as Walker Jerome"

"Diane Lane as Pearl Kantrowitz"

"Lisa Jakub as Myra Naidell"

"Joe Perrino as Ross Epstein"

"Bobby Boriello as Daniel Kantrowitz"

"Tovah Feldshuh as Lilian Kantrowitz"

"[outside the gas chamber] This process of cleaning and disinfecting is of vital importance to your health! One louse can kill you! Cleanliness brings freedom! The sooner you shower, the sooner you'll be fed and reunited with your families. There'll be a bowl of hot soup waiting for all of you!"

"After the revolt, half the ovens remain, and we are carried to them together. I catch fire, quickly. The first part of me rises, in dense smoke, that mingles with the smoke of others. Then there are the bones, which settle in ash, and these are swept up to be carried to the river. And last, bits of our dust, that simply float there, in air, around the working of the new group... These bits of dust are grey. We settle on their shoes, and on their faces, and in their lungs. And they become so used to us, that soon they don't cough, and they don't brush us away. At this point, they are just moving, breathing and moving, like anyone else, still alive in that place. And this is how the work... continues."

"I've seen them strike the ones that are slow getting in (the gas chamber). They steal, lie to each other. I never fully despised the Jews until I experienced how easily they could be persuaded to do the work here. To do it so well. And to their own people! They'll be dead by week's end, every soul. And we'll replace them with others no different. Do you know how easy that will be?"

"[talking to the girl who survived the gas chamber] I used to think so much of myself... What I'd make of my life. We can't know what we're capable of, any of us. How can you know what you'd do to stay alive, until you're really asked? I know this now. For most of us, the answer... is anything. It's so easy to forget who we were before... who we'll never be again. There was this old man, he pushed the carts, and on our first day, when we had to burn our own convoy, his wife was brought up on the elevator. Then his daughter... and then both his grandchildren. I knew him. We were neighbors. And in 20 minutes, his whole family, and all its future, was gone from this earth. Two weeks later, he took pills and was revived. We smothered him with his own pillow, and now I know why. You can kill yourself. That's the only choice. I want them to save you. I want them to save you more than I want anything. I pray to God we save you."

"From such children, come other children!"

"[to God] I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else?"

"As the Good Book says, if you spit in the air, it lands in your face."

"[to God] It may sound like I'm complaining, but I'm not. After all, with Your help, I'm starving to death. Oh, dear Lord. You made many many poor people. I realize, of course, it's no shame to be poor... but it's no great honor either. So what would be so terrible... if I had a small fortune?"

"[to God] Sometimes I wonder, when it gets too quiet up there, if You are thinking, "What kind of mischief can I play on My friend Tevye?""

"Traditions, traditions. Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as... as... as a fiddler on the roof!"

"Because of our traditions, we have kept our balance for many, many years. Here in Anatevka, we have traditions for everything: how to how to eat, how to sleep, how to wear clothes. For instance, we always keep our heads covered, and always wear a little prayer-shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did this tradition start? I'll tell you. I don't know. But it's a tradition. And because of our traditions, every one of us knows who he is, and what God expects him to do."

"[Opening lines] A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But, here, in our little village of Anatevka, every one of us is a fiddler on the roof trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay here if it's so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!"

"[to Chava] As the Good Book says "Each shall seek his own kind". In other words, a bird may love a fish... but where would they build a home together?"

"When I get angry, even flies don't dare to fly!"