For a traditional big early 1960's epic, King of Kings is pretty good. I would certainly take it over the corny old The Ten Commandments any day.
The film was directed by Nicholas Ray and produced by the master producer of the epic film Samuel Bronston. Miklos Rosza did the "holy holy: music score for the film and Ray Bradbury of all people apparently wrote the narration which was read by Orson Welles.
The casting is pretty good avoiding the who's who's of Hollywood stars the problem that really killed The Greatest Story Ever Told. Jeffrey Hunter (the first captain of the Enterprise) was cast as Jesus. Robert Ryan is an excellent John the Baptist.
The film has some impressive imagery, the 70 mm camera is used boldly for some powerful closeups. The Sermon on the Mount, is clearly a high point in the film with thousands of extras deployed. Jesus preaches his philosophy to the crowd and one can't help wondering how his message of "blessed are the peacemakers" got so twisted the last 2000 years.
Far from a perfect film, there is something about the story of Jesus that seems to descend into a series of platitudes after a while, years of Sunday school teaching have definitely taken their toll on his theology.
Two battle scenes between the Roman army and the Jews seem inserted into the film just because you have to have battle scenes in these religious epics I guess.
Overall a good film, epic in scope and good to look.
168 minutes, written by Philip Yordan and Ray Bradbury (uncredited).
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment