The Ten Commandments marks the beginning of the second wave of the Hollywood epic. Modelled on the contemporary/ancient parallel storytelling of Intolerance the crowning achievement of the first wave and its subject matter decided by a poll of cinema-goers, this is among the most significant and typically DeMillean of DeMille's pictures.
DeMille had first coupled a historical tale with a modern day framing story in 1916's Joan the Woman, and even during the years when the historical feature was out of fashion (approximately 1918 1921) he several times added a little metaphorical foray into the past to his contemporary dramas, such as Male and Female and Manslaughter. Here, it is still the modern day narrative which makes up the bulk of the picture's 130-odd minutes, and yet it is the spectacular biblical prologue that everyone remembers.
DeMille had always had a talent for directing crowd scenes, giving inspiring pep talks to the mass whilst giving specific directions to the individuals. Here he works with the biggest group of extras he had ever handled, and yet he has lost none of his touch. He gives character to the multitude by focusing on a number of individuals within it, and yet when he pulls back to show the whole crowd you can still see the attention to detail, with a hundred different things going on. The stupendous sets also make an impact in themselves, but DeMille is shrewd enough to reveal them gradually, and places them squarely in the context of being symbolic of evil. The pharaoh's palace may be impressive, but DeMille ensures that the works of God the pillar of fire, the parting of the red sea, the lightning on Sinai are more so. Oddly, he could be accused of doing the opposite in his 1956 remake, in which the Egyptian city is absolutely awe-inspiring, whereas the special effects representing acts of God are somewhat pathetic even for the day, and certainly less effective than those in 1923. But DeMille had changed a lot by that time.
In contrast to the prologue, the contemporary story is somewhat lacklustre. It has much in common with other DeMille dramas from around this period, although it is pretty mediocre by that standard. Particularly jarring is the overuse of intertitles. Five years earlier DeMille had been a master of purely visual narrative, and the titles were only there when absolutely necessary. As time went by however, as DeMille had become more pious and his screenwriter Jeanie Macpherson had become more pretentious, so had the photoplays become more wordy. All the better for preaching with, as far as self-appointed messenger-of-God DeMille was concerned, but his pictures began to lack the grace and smoothness they had once had.
With scenes fragmented into smaller pieces, and characters unable to open their mouths without a superfluous title spelling their words out to the audience, the acting also suffers. Richard Dix, Rod La Rocque, Leatrice Joy and Nita Naldi are all adequate performers, but none of them really gets time or space to emote as much as they ought to for the story. Nevertheless, DeMille was still a master of the powerful, iconic image, and there are enough memorable shots here to keep things interesting. Among the standouts are Nita Naldi's hands emerging from a tear in a sack, the straight-up shot in the lift as Leatrice Joy ascends and Naldi ripping the curtain off its hooks, nearly forty years before the almost identical shot in Hitchcock's Psycho. It is images like this which reign supreme in DeMille's cinema, and it is from around this point on that they become more important than the credibility of the story or the actors.
DeMille's Ten Commandments proved to be highly influential. Other studios got to work on their own superproductions, the western would become epic with The Iron Horse, and even Douglas Fairbanks next picture, The Thief of Bagdad, was steeped in DeMillean grandeur. Further afield, UFA studios in Germany and Abel Gance in France were also working on the principle that big is beautiful. Ten Commandments indicated the future for DeMille himself as well. Not only was it the first of the pictures that would secure his legacy as the ultimate biblical filmmaker, but the fact that the prologue is absolutely breathtaking and the contemporary drama lacks bite, hints towards his eventually becoming a director purely of epics. It's also rather telling that he loved the Old Testament God of plagues and smiting, because that is probably more or less how DeMille saw himself. He hammered home his messages with the spectacular and the incredible. A shock-and-awe filmmaker preaching the word of a shock-and-awe God.
DeMille had first coupled a historical tale with a modern day framing story in 1916's Joan the Woman, and even during the years when the historical feature was out of fashion (approximately 1918 1921) he several times added a little metaphorical foray into the past to his contemporary dramas, such as Male and Female and Manslaughter. Here, it is still the modern day narrative which makes up the bulk of the picture's 130-odd minutes, and yet it is the spectacular biblical prologue that everyone remembers.
DeMille had always had a talent for directing crowd scenes, giving inspiring pep talks to the mass whilst giving specific directions to the individuals. Here he works with the biggest group of extras he had ever handled, and yet he has lost none of his touch. He gives character to the multitude by focusing on a number of individuals within it, and yet when he pulls back to show the whole crowd you can still see the attention to detail, with a hundred different things going on. The stupendous sets also make an impact in themselves, but DeMille is shrewd enough to reveal them gradually, and places them squarely in the context of being symbolic of evil. The pharaoh's palace may be impressive, but DeMille ensures that the works of God the pillar of fire, the parting of the red sea, the lightning on Sinai are more so. Oddly, he could be accused of doing the opposite in his 1956 remake, in which the Egyptian city is absolutely awe-inspiring, whereas the special effects representing acts of God are somewhat pathetic even for the day, and certainly less effective than those in 1923. But DeMille had changed a lot by that time.
In contrast to the prologue, the contemporary story is somewhat lacklustre. It has much in common with other DeMille dramas from around this period, although it is pretty mediocre by that standard. Particularly jarring is the overuse of intertitles. Five years earlier DeMille had been a master of purely visual narrative, and the titles were only there when absolutely necessary. As time went by however, as DeMille had become more pious and his screenwriter Jeanie Macpherson had become more pretentious, so had the photoplays become more wordy. All the better for preaching with, as far as self-appointed messenger-of-God DeMille was concerned, but his pictures began to lack the grace and smoothness they had once had.
With scenes fragmented into smaller pieces, and characters unable to open their mouths without a superfluous title spelling their words out to the audience, the acting also suffers. Richard Dix, Rod La Rocque, Leatrice Joy and Nita Naldi are all adequate performers, but none of them really gets time or space to emote as much as they ought to for the story. Nevertheless, DeMille was still a master of the powerful, iconic image, and there are enough memorable shots here to keep things interesting. Among the standouts are Nita Naldi's hands emerging from a tear in a sack, the straight-up shot in the lift as Leatrice Joy ascends and Naldi ripping the curtain off its hooks, nearly forty years before the almost identical shot in Hitchcock's Psycho. It is images like this which reign supreme in DeMille's cinema, and it is from around this point on that they become more important than the credibility of the story or the actors.
DeMille's Ten Commandments proved to be highly influential. Other studios got to work on their own superproductions, the western would become epic with The Iron Horse, and even Douglas Fairbanks next picture, The Thief of Bagdad, was steeped in DeMillean grandeur. Further afield, UFA studios in Germany and Abel Gance in France were also working on the principle that big is beautiful. Ten Commandments indicated the future for DeMille himself as well. Not only was it the first of the pictures that would secure his legacy as the ultimate biblical filmmaker, but the fact that the prologue is absolutely breathtaking and the contemporary drama lacks bite, hints towards his eventually becoming a director purely of epics. It's also rather telling that he loved the Old Testament God of plagues and smiting, because that is probably more or less how DeMille saw himself. He hammered home his messages with the spectacular and the incredible. A shock-and-awe filmmaker preaching the word of a shock-and-awe God.