Saturday, June 24, 2017

The Bible: In the Beginning...

John Huston - 1966 - USA/Italy

  • European-flavored Dino De Laurentis production featuring an international cast; George C. Scott, Ava Gardner, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, Zoe Sallis and Franco Nero, and directed by John Huston, who also plays Noah and the voice of God.
  • A famously lugubrious and protracted film, its only moments of levity appear in the Noah sequence, and specifically in Huston's performance.
  • Covers most of the major stories of the Book of Genesis; Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham and Isaac.
  • Surreal imagery, arresting compositions and a strangely decadent (rather than pious) tone make the film a unique and personal work by Huston.
  • The ultimate example of Huston's courage in tackling adaptations of daunting literary works; he'd previously done B. Traven's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, and would later do Flannery O'Conner's Wise Blood and James Joyce's The Dead.

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