Once upon a time, in the galaxy far, far away, there was the Australian television network landscape of my boyhood. Hard to believe now, this consisted of a mighty four selections; three commercial networks and the government one. In these pre-cable, let alone pre-internet, days, those networks showed movies. A lot of movies. And movies spanning all decades and many continents. In fact, the television landscape of my boyhood, as seemingly limited as it was, was a great film school.
Once upon a time, in the galaxy far, far away, there was the Australian television network landscape of my boyhood. Hard to believe now, this consisted of a mighty four selections; three commercial networks and the government one. In these pre-cable, let alone pre-internet, days, those networks showed movies. A lot of movies. And movies spanning all decades and many continents. In fact, the television landscape of my boyhood, as seemingly limited as it was, was a great film school.
Cecil B. DeMille’s Moses epic The Ten Commandments was first seen by this young budding critic as a “special presentation” by one of the commercial networks. This meant that it would be introduced by one of the network’s “personalities” (which was doubly fun, as the movie then starts with good ol’ Cecil B. himself walking out through some big curtains and introducing his own movie), would have an “intermission” (the personality would come back and talk some more about the film), would start at a “special time” (probably 7:30pm, so as to accommodate its ludicrous length) and would be promoted heavily throughout the week (so as to attract the best advertising rates). What it meant for me was that I could campaign my parents all week to stay up late that Saturday night, to make it all the way to the end – it was a special presentation! It was important – it was The Ten Commandments!
My father, who wrote next to the ‘RELIGION’ box on the census form, with heavy capital black letters, emphatically, ‘NONE’, would not be moved that The Ten Commandments was in any way important subject matter, but he knew I was a budding little movie critic, and could see that it was at least an important film for me to take in. Cecil B. DeMented was a definite Hollywood Somebody, the film was famous, and it contained a very famous sequence: The parting of the Red Sea.
Looking forward to this sequence consumed my thoughts that week. All sorts of details – rumours? – swirled through my little head. People had drowned making it. It was the most expensive scene ever filmed. It used three levels of matte-painting trickery. It had the largest cast of extras of any shot in history. There was a famous camera angle that never got covered because the camera operator didn’t hear “action!” / didn’t have film in his camera / was getting a blow job from one of the extras. People died!
Finally the night came. I was excited. The ‘personality’ confirmed some of those rumours, debunked others, and placed the film in its historical context (another great reason the networks were my early film school – you learned a lot from these introductions). Cecil B. DeMinted come out and gave his little spiel about how important the story was (which I guffawed at, being not only a budding little critic but, obviously, given the household I lived in, a Darwinian rather than fabulist). Then the film began.
Have you ever seen The Ten Commandments? It’s fucking long and much of it is fucking boring. There’s a lot of colour and whacked-out production design (huge, bonkers sets and costumes with really funny helmets) and some good famous set pieces early on (the world’s first ‘Moses basket’, the burning bush), but there’s also reams of preposterous, practically unspeakable dialogue before the Big Day comes.
When it did come – when Moses (Charlton Heston) split that sea down the middle, and, in particular, when he let it close back up again, whomping all those nasty soldiers, it was, indeed, very fucking cool. But boy had I paid my dues for it, taken mine for the side. All that ludicrous claptrap I’d endured. I cringed at some of the stuff these actors had to say – and I was, like, seven years old! This dialogue could not be said well. Even good actors (like the best actor in the movie, Yul Brynner) were terrible saying this stupid shit. From then on, every time The Ten Commandments played on the telly, I’d have it on in the background, but I was no longer focused. I was just biding my time, waiting for the parting of the Red Sea – really, the only part of the film worth watching.
So when Noah came along, I was a little dubious. Actually, I was very, very dubious. Amidst a lot of silly stories in The Bible, that of Noah is one of the silliest. If you don’t agree it’s probably time you read it again: it’s Genesis 5:32 – 10:1.
That’s a short passage in biblical terms, and writer / director Darren Aronofsky has made a long movie in modern terms, though not in terms of the history of biblical movies, which have traditionally been long (The Ten Commandments, with those special ads, seemed to keep me up way past my bedtime until, I seem to remember, at least midnight, and I was right; its actual running time is 220 minutes, which makes Noah’s 139 minutes seem like a breeze).
I would never have gone, therefore, to Noah, were it not for Aronofsky. Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan are both in my personal Top 50 of All Time, so he’s a director that I’ll always see. But boy, was I reticent. (Actually, I had to go, because I had to review it for Australian radio. The fact that I reviewed it alongside Nymphomaniac, Parts One and Two was heaps of fun, although I wasn’t allowed to scream out “Holy fuck!” on taxpayer-supported radio).
Aronofsky lets you know from the get-go that he’s going to show you “a story.” Using big CGI monsters (“The Watchers”, which are to stone what those big tree-men (Editor’s Note: I’ll just spare everybody the time needed to comment and note they are called Ents) in The Lord of The Rings were to bark), sped-up film, silhouette, overexposure, obvious green-screen, a narrated, cartoonish prologue and a hundred and one other tricks, this artful director lets you in on his artifice. We’re not trying to be real here, he seems to be saying. This is just a fun story. As such, it plays not dissimilar to an animated feature.
My big problem is I never care in animated features (actually, I have now officially kind of cared, in The Lego Movie), and I found it impossible to care here, because the story is so – well, silly – and the characters are also – well, silly – lumbered with dialogue that’s really silly. As the extremely dull (and confusing!) set-up droned on, complete with long-white-haired-and-bald Anthony Hopkins havin’ a cuppa tea with Russell Crowe, it became obvious that caring for anything happening was never going to happen, at least for me. I didn’t really care about the boy Moses either, although it is now good to know why we call them “Moses baskets.”
Perhaps if I was a true believer – a literalist – it might have helped. The problems of old-school Bible movies unfortunately are here in abundance. Just like that parting of the Red Sea, the flood is the only good bit here, and that’s the bit you’ll be waiting for when Noah plays on the telly for eons to come.
Oh, and Big Russ? He’s fine. He’s got Charlton Heston lines and he does what Charlton Heston would do: Speak gravely and deeply, look very concerned, and squint.
A bonus: My radio review aired on April 1, and I was permitted an April Fool’s Day prank. In my review, I stated, stone-voiced sincerely, that, since Noah was already a proven hit at the box office, Russell Crowe and Darren Aronofsky were re-teaming… for Jonah and the Whale.
CJ Johnson
