For biblical study, this film is basically nothing but a word by word view of the first books of Genesis, told by someone we assume is Jacob and covering creation up to the covenant of the rainbow. It's the voice of the Oscar winning Paul Scofield that provides the commanding viewpoint, and his soothing voice will have you feeling relaxed even the most intense of Biblical times. Indeed, there are moments that are difficult to take because the narrative is often hypocritical and it creates more questioning of the biblical scriptures than the desire to continue to believe and follow. It's a while before you get to see the first man and woman with only a dimension by name early on and Eve mentioned later on. The murder of Abel by Cane gets some screen time with the brothers shown looking quite young which makes the crime all the more shocking.
We then get the "begat" segment as we get a glimpse of some progress and how these early humans seemingly survived. By the time we get to Noah, it's obvious that corruption has entered the human mindset, and there's no real focus on much of what went on in creating the ark or the entrance of the animals, and certainly not the foolish manner in which Noah was perceived by those who would soon tragically die. There certainly are many profound moments, but it's really nothing more then a visual retelling our stories many of us read over and over as children and a different perspective than was presented in the 1966 epic "The Bible". In a sense, it's a lot more intimate and yet less detailed, but the point is to tell the story directly than to impress with special effects.
I can definitely see this film being more successful with Bible classes for young students, and yet, it's also worth seeing on the big screen. I enjoyed the physical beauty of the film and the gorgeous musical score (by Ennio Morricone) , and to see places where this could have taken place, you get a sense of realness that is overshadowed in those overstuffed epics of the 50's and 60's. The fact that they used real people from the Middle East (Morocco) to play these characters also gives you a sense of what the biblical characters really could have looked like, and to see Adam and Eve played as youthful creations of God reminds us that these people of this era did not look like movie stars. So what's interesting for its point of view, but there's really nothing new in the telling of these things that are greatly debated now.
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