Exodus : Gods and Kings (2014)

Partager la citation sur facebook Moses: I love everything that I know about you. And I trust in what I don't.

Partager la citation sur facebook Moses: Follow me and you will be free. Stay and you will perish.

Partager la citation sur facebook Rhamses: That wasn't an admission. He simply did not want her arm lopped off.

Partager la citation sur facebook Rhamses: You sleep well because you know that you're loved. I've never slept that well.

Partager la citation sur facebook Rhamses: You say that you didn't... cause all this. You say this is not your fault. So let's just see who's more effective at killing: You or me.

Partager la citation sur facebook High Priestess: [reading fowl entrails] In the battle a leader will be saved, and his savior will someday lead.
Moses: [laughs] Then the entrails should also say that we will abandon reason and be guided by omens.

Partager la citation sur facebook Hegep: Let me tell you something about about Hebrews. They are a conniving, combative people. Do you know what 'Israelite' means in their own language? 'He who fights with God.'
Moses: 'He who wrestles with God.' There is a difference.

Partager la citation sur facebook Zippora: Who makes you happy?
Moses: You do.
Zipporah: What's the most important thing in your life?
Moses: You are.
Zipporah: Where would you rather to be?
Moses: Nowhere.
Zipporah: And when will you leave me?
Moses: Never.
Zipporah: Proceed.

Partager la citation sur facebook Zipporah: Is it so wrong for him to grow up believing in God?
Moses: Is it so wrong for him to grow up believing in himself?

Partager la citation sur facebook Moses: Who are you?
Malak: Who are YOU?
Moses: I'm a shepherd.
Malak: I thought you were a general. I need a general.
Moses: Why?
Malak: To fight. Why else?
Moses: Fight who? For what?
Malak: I think you know. I think you should go and see what's happening to your people now. You won't be at peace until you do. Are they not people in your opinion?
Moses: Who are you?
Malak: I am.

Partager la citation sur facebook Moses: Where have you been?
Malak: Watching you fail.
Moses: Wars of attrition take time.
Malak: At this rate, it will take years. A generation.
Moses: I am prepared to fight for that long.
Malak: I'm not.
Moses: I thought we were making progress. Now you're impatient after 400 years of slavery.
Malak: Am I the only one sitting here who's done nothing about it until now?
Moses: I do know a few things about military action. Still, if you are not going to listen to me, then why did you take me away from my family?
Malak: I didn't. You did.
Moses: You don't need me.
Malak: Maybe not.
Moses: So what do I do? Nothing?
Malak: For now, you can watch.

Partager la citation sur facebook Malak: He's given you what you've asked?
Moses: Not yet, but his own people are turning against him.
Malak: And his army?
Moses: It will.
Malak: I disagree. Something worse has to happen.
Moses: I disagree. Anything more would be...
Malak: Would be what? What were you about to say? Cruel? Inhumane?
Moses: It's not easy to see the people who I grew up with suffering this much.
Malak: What about the people you didn't grow up with? What thought did you give to them? You still don't think of them as yours, do you? As long as Rhamses has an army behind him, nothing will change.
Moses: Anything more is just revenge!
Malak: Revenge? After 400 years of brutal subjugation! These pharoahs, who imagine they're living gods, they are nothing more than flesh and blood! I want to see them on their knees begging for it to stop!
Moses: I'm tired of talking with a messenger!
Malak: General! I have heard Rhamses' final threat. So let me tell you what's going to happen next.
Moses: [after being told of God's plan to kill the firstborn of Egypt] No, no! You cannot do this! I want no part of this!

Partager la citation sur facebook Joshua: [cornered at the Red Sea] Do you even know where we are?
Moses: Yes! We are at a point on the Earth where there is a sea ahead, and an army behind!

Partager la citation sur facebook Malak: What do you think of this?
Moses: [carving the stone tablets] I wouldn't do it if I didn't agree.
Malak: That's true. I've noticed that about you. You don't always agree with me.
Moses: Nor you me, I've noticed.
Malak: Yet here we are, still speaking. But not for much longer. A leader can falter, but stone will endure. These laws will guide them in your stead. If you disagree, you should put down the hammer.
[Moses continues carving]

Partager la citation sur facebook Q: On how close the film's portrayal of Moses is to the Bible's portrayal of him

Partager la citation sur facebook On getting ready to play Moses:

Partager la citation sur facebook At once honoring and eclipsing the showmanship of Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” (1956), the final hour of “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is a sensationally entertaining yet beautifully modulated stream of visual wonders that make it all but impossible to tear one’s eyes from the screen. In one of his boldest strokes, Scott dramatizes the 10 plagues in a seamless, vividly realistic domino-effect montage — the bloody despoiling of the Nile (which takes a surprising page from “Jaws”) naturally giving way to a proliferation of gnats and frogs, boils and locusts — that truly does seem to capture the intensity of God’s wrath in one furious, unrelenting deluge. In keeping with the momentum established by Billy Rich’s editing and the superb vfx work, this Moses does not return to Ramses day after day with fresh entreaties of “Let my people go,” but instead remains in hiding, watching ambivalently as the Lord does their fighting for them.
“You don’t always agree with me,” God says to Moses, effectively inviting all viewers, regardless of persuasion, to wrestle with their own conflicted impulses. Scott, a self-professed agnostic whose films have nonetheless betrayed a restless spiritual dimension (particularly “Prometheus”), seems to have been inspired by his distance from the material, placing his identification with a hero who never stops questioning himself or the God he follows. Not unlike Russell Crowe’s Noah, and rather unlike Charlton Heston’s iconic barn-stormer, Bale’s Moses emerges a painfully flawed, embattled leader whose direct line to the Almighty is as much burden as blessing — and who wearily recognizes that once the Israelites have cast off the shackles of slavery, the truly hard work of governance, progress, repentance and faithfulness will begin.

Partager la citation sur facebook “I never realized that this character (Moses, played by Christian Bale) had such a massive story. I didn’t know that he was a soldier, I didn’t know that he could have been, was rumored to be, close to the pharaoh Ramses,” played by Joel Edgerton.

Partager la citation sur facebook Scott credits Kane for bringing out the importance of Moses to Jews, Muslims and Christians. But “Jeffrey, I think, got tired, so I brought in Steven Zaillian.” Zaillian “looked at it, and said, fundamentally, 'I’m an atheist, I don’t think I’m the right person to even consider this,’ and … I said, 'On the contrary, Steve … you have the best qualifications to write this, revise this, clarify this, through your own mind being a nonbeliever. … Maybe you’ll become an agnostic by the time you finish the screenwriting.’”

Partager la citation sur facebook The New York Times' A.O. Scott, comparing "Exodus" to this year's earlier biblical blockbuster "Noah," says that the latter film "may have been too strange for some viewers. 'Exodus,' by contrast, crowded with well-known actors, is nowhere near strange enough. More than anything else, it recalls the wide-screen, Technicolor biblical pageants of the 1950s and early '60s, bland and solemn spectacles that invited moviegoers to marvel at their favorite stars in sandals and robes."
To be fair, he adds, "there is some good stuff here, too. Mr. Scott is a sinewy storyteller and a connoisseur of big effects. … But in the past, this director has also shown a knack for intimacy and intensity, for moments of feeling that stand out amid the fight-and-flight adrenaline rushes." Ultimately, "'Exodus' has the makings of a provocative study of power, rebellion and loyalty. To paraphrase a Passover song, that would have been enough. What we get instead is both woefully insufficient and much too much."

Partager la citation sur facebook USA Today's Claudia Puig writes, "Swarms of flies, oozing pustules, alligator attacks and gaggles of frogs are vividly rendered in three dimensions in 'Exodus: Gods and Kings.' And yet this biblical epic is still bland, overly long and otherwise forgettable. … Those seeking memorable performances and a fresh approach … will want to look elsewhere."
Puig adds that the "expensive-looking, massively staged spectacle, with elaborate costumes and ornate production design, feels bloated, by-the-book and lackluster, and is dotted with risible dialogue. … None of this feels new or fresh."

Partager la citation sur facebook The Washington Post's Stephanie Merry zeroes in on Scott's decision to portray God as "a bratty and terrifying pre-teen," played by 11-year-old Isaac Andrews. It's "but one absurd choice in this biblical action drama that feels excessive in every way imaginable, from running time (nearly 2 1/2 hours) to melodramatic acting to the conspicuous amount of computer generation."
Merry also writes, "Among the movie's myriad problems is its lack of character development. There are passing attempts at humanizing larger-than-life characters …. But there's a much greater emphasis on battles and apocalyptic images than on personal stories." All told, the movie "has much more in common with 'The Day After Tomorrow' and other examples of disaster porn than 'The Ten Commandments' or 'The Passion of the Christ' or even 'Noah' from earlier this year."

Partager la citation sur facebook Ridley Scott is a director of extremes. He has made some extraordinary films, most notably Blade Runner, Alien and The Duellists, and he has made very ordinary ones too. Exodus: Gods And Kingsfalls well in the middle of the pack; its most obvious connection is to 2000's Gladiator, and there are some clear thematic echoes in this movie. It lacks Gladiator's full-on intensity and committed central performances, however; it's a mixture of the grand and the bland, and when it's not spectacular it's a little plodding.

Partager la citation sur facebook The story of Moses rising up against the Pharaoh Ramses and leading hundreds of thousands of Hebrew slaves out of Egypt to freedom is one with which we’re all extremely familiar. It’s the entire point of Passover. Scott is not reinventing the wheel here. Rather, he’s invented the biggest, shiniest, noisiest wheel imaginable, then he runs over us with it rather than inviting us along for the ride.

Partager la citation sur facebook Certainly, there’s an allure to seeing this sort of old-fashioned, biblical epic on the big screen–and indeed, within this proliferation of pixels, there is undeniable craft and heft to the massive set pieces and behemoth battles. From the costumes to the weaponry to the interiors, it’s obvious that Scott’s team took great care in considering and creating every detail. But the film as a whole (with a script credited to Adam Cooper & Bill Collage and Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian) feels overstuffed and over-glossed. Self-serious to a fault, it packs in more and more in terms of story and extravagant visuals while offering too little in terms of actual character development and engaging drama.
When he’s been at his absolute best in his lengthy career, directing films like “Blade Runner” and “Alien” and even "Thelma & Louise," Scott has established himself as a visionary and a master of creating imagery that would go on to be iconic. “Exodus” feels oddly impersonal. It’s hard to tell what Scott’s point is here, beyond making his Academy Award-winning “Gladiator” look like an independent film by comparison. Earlier this year, “Gladiator” star Russell Croweplayed the title character in Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah.” That was a biblical epic which also was massive in scope but at the same time beautiful and strange; it stayed true to its source material but found an intriguing and challenging tone. It actually evoked emotion.

Partager la citation sur facebook Exodus: Gods and Kings comes to us courtesy of 20th Century Fox, which is distributing Ridley Scott’s $140 million would-be epic. The producers this time around are Chernin Entertainment, Scott Free Productions, Babieka, and Volcano Films. The film opens wide in America on December 12th, 2014, and it has already opened in some overseas markets as of December 3rd. Over the next few months, it will of course attempt to play a two-sided game. On on hand, the film will be targeting the overtly religious moviegoers that have made quite a bit of noise this year. On the other hand, 20th Century Fox wants the general moviegoers worldwide who just want a major spectacle-filled blockbuster regardless of the film’s would-be religious dogma.
Scott Mendelson "Review: 'Exodus' Is God-Awful". Forbes. (December 5, 2014).

Partager la citation sur facebook Scott Mendelson "Review: 'Exodus' Is God-Awful". Forbes. (December 5, 2014).

Partager la citation sur facebook "Exodus: Gods and Kings" is one film where spoiler alerts aren't necessary. Both the Bible and the big screen have so prominently featured the story of fearless prophet Moses and hard-hearted Pharaoh's refusal to let his people go that the events depicted in this latest reenactment will not be news to anyone.
But that familiarity doesn't mean there aren't surprises to be had, and not always welcome ones. Gone, gone, gone is the traditional depiction of the Almighty as an unseen voice in the clouds: A snarky, querulous 11-year-old boy gets the call instead.
Even more unsettling, the Red Sea doesn't dramatically part the way we've gotten used to; it just kind of fades away, only to come roaring back when no one is expecting it. Some nerve.

Partager la citation sur facebook Isaac Andrews as Malak – The mysterious little boy who serves as a manifestation of the God of Abraham.