Friday, September 13, 2019

By the Gods!

Moses (Charlton Heston) indirectly tells his mother, Bithiah (Nina Foch), that he knows she's not his real mother in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)

This scene is very good. Well acted and staged. It's scenes like this which helped keep this epic grounded. Nina was also in another memorable scene in SPARTACUS (1960), when she went 'shopping' for slaves.



1 comment:

Richard Svensson said...

I re-watched Spartacus the other night. Hadn't seen it for many years, but I was struck by how dense this very long movie is. If there's no action on the screen, it's riveting intrigue or moving personal scenes. It's really the same for Ben-Hur. I can compare these movies to the more recent (and shorter) Exodus: Gods and Kings, which I found to be a real slog to get through. Isolated scenes are interesting, but overall that movie goes nowhere, and it takes its time doing it. It seems making watchable epics is now a lost art form.