I grew up in a mainly French Catholic environment, with my mother being and grandmother being significant influences throughout my childhood. Although I ended up taking a significantly different path as I reached my teens, Catholicism was a constant presence in my life, especially since I went through elementary school well before the whole “separation of church and state” thing kicked in. Although modern society rejects the idea of the introduction of the Bible in the classroom, It had a profound influence on my life and I still have a copy of the Bible that I acquired decades ago.
I’ve read the Bible more times than I can recall and during seventh grade, my class and I watched The Ten Commandments. Released in 1956, the film features the story of Moses, an Egyptian prince who discovers he’s the descendant of Hebrew slaves and abdicates his throne to lobby on behalf of the slaves and sees them through freedom from bondage and the mass exodus out of Egypt. Moses comes to commune with God, who provides Moses with His ten “laws” that man should follow, hence the title of the movie. We watched it over several classes, since the movie has a runtime of 3 hours and 40 minutes. A significantly long movie for the time.
Although dated and very obviously an older movie, some of the principles still stand today and the movie is based on the Bible’s book of Exodus. I was reminded of the movie as I spoke to my mother recently and she indicated she had watched it over the Easter weekend. It always airs over this weekend and since my childhood, I’ve always made a point of watching it sometime during said weekend. I didn’t get the chance to, this year. Last year, I had the benefit of being at home because of the pandemic (the only benefit is that I was home, the pandemic in general sucked). But this year, between work and familial obligations, who the hell has 3 hours and 40 minutes to sit for a single movie?
I have the movie saved on my phone, of all places. I could potentially watch it any time and maybe I’ll make my way through it in the days to come. I could even watch a bit at a time during my lunch hours. In 2014, they came out with a remake entitled “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” which starred Christian Bale and ran for about two and a half hours. I watched it some years ago but it didn’t quite compare to the original and despite the better effects and film quality, they cut out a lot that was in the original movie. Plus, I just can’t picture Batman as an Egyptian prince who becomes a Hebrew slave. But I digress…
A part of me misses the yearly tradition of sitting through this movie. It still totally stands up and if you’re looking for something good to watch, this could be it. I have it on my iPhone because I purchased it through iTunes but I do know it’s available on a number of different platforms. “So it was written, so it shall be done.” ☯️
The Blogging Buddhist 