The Exodus is a Weak Film Story
We all know the general gist of the story. Bithiah finds a baby floating in a basket in the water and names him Moses. Moses grows up an honorary son of the Pharaoh with his brother, Ramses. Moses learns he was born a Hebrew. He kills an overseer. He’s exiled to Midian. He marries Zipporah. He encounters a burning bush. He tells Ramses to let his people go. The plagues rain down. The Red Sea parts. Mia mistakes his heroin stash for cocaine and accidentally overdoses. Golden calves and ten commandments and wandering the desert and so on and so forth.
Filmmakers have adapted the story of Exodus since close to the beginning of filmmaking itself. (Cecil B. DeMille made a silent film adaptation in 1923. Thirty three years before the one you’re thinking of.) It’s easy to understand the appeal, what with the massive scope and generations of tradition backing the story. However, though I’ve seen many of these adaptations, I’ve never walked away from any of them feeling fully satisfied.
As far as I’m concerned, this shouldn’t be the case. After all, it’s got plagues and pillars of fire and the dude separates a motherfucking sea! So where does my dissatisfaction come from? I’ve read the Bible. Was it because of these film’s interpretation of the text? Well, details of the story change depending on what translation you read, and even if that weren’t the case, I don’t think original texts should be treated as sacred when adapting them to film.
Is it my own religious beliefs clouding my enjoyment? True, the term I use to describe myself when it comes to religion is “anti-theocratic” rather than “atheist.” (Meaning that I don’t believe in God and that I am in control of what I think is right and wrong, but from a strictly scientific standpoint, I cannot actually prove to you that there is no divine being. Atheism has a limit, you see.) However, I still think religious art, depending on context and taste, can be beautiful or meaningful. We’ve even talked about the beauty of certain Bible interpretations on this site before.
Was it, perhaps, the whitewashing or the clear level of contempt some of these films have for any religion or culture that isn’t Christianity or how some of the films darken up the actors playing the villainous characters? Well, no. But it certainly doesn’t help.
The makeup on Yul doesn't even look good. He looks like a poorly tanned penis dressed as a faux Egyptian Vegas pimp.
So in order to figure out my problem, I rewatched three wildly different film adaptations of the Exodus story: Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 classic The Ten Commandments, DreamWorks Animation’s second feature film The Prince of Egypt, and Ridley Scott’s modern blockbuster adaption Exodus: Gods and Kings. I would argue that none of these films are perfect. In fact, one could make the point that The Prince of Egypt and Exodus: Gods and Kings are, to put it in refined terms, bad. But while all have their own unique flaws, they also share some in common.
1. Bible stories and film stories are at cross purposes.
Of course, anyone can read the Bible and find all forms of personal meaning from it, be it religious awakening or intellectual insight or whatever. However, I would argue that Bible stories serve two primary functions.
The first function is to recount how and why we’re all here. There was a formless emptiness, then God created the universe and made human beings in his image. Then Jacob and Moses and Jesus and so on and so forth and now we’re all here together. The Bible is basically a recap of the universe so far.
The second function is, of course, to teach lessons in accordance with the way God wants us to live and what God wants us to value. Darius throws Daniel into the lion’s den, and because Daniel is the lord’s loyal servant, God saves him. If you have faith in God, no matter how dire the circumstances, you will be saved in this life or the next. Cain murders his brother Abel, and God sends the marked Cain to a life of wandering until he eventually finds a city. Redemption is always possible, and the faithful are treated differently than those who don’t believe. But no one is above God’s law.
Exodus and the life of Moses as a whole is a massive story with plenty of lessons to give. For me personally, I think it’s a story about the resilience God expects from his followers. The Hebrews were enslaved and subjugated for hundreds of years. God finally sent them a savior in the form of Moses, and as a reward, God gives them the ten commandments. It may seem cruel to “reward” newly freed slaves with more laws, but it’s really a blessing. Here is the meaning human beings search for their entire lives. Here is what’s right and wrong. Now go live a life of happiness and love and as long as you follow God’s rules, you’ll be granted access to paradise.
As these stories serve specific functions, they have to operate more like recounts then what we think of in the modern day as “stories.” Of course, one can read a Bible story and find it suspenseful or engaging or scary or any other emotion. But they’re not here to titillate. They’re here to inform and to inspire.
Film stories, on the other hand, seek to find a different kind of emotional connection. They’re here to put us in the shoes of the characters on screen and seek to engage as events unfold using the tools at their disposable, be they visual cues or suspense or any number of devices one can use to connect with an audience. So long as filmmakers seek said connection using narrative, the story beats have to have a causal relationship to one another. They aren’t about what happened. They’re about what happens.
Of course, there are no rules for making art. But art is meant to be interpreted in whatever context the audience desires. Bible stories teach a specific lesson, and while anyone can take away anything from reading them, all are told under a religious context. These stories come from a particular worldview meant to be shared by others. They can entertain anyone, but that’s a secondary purpose only.
2. In terms of film narrative, Moses cedes his role as protagonist at the worst possible moment.
As Exodus is an old story, pinning down its narrative beats in film structure terms can be a bit difficult and much of it depends on the filmmaker’s interpretation of the story. While every Exodus film takes a certain amount of creative license, all follow a general rhythm. As film generally treats Exodus as a story about Moses finding himself and ascending to the role of a leader, I would argue the following:
Bithiah finds Moses’s basket and he grows up with the Pharaoh as his father and Ramses as his brother. Some interpretations, like The Ten Commandments and Exodus: Gods and Kings, portray Moses as a man always capable of good while others, like The Prince of Egypt, show him as a bratty piece of shit. Regardless of the characterization of Moses, the inciting incident is usually Moses finding out that he was born a Hebrew. He struggles with this knowledge. Some films keep the part where he kills the overseer and some don’t. Either way, act one ends with Moses being sent or sending himself into exile.
He wanders the desert, grows a rugged beard, and eventually meets Zipporah and starts a family. The midpoint (tee hee) happens when Moses encounters the burning bush and God tells him to lead his people out of Egypt. Moses returns, Ramses denies the Hebrews their freedom, and God brings the plagues. This results in the end of act two, the low point, where God takes the lives of the first born and Ramses finally lets the Hebrews go. All of this leads to one final confrontation at the Red Sea that ends with the Hebrews on the other side of the waters, and we usually end on the unveiling of the ten commandments.
The problem, I think, is the midpoint. (There's actually a few problems, but this one’s the most important.)
In The Prince of Egypt, Moses finds the burning bush in Antelope Canyon.
The midpoint, besides the name of your favorite cultural analysis blog, is where the protagonist truly takes control of the story. Up until this point, the protagonist has been learning about PRONOUNself and adapting to new circumstances. After the midpoint, the protagonist makes the decisions, and whatever the protagonist wants is now attainable. Or at least it seems like it is. It's one of the most important parts of a story.
In Exodus, however, Moses meets God in the midpoint and becomes a vessel. A flesh and blood instrument of God’s will. From this moment on, Moses is no longer in control of the story. God tells him what to do, and as a humble servant, he obeys. He goes to Egypt and eventually leads his people out, as he’s told. He leads them through the Red Sea and eventually gives them the ten commandments, as he’s been instructed to do.
If the protagonist is the character who makes all the decisions and drives the story forward, I would argue that God is now the protagonist. Yet, our emotional investment is still in Moses, as he’s the one we’ve watched grow and suffer as the story goes along.
Of course, if you’re a Christian than presumably you also have some sort of emotional connection to God. However, from a strictly narrative standpoint, I think this sudden shift from active to passive protagonist harms the story as a whole. Moses was already well on his way to becoming the leader of his people. He was once a powerful man on the side of the oppressors. Then he finds out where he came from, and his sympathies begin to switch. Without the intervention of God, he may have stayed in Midian forever and died a family man with Zipporah and Gershom. But I would argue that he never would’ve been satisfied. He knew the suffering of his people, and he acted on it before when he killed the overseer.
Every interpretation of Moses I’ve seen has one element in common: Once Moses finds out who he is, he cannot stand idly by while his people suffer. In film, where creative reinterpretation is necessary, any worthy writer would have Moses act. Given what we know about Moses, once God tells him his people are suffering, there’s only one decision he would make.
Too bad he doesn’t get to make it, and we effectively get a new protagonist, which also comes with another problem.
3. There can be no conflict or tension when your newly anointed protagonist is an omnipotent being.
Let me acknowledge right off the bat that this section is petty, and it has a lot in common with the previous one. Sorry.
That said, all stories are built on conflict and tension. Obstacles or other human beings with opposing goals getting in the way of what the protagonist wants, and the question of whether or not he/she/they/it will get it. These are the two ingredients all stories must have in order to generate at least some level of interest. If Moses waltzed into Ramses’s palace and said, “Whattup blood. Hey, I’m going to gather up my Hebrews and we’re going to bounce to Canaan.” and Ramses said, “Alright, cool.” it wouldn’t make for a particular interesting story now, would it?
Whether or not protagonists accomplish what they set out to do should always remain in question until the last possible moment. When your protagonist is God with a capital “G,” or if your protagonist is a man but his confidant is an omnipotent being who created the universe and could literally blink the Egyptians out of existence if it so chooses, there really can’t be any question over who is going to succeed and who won’t.
(By the way, I’m using the “it” pronoun for God not for political correctness reasons, but because I don’t think the Christian God is technically human. God certainly is in its human form as Jesus Christ, but I always interpreted Jehovah as an entity with a human form that is not necessarily a biologically functioning human… this is stupid. I’m using “it.” Don’t read too much into it.)
And now, we must ask ourselves several nitpicky questions about the role God plays in the story. Again, God could kill Ramses and transport Moses and the Hebrews to Canaan with the snap of its fingers. One could now reasonably say here, “Oh, Moses just teamed up with an omnipotent being who now runs the story. It seems that the omnipotent being will not use its omnipotence to will his desire for the freedom of his people into reality, and is instead going to watch and clear a path for Moses. So aren’t we just watching dillydally?”
The whole Red Sea sequence in Exodus: Gods and King is unspeakably lame for many reasons, but its greatest sin is getting rid of the pillar of fire. How the fuck do you get rid of the pillar of fire? It's a pillar of fire! You have all the CGI money in the world for those crocodiles but you can't give me one fucking fire pillar... whatever.
Well, depending on your interpretation of the Bible or the Exodus story, you are well within your right to think that. I certainly do to a certain extent, but I also think there’s a reason God doesn't interfere in Bible stories unless it has to, which is to demonstrate how human beings should live in a world where God isn’t necessarily going to swoop in and save you. Those who live on Earth should live like Moses: Loyal to God, compassionate, and willing to do what's right without needing a prompt.
So let’s give the story the benefit of the doubt in that regard. One problem still remains: God has handed Moses a mission to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, and yet, God does everything it can to make sure Moses has no obstacles. Moses doesn’t bring the plagues onto Egypt. God does. When the Hebrews flee Egypt and Ramses’s armies are on their tail, Moses doesn’t create the pillar of fire or part the Red Sea. God does. Moses points his staff about, but God does the actual work.
We sympathize with protagonists because they have to overcome obstacles just like we do. What they have to deal with may be different than what you and I have to overcome. After all, Moses has to lead his people to freedom and I have to focus on not masturbating or playing with the fidget spinner my mom bought me so that I may one day finish this article. However, we sympathize with them the most when they themselves have to overcome obstacles as we must do in our own lives.
Moses stands in front of a sea. The creator of the universe parts the water. Moses and the Hebrews walk through and the water closes. We learn God is powerful and mighty, but we’re offered no further insight into the man leading the people because he’s not required to learn anything about himself.
I have a theory. I can’t prove it, but here we go: I think the screenwriters who work on these projects know the problems with Exodus as a story, and there are a number of ways they’ve tried to counterweight the narrative’s flaws.
One method they try is to give side characters their own arcs. The Ten Commandments does an astounding job with Nefretiri, the woman who murders for Moses in the beginning of the story and, by the end, convinces her husband Ramses to chase down and kill the man she once loved and all of his people. (Seriously, The Ten Commandment’s version of Nefretiri is an incredible character.) Similarly, The Prince of Egypt and Exodus: Gods and Kings try to play up the brotherly relationship between Moses and Ramses in order to create a sense of stakes. That way, there’s a sense of brotherly betrayal when God acts on Ramses or Ramses acts on the Hebrews.
Exodus: Gods and Kings tries a fascinating idea in having Moses deal with the cruelty and uncaring nature of God’s actions. In the film, God interacts with Moses in the form of a small boy named Malak, who in the Bible is an angel and messenger of God. Malak doesn’t concern himself with how Moses feels. He simply orders him to obey. As Moses witnesses the true barbarousness of God’s plagues, he protests to Malak. He even comes close to walking away from everything once he’s informed of the coming death of the first born. It’s an idea the movie doesn’t commit to enough, but it’s still interesting nonetheless.
All of these ideas enhance the story for sure, but none of them are enough because Exodus, from a filmmaking perspective, is an inherently flawed story. All are still enjoyable for their visuals and, particularly in The Ten Commandment’s case, their scope. But so long as the details remain the same, it’s a story that eventually loses its shepherd.
