Exodus
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Movie Reviews of Exodus
Movie Review: Epic Film with a Message
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember as a kid watching this when it would be shown for two nights in the springtime, waiting to see it and then, oh well, the music was pretty cool. Now, through other eyes, it really is a great piece of movie history an excellent story and plot as well with irony and tradegy and hope as a message.
Really, when you think of what has transpired in the sixty plus years since the founding of the state of Israel, you get a sense of the tension that develops between Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman) and his childhood friend Taha (played by John Derek (Joshua from The Ten Commandments), the Arab Sheik from the nearby town whose dad allowed Barak Ben Canaan (Lee J. Cobb) settle many years before. After the UN approves the state of Israel, Taha gets caught up in the politics of the time, yet, he stresses, this is my land and our country. Ari Ben Canaan says, we can still be friends and neighbors. Looking back, hind sight being 20/20, one has to ask, was there or could have there been another solution?
The film itself sends a few messages, Ari Ben Canaan impersonates an Englishman, when he is talking to one of the leaders of the camps on Cyprus Major Caldwell (Peter Lawford), they get into barbs about Jewish people, Newman plays it straight the whole time as a plot to get those in the camp freed to go to Israel.
You see as well the beginnings of the terror campaigns in Israel, by the Israelis, wanting to be rid of the British rulers. There is tension for sure between factions within the Jewish community in Palestine, but they come together.
The story is gripping in intensity, the first time you watch it through. Look for the messages though, the sorrow of the many who had been persecuted, and the anger and passion of those who seek a home land.
Each main character in the story seems to represent a picture of the larger nations involved in the struggle of the time.
An interesting book that is very up to date about the time we live in relation to the Middle East is "Tea with Hezbollah." You hear, like the words of Taha, Ben Canaan's friend, the words of those who love people, Jews, Americans and others, yet, dislike Zionism. Amazingly, Exodus is as much real time today as it was in 1960 since the issue is not settled for those affected.
I wish the DVD had a few more extras about maybe things like the Balfour Declaration and things like the Jewish refugees being rejected from country to country before and during WWII. Paul Newman aludes to it in the movie, it would have been fascinating for sure. Eva Marie Saint, plays a strong recently widowed nurse who has spent time in Palestine, and she gets involved in the plot in order to help others.
Very well done and very interesting movie. I recommend it heartily.
Movie Review: I Would Like To Go With You, Kit-tay
Summary: 5 Stars
I wonder if everybody has movies that, if you're flicking through the channels and you land on one of them, you throw away the remote, call out for pizza, and you just sit there until the movie is over. For my wife it's CARRIE. For me, it's VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, VELVET GOLDMINE and EXODUS. This movie must have been on TV a million times yet every time I hear Jill Haworth call out for "Kit-tay," my heart melts like a roto rooter in a chocolate milkshake. You see, Jill Haworth, the marvelous protege of Otto Preminger after Jean Seberg, is just as talented as Seberg but in a very different direction, childlike where Seberg was aggressive and cocksure, and that British accent like something out of the CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED with the pursed vowels, gets me every time! Playing "Karen" can't have been easy but it is a part any star would like to sink her teeth into, a Holocaust survivor yearning to find love again with Sal Mineo, and yet drawn to the mature, and equally blonde, charms of Eva Marie Saint.
E-M-S plays Karen Fremont, an American nurse who's seen it all and yet feels sorry for poor little Karen, really only a little girl despite her chronological age which I never did figure out. The truth is, you don't see many movies about the bond between a teen girl and a mentoring woman--well; CARRIE is one, I suppose, and the gym teacher played by Betty Buckley has a no nonsense briskness when dealing with Sissy Spacek, PJ Soles but especially Amy Irving, in whom she sees part of her youthful self. In VALLEY OF THE DOLLS it's Helen Lawson observing wryly Neely O'Hara's climb to the top, except that the screenwriters deleted Susann's original idea of an admiration and camaraderie between the two, and just left in the catfight parts. And in EXODUS, the movie may be about how awful British people are, and how Palestinians deserve no rights, but teally it's all about Eva Marie Saint and what a grown woman can do to help a young girl out of a selfless atruism crossed with an Ingmar-Bergman PERSONA-esque confusion of identities, for obviously on some level "Karen" and "Kitty" are the same person at different stages of her life. Haworth speaks Kitty's name with an exaggerated and delightful tenderness, as if she can't believe a grown woman could be called after a kitten. "Kit-tay," she says (and she must say it about 150 times in the three and a half hours of the movie). Another reviewer said that Kitty, excuse me, Eva Marie Saint, spoils the movie in the same way that Kim Basinger spoils any movie she's in. How unfair to both great stars, each of whom plays a character called "Kitty" in important and mindbending films. Or what about Kitty Foyle (Ginger Rogers)? Maybe "Kitty" is a blonde sort of name, like what's her name in GOLDFINGER.
Movie Review: 'With the help of G_d, I know I can be strong'
Summary: 5 Stars
Words from the theme song of Exodus written by Pat Boone.
I had heard instrumental versions of this song on some albums that my parents had and have always thought that it was the theme song for The Ten Commandments produced by Cecil B. DeMille. I first heard the actual words sung by Marty Goetz on a CD I recently purchased. When I realized Otto Preminger produced this film in 1960, I had to see it.
This modern day Exodus story, told in the novel written by Leon Uris, takes place in 1947 right before the U.N. voted on partitioning palestine into jewish and arab areas. (I've discovered that 75% of that land given to the jews was desert). The plight of the jews was so pathetic then following the holocaust they had so recently survived. This movie captures, however, the jews' indomitable spirit documented throughout scripture and historical records. I've not read the book but have been told it contains a lot more detail than the movie. Regardless of how you view events going on in Israel, past and present, one must realize how pivotal this time period was in the creation and survival of the nation of Israel.
Paul Newman plays Ari Ben Canaan, a Sabra, a palestinian born jew who falls in love with a vacationing American nurse played by Eva Marie Saint. (A sabra is a fruit endemic to Israel which has a prickly, tough exterior but a sweet interior). Ari's task is to smuggle jewish lives into palestine safely from Cyprus. To do so, he must sometimes rely on illegitimate means, for example, when he states they need a jeep and seeing one not far from the dock which belonged to a high ranking church official ordered that they "steal it, paint it, hide it".
This movie is one of the most moving, beautiful films I've ever seen, and actually I don't see it as being anti-palestinian, since one of Ari's close friends is a palestinian muslim. The words to the song could be seen that way since they begin with 'This land is mine, G_d gave this land to me'. However, realizing how tenuous their situation was, since noone wanted to accept them into their country, those words can't be understood to be threatening or aggressive. I can't believe this movie did not win more awards.
Movie Review: Preminger strikes again...
Summary: 5 Stars
Otto Preminger is often maligned by film historians because he didn't have a stereotype. He made films as diverse as "Laura", "Carmen Jones", "Porgy & Bess" and "The Cardinal". He also made "Exodus". I first saw this film as an 11 year old kid. I grew up in the sheltered German-Polish southside of Milwaukee, and, apparently for obvious reasons, I knew very little of the plight of the Jews. The attention span of an 11 year old is often a subject of scorn, but I've never forgotten how powerful an effect this film had on me. The screenplay by Dalton Trumbo was concise, since Leon Uris' novel was quite explicit in detail. As I said, as a history lesson, your kids should see this, especially if you're a non-Jew. I was riveted. 42 years later, I'm seeing the same story but being a little more critical. It's still a wonderful piece of film-making, with brilliant photography of actual locations (a bit faded at times, even on MGM's DVD version); previous reviewers have already commented on the plot and other things so I'll not go on about the lack of chemistry between the leads. Sal Mineo is often joked about, but this is his second Oscar-nominated performance (after "Rebel W/O a Cause") and there is a true nuance about his character aside from the tirades in which he indulges. His eyes flash at moments when you don't expect it, leading to a "cute" romance with the beautiful and admirable Jill Haworth. Mineo WAS talented. Still, the film only garnered 3 Oscar nominations: Mineo (supporting), cinematography and a win for Ernest Gold's legendary score. This all said, the essence of the message can be interpreted as a history lesson. I was particularly moved by Newman's final speech: "(Someday) Arab & Jew will share a peaceful life in this land they have always shared in death" Maybe it's a little more relevant now than we thought.Movie Review: A Look Into the Soul of Zionism
Summary: 5 Stars
I won't belabor the many fine points of this film (not least among them the casting of Paul Newman "as" Ari). I hope to offer information that isn't as well-known.
The main Palestinian Jew/Israeli's name - Ari Ben-Canaan - has interesting historical significance. (See Uris' book "Jerusalem" for a more in-depth coverage of this topic.) Canaan was the land of Israel before the Israelis settled it. It was, as Uris writes, "the land of Abraham." The name BEN is used in Hebrew names to mean "son." Therefore, this character's name literally means "Son of Israel." And, of course, "Ari" means "lion" (in Hebrew). So... "Israel's Lion"?
Exodus (the film) was based on - surprise surprise - Exodus (the book) by Leo Uris. The movie follows the historical novel with surprising intrepidness, although clipping the ending slightly (and unnoticeably). The movie has the SPIRIT of the book, the SPIRIT of indomitableness that Uris felt emanating from the Jews and their actions.
Secondly, the events described in this film are, to the best of my listening, historically accurate. Even events that the "fictional" Ari Ben-Canaan is involved in happened, and his father existed as a member of the early Jewish parliament.