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The Prince of Egypt – Art 3/5 Ent 5/5 Worth 6/5
I didn’t really like the Disney animation films as a kid. The Little Mermaid actually depressed me. I grew out of them by the time I was old enough to laugh at swears. One of the first off-disneyland animation feature films that really impressed me was Fox’s Anastasia, which had an epic narrative for a children’s story, set in a highly imaginative and lush fantasy version of the Russian Revolution and beyond. Doctor Zhivago for kids, but it was still identifiably “Disney” in all aspects. The film that truly cut sharply away from Disney was Dreamworks’ Prince of Egypt. For one, it had the balls to tell a story from the Bible despite the fact that to do so would require walking in footsteps whose tred marks were surrounded by a million poison quills of angry fans, angry religious fans (just see the varied reaction to The Message or The Passion of the Christ).
At the core of what makes this film brilliant is not any religious message, but quite contrarily it’s a sensitivity to those outside of the ‘tribe’, despite telling a story that very much places us gentiles outside of it. The Egyptians are depicted with neutrality, and their motivations for having done evil unto the Hebrews come with a rationalization (albeit an ancient, reptile-brained one of self-preservation at the expense of others). And furthermore, the interplay between Rameses the Great (voice by Ralph Fiennes), who is perhaps the identifying hero of Egyptian Civilization, and his adoptive brother Moses (voiced by Val Kilmer), the identifying hero of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Civilization is not judgmental in the least. In fact, The Prince of Egypt could easily be read as a tragedy of Rameses more than the salvation of Moses. Looking at other films on Exodus, such as The Ten Commandments, where yet again fair-haired Anglo-Saxon Charleton Heston is playing a Semite, we do not get even a modicum of this moral complexity, which is to be expected, given the source material.
In order to please the greatest amount of moviegoers and offend the fewest in the priestly class, the filmmakers chose to consult religious figures to ‘get it right’ as best they could for a 90 minute animation film. I have very little concern about that authenticity, but I will say that the appeal of the world they created was profound. Before they got all murder’y and explosion’y over there, the Middle East had a sublime vacation appeal to it, and nothing signifies that scenic and cultural beauty quite like this film. If you aren’t swept up in this high-tempo rapturous film, I’d just guess that you’ve never had a dream of weightless flight.
But on a different level, The Prince of Egypt brought all of the greatness of the spear and sandal epics into a film at once casual enough for families but serious enough for film lovers. Although one couldn’t qualify it as avant garde in the least, Prince of Egypt did manage to yield outstanding “natural” imagery that Tarkovsky or Kurosawa would spend days trying to achieve with the right angles, lighting, elements, only being thankful to the heavens for a piercing instant of cinematic happenstance. Animation is indeed the cheat mode of visually-centered artists: you want it, draw it! The powerful iconography and writing was good enough alone, but the absolutist regard for sensuality in the visuals and the songs was what put this movie into the Pantheon, at least mine. The Broadway musical-ready soundtrack and the enormous cast of voice actors – a litany worth a few hundred million in fees at their prime – further establish this film’s cred.
What I appreciate most about The Prince of Egypt is how the narrative and visuals match. As we follow Moses’ journey from an Egyptian identity to his reinvented Hebrew identity, the aesthetic slides from that of an ostentatious Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton palatial epic to the earthy and humble slave ressentiment of the Hebrews. Of course, the setting dictates such as Moses turns his back on the riches for the glory, but still yet the ‘Egyptian’ aesthetic seems to dissipate as Moses’ identity as an Egyptian does. The contrasts reminds of Protestant views of decadent Catholic Rome, and how German culture centered its axis away from Rome and towards Athens and Jerusalem.
The Prince of Egypt is truly one of the finest short ‘epics’ ever made, it’s extremely accessible, and it’s an outstanding narrative even if like me, you don’t give two shits about iron age religions.
