Category
ridley scott
Morocco lifts ban on ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ after edits
Morocco lifted its ban on the movie “Exodus: Gods and Kings” after Fox Studios and director Ridley Scott deleted what was considered offensive dialogue.
God Goes Hollywood in Exodus: Gods and Kings
Spoiler alert: Morgan Freeman does not play God in Exodus: Gods and Kings.
A Moses named Christian and a Pharaoh named Turturro
Generally speaking, Ridley Scott’s “Exodus: Gods and Kings” is more biblically respectful than Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” which saw Russell Crowe performing a well-paid infomercial for Al Gore’s environmentalism.
Despite artistic and political license, ‘Exodus’ connects to contemporary Jews
If you are going to see “Exodus: Gods and Kings” because it depicts an iconic cultural narrative that you want to better understand, I would caution against relying on director Ridley Scott’s version.
Jerusalem Becomes Queen of ‘Kingdom’
In 1986, Oscar-nominated production designer Arthur Max (\”Gladiator\”) visited Jerusalem in the midst of the intifada.\n\n\”People told me not to go almost everywhere, but I went everywhere,\” said Max, who is Jewish. \”Of course, some of the Old City was closed off for security reasons, but I went to the Western Wall and into the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. And I stood on top of the Jaffa Gate and I looked out over what to me always had been a name, and suddenly I felt connected to my heritage, a close connection to all the Jewish history I had studied as a bar mitzvah.\n\nMax drew on those feelings to recreate medieval Jerusalem for \”Kingdom of Heaven,\” in which the protagonists also journey to Jerusalem to connect to their religious roots. The Ridley Scott film revolves around a crusader (Orlando Bloom) swept up in the 12th-century battle between Christian King Balian and Muslim leader Saladin.