MAKSQUIBS CINEMATHEQUE: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (1951)

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (1951)

Atypical biblical epic from 20th/Fox tries to rise above C. B. De Mille hokum (i.e. the puerile SAMSON & DELILAH or that year’s faux De Mille, QUO VADIS) with something a bit more tasteful & literate, but settles for the blandly unobjectionable. Gregory Peck makes a visually compelling David (especially once he stops shaving in Act III) but is largely becalmed while Susan Hayward is stubbornly contemporary. Henry King ’s stately production is blessedly human scaled, but many of the trick matte & miniature effects are unconvincing even for their time.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Alfred Newman ’s score has a main love theme that keeps threatening to morph into the Dietz/Schwartz classic ‘High and Low.’ (And just for the record, 'High & Low' grabs it's opening phrase from Massenet's famous 'Meditation' out of his opera THAIS, another tale of sex & religion. Could the swipe have been a knowing homage? But to Massenet or Schwartz?)

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A last thought before we go.

Well, enough from me. But before we sign off, here's a great quote from Emile Zola's L'OEUVRE (THE MASTERPIECE), which is about painting rather than the yet to be invented medium of film, but which points a fine critical eye toward the whole idea of art criticism. It's a good, if chilly, thought to keep in mind, especially when you surf the net.

"Has it ever struck you that posterity may not be the fair, impartial judge we like to think it is?

"Suppose the artist's paradise turned out to be as nonexistent as the Catholics, and future generations prove just as misguided as the present one and persisted in liking pretty pretty dabbling better than honest to goodness painting. There are some accepted masterpieces for which I myself wouldn't give a twopenny damn.

"Classical training has given us a wrong view of everything and forces us to acclaim as geniuses a lot of fellows who are no more than well-balanced, facile painters, while what we might really prefer is the work of more emancipated but less even artists known only to an initiated few. Immortality at present depends entirely on the average, middle-class mind and is reserved only for the names that have been most forcibly impressed upon us while we were still unable to defend ourselves...

"Perhaps that's the sort of thing that's best left unsaid. It's certainly the sort of thing that gives me the shudders!"- Emile Zola

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Saturday, May 17, 2008

DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (1951)

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A last thought before we go.

DROP ME A LINE