Huston's Bible vs. DeMille's Ten Commandments: Film Analysis

Huston's View of God and the Old Testament

Before discussing the central aspects of this section, it is illuminating to consider John Huston's personal views on religion, as they shed light on his interpretation of the Biblical text and reveal a thematic unity that flows throughout the film. The following is part of an interview response by Huston to the question, "Do you believe in God?"

"In the beginning, the Lord God was in love with mankind and accordingly jealous. He was forever asking mankind to prove our affection for Him — for example, seeing if Abraham would cut his son's throat. But then, as eons passed, His ardor cooled and He assumed a new role — that of a beneficent deity. All a sinner had to do was confess and say he was sorry and God forgave him. The fact of the matter was that He had lost interest. That was the second step. Now it would appear that He had forgotten about us entirely. He has taken up, maybe, with life elsewhere in the universe on another planet. It is as though we ceased to exist." (Huston on Making the Bible)

This quotation is instructive in that it sheds light on how Huston sees the God of the Old Testament. He views this God as essentially a deity of jealousy and dominance — a theme repeatedly invoked throughout the film. Huston also notes that God was "forever asking mankind to prove our affection for Him," a facet present in every section of the film and especially in God's instruction to Abraham to sacrifice his own son. A third related factor is that Huston describes God in strikingly human terms as being "in love" with mankind. This humanized view of God is a central aspect that shapes the way Huston reads and interprets the Biblical text.

Adam and Eve, as the archetypal human beings, are portrayed in the film in a way that fosters questions and ambiguity. In the first instance they seemingly have no desires other than to live in the garden and to obey God. They initially have no need to know anything about themselves. At its opening, the film portrays Adam and Eve as blank slates upon which God writes His will. Their appearance is stereotypical and their actions seem robotic, devoid of natural volition.

This depiction raises a number of issues that form an integral part of this often problematic film. The first is that God creates creatures who appear to have no inner life or curiosity about the world around them. Curiosity is in fact the very thing that is prohibited on pain of spiritual death. This raises the question of why God created human beings in the first place. While this question touches on the incomprehensible mystery of creation, there is also the suggestion that the director is making a subtle but defining point in his depiction of these two characters. Is Huston implying that God, as the omnipotent and all-knowing creator, must have known about the flaws in His creation? Why would God create something that is potentially flawed? This leads to the intimation that in some sense Adam and Eve were intended to fail — so that they could prove their love and devotion to God in a world of pain and death. These are issues that open onto a vast area of theological discourse; they are raised in a close reading of the film but never answered.

Adam and Eve: Curiosity, Obedience, and the Jealous God

Given these complex issues, it is the characterization and the subtle clues that Huston provides that are most interesting in the first section of the film. Unlike Adam, Eve is interested in more than simple compliance. She is curious about herself and is tempted by the serpent, who promises knowledge. This is a crucial point in the film: her facial expression and the way she is enticed show the first glimmers of humanity and life in the characters. It is also enlightening that Adam makes only token resistance to eating the apple. One commentator adds to this point: "Huston appears to be saying that the human experience is cast in the image of the first woman, not the first man. It was Huston's woman who demonstrated a willingness to die for us, since, in the Garden, there was no death and no children." However, the most important aspect of this scene is that it marks the beginning of the complex conflict and relationship between the God of the Old Testament and mankind — the central subject the film attempts to explore.

This presentation of Adam and Eve is, of course, an interpretation of the Biblical text that emphasizes the attributes the director wishes to highlight. Any film version of the Biblical text will of necessity carry its own biases and predilections. Huston's interpretation is, to a great extent, shaped by his personal ideology: the idea of a jealous and deeply humanized God who makes mistakes and errors.

The complexity and the underlying biases in Huston's view can also be seen in his depiction of the serpent in the tree. It is significant that he partially humanizes the serpent by giving it a human face. The snake is therefore both human and something else, suggesting it is both good and evil. The snake figure also intimates that the origins of evil are at least partly human, creating some confusion about where evil actually comes from.

While Eve's approach to the snake is extremely cautious and fearful, the director simultaneously emphasizes her desire to find out more. Even though she is in mortal danger, her eyes are radiant with intention and curiosity. Huston focuses on this tension between desire and fear in a single extended frame, where we see Eve's face and the golden apple at the same moment. The apple looms over her expectant face and seems to dominate her. The snake appears to have no other intention except to corrupt the innocent Eve. Its voice is clear and intriguing, its argument compelling and dramatic. The consequences of Eve's actions and Adam's compliance are inevitable, and they are abruptly and without mercy dismissed to the world of pain and death.

Their sons Cain and Abel are born in the barren wilderness, which is powerfully conveyed in the film. Cain is the tiller of the soil, while Abel tends the flock of sheep. Cain is portrayed as the more taciturn and dissatisfied of the two brothers. The theme of jealousy emerges strongly in this section, and Cain kills his brother in a fit of rage when his offering is not accepted by God. It is worth noting that Cain may have had cause to be angry and jealous, in that his agricultural labor would have been considerably more arduous than Abel's pastoral work.

In the film, the humanism and sensationalism of the Biblical text — or rather its reduction to the level of human motivation — characterize Huston's interpretation of the characters. In the story of Cain and Abel, the murder is again a matter of jealousy: one brother is accepted by God while the other is not. This emphasis on jealousy recurs again and again throughout the film. While Huston's interpretation does conform to one reading of the Bible, it also ignores more esoteric and less humanistically influenced perspectives on the Biblical text.

One reason for Huston's interpretive choices is that he had to be mindful of his audience's expectations. Possibly he felt that a more complex vision of the Bible would be too radical and would upset most viewers of the time. As the lecture notes state, "Huston is himself at the mercy of the audience." The lecture notes also make certain assertions that go to the heart of the portrayal of character and the general ethos of the work: "Huston's biblical God appears to like to watch pain and suffering; there is evil in the world because the biblical God is evil… Huston's portrayal is unequivocal: God is bad."

This view relates directly to the way Huston portrays character and edits the Biblical text accordingly. The way God deals with Cain generally follows the Biblical text, but the director ensures that the harsh justice and apparent cruelty of God are depicted in a clear and explicit manner. There is no attempt to soften or excuse God's actions, and the acting does not add any ameliorating nuance to the pain and hurt that Cain experiences.

For the murder of his brother, Cain is banished to the wilderness and is marked with the image of the tree of good and evil on his forehead: "On Cain's forehead, drawn as it were by the finger of God, is the leafless, serpent-less Tree of Knowledge." There is a certain moral incongruity in the way Cain's predicament is portrayed. While he was hardworking and industrious, God refused his offering merely because he withheld some grain — a small fault. Yet God's rejection of this offering leads to the murder of Abel and severe consequences. This once again emphasizes the central theme of a jealous God who will not tolerate any sign of disloyalty or disobedience, no matter how small. In his humanization and popularization of God for his audience, the director places increasing emphasis on a God who is jealous and rather petty, a God who operates on the principle that might is right.

Cain, Abel, and Noah: Jealousy, Punishment, and Submission

There are many areas of the film that diverge from the Bible and embellish on the original text. The portrayal of Noah is certainly out of step with the Biblical account and is an area where the director has exercised considerable artistic license to dramatize his script. Yet this portrayal of Noah once again emphasizes the importance of unwavering and unquestioning obedience to the God of the Old Testament.

Noah is depicted in an almost comedic light as a rather eccentric character. We see him half-hiding in a doorway from God and sliding down a gangway in the Ark onto his sleeping or inebriated son. This slightly comic portrayal of Noah is intended firstly to generate a humorous audience reaction and also serves an artistic purpose, acting as an emotional counterfoil to the harshness and darkness of the previous scenes. While this interpretation may be artistically acceptable, it also tends to reduce the father of civilization to a clown-like figure.

Beside the liberties taken with Noah's character, many other aspects are omitted from the film — such as the reference to the "Nephilim," the human-divine creatures mentioned at the start of the Biblical story. The film also avoids the larger, more mysterious or esoteric context of the story. There are aspects that could have added depth to our understanding of Noah and his family that are, it seems, intentionally ignored — for example, the Biblical account of Noah's drunkenness and his exposure before his sons:

"The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled. Noah was the first tiller of the soil. He planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent." (Genesis 9:18–29)

These omissions are purposeful: the director wants to present a clear and unambiguous picture of Noah so as not to confuse his public. What Huston does present clearly is Noah as the obedient and never-questioning servant of God. His strength is his calm acceptance, compliance, and unbending loyalty to whatever God commands. He is the perfect servant of the One God and carries out every order to the letter. His weaknesses — such as his drunkenness — are not mentioned in the film, the implication being that the director saw them as elements that would detract from the image of utter and selfless devotion to God that he was attempting to present.

A cardinal aspect of the entire story of Noah and the flood, as portrayed in the film, is the harshness and apparent cruelty of a God who would destroy every living thing, including children. The reaction of Noah's wife to the flood and the screams of those dying outside the ark are illustrative of these themes. His wife cannot bear so much suffering and asks what the noise is. She is obviously perturbed by the sounds of those perishing outside. Noah, on the other hand, is calmly unperturbed and accepts God's actions with an almost callous equanimity. This is a reference to his strength as a complete servant of the Old Testament God, who accepts God's judgment on the world without question. Through the character of Noah, Huston again provides insight into his underlying view: there must be total and unquestioning acceptance of the word of God.

In this section of the film there is a decided emphasis on certain aspects of the Biblical text. The editing and selection of what to include, and the way those aspects are portrayed and interpreted, are again determined by Huston's underlying predilections regarding the Old Testament God. There are some controversial passages, and in the director's focus on the main characters there is, in this reading, too much emphasis on the more dramatic aspects — such as the conflict between Hagar and Sarah.

It should also be acknowledged that this section of the Biblical text would be challenging for any filmmaker. The director must deal with large amounts of material and select those elements that support his themes and intentions. For example, there is no mention in the film of the importance of Abraham's father and brothers. Another very obvious omission is that no reference is made to the incestuous relations between Lot and his daughters: "Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father." (Genesis 19:36) There is also extensive use made of the character of Lot which goes beyond the Biblical text.

The rationale for not including these parts of the Biblical text is related to what has already been noted about Huston's underlying intentions. First, the inclusion of the incestuous liaisons between Lot and his daughters may have offended certain sections of the public. Second, and possibly more importantly, these elements would not have served the filmmaker's biases and opinions — which are essentially to present an uncompromising and unambiguous view of the Biblical events as they relate to the theme of the relationship between the jealous God and humanity.

This same rationale can be applied to the other parts of the sections dealing with Abraham. Huston leaves out, for example, the fact that it was not Abraham who leaves his ancestral home in search of what God has promised, but rather his father, Terah. The central theme of obedience to God and the neglect of others is a particularly strong element in the story of Abraham, emphasized by the fact that Abraham leaves his father and chooses to follow the directions of God. This, of course, relates to the central scene where Abraham is tested by God and asked to sacrifice his son (Genesis 22).

DeMille's Ideological Framework in The Ten Commandments

Once again Huston returns to the theme of jealousy and envy in the relationship between Hagar and Sarah, as Hagar flaunts her son before the barren Sarah. This conflict heightens the dramatic significance of the birth of Isaac and the miraculous event of Sarah giving birth in old age — an event that reinstates the wonder and power of God while simultaneously underlining the helplessness and powerlessness of human beings.

The film culminates, in both a thematic and dramatic sense, in the scene where Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son. This is the ultimate test of Abraham's willingness to obey God, and it brings to a head the various questions and underlying ambiguities that have been an undercurrent in the film since the very first scene in the Garden of Eden. While Huston follows the conventional storyline as his audience would have expected, he also adds changes and nuance to Genesis 22 that reveal his central themes.

There is little doubt that God's demand that Abraham sacrifice his only son is extreme — a son for whom Abraham has waited his entire life and through whom God has already promised that his work and life will continue into future generations. The awesomeness of this demand is fought against at first by Abraham, and this is strongly and vehemently expressed in the film. It is as if the director, while following the conventional view of events, is also strongly suggesting the awful cruelty of God's demand.

In the film, Abraham and Isaac pass through the ruined city of Sodom, and this focuses attention on the might and power of God but also on the wanton cruelty and destruction of the city. Isaac asks his father, "Were the children also wicked?" He refers to the skulls of small children lying in the ruins of Sodom. The answer is of course self-evident. How could very young children be wicked? The answer that the director puts into the mouth of Abraham is explosive: "The Lord, Our God, must be obeyed." The tone of this response is not in keeping with the servile obedience we saw in the Noah character. Here there is an expression of barely restrained resentment — a tone suggesting that there is no other option but to obey God or face destruction like Sodom. It is this subtle tone and nuance in Abraham's character that calls into question the actions of the Old Testament God and ultimately dominates the scene Huston paints of these Biblical events.

The film describes not a God of tolerance and understanding but one who is domineering and intensely jealous of any love that humans may have for others. As Huston depicts Him, God demands that all love and attention be focused on Himself alone. The fact that God ultimately spares Isaac is not presented as an act of kindness. Abraham responds in relief — as if escaping the inescapable demands of a tyrant.

In order to analyze the way in which Cecil B. DeMille interprets the characters and events of the Old Testament, it is important first to provide a brief assessment of the ideological stance DeMille took toward the Bible and in particular toward the time of Moses. This ideological framework influences all of the questions relating to The Ten Commandments.

The Book of Exodus contains 25 verses dealing with Moses from his birth to the Burning Bush sequence. It is a telling point that in the film DeMille expands on these verses and turns them into 171 pages of script (Forshey 141). As commentators have noted, DeMille also makes reductions as well as additions to the Biblical text: "from the time of Moses' first interview with Rameses to the time of the Exodus, the Bible spends 202 verses, whereas DeMille devotes only 52 pages to this period — nearly a third of them develop the triangular scheme between Rameses, Nefertiri, and Moses, which does not appear in the Bible" (Forshey 141).

What scholars such as Forshey point out is that DeMille makes changes and adds many aspects not found in the Biblical text. The important question is not merely to document all these changes but to explain why he makes them and what they reveal about his ideological slant. DeMille considered the relationship between Rameses, Nefertiri, and Moses to be important to the overall meaning of the film. It should be borne in mind that the wives of Pharaohs are not mentioned in the Bible (Forshey). Nevertheless, the film places great importance on Nefertiri, a figure based on one of the many wives of Rameses II. This character plays a significant role in driving the plot and in developing dimensions of the film that the audience could relate to. Nefertiri also plays a vital role in the "hardening of the heart" of the Pharaoh after the last plague.

As with Huston's film, the audience and its expected reactions are of paramount importance to DeMille. The requirements of popular and financial success must be taken into account when analyzing why the director chose certain interpretations over others. This can be seen in the way DeMille expertly uses the character of Nefertiri to provide plot cohesion and romantic intrigue that has very little to do with the actual Biblical text.

But while audience response is a continuous factor in the director's artistic decisions, there is a larger and more important issue at stake. DeMille was in reality on a mission to promulgate a vision of religious reality that was appropriate, as he saw it, to the era in which he lived. He wished to promote the ideal of freedom from tyranny and oppression through faith, in opposition to what he considered the ideologies of evil and social control epitomized by the rise of communism. He saw the medium of film as a means of advancing the fight for freedom and individual liberty against these forces. In essence, DeMille used the Bible as an ideological tool to promote his vision of reality. As Forshey concisely summarizes:

"DeMille believed that his Ten Commandments gave the world a message of freedom built on faith. The nation always stood with those who were fighting for their freedom. The film suggests that a technological, rationalistic, naturalistic world view was valid only when it issued forth from a faith that was common to all Americans — a faith that glossed over the difficulties between Christians and Jews, a secularized, generalized religion… It was rooted in the popular religion that abandoned particularities… DeMille's popular religion was very much a civil religion." (Forshey 141)

The film stresses two central elements that act as the fulcrum around which the director interpreted and manipulated the Biblical text: the importance of personal freedom, and the essential fact that freedom is derived from and dependent on faith. Faith is also seen as superior to rationality and reason. The Pharaoh of Egypt is cast as the rationalist — Rameses is the technocrat who views people and nations as slaves, important only insofar as they further his personal ideals. It is this form of "evil" that DeMille wishes to react against and expose through the faith-based, miracle-centered story of Moses.

One of the central themes of the film is therefore the triumph of faith in God over hard reason and materialism. DeMille's modern context is emphasized by Forshey: "DeMille liked to say that the Ten Commandments was his most modern picture, because the struggle between freedom and slavery was still being waged on the contemporary landscape" (Forshey 128). Furthermore, DeMille poses fundamental questions that go to the heart of his ideological framework:

"Are men the property of the state? Are men to be ruled by law or by the whims of an individual? The answers to these timely questions were given some three thousand years ago on Mt. Sinai… [the film's] purpose is to portray the state of civilization at the time when God saw that mankind was ready for the first proclamation of freedom under law — and to tell the story of the man whom God prepared to receive the Law." (Forshey 128)

This struggle between good and evil is translated in the film as a conflict between fundamental human values. This is evident when Moses, as a Prince of Egypt, reacts to the plight of an old woman about to be crushed by a stone used in building the Pharaoh's treasure city. An Egyptian overseer states plainly that an old woman's life is of no value in the larger social context. DeMille makes Moses react against this vision of life and save the old woman — who turns out to be Yochabed, Moses' own mother. This scene not only illuminates the underlying conflict driving the film but also reveals how the characters are constructed to contrast with each other and embody these opposing worldviews.

From the very beginning, the birth of Moses is presented as an event that takes place in opposition to the forces of state-controlled inhumanity and evil. During the killing of the firstborn Israelites, the baby Moses finds his way into the hands of the Pharaoh's daughter. DeMille then proceeds to embroider extensively on the early life of Moses, with little reference to the Biblical text, in order to develop a coherent picture of a character who is in fundamental opposition to the values of the Pharaoh and the state.

DeMille's radical expansion of the Biblical account of Moses' birth and early years has been commented on in many studies. This includes the way DeMille alters Yochabed's Biblical heritage: she is shown in the film as a slave working in the construction of the Treasure City, whereas in reality the descendants of Levi were not slaves. Therefore, in Biblical terms, Moses when he left the royal palace would not have been part of the enslaved workforce. However, these discrepancies are less important than the overall interpretation and trajectory of DeMille's view of the Biblical events.

In the film, the mother of Moses is presented as an ardently faithful believer in God — caring, honest, and devout. This portrayal is contrasted with his Egyptian mother, Bithiah, the daughter of the Pharaoh, who resorts to deceit and lies to cover up Moses' identity from the very beginning. DeMille notably expands on Bithiah's character, even though she is only fleetingly referred to in the Biblical texts. Yochabed is therefore cast as an important figure in the fight for freedom, righteousness, and a life lived in unbending faith in the One God.

The essential differences between the two mothers are emphasized by the director to further his thematic trajectory. In the scene where Moses meets his real mother, the main focus is not on their separation and reunion but rather on their respective relationships to God — contrasted with the more human and less spiritual reaction of Bithiah. In this scene, Moses asks what is, in this reading, the film's central question: "Why must a Hebrew — or any man — be a slave?" Moses' Egyptian mother tries to argue that in a position of power he could better serve his people. While this makes rational sense, it runs counter to the thematic thread of the story: it is freedom from all power dictated by the King or state that resonates throughout the film.