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Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
Club Notice - 12/25/98 -- Vol. 17, No. 26
MT Chair/Librarian:
Mark Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-5619 mleeper@lucent.com
HO Chair: John Jetzt MT 2E-530 732-957-5087 jetzt@lucent.com
HO Librarian: Nick Sauer HO 4F-427 732-949-7076 njs@lucent.com
Distinguished Heinlein Apologist:
Rob Mitchell MT 2E-537 732-957-6330 robmitchell@lucent.com
Factotum: Evelyn Leeper MT 3E-433 732-957-2070 eleeper@lucent.com
Back issues at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824
All material copyright by author unless otherwise noted.
The Science Fiction Association of Bergen County meets on the
second Saturday of every month in Upper Saddle River; call
201-447-3652 for details. The New Jersey Science Fiction Society
meets irregularly; call 201-652-0534 for details, or check
http://www.interactive.net/~kat/njsfs.html. The Denver Area
Science Fiction Association meets 7:30 PM on the third Saturday of
every month at Southwest State Bank, 1380 S. Federal Blvd.
1. URL of the week: http://newton.gws.uky.edu/. Yes, today is that
holiday beloved to all us scientific types--Sir Isaac Newton's
Birthday. And what more approriate URL than a web page devoted to
him? [-ecl]
===================================================================
2. I have discovered something interesting about the film THE
POSTMAN. I have some friends who I think know film reasonably
well. One is a film critic from the Boston area; one is a
professor at a Maryland university; there are a few others I meet
at conventions. I asked their impressions of the film THE POSTMAN
(based on the novel by David Brin). They tell me something like
"you know, the critics really did a number on that film, but I kind
of liked it." But the reason I was asking them is that that was my
reaction also. The problem was that the film was too easy to
misinterpret as a maudlin tribute to those hardworking people who
handle America's mail. They think it is the story of the mailman
who saved the world. And there are definitely scenes of the film
that would give you the impression that that is what the film is
all about. But that is not really it.
Let me tell you what the film THE POSTMAN is really about. In
chemistry I have seen a solution brought to the point where it was
ready to crystallize. Everything is just perfect. Every molecule
of that solution wants the order of a crystal state, but the
solution in its pure state remains a fluid. There is no place for
the crystal to start. Add to the solution one speck of dust, one
little bit of impurity, and the solution will crystallize faster
than the eye can see. THE POSTMAN is about something like that.
In THE POSTMAN there has been some unspecified holocaust that has
destroyed society several years earlier. There are people who
survived any way they could. And that was okay for a while. But
you cannot live your life forever on the edge. There are people
today in Northern Ireland and in the Middle East who once felt very
strongly in their hatreds of their enemies. But as they get older
they tell themselves that enough is enough. They want to see peace
in their time. Whether the hotheads will allow it or not is a
different question. But there is a human need to feel things have
gotten better in the world in your time and you can live out your
old age in peace. That is the state things are in THE POSTMAN.
The people are tired of the post-holocaust chaos. Everyone misses
the ordered life and wants it to return. But everybody has lost
hope of that ever happening. Then one con man tells one lie to get
a free meal. He is the impurity in the crystallizing solution.
The con man tells people that order has returned and they just have
not heard since they were out of touch. He will be delivering them
their mail and, by the way, they are supposed to feed him. He
really does not intend to ever see them again. In fact he hopes he
doesn't since they will very soon discover that the whole point of
his visit was to fool them into feeding him. From his point of
view things are as bad as they ever were and probably will remain
that way forever. So maybe he can exploit their hopes. So he gets
his free meal, but he has also been the impurity that is the seed
of the return to order. This one lie spreads outward, and people
are so anxious that the lie be true, that in the end it doesn't
matter that it was a lie. The right lie was more powerful than
brutal truth.
As far as I am concerned that is a very powerful idea. That is
something to think about this Christmas. [-mrl]
===================================================================
3. THE PRINCE OF EGYPT (a film review by Mark R. Leeper):
Capsule: The story of the Hebrews' Exodus from
Egypt is sacred to three major world religions.
In the rapidly developing realm of the animated
film this retelling from the Dreamworks gets
vibrant new life and is seen with greater
spectacle than DeMille could have ever dreamed.
But like DeMille's version THE PRINCE OF EGYPT
presumes to change the Bible story for dramatic
effect. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), low +2 (-4 to +4)
New York Critics: 11 positive, 1 negative, 9
mixed
Back in the 1950s and 1960s Biblical films were again a big
business like they had not been since the days of silent film.
Cecil B. DeMille opened the way with his remake of his own THE TEN
COMMANDMENTS (1956). BEN HUR (1959) followed, and while not a
story directly from the Bible itself, it did involve Biblical
incidents. It was also a remake of a 1920s film. Eventually the
times changed and the popularity of Biblical films died. The last
major Biblical films released to theaters were KING DAVID (1985)
and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988). There have been some
made-for-TV experiments, since but THE PRINCE OF EGYPT from
Dreamworks is the first major Biblical film released to theaters in
a decade. In many ways it is THE TEN COMMANDMENTS for a new
generation and it repeatedly invites comparison. Ironically the
new version may create as much interest in the art and culture of
ancient Egypt as it creates for the Bible.
THE PRINCE OF EGYPT begins with a statement that the story that
follows is true to the essence and values of the original story.
That may be true but the film is somewhat truer to the plot of THE
TEN COMMANDMENTS than it is to any story told in the Bible.
DeMille based his story on three novels about Moses as much as he
did on the Bible. The Bible does not make the young Moses an
important person in Pharaoh's household. In Exodus the story is
told with terse economy. It merely says he was raised as the son
of Pharaoh's daughter and later that a slave called him "a prince."
And do not over-rate the value of being a prince of Egypt, there
were dozens. Rameses the Great, who by the way is generally
considered to be the Pharaoh with whom Moses bargained, had over
100 children. His father might well have had equally many and
probably would have had little interest in the Hebrew child one of
his many daughters had adopted. It makes for a better story to say
that Moses nearly became a Pharaoh himself, but that is not what
the Bible says.
The story of THE PRINCE OF EGYPT will be familiar to many in the
audience, though somewhat more if they are familiar with the 1956
film than is they know the Bible story. The Israelites were slaves
to a Pharaoh in Egypt who was afraid that even as slaves they were
becoming too numerous and soon would become too powerful. Pharaoh
decrees that all the male children of the Israelites are to be
slain. This brings us to the opening of the film where Yocheved
(voiced by Ofra Haza) sets her newborn son adrift on the Nile in a
reed basket, weighing a great danger against a more certain death.
The boy is adopted by Pharaoh's wife (not daughter as the Bible
says) and becomes like a second son to the Pharaoh. In the most
interesting variation on the DeMille version Rameses (Ralph
Fiennes) loves Moses (Val Kilmer). Moses loves Rameses too until
he finds that he, Moses, is really a Hebrew. So rather than being
a one-dimensional villain, there is some depth to Rameses. Moses
kills an Egyptian taskmaster and flees Egypt. While Rameses misses
his friend, Moses is called on by God (also voiced by Val Kilmer)
to return to Egypt and free his people, setting up the classic
conflict.
In animation, virtually anything that the mind's eye can see can be
put on the screen, and THE PRINCE OF EGYPT wastes no opportunity to
outdo DeMille's spectacle. The Egyptian architecture as it appears
here is positively titanic. The whole film seems to show
architecture of the same scale that was used to cow the locals at
Abu Simbel. Egyptian architecture is impressive, but here it is
portrayed with a certain hyperbole. The buildings and statues as
shown here are enormous and their size is frequently exaggerated
with overhead views.
The style of Egyptian wall decoration is to show important figures
as being larger than other figures in a scene. A variation on that
is used by the Dreamworks animators. The most important characters
are given a realistic three-dimensional look. Lessor characters
are animated in a flatter style. That effect could have made the
animation look wildly uneven. But the animators at Dreamworks make
it all work quite well. In addition some of the important
sequences look in part or all almost photographic. Some of the
most effective scenes however are done entirely flat as the story
of what led to the opening of the film is shown as animated wall
decoration. This sequence rivals the parting of the Red Sea as the
most imaginative in the film.
In the DeMille telling there is an emotional climax to the story
and a visual climax. The visual climax is the parting of the Red
Sea. Using the best visual methods available in the 1950s, DeMille
used a patchwork of mattes of scenes of flowing water. The methods
were imperfect and little more convincing than using two rounded
cakes of Jell-O as DeMille did in the silent version. Computer
animation gives a filmmaker much more freedom and also more
responsibility to do something spectacular. And spectacular is
what they manage. Where this version falls flat is mishandling of
the emotional climax of the story. After the night of terror and
death comes the morning of Freedom. DeMille managed to give it a
tremendous impact that remains exciting even after many viewings.
A big piece of the credit goes to Elmer Bernstein's music. THE
PRINCE OF EGYPT understates the departure almost disastrously with
the Hebrews just quietly picking up and moving out to the music of
a song. Time will tell if I am wrong, but all the songs by Steven
Schwartz seemed immediately forgettable.
As with ANTZ a host of familiar actors were used to voice parts.
In this case Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra
Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Patrick Stewart, Helen
Mirren, Steve Martin, and Martin Short. To my ear only Goldblum
and Stewart have voices characteristic enough to pick out. Both
Moses and God are voiced by Val Kilmer, so it was almost a mercy
that I did not recognize his voice. In general animation does not
require big stars to do the voices, and it almost seems wasteful.
THE PRINCE OF EGYPT tells the story of the Exodus for a new
generation and does it in spectacular style. I give it a 7 on the
0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
Mark Leeper
MT 3E-433 732-957-5619
mleeper@lucent.com
Television is a device which permits people who haven't
anything to do to watch people who can't do anything.
-- Fred Allen
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