A Prince for all place and times

A Prince for all place and times
by Rodolpho Carrasco
Thursday, December 24, 1998. Special to the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group

(Rodolpho Carrasco is associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena, Calif. and a columnist for the San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group. Check out more articles by Rodolpho Carrasco here.)

Before seeing "The Prince of Egypt," my principal image of Moses was of the prophet taking two stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are written and throwing them to the ground. I don't recall where I first saw that angry and righteous prophet imitating his God. But it was reinforced by a lifetime spent in Catholic and Protestant churches, plus two years at a Christian college where I encountered Reformation woodcuts and Renaissance paintings. I expected from "Prince" a new iteration of this age-old vision.

But DreamWorks partner and executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg has not followed this traditional blueprint. In "Prince," which opens Friday in 3,000 theatres worldwide, Moses cannot be characterized as angry, righteous, nor omnipotent. True to the events of the book of Exodus, from which the story is taken, Moses is a man following the commands of powerful, mysterious deity, yet he's modest about it all. The awesome force of the plagues unleashed at his word does not inflate his ego. He carries himself with no distinction despite being the chosen emissary of the Hebrew God.

It makes one wonder where the image of strong and righteous Moses, so prevalent in American culture, comes from. I have an idea. After the Exodus, Moses descends Mount Sinai after meeting God with two things: the Ten Commandments and a fantastically radiating face. From that time on, Moses would wear a veil over his face, because the people were frightened to come near him otherwise. A leader whose face is covered by a veil, who has seen God, who regularly ascends to God and descends the mountain to express the anger and judgements of God -- this is the Moses we've grown up with. This is the Moses that Charlton Heston was hired to portray.

But that is not the pre-Exodus Moses. The pre-Exodus Moses of the Bible is like you and me. Yes, he is a hero. He stands up to Pharaoh and leads his people out of Egyptian slavery. He delivers a moral code to be venerated for all time. He pulls off cool miracles like drawing water from a rock and turning a shepherd's staff into a snake. But he also did not want the job in the first place. When God speaks to him from the burning bush and gives him his marching orders, Moses tries to get out of it. He agrees to confront the most powerful leader in the world only after God gives him reinforcement in the form of his brother Aaron. Later, Moses's conflicts with God will block his entry to the Promised Land.

The joy of "The Prince of Egypt" - and it is a great joy - is that the pre-Exodus Moses, not the Heston version, is in the house. This is due to the sensitivity of the filmmakers to Moses and the Exodus story. Their research included visits to Egypt and readings of commentaries, histories and philosophical texts. It was important to understand, says producer Penney Finkelman Cox, that "where the Bible is specific, you should respect the specificity, but when the Bible is silent, we could be more creative and interpretive."

This sensitivity shines throughout film. The principal plot line, that Moses and Ramses II grow up together as brothers, is not in the Bible. But nothing that in the relationship of Moses and Ramses II contradicts the text. The plagues, though truncated to fit within the film's narrow 90-minute timeframe, are richly depicted. Moses's wandering over sand dunes following his flight from Egypt, while extrabiblical, puts flesh-and-blood onto the skeletal Exodus narrative.

Most of all, the full humanity of Moses illuminates the story. When Moses goes to Ramses II after the plague of the first-born - in which the son of Ramses II and all the first-born sons of the Egyptians are killed by the Angel of the Lord - his misson, now tinged with sadness and compassionate, is not compromised. The deaths of all these children, though difficult for the modern mind to justify, do not cause Moses to doubt his God or his mission. But Moses is not cut off emotionally, either: Outside Pharaoh's palace, he crumples against a wall and weeps.

The richness of story and humanity in the movie are all the more valuable given common expectations for an animated movie. One would expect "Prince" to serve up a watered-down, color-coordinated, "Moses-my-good-buddy" vision. To their great credit, the filmmakers did not pander to the spirit of our age, which is to make cute and multiply. There are no merchandising tie-ins, save for a book-and-CD pack available at Wal-Mart and a few other stores. There are no Moses action figures (a talking camel, perfect for sales to little ones, was scrapped early in the production). There is no Red Sea-parting simulator.

DreamWorks got it right - but at what cost? I walked out of the movie wondering how "Prince" could match the $750 million world-wide that "The Lion King" pulled in. Besides the lack of cuddly characters, the movie carries a PG rating. I wouldn't be surprised if it earns less than anticipated.

Less doubtful is the general impact the film will have. This movie is a teacher's dream, and anyone who has ever taught the Exodus story will immediately identify it as the high-impact tool it is. My eyes moistened throughout the film as I witnessed afresh events like the Nile river turning to blood, Moses and the burning bush, and the Hebrews crossing through the Red Sea. Using the film in conjunction with readings of Exodus will help an entire generation of young people capture not just the storyline but the magnitude of the Exodus.

Most valuable is the depiction of Moses himself. The Moses's story in "Prince" is presented without commentary, leaving room for interpretation from many different perspectives. I grew up in a conservative Christian tradition which placed a Jesus Christ-centered emphasis on the entire Bible, an emphasis to which Jews and Muslims do not subscribe. "Prince" does not tell a Christianized version of the Exodus. But neither is the Christ-centered perspective negated. One does not get the sense that Jews, Muslims, nor atheists got a hold of the storyline, nor were they held back. When Moses walked the earth, there were neither Christians, Jews nor Muslims. That's an excellent way to tell the story, and that is how "Prince" tells it.

In this vacuum of religious tradition and commentary, there is a character who emerges more prominently than the humanity and heroism of Moses: the Lord God of the Hebrews. The Lord is also presented without religious commentary and interpretation. His star turn is one of mystery, compassion, and righteous vengeance. He doesn't give much explanation for his actions. Moses is told why he must go to Pharaoh. But Moses does not know why the first-born son of every Egyptian family must die.

Modern people would ask God a philosophical question, such as,"Why do such a heinous thing like kill children?" Moses asks a baser question: "Why me?" One thinks that most people in Moses' position, after being personally sought out and commissioned by a powerful God, would also respond selfishly, not philosophically. This Moses is the real thing.

The copyright for these materials are owned by Rudy Carrasco.  These materials were used with permission by TechMission