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Post by kungfuzu on Jul 6, 2021 17:53:08 GMT -8
That photo of the Pharaoh's statue looks like the guy was tattooed.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 6, 2021 18:35:09 GMT -8
Now that you mention it…
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 7, 2021 9:47:12 GMT -8
Our education in Egyptian history continues with 1955’s Land of the Pharaohs. Jack Hawkins plays Pharaoh Khufu. If you squint real hard, you can see him as a Pharaoh but he seems more like a British commander in Egyptian garb. He’s amassed a lot of gold and silver and wants to secure it for the afterlife. All previous schemes for securing tombs have failed. His own architects offer no solution so he turns to the master architect of a recently conquered people. Joan Collins plays the bad-girl, Princess Nellifer, who is less concerned with the afterlife and wants all that gold (and power) in the here-and-now. This is Hollywood’s attempt to show some of the grandeur of Ancient Egypt in various crowd scenes, although much of it comes off more like a Busby Berkeley musical. Still, many of the details are lost to time and this is someone’s interpretation for how it all looked and sounded. You never know. The Egyptians my have preempted Cecil. B. DeMille by several thousands years. We do get into some peripheral details regarding the building of The Great Pyramid, including its apparently innovative feature of sealing the various passages with solid rock using an automated system powered by sand. Alexis Minotis is excellent as the High Priest and Pharaoh’s right-hand man. There’s nothing too deep here but it all proceeds as a pleasing pace. The ending is particularly good. This is yet another movie I watched on the Movieland.Tv channel which is a free channel for the Roku (or presumably any smart TV that allows you to add channels). They’ve got a whole bunch of good stuff on there. The quality of some of the films is so rough as to make them unwatchable. But plenty more seem to be just fine. And, at least for now, there are few commercial breaks.
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Post by artraveler on Jul 7, 2021 10:41:36 GMT -8
Egyptian history
I have no problem with Jack Hawkins and other white Brits portraying Egyptians who were certainly Black. Khufu was and every Pharaoh following him was until the Hyksos invasion somewhere around 1600 BCE were Black. From then on rulers tended to be lighter of skin and had more Greek or Semitic faces. If you saw Tutankhamun walking down the streets of Dallas today, minus the golden adornments but wearing a business suit you would take him for a light skinned Negro from the American South, or maybe Obama's long lost son.
Does that destroy the story? No, the movie is a story not a history lesson. It revolves around themes common in literature of love, power, and money. You don't have to be of the ethnic heritage to understand the story. I wonder would BLM have Hamlet only played by a crazy Dane? Would "to be or not to be" be any more insightful?
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Brad Nelson
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עַבְדְּךָ֔ אֶת־ הַתְּשׁוּעָ֥ה הַגְּדֹלָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את
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Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 7, 2021 11:41:50 GMT -8
The thing with Hawkins wasn’t his skin color. It’s just that he’s stereotyped as the tough British commander. He didn’t seem at all Egyptian. But then we probably have little idea how an ancient Pharaoh talked and acted. But I’m guessing they wouldn’t be a dead ringer for General Allenby, my favorite role for Hawkins.
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