{"id":20959,"date":"2014-08-09T09:33:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T16:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=20959"},"modified":"2014-08-09T09:33:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-09T16:33:53","slug":"exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html","title":{"rendered":"Exodus: Gods and Kings<\/i>: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re<\/i> magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"albertoiglesias-a\"<\/a>With Exodus: Gods and Kings<\/a><\/i> due to come out in four months (and three days), it\u2019s time for the filmmakers to put the final pieces together \u2014 and one of those pieces is the music. The French movie mag Premi\u00e8re<\/i> got to visit a recording session<\/a>, where the Spanish composer Alberto Iglesias was overseeing his score for the film, and along the way the magazine reveals a few details about the film itself.<\/p>\n

The author of the article spends a fair chunk of his intro marveling at the history and secrecy of the Abbey Road studio, which is where the score is being recorded \u2014 but none of that really has anything to do with the film itself.<\/p>\n

When the author finally gets to Iglesias himself, he notes that the composer \u2014 who, in addition to his longtime collaboration with Pedro Almod\u00f3var, has also been Oscar-nominated for The Constant Gardener<\/a><\/i>, The Kite Runner<\/a><\/i> and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy<\/i> \u2014 is better-known for \u201cintimate and introspective\u201d music rather than the \u201cthunderous\u201d music one might associate with, say, Hans Zimmer.<\/p>\n

Then the author reports what he saw on the screen behind the orchestra (as translated by Google, with a few minor touch-ups and paragraph breaks added by me):<\/p>\n

First scene: probably towards the end of the film, Moses bearded and blackened with dust contemplates Hebrew funeral pyres. The music rises. Chills. Flutes with antique accents, seductive. Soft strings that lead us to elegiac choruses. We began to dream of a completely silent film, only told through images and music.<\/p>\n

Another scene: \u201cwe go to track the army for the battle ahead<\/i>\u201d asked one of the assistants to Nicolas, the conductor. Ramses prepares for a battle against the Hebrews, and Joel Edgerton, troubled look, contemplates the desolate landscape of the Canary Islands which stand in for Egypt. The strings become anxious and \u2013 BLAM \u2013 percussion lands, steady and overpowering, like the march of an army.<\/p>\n

New scene: an overlap. Earlier in the film, Rameses orders his underlings to raid the slave quarters. We go from the council chamber to the dusty dirt streets. Again the ancient flutes, followed by an explosion of martial choruses while horsemen gallop on the screen. The music expresses the transition from inside to outside, from the intimate to the epic, all in continuity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hebrew funeral pyres? Interesting. Perhaps they are Hebrew soldiers who died while fighting the Egyptians (or the Amalekites, or\u2026). Or perhaps they are the Hebrews who were executed by Moses and his fellow Levites as punishment for worshiping the golden calf\u2026? The Judeo-Christian tradition has always favoured burial<\/a>, rather than cremation, so this feels a bit like an anachronism to me (\u00e0 la<\/i> the cavalry charges<\/a>) \u2014 but then again, the Bible does describe the ancient Hebrews burning the remains of the people they punished as a sort of final desecration (e.g. Joshua 7<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Incidentally, the current article alludes to a set report that was published in Premi\u00e8re<\/i> magazine back in March. You can check it out, along with my comments, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ridley Scott’s Moses movie aims to balance the epic with the intimate. Also: did the ancient Hebrews practice cremation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2439,743,342,872],"class_list":["post-20959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-alberto-iglesias","tag-exodus-2015","tag-moses","tag-ramesses"],"yoast_head":"\nExodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ridley Scott's Moses movie aims to balance the epic with the intimate. Also: did the ancient Hebrews practice cremation?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ridley Scott's Moses movie aims to balance the epic with the intimate. Also: did the ancient Hebrews practice cremation?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-09T16:33:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/files\/2014\/08\/albertoiglesias-a.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter T. Chattaway\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html\",\"name\":\"Exodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-08-09T16:33:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-08-09T16:33:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\"},\"description\":\"Ridley Scott's Moses movie aims to balance the epic with the intimate. Also: did the ancient Hebrews practice cremation?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Exodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/\",\"name\":\"FilmChat\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde\",\"name\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Peter T. Chattaway\"},\"description\":\"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Exodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine","description":"Ridley Scott's Moses movie aims to balance the epic with the intimate. Also: did the ancient Hebrews practice cremation?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Exodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine","og_description":"Ridley Scott's Moses movie aims to balance the epic with the intimate. Also: did the ancient Hebrews practice cremation?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html","og_site_name":"FilmChat","article_published_time":"2014-08-09T16:33:53+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/files\/2014\/08\/albertoiglesias-a.jpg"}],"author":"Peter T. Chattaway","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter T. Chattaway","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html","name":"Exodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-08-09T16:33:53+00:00","dateModified":"2014-08-09T16:33:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde"},"description":"Ridley Scott's Moses movie aims to balance the epic with the intimate. Also: did the ancient Hebrews practice cremation?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/08\/exodus-gods-and-kings-a-few-new-details-about-the-film-and-its-soundtrack-courtesy-of-premiere-magazine.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Exodus: Gods and Kings: a few new details about the film and its soundtrack, courtesy of Premi\u00e8re magazine"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/","name":"FilmChat","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/5759ddf28b81af08b29eb15b4e071fde","name":"Peter T. Chattaway","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9c4b809df092b410d749a6995bcf4f3e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Peter T. Chattaway"},"description":"Peter T. Chattaway was the regular film critic for BC Christian News from 1992 to 2011. In addition to his award-winning film column for that paper, his news and opinion pieces have appeared in such publications as Books & Culture, Christianity Today, Bible Review and the Vancouver Sun. He has also contributed essays to the books Re-Viewing The Passion: Mel Gibson\u2019s Film and Its Critics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis\u2019s The Last Temptation of Christ Fifty Years on (Continuum, 2005) and The Bible in Motion: A Handbook of the Bible and Its Reception in Film (De Gruyter, 2016).","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/author\/peterchattaway"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}