FILMS/
CECIL B. DE MILLE – AMERICAN EPIC
Documentaries
USA, 2004, 120 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Sat, Apr 28 / 09:15 / Kabuki / CECI28K
CREDITS
- dir
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Kevin Brownlow
- prod
-
Patrick Stanbury
- editor
-
Christopher Bird
- mus
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Elmer Bernstein
- source
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Photoplay Productions, 21 Princess Road, NW1 8JR London, U.K. FAX: +44-207-722-6662 EMAIL: julia@photoplay.co.uk
Kevin Brownlow, recipient of this year’s Mel Novikoff Award, and his colleague Patrick Stanbury have crafted many absorbing documentaries on Hollywood throughout the years, but this recent and engaging look at Cecil B. De Mille is possibly the most entertaining. Narrated by Kenneth Branagh and featuring music by Elmer Bernstein, Cecil B. De Mille – American Epic follows the career of one of Hollywood’s original pioneers. A born showman and provocateur, De Mille was one of the first to "give the public what it wanted," and what it wanted were fantastic costumes, over-the-top sets and epic storylines of love and vengeance, all wrapped in a paradoxical combination of forbidden sins and moralistic scolding. One could argue, and most have, that De Mille invented an admixture combination that has served Hollywood well to this day. Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Charlton Heston and Angela Lansbury are some of the many well-known names that appear, while De Mille’s surviving kin also lend insight into his personal and family life. The film moves from his early years, spent working with his brother in the New York theater, through cofounding what would eventually become Paramount Pictures and beyond. His (and by extension, Hollywood’s) greatest hits are covered in detail, from Why Change Your Wife? in 1920 to Madam Satan in 1930, to the later historical and Biblical epics like Cleopatra (1934), Samson and Delilah (1949) and The Ten Commandments (1956). The documentary includes never-before-seen footage of the parting of the Red Sea, which Spielberg declares "the best special-effects sequence of all time."