Hollywood's love affair with biblical stories has been revived lately, starting with the Noah movie starring Russel Crowe, and now the Exodus tale will be told again through the efforts of director Ridley Scott (Gladiator). In the new movie Exodus: Gods and Kings, Christian Bale stars as the biblical figure Moses, who must lead his people, the Israelites, out of slavery from Egypt.
The Exodus: Gods and Kings trailer was released earlier this year, and the Christian Bale Moses looks to b e more of an action hero/gladiator than the biblical figure taught in Sunday School. The actor himself was present at the Fox lot last Tuesday to screen 37 minutes worth of footage from the movie, and talk about his character.
A question and answer portion followed the screening of the nine scenes from the movie, where Bale opened up that he actually realized that he knew next to nothing about Moses. "The big one for me, other than realizing I had no idea about Moses at all, was just how complex a character he was," Bale admitted.
Of Moses, Christian Bale says, "He was a very troubled, tumultuous man and mercurial." The Academy award winning actor also says that he learned a bit about God as depicted in the Old Testament, "But the biggest surprise was the nature of God. He was equally very mercurial," the actor shared.
As part of his preparation, Bale shared that he watched Charlton Heston as Moses in The Ten Commandments, and read up on several books on Moses.
The actor also concedes that the real challenge was how to condense the epic story into a single telling, in one movie. "The biggest issue was how much you could include because it so dense, you could make it an eight- to 10-hour film. It's called Exodus for a reason, it isn't called Moses," Bale said.
During the session, a yet to be released trailer was screened for Exodus: Gods and Kings. It will be recalled that a first trailer was released earlier this year, and it looked promising enough: excellent production values that bring to life the action-packed story the plagues besetting Egypt, and the grand story of Moses and the Israelites' incredible journey towards freedom.
It also seems that the movie will focus on the dynamics between Moses and Ramses, who were brothers once, but now have been set against each other by fate. It's the kind of compelling premise that sets tha stage for a spectacular showdown. The Christian Bale Moses seems also to do a fantastic job of fleshing out the biblical hero that we know only from Scripture.
While waiting for the new Exodus Gods And Kings trailer, catch the first trailer here in case you missed it!
