Listening to Soundtracks and Remembering

I really enjoy soundtracks to movies that I love. For some reason, they help me to write. My favorites are the old epic movies like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments.

When I was about six years old, we were getting ready to move out of our little house on Llano Avenue and my Mom was selling all of our stuff in a garage sale on our tiny driveway. As a six year old, there was no point in asking me to help really, so she set me up in our living room with a movie. That movie was The Ten Commandments on VHS. I think the entire film is about 3 hours long, but I watched it all the way through, every time I put it in the player.

The scenes and music are pretty much imprinted on my mind forever (See, that’s why watching bad stuff is not good for you, you’ll never forget it). I always loved Nefretiri’s aqua blue gown; she was like some sort of Egyptian angel being, floating around and hanging on Moses’ arm all the time. I just loved the romance of it, and still do.

Look, I know none of that romance between her and the “hunky” Moses ever really happened, but it was a good part of the movie.

My Dad told me when he saw the movie in the theater the year it came out, he was really scared of God because of what He did to the Egyptians. I never felt that way. I guess that’s because I knew God was love and my grandparents didn’t really teach my Dad that when he was little. I was in awe of what God did in parting the Red Sea, but I never feared Him as in “run away as fast as you can.” I was on Moses’ side and wanted the hard-hearted Egyptians to let God’s people go. God did what He did because He’s God.

I’ve talked about these Bible story movies before and how much I love them because I think they are an important medium to tell God’s story. I loved The Bible, Roma Downey’s mini-series and everything that is like it. I know filmmakers get things wrong, a lot, but I know to look it up in my Bible to see what they did get wrong and right. I can separate fact from fiction when it comes to that kind of thing.

Anyway, I’m sitting here listening to The Ten Commandments soundtrack and just reminiscing about all of that. Biblical epics help me to visualize God in a certain way, even though they don’t actually show Him. One of the scenes that made me really quiet when it would come on the screen was the burning bush. DeMille really nailed it with that one. The silence as Moses walks into the presence of God is astounding. Charleton Heston acts it so well, and as a child I could feel how Moses might have felt, approaching a bush with the holiest being in the universe occupying it. The voice DeMille used for God was actually Heston’s, with a little depth added. It just shakes you to your core and I’ve always been amazed that a movie from the 1950s could make such an impact on someone so small.

I read somewhere that when they were filming Moses coming down from the mountain after speaking with God, Heston forgot to put his sandals back on. They almost cut it and made him do it again, but DeMille decided against it because “Who would remember to put their shoes back on after speaking to God Himself?” That small detail made the scene that much more real to me.

I LOVE God, and I love it when people portray His story (correctly) in creative, beautiful ways so the world can see it. I don’t see Charleton Heston’s face when I think of Moses or read Exodus, and I surely don’t think of Yul Brenner when I read about Pharaoh. The movie just helps the story to come alive to me in a way that sticks with me. I feel like I am having to defend it here, but I’m just talking and telling you how it makes me feel and what I appreciate about it.

There are other movies and stories, like Ben Hur, that affect me in the same way. Ben Hur isn’t a Bible story, but Wallace (the original author) incorporated Jesus so well into his “Christian fiction” that you can’t help but be curious about Jesus and His story for us. You can’t ignore Him after watching a movie or reading a book like that because Jesus actually was a person, even though Judah Ben Hur was not.

I guess these Bible stories and movies are so wonderful because they are the gospel being told in a modern way. God’s story never gets old and it is for everyone. Even in The Ten Commandments, Jesus doesn’t make an appearance but His plan for us is clearly seen in His rescue of the Israelites.

God loves His people and will do anything to get them to safety.