TORONTO: Getting to Know Your Correspondent
(Toronto is right around the corner, but before John begins his daily filings, here is a nice persoanl look at the man who'll be cranking out the coverage. Also, Gerard's first "Tech Support" column will land tomorrow and I've decided to pull back one more week on the Oscar column, so I'll offer up one pre-Toronto entry, one during the fest next Monday and then we should be on our merry way.)
As TIFF approaches I find myself thinking a lot about the films that set me on the path to becoming a film critic/ historian.
I was a cynical 12 year old in a theatre with my dad watching a re-release of Cecil B. Demille’s “The Ten Commandments” in 1971, long before home video. When one wanted to see a film from the past again, we were at the mercy of the studio to re-release the picture. Dad, also a movie fan, had gone on and on about this movie, so much that, naturally, I was not expecting all that much. From the opening sequence I was hooked by the enormous scope of the thing, the size, the color, the spectacle. Charlton Heston was mesmerizing as Moses (could anyone else get away with speaking those lines?) and Yul Brynner was the perfect villain. The moment that seared into my mind and began this obsession with the cinema was the parting of the Red Sea. I honestly expected perhaps for the tide to go out, but the sky grew black, Heston looked magnificent against the swirling black clouds atop the rock, his arms stretched out, his voice booming, “Behold his mighty hand!” and the waters opened, two massive walls on either side, raging madly as the exodus crossed.
I was stunned by what had just taken place on the screen.
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