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Sodom And Gomorrah [in FEBRUARY!]
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Re: Sodom And Gomorrah [in FEBRUARY!]
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William D McCrum
Three Angles ... hey that's a triangle
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Jan 22 07 7:53 PM
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Well, we've been here before, but at least Huston had the IDEAS for the imagery right. The 'Pillar of Salt' story was originally to show the 'upright' nomadic wanderers how dangerous it was to look back longingly at the 'decadent' agricultural/city dwellers who by staying in one place were suckers for natural disasters. But it has parallels with the Medusa myth, in that they who look back to the womb (in this case the cities), simply calcify or petrify.
But Huston did something I would've done: he linked the narcissistic self-destructiveness of the Sodomites with the self-destructiveness of mankind, by presenting the 'fire and brimstone' as a mushroom cloud. That's the clincher for today. Roeg did something similar in his brilliant 'Insignificance' by linking Marilyn Munroe's self-destructive personal narcissism to Einstein's bigger invention and our own deathwish. Thanatos.
To SHOW the stunt VISUALLY though isn't easy. Maybe Lot's wife just looked back and became a wealthy pillar of society who lost her soul... I think there was a salt trade in the area ... It could be done well somehow today better, but the judgemental approach to the gay thing means I'll bet no directors would touch it with a long bargepole.
The three angels and O'Toole? Well there IS method in that madness. Huston originally wanted to make a whole series of such movies to cover the entire Bible. He never did, but I'm willing to bet O'Toole was slated as Christ... so as an early anthropomorphism this would have worked consistently. Note that the smiling white-clad angel deals out death, but the sombre dark one mercy. In classic mythic imagery across nations from China to Africa, and even in dream imagery, it's WHITE that is the colour of death, not black, a recent development.
As for Aldrich's carry-on, he turned it into a bit of Israeli propaganda about watering the desert etc. and territorialism. At least they realised their mistake at the end ... 'no abiding city' .... The obviously 'Red Sea' inspired dam-swamping episode is paralleled in cinematic absurdity only by Vidor's daft 'shield-dazzling' stunt in the grim 'Solomon and Sheba' a disgraceful unnecessary piece of bulls**t that callously killed many stunt-horses for no effect whatever.
And whoever thought of renaming the Elamites as the Helamites? I'd charitably say it was a misinterpretation of the Hebrew 'rough' breathing consonant 'ALEPH' as an 'h' ... either that or some very heavy-handed reference to ... hell???!!!!
AND whoever thought Lot would try to instruct his new wife Ildeth in the 'Laws of the Hebrews' ... not yet written until Moses' day at the EARLIEST? Aldrich's angels wear Levitical phylactery-boxes ... well, I suppose angels can be timeless and as much from the future as the past. I tell myself this, but hey, it's a cock-up.
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