03-27-2016, 10:01 AM
When I was a kid I always loved watching Cecil B. DeMille's "Ten Commandments" on holidays. Though for the life of me I can't figure out what it has to do with Easter. I still enjoy it to this day, but mostly for Yul Brynner's performance. My favourite part was always the following narration. Reading it now, it's so over-the-top that I can't help liking it still. Thoughts?
"Into the blistering wilderness, the man who walked with kings now walks alone. Torn from the pinnacle of royal power, stripped of all rank and earthly wealth, a forsaken man without a country and without a hope, his soul in turmoil. Like the hot winds and raging sands that lash him with the fury of a taskmaster’s whip, he is driven forward, always forward, by a God unknown for a land unseen into the molten wilderness, where granite sentinels stand as towers of living death to bar his way. Each night brings the black embrace of loneliness. In the mocking whisper of the wind, he hears the echoing voices of the dark. His tortured mind wonders if they call the memory of past triumphs or wail forebodings of disasters yet to come, or whether the desert’s hot breath has melted his reason into madness. He cannot cool the burning kiss of thirst upon his lips, or shade the scorching fury of the sun. All about is desolation. He can neither bless nor curse the Power that moves him, for he does not know from where it comes. Learning that it can be more terrible to live than to die, he is driven onward, through the burning crucible of desert, where holy men and prophets are cleansed and purged for God’s great purpose. Until at last, at the end of human strength, beaten into the dust from which he came, the metal is ready for the Maker’s Hand."
Paul
"Into the blistering wilderness, the man who walked with kings now walks alone. Torn from the pinnacle of royal power, stripped of all rank and earthly wealth, a forsaken man without a country and without a hope, his soul in turmoil. Like the hot winds and raging sands that lash him with the fury of a taskmaster’s whip, he is driven forward, always forward, by a God unknown for a land unseen into the molten wilderness, where granite sentinels stand as towers of living death to bar his way. Each night brings the black embrace of loneliness. In the mocking whisper of the wind, he hears the echoing voices of the dark. His tortured mind wonders if they call the memory of past triumphs or wail forebodings of disasters yet to come, or whether the desert’s hot breath has melted his reason into madness. He cannot cool the burning kiss of thirst upon his lips, or shade the scorching fury of the sun. All about is desolation. He can neither bless nor curse the Power that moves him, for he does not know from where it comes. Learning that it can be more terrible to live than to die, he is driven onward, through the burning crucible of desert, where holy men and prophets are cleansed and purged for God’s great purpose. Until at last, at the end of human strength, beaten into the dust from which he came, the metal is ready for the Maker’s Hand."
Paul
