Synopsis
HER BLOOD STAINED EVERY STONE OF THE PYRAMID
A captured architect designs an ingenious plan to ensure the impregnability of the tomb of a self-absorbed Pharaoh, obsessed with the security of his next life.
1955 Directed by Howard Hawks
A captured architect designs an ingenious plan to ensure the impregnability of the tomb of a self-absorbed Pharaoh, obsessed with the security of his next life.
Στην Κοιλάδα των Βασιλέων, La Terre des pharaons, La regina delle piramidi, Tierra de faraones, Land der Pharaonen, A fáraók földje, Terra de faraons, Terra dos Faraós, Η Χώρα των Φαραώ, Ziemia faraonów, Země faraonů, 金字塔血泪史
I never would have guessed that this is one of Martin Scorsese’s favorite guilty pleasures. Directed by Howard Hawks, this is a 50s sword and sandal epic with thousands of extras, giant sets and shiny costumes... all in CinemaScope! The story follows a Pharaoh (try saying that fast) who enlists slaves to build him a grand pyramid as his tomb. Most of the film is about planning a tricky-enough labyrinth to hide his gold (he loves gold!) I had no idea where it was going until... in comes a browned-up Joan Collins to give the plot a real nasty twist. Cheesy good fun.
Howard Hawks’s Land of the Pharaohs is a modest character study dressed in the extravagant garb of a classic Hollywood epic. It’s not your typical profile of a historical figure, his great deeds and tragic follies, though. Instead, it’s a profile of… a pyramid; the people who built it, their beliefs, and the work that occupied their daily lives.
It touts all the same ingredients that made up the more popular ancient world pictures of the era—the CinemaScope, the technicolor, the grandiose sets, the cast of thousands, the sexy actress to put on all the posters. But in the hands of Hawks these pieces add up to an altogether more reserved and leisurely affair.
For all the soap opera scheming…
Three stars is a little generous really. It's kind of cool seeing Hawks using 12000 extras for a few seconds of film and you get the impression (and McCarthy's biog confirms) that Hawks was quite into pyramids and the engineering aspects of the story. But then coming to a Hawks film and being impressed by the extras and sets is kind of perverse.
There's a germ of an idea about powerful men seeking immortality and some stuff about the dangers of scheming second wives young enough to be your daughter that is a little weird considering it was basically conceived on his honeymoon. There's even a tiny touch of something about religion. None of it really gets developed and after…
Prepare the fastest camels! I ride for Luxor tonight!
There‘s little doubt in my mind that Howard Hawks was the greatest director of all time. If I had to choose the work of one filmmaker over all others, Hawks would be a no-brainer. He exemplifies, like few others, what great cinema is all about, namely combining a highly personal, easily recognisable vision with pure, timeless movie entertainment. His mighty list of unassailable classics spanning five decades and multiple genres is simply awe-inspiring.
Yet even a master like Hawks has some movies to his name that seem to be hard to defend even for his staunchest admirers. Land Of The Pharaohs may well be at the top of that list, something…
The story of Land of the Pharaohs isn’t the most gripping one, but it is told well enough by director Howard Hawks. What makes the movie worth watching is the spectacle including fantastic sets, fabulous costumes and thousands of (real life) extras. The movie is shot very well and a joy to look at. I also like the actors here. The script tends to be a bit melodramatic and Joan Collins as the feisty, scheming and power-hungry princess gives off some pulpy vibes, but I actually quite like that. It’s a colorful and entertaining performance fitting to the mood of the film and Collins is always very easy on the eye.
Now, Land of the Pharaohs is no Ben-Hur but…
TERRA DOS FARAÓS, Howard Hawks, 1955, por Pedro Costa.
Turn your watch back about one hundred thousand years...
I’ll meet you by the third pyramid...
Oh! C’mon!
The B’52’s
No filme Land of Pharaohs, Terra dos Faraós, há um plano insuportável. É perto do fim, é o último plano da seqüência em que a Rainha Nailla morre para salvar o seu filho, o Príncipe Zanin.
Interior, noite. No palácio do Faraó. Imóvel e nu, sentado de pernas cruzadas, o pequeno príncipe toca uma flauta que lhe fora oferecida pela Princesa Nelifer, a jovem amante do Faraó.
Concentrado como num pequeno hieróglifo, repete infinitamente a única música que a Princesa lhe ensinou: uma melodia infantil, simples e hipnótica. O ar quente…
Hawks-athon #33/39
In a word, turgid. It's obvious that Howard Hawks put a lot of effort into Land of the Pharaohs, with expenses lavished upon opulent production design and a zillion extras. Apparently they even shot on location in Egypt, and yet every actor still looks (and sounds) like a westerner covered in tanning lotion. Rampant brownface aside, much of my displeasure comes from watching the affluent asshole monarch treat everyone else like dirt. Imagine if they made a sympathetic spinoff about Immortan Joe from Mad Max: Fury Road, and you'll understand my annoyance. Ultimately, this admittedly epic production winds up feeling as hollow as the Pharaoh's crypt. It's telling that - 33 films into his career - this picture represented Hawks' first commercial failure.
Film anómalo en la carrera de Hawks, está considerado —por eso mismo— como el peor y más impersonal que hizo, pero a mí me parece uno de los mejores y la vindicación de la «teoría de los autores» al revelar, como un corolario, la visión hawksiana de la existencia de modo aún más inequívoco de sus obras más características. Como Red River y The big Sky, esta superproducción narra la ejecución de un trabajo colectivo; ahora bien, mientras que en las empresas acometidas en estos dos westerns históricos —conducción de un rebaño de Tejas a Kansas, ascenso fluvial desde St. Louis a Montana— es de gran importancia el itinerario, en Tierra de faraones la tarea se realiza en un emplazamiento…
About halfway through this I was convinced the Land of the Pharaohs stans had been drinking too much auteurism sauce and there was almost nothing that made this at all remarkable. The first really great scene is the murder of the Pharaoh's wife; the great implosion of a pharaoh and his court that begins with an endless pan across tomb-builders in the desert and ends in one hermetically-sealed chamber, is set off by a snake in the nighttime drawn lazily towards a child's flute-playing. More great scenes follow, and the film's atmosphere suddenly shifts into a murky doom, lit by blue moonlight and red torchlight. Hawks, always fascinated by the feminine's disruption of the masculine, here sees the honor and…
Não sei como é que um faraó fala. Faulkner também não sabia. Ninguém sabia. Finalmente, Bill perguntou: “Há algum motivo pelo qual não posso fazê-lo falar como se fosse um sulista dono de uma plantação de algodão?”. Respondi: “Não. Vá em frente desse jeito”.
"Nos filmes de Howard Hawks não há suspense: espera-se a morte, corre-se para ela e basta. Num plano de Hawks ninguém entra ou sai; está-se preso e nunca se sai vivo, é tudo. Hawks trabalha arduamente para isso: constrói planos sobre planos como túmulos; gigantescos cemitérios. Mas uma pirâmide leva tanto tempo a construir... Uma ciência do pesadelo. Um homem sonha com o absoluto e perde-se nele."
- Pedro Costa
"A pirâmide é o princípio e o fim de todas as coisas e encerra em si muitos segredos, da obra e pensamento de Hawks, também. Da morte, do poder, de cobras e enterros. Em Cinemascope.."
- João Palhares