Barabbas

Our next installment today is the 1962 classic, "Barabbas." What was the last thing that happened to the punished thief, Barabbas, which is stated in the Bible that he was spared from crucifixion by Pontius Pilate when he might have spared Jesus Christ? Bosley Crowther stated in his review, "That unresolved question is answered — suppositionally, at least — in a huge, turgid color film, "Barabbas," which came, appropriately, to the DeMille last night." 

Here is what happened to him, according to the film: He spend a long life in miserable slavery – and he still was put on a cross. 

Crowther stated, "During his years of cruel enslavement in a Sicilian sulphur mine, as a farm hand for a Roman consul and as a third-string gladiator in Rome, he was endlessly puzzled and troubled about the man who died in his stead." He kept trying to understand Christianity, the religion that the followers of Christ believed in, but he just couldn't understand it somehow. The rule of "love-thy-brother" was too deep for him. He still hadn't understood completely when he was crucified for having helped to set fire to Rome. 

This may feel like a strange and delicate fiction that looks like a three-hour film – and that it is, without a doubt, when you see how everything resolves. Crowther stated, "For what there is of simple beauty and possible symbolic point in "Pär Lagerkvist's haunting fable, upon which the film is based, either has been missed or is undeveloped in the uncertain script of Christopher Fry, and the spiritual subtlety of it has been buried under 10 tons of spectacle." 

Crowther goes on to say, "Now the man Barabbas, as played by Anthony Quinn, is but a great brute of a fellow who falls into and endures a succession of melodramatic adventures that are the raptures of a spectaclemaker's dreams." When he is captured in a fight with Roman soldiers (which is after he has seen Christ crucified, the evidence of the Resurrection and a girl, played by Silvana Mangano, stoned to death for worshipping Him), he is slaved in a mind, where the labor is long and tiring. Barabbas goes through this exile with amazing pain. 

Then, after the mine has exploded and he has come out with a friend, played by Vittorio Gassman, with much difficulty, he goes through another painful set of years as a draft horse on a field. Finally, enlisted as a gladiator, he goes through an entire period of training and fighting in the arena with thousands of participants or audience members. 

Anthony Quinn is an amazingly believable. He grunts and sweats and struggles with more believable vengeance and effort than any actor we could think of. And the difficult stuff is horrifying. The explosion of the mind and the gladiatorial fights are as bloody as we think of. The producer, Dino De Laurentiis, who made this film in Italy, did not waste expanse to match it, as much, with "Spartacus" and "Ben-Hur." Also, Richard Fleischer, the director, has, as Crowther states, "dipped a bit from those wells." 

However, there is no personal drama. Barabbas is just a huge fool, and no one else is really developed to give much interest or sympathy. Gassman as the mind friend and an early Christian does great in his role. Crowther said, "He makes a handsome suffering zealot, but he gets dumped like everyone else." Among those are Arthur Kennedy as Pontius Pilate, Mangano as the worship girl, Harry Andrews as the Apostle Peter and Jack Palance as a gladiatorial champ. 

Even before the intermission, interest and point are not in here. What's here is a long and massive flounder in a great deal of blood, sweat and pain. 

Despite all of this, "Barabbas" is a good epic to check out. This is a believable movie about a man who did not understand Christianity, as there must be a lot of people today that don't completely grasp it. If you have seen any of the others I have reviewed, don't miss this one. 

Stay tuned next week to see what I review to end "Religious Epic Month."