Re: HTF DVD REVIEW: Quo Vadis
I guess I like the film more than most here. I am not at all bothered by a movie being "pious in the extreme", particularly if it is about the history of the early Christian Church. I have always felt that Quo Vadis was the first biblical epic to have an intelligent and witty script. It is largely devoid of the "Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool" type of dialog, which permeated deMille's epics. When hokiness is combined with holiness, it makes the holiness fall flat. I do not feel this happens in Quo Vadis.I am not normally a fan of Deborah Kerr. I always felt she was too prim and proper in most of her American films, and I hated the short curly hair they later forced her to wear. I loved her as Lygia. She did a marvelous job of conveying a demure Christian woman fighting against her passions. The famous shot of her as she turns toward the camera after Vinicius rides by in his triumph is electrifying.
Robert Taylor managed to do some of Vinicus well. I liked the hard-bitten soldier aspect of his character, which showed how he did not fit in with the foppery of Nero's court. I guess where he falls down is in playing more noble or admirable aspects of the character. Lygia apparently is attracted to Taylor's Vinicius simply for his good looks, because there is little that is winsome about his character. I suppose one is to think that his sheer manliness attracted her. A little more work night have made his character more dimensional than it is.
As for the piousness, I must confess that as a Christian, I find it rather thrilling, when Peter, robed in white, nobly played by Finlay Currie, appears in the Circus Maximus to inspire the martyrs. The singing of the martyrs during the crucifixions and torture is also moving to me. I am always a little bothered when Christian movies fail to actually say what the gospel really is ("while we were yet sinners, Christ saved us"), and Quo Vadis is equally deficient in that regard. Also, I was annoyed when Peter, in his earlier sermon, describes James and John as his brothers. James and John were brothers, but Peter's brother was Andrew. One would expect better attention to detail than that. However, I found it to be an over-all success. Like any epic, there is always a trade-off of subtlety for spectacle, but I believe Quo Vadis manages to be more of a complete package than many epics.
