• It is highly flawed but also has some majestic 70mm photography—after one viewing I’m throwing it into the back end of the archives of 1966’s and of John Huston’s up and down career as a director- it’s marred but ambitious—
  • Love the hazy fantasia-like opening- voice over by Huston himself as the scripture and voice of god- he’s very good here—the literal 7 days of the earth’s creation is the first 20 minutes- I see tree of life and Prometheus or melancholia but I have no idea how influential this is
  • Very lively score by Toshirô Mayuzumi- I think it’s quite good
  • Grandiose in scope—the 70mm matches the ambition of the project as well as the landscapes
  • Mostly silent pantomime performances to voice over—they should have got another actor for Huston as Noah. He’s good as the narrator but pretty bad here
  • The Ark is an impressive set piece- two set pieces actually- one from the outside—and one from the inside
  • It’s a literal 20 chapters of Genesis- the 3 hours running time could be told in 2 hours without losing a thing—we have too many shots of too many animals doing the same thing—eating, walking
  • Some small odd liberties away from the text taken for comedic purposes that don’t work
  • Tower of Babel set piece is nice
  • Poor Ava Gardner looks really old
  • Self-serious and could be parodied easily but it’s buoyed by genuine photography (desert shots are great)
  • O’Toole is superb in his small scene—George C. Scott is in it much longer and isn’t as good but is admirable
  • Rubble of ruins in Sodom is another gorgeous 70mm set piece as is the mountainside fort the Abraham sacrifice son scene
  • Recommend but not that close to top 10 of 1966