Moses At The Movies

ly find experts from all different
walks of life," said Katzenberg.
"About 700 experts came and visited
with us over the course of four years
of making the movie."
"We're not theologians," said direc-
tor Steve Hickner. "In order to make a
movie like this, you have to make edu-
cated choices, and the only way to do
that is to become seeped in it."
That meant a lot of preparation and
study. "Having educated ourselves as
thoroughly as we possibly could," said
director Simon Wells, "we then set
about making something which was a
human, involving drama, primarily
making a piece of entertainment first,
but without transgressing and chang-
ing the fundamentals of the story in
pursuit of that entertainment."
DreamWorks is already at work on
another animated biblical story, this
time about Joseph, which is being
made for the direct-to-video market.
Producer Penney Finkleman Cox
explained that although the company

is extremely proud of The Prince of
Egypt, and hopes to continue to deal
with religious subject matter, its exec-
utives don't want to limit the scope of
their animated films.
"Once you open this box, and you
say animation is this technique to tell
all kinds of stories," she explained,
"you want to make a sci-fi movie in
animation, you want to make an
Indiana Jones in animation. The
artists all want that; that's why they
came to DreamWorks, for the chai-
lenge and variety."
Don Paul, a visual effects supervisor
on The Prince of Egypt, agrees. He is
directing the next big-screen
DreamWorks animated film, Road to
El Dorado, which is an
adventure/comedy in the style of the
Bing Crosby/Bob Hope road movies.
It features the voices of Kenneth
Branagh and Kevin Kline.
"I am glad that we're going into
different types of scripts, and different
types of genres," said Paul. "I think

Thousands of Hebrews, freed at last from slavery in Egypt, come to the Red Sea.

12/18
1998

74 Detroit Jewish News

opening up a wider audience is really
healthy for the art form because it's a
very universal language. It really cross-
es over to different countries, and you
can tell many morestories."
As for The

bring Moses back to who he really was.
Aaron, explained Goldblum, is
hopeful, but afraid to make waves.
"It's not so easy," he said, "especial-
ly at that time — and for certain peo-
ple all through
Prince of Egypt,
history — to
the actors came
venture out and
to feel that in
really follow
addition to the
:2' something pure
significance of
-E and powerful
Moses to sever-
that may be
al different
unpopular.
faiths, the film
Freedom of one
works as a uni-
kind or another,
versal story of
in many ways,
familial bonds.
in our lives now,
Kilmer
is a struggle to
focused on the
Directors Steve Hickner, Brenda Chapman
attain.
conflict of two
and Simon Wells: Chapman is the first
"That's what
extremely close female director of an animated feature.
this story drama-
brothers —
tizes," Goldblum
Moses and
continued, "that
Rameses — who find themselves at
it's with much difficulty and struggle
war with each other. Bullock saw
that people have pursued principle,
Miriam as the one person who could
conscience and vision." 0