The Ten Commandments. 1923. Directed by Cecil B. DeMille

Film

No upcoming events

The Ten Commandments. 1923. USA. Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Courtesy of Photofest.

The Ten Commandments. 1923. USA. Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. With Theodore Roberts, Charles De Roche. Silent, with piano accompaniment. 35mm print courtesy of George Eastman Museum. 136 min.

Moses and the Exodus of enslaved Hebrews from Egypt provide a prologue to a morality-laden mix of sentiment and lust set in 1920’s San Francisco. One commandment after another is broken in this drama of rival brothers, the women they love, and questionable building practices that lead to a spectacular tragedy. Before his full color remake of this subject in 1956, DeMille’s first version of this epic used a full range of the options available for adding color in the silent period: toning and tinting effects, spotted-coloring of elements in the frame (known as the “Handschiegl” technique) and Technicolor. This restoration was done by the George Eastman Museum using DeMille’s personal print as one of its sources.

This film accompanies Eye Candy: The Coming of Color.

Past events

Mon, Aug 28, 2023, 4:00 p.m.

With piano accompaniment from Donald Sosin

MoMA, Floor T2/T1, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
Sun, Aug 27, 2023, 4:00 p.m.

With piano accompaniment from Makia Matsumura

MoMA, Floor T2/T1, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].