Barabbas (1962)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Too much of everything

Admirable film.

A Major Disappointment

Spartacus and Ben-Hur this ain't. I don't understand the references to "lavish spectacle." Everything in this movie looks cheap. And director Stanley Fleisher is no Bill Kowalchuk (Ben-Hur) or Stanley Kramer (Spartacus). As far as the score, Mario Nascimbene is no Miklos Rozsa either. As far as the red/orange tint referred to I strongly suspect this is due to the aging of the print. The movie has not been restored like others of its day, which is understandable; it's not worth restoring. Anthony Quinn and his colleagues do the best they can with a ponderously leaden and clichéd script ("Work, you crazy dogs!"). The pacing is glacial, and the long passages of monologue that are more appropriate to a pulpit than a soundstage are tough to take. I was going to stop watching halfway through but I forced myself to watch the whole thing so I'd feel qualified to comment on it. Just because I suffered doesn't mean you have to.

"Barabbas" is an American/Italian English-language movie directed by Academy Award winner Richard Fleischer, member of the famous Fleischer clan. The screenplay is by Christopher Fry, who adapted Pär Lagerkvist's novel for this movie here. The film is listed on IMDb as a prequel to John Huston's Oscar-nominated "The Bible: In the Beginning...", maybe because Fry wrote that one as well? I am not sure. Story-wise, it is not really a prequel. Anyway, the version of "Barabbas" I watched runs for 2 hours and 12 minutes, so it is a pretty long film, even if not as long as its sequel. In my opinion, the only real reason to watch "Barabbas" is Anthony Quinn, He played his role convincingly, but the story simply could not keep me interested for long, especially not for over 2 hours. Pretty disappointing.I would recommend this one only to great fans of historic and religiously themed movies, maybe also to fans of Quinn. Then again, I like him too, but was rather underwhelmed watching his film here. The rest of the cast includes fairly known names too from its era, people who had won and been nominated for many awards during their long careers, but this film is another example of how even the greatest cast cannot make an uninteresting script work really. I certainly hoped this would be better judging from its IMDb rating. But it really is not. Watch something else instead. Not recommended, unless you are a Quinn completionist. You also do not need to see this one here if you play on watching the sequel I mentioned earlier in my review. That one does not even include Quinn, so connections are almost non-existent, story-wise as well.

Who cannot resist seeing a film with a cast like Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine and Harry Andrews? The cast and my general interest in biblical epic films were my reasons for seeing Barabbas. It's imperfect and could have been better, but there are also a lot of fantastic things. And when it comes to biblical epics, while not definitive or masterpiece status Barabbas is towards the better end of the spectrum.Barabbas is very grand in scale visually. The sets and costumes are very lavish, the use of amber-orange gives the film a very soothing look and there's some truly breath-taking cinematography. The music score is incredibly powerful and the very meaning of stirringly epic. Also in terms of how it's orchestrated and recorded it's quite innovative with its experimental sounds. The script has its foibles but is a vast majority of the time intelligent and thoughtful, Richard Fleischer directs with a fine sense of period and an understanding to using the action and set pieces to their fullest potential and the story has many compelling moments. Especially true to this are the crucifixion set against a real eclipse of the fun, easily the most striking image of the film, and the climax in the arena, which is the most dramatically compelling and entertaining Barabbas gets.Rachel's stoning(a heart-wrenching moment), the burning of Rome and the sulphur mines collapse are equally unforgettable scenes. The action is very exciting, so much so that it outweighs the film's dull stretches, and emotionally Barabbas is genuinely heartfelt and sincere. The cast is a uniformly talented one and all performances(despite the characters varying in how well-written they are) range from solid to great. Anthony Quinn portrays titular character Barabbas as a tortured, guilt-ridden soul and portrays this very movingly and with a great deal of intimacy. Not many actors succeed in bringing humanity to a criminal but Quinn manages to do that. Of the supporting cast, the standout is Jack Palance, whose performance as the snarling villain Torvald is an evil-incarnate powerhouse.The film is let down chiefly by its pacing however. Not all of the time, mind, but the first half in particular is very stodgily paced and not always very eventful before properly coming to life in the stoning scene. There are a lot of references to Jesus which were dealt with rather heavy-handedly at times, some speeches ramble on a little too much and lose flow. 137 minutes is actually reasonably short compared to other biblical epics, but because there are some very draggy and not so eventful parts Barabbas to me did feel a little overlong in places. Barabbas is hardly the first biblical/historical epic to have these problems though, and others have done them much worse this said, and I'm usually tolerant of slow pacing and long lengths dependent on the execution of everything else.And while a lot is done right in Barabbas, other areas are patchy. Also as gently sincere and pretty Silvana Mongano is, she has very little to do in a particularly clichéd and thinly sketched role in a film where only Barabbas has any proper development. To the film's credit, the idea of people being brought up and living life in tumultuous times is portrayed with much riveting realism, so while development is sketchy it is easy to get emotionally engaged and empathise with what the characters are going through.Overall, overlong, at times heavy-handed in the script and with its dull spots, but with the wonderful production values, powerful music score, emotional resonance, some visually striking and dramatically compelling scenes and strong acting Barabbas still manages to be a good film and one of the better biblical epics. 7/10 Bethany Cox

While at first you could possibly be forgiven for thinking Barabbas might look like a cheap Italian epic, it is far, far from being so. The person I saw it with described it as a sword a sandal epic with some religion thrown in to cash in on the genre. If you also thought so, then maybe you need to look again. This has to be one of the most literate screenplays given to a 'Biblical' (yet non-Biblical epic). Bristol born Sceenwriter Christopher Fry, regarded by many as the Shakespeare of the 20th Century, has crafted a perceptive adaptation of Swedish Nobel Prize winner Par Lagerkvists' novel of the same name. The film wreaks of stunning atmosphere. Striking images created by award nominated Cinematographer Aldo Tonti conjure up the best art of the dark age masters. Pay special attention to the Crucifiction scenes, these were filmed during an actual eclipse of the Sun, as it occurred on 15th Feb 1961! The production design by Mario Chiari was also award nominated, and deservedly so, leaving you gasping for air amid astoundingly realistic sets. The National Board of Review awarded Barabbas the Best Foreign Film of it's year.Mario Nascimbene caps the eerie moods with an innovative haunting music score. While the action scenes are violent in their recreation, they serve to force us to realize the shocking inhumanity of the Roman Arena, a severe denouncement of the repugnant, decay riddled Roman Empire. Anthony Quinn, Vitorio Gassman, Harry Andrews, Silvana Mangano, Ernest Borgnine, et-all, give convincing performances that should sweep the discerning viewer along a tour de force journey. Jack Palance is truly menacing in a larger than life performance as the arena's maniacal killer. While it's mostly impossible to fully translate a novel into a screen play, it seems Fry has worked hard to keep much of the poetic prose of Lagerkvists' 50's original intact.American Director Richard Fleischer (son of famous animator Max) demonstrates full command of this difficult project and infuses it with the same intensity he imparted to several of his other gripping works: Compulsion '59 ~ 10 Rillington Place '71 ~ The New Centurians '72 and Edward G. Robinson's impressive 'swan song' Soylent Green in '73. If you can patiently follow as a tortured soul journeys into self discovery, then you should be rewarded by the experience of Barabbas. Recommended for the viewer who can 'read' a film like a book. It seems Columbia have recently re-mastered this film on DVD, I look forward to seeing it.