The Prince of Egypt

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Movie
German title The Prince of Egypt
Original title The Prince of Egypt
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1998
length 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Brenda Chapman ,
Steve Hickner ,
Simon Wells
script Philip LaZebnik
production Penney Finkelman Cox ,
Sandra Rabins
music Hans Zimmer (film music),
Stephen Schwartz (songs)
cut Nick Fletcher
synchronization

The Prince of Egypt is a cartoon of Dreamworks Animation Studios from the year 1998 , the life story of the Jewish prophet Moses recounted. The Bible story in the book of Moses (Exodus) served as a template .

action

The people of Israel live in Egypt under the rule of Pharaoh Sethos I , who lets them work as slaves for himself. He also orders the child murder of newborn Israelite boys. In addition to her daughter Miriam and son Aaron, Yocheved has another, only newborn child, a boy whom she abandons with a heavy heart in a wicker basket on the Nile . Miriam oversees this basket, which miraculously survives crocodiles and other dangers of the Nile unscathed and arrives at the king's palace. His wife finds him there with her son Ramses , who is barely older than the boy from the basket. He gets the name Moses from the queen and is said to grow up as the brother of the prince. Miriam is facilitated; her brother will be fine.

Indeed, Moses grows up to be a carefree young man who gets on extremely well with Ramses, and he organizes a rapid chariot race through the city with him. They bring the construction site of a temple to collapse. Sethos is angry, from which Ramses in particular has to suffer, because as heir to the throne he is required to have a sense of responsibility. Moses asks his father for less severity and a chance for Ramses to prove what he can do. Then he cheers up his brother a little, who initially reproaches him, because actually Moses is mainly to blame for the chaos in the city. But in the end he lets himself be carried away to a trick that the two play on the hated high priests and teachers Hotep and Hoy. Shortly thereafter, they rush to a ceremony at which Ramses is appointed Prince Regent. On this occasion , the priests give him a pretty Midianite woman who is too defiant for Ramses' taste, which is why he leaves her to Moses. He messes with the girl and humiliates her in front of the entire court and the people.

He regrets that very quickly. He wants to apologize to her, but when he thinks her tied up in his room, he finds her guard there instead, who has tied her up, and the two watchdogs she has tied their snouts. Meanwhile she has gone through the window and fetched her camel. Moses almost catches up with her, but when he comes across two guards, he distracts her from the girl, whom he has become very fond of. He follows her to the slave city, where she receives some water from a Hebrew woman. The woman turns out to be Miriam, Moses' sister. While he is still staring after the Midianite woman, Miriam is thrilled to see him and thinks he wants to free her. In fact, it is only through them that Moses learns that he is of Hebrew origin. Aaron tries to stop her, because he realizes that Moses sees himself only as a prince, but Miriam arouses doubts in Moses when she sings a lullaby that Moses is still known by his birth mother. Horrified, he flees into the palace.

There he is overcome by a strange dream in which he sees himself as part of a wall drawing. Shortly after waking up, he discovers in panic that he has already seen the scene from his dream: The child murder of the Hebrews is recorded in the palace. Moses finds the place again and is desperate. Not only is Sethos not his father, he is also a cruel mass murderer. His foster mother can comfort him a little, but when Moses later comes to a construction site, he becomes aware of the misery of the slaves. He carelessly kills an overseer who has badly mistreated a Hebrew slave. Although his brother promises to absolve him of his guilt, Moses himself cannot accept his deed and runs out into the desert, apparently without any will to survive. He parts with anything suggestive of his former status as a prince, with the exception of a ring that was a gift from Ramses. After a sandstorm, Moses follows a camel to a water source. He now seems to want to go on living.

At the oasis populated by sheep, three little shepherd girls are harassed by a couple of desert robbers, but Moses is able to drive the robbers away - and shortly afterwards falls into a well. The girls can't pull it out on their own until their older sister comes and helps them. But when Moses is upstairs, he recognizes the beautiful Midianite woman - and she recognizes him. In revenge for the humiliation, she pushes him back down the well. Eventually the girls take him to their family. The nomad troop is led by Jitro , the high priest of Midian and also the father of Zippora and her three little sisters. Moses stays with them and can learn a lot from Jitro and his people. After a few years he has become a shepherd and the desert has become his new home. Despite initial difficulties, he and Zippora become a couple and they get married.

One morning a sheep in the flock gets lost. Moses follows him and meets a burning bush , about which the voice of God speaks to him. God commands him to free the Israelites from slavery and to lead them to the promised land. He promises him his support and the miracles that Moses will work with his staff. After talking to Zippora, she decides to come with him.

When he arrived in Egypt, Moses discovered that Ramses was now king and himself the father of a son. He has become arrogant and selfish, does not believe in God's miracles and is not impressed by the staff that Moses turns into a cobra. Ramses is very happy to see Moses again and believes that everything will be as it was before. He cannot take Moses' request to let Israel go seriously. When Moses gives him back the ring, he feels offended and angry. Not only does he deny Israel's free retreat, but he puts more work on them. Moses pulls his Hebrew siblings and his people to his side and turns the water of the Nile into blood in front of everyone, but Ramses dismisses this as a gimmick with a demonstration by the priests Hotep and Hoy.

Thereupon Moses unleashes the ten plagues that only the Hebrews spare. Although Egypt almost perishes because of these, and even the incompetent high priests cannot do anything against the dying of cattle, frogs, locusts and other things, Ramses does not react. In the ninth plague, darkness, Moses sought him out for a brotherly conversation, which Ramses put mildly. But then his frightened son shows up and Ramses makes a few thoughtless remarks, including that he wants to eradicate the plague of Israel once and for all. Moses warns him of God's anger, and when his gaze falls on the well-known wall drawing - in front of which Ramses' little son is standing - he realizes that this time the Hebrew children will not have to pay. He withdraws sadly. At night God goes through Egypt and kills the firstborn boys of the Egyptians, including Pharaoh's son. Buried in mourning, he lets Israel go and also no longer allows Moses to approach him.

Israel moves happily to the Red Sea , and Miriam is singing praises to the Lord. They stop at the sea. But Ramses, angry and sad, broke his promise and persecuted the Israelites with his soldiers. Only a pillar of fire sent by God prevents him from genocide. Meanwhile, Moses leads his people to the other shore through the sea shared with his staff. When the pillar of fire goes out, the Egyptians want to follow them to kill everyone, but they are drowned by the crashing waves. Ramses is thrown ashore and can only call for his brother in the distance. Although he is sad because he has lost his brother and his beloved homeland, he is happy about the freedom of his people and about the land of Canaan, to which he will move with Zippora, Miriam, Aaron and the others.

Finally, Moses can be seen descending from Mount Sinai when he brings the Ten Commandments to the Israelites .

continuation

In 2000 DreamWorks produced the film Joseph - King of Dreams - also a biblical animated film - but it has become less well known.

synchronization

The synchronization was taken over by the Berliner Synchron GmbH Wenzel Lüdecke .

role speaker
English speaker German speaker
Moses Val Kilmer Tobias Master
Moses (vocals) Amick Byram Hendrik Bruch
Ramses Ralph Fiennes Hartwig Rudolz
Miriam Sandra Bullock Anja Kling
Miriam (vocals) Sally Dworsky Jasna Ivir
young Miriam (vocals) Eden bars Debby van Dooren
Zippora Michelle Pfeiffer Maud Ackermann
Zippora (vocals) Heike Gentsch
Aaron Jeff Goldblum Hubertus Bengsch
Pharaoh Sethos Patrick Stewart Hartmut Reck
The Queen Helen Mirren Traudel Haas
The Queen (vocals) Linda Dee Shayne Ute Becker
Hotep Steve Martin Joachim Kemmer
Huy Martin Short Santiago Ziesmer
Jetro Danny Glover Ethan Freeman
Jetro (vocals) Brian Stokes Mitchell
Jochebed Ofra Haza

Ofra Haza took on the small vocal role of Moses' mother Jochebed in the original English version and in Hebrew, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, Czech, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese and Swedish.

Awards

The film received an Oscar nomination in the categories “Best Movie Song” and “Best Music” . For the song When You Believe , sung by Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey (written by Stephen Schwartz ), there was finally the trophy.

criticism

“A [...] predominantly biblical preparation of the Moses material as an animated film that is equally ambitious on a visual and thematic level. Although it is occasionally lacking in charm and formal enthusiasm for innovation, it is still captivating as a spectacular fable that also includes approaches such as friendship and brotherhood, self-discovery and self-assertion in the service of a higher order and thus conveys the implicit religious dimension of the story in a serious and understandable way. [...] "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | The Prince of Egypt. Retrieved February 22, 2018 .
  2. The Prince of Egypt. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used