Barabbas

Pontius Pilate asks the people of Jerusalem whom they want freed, Jesus Of Nazareth or Barrabas?, the former has been tagged as a King of the Jewish people, the latter a thief and a murderer, they choose Barrabas.

This is a pure work of fiction based around the 1950 Pär Lagerkvist novel of the same name. It has basically taken a passage in the New Testament and extended it to ask what became of the man who was freed instead of Christ? We open of course with the people choosing Barrabas, and the subsequent Crucifixion of Christ that is now scripture legend. This event doesn't at first seem to bother Barrabas, but as the story progresses it becomes clear that he himself has his own cross to bear. We follow him as he witnesses a barbaric stoning of someone close to him, this turns him bitter and a return to a life of crime is his only response. Once again arrested, he is sent to work in the sulphur mines, here he ages fast and hangs on desperately to his life and sanity. He forms a friendship with a fellow inmate and after both men get sent to gladiator school, he finds that the faith surrounding Christ looms large and bright in his life story.

Richard Fleischer directs, producer is Dino De Laurentus, Anthony Quinn takes the role of Barrabas, and Jack Palance and Ernest Borgnine add weight to the acting roll call. There is some very good work to be sampled here, Quinn manages to put a bit of sincerity into the lead role; for as Barrabas' perspective alters, Quinn convinces with a nice show of depth. Palance is decently nasty as Torvald, and although Ernest Borgnine is wasted as Lucius, he does however leave a very decent impression due to a good show of acting restraint. There are some lovely shots here as well, particularly around the sulphur mines sequences, whilst both the sets and costumes are suitably on the money.

Barrabas is a film that is rarely mentioned when talk of biblical epics arises, and the small amount of user comments here suggests it's largely forgotten. That's a shame because it holds up considerably better than the likes of The Robe. 7/10

Whatever happened to that guy who was let off the hook when Jesus was crucified? Here is a fictional account of his life after he was released in Jesus' place. Quinn plays the title character, a thief and rabble-rouser who is set to be crucified when a technicality allows one prisoner to be released due to a holy day. It is brought up in order to free Jesus, but the crowd instead calls for Barabbas' freedom and stay of execution. Quinn spots Jesus briefly through piercing sunlight, then finds himself touching the blood that he's left on a post. He shakes it off and returns home only to find that his lover (Mangano) has fallen under Jesus' spell and won't play anymore. Soon, he has returned to his old ways and when he's arrested, he discovers he can't be killed due to the same technicality that freed him the first time! So he's shipped off to a harrowing sulfur mine where he is chained to man after man, each of them dying in turn until he's paired with an ideological Christian (Gassman.) Circumstances then lead this pair to the Roman Coliseum where they are trained in the art of gladiatorial combat and must face down the deranged and powerful Palance. As the many years go by, Quinn finds himself tempted to believe in Jesus, but always wavering until finally he must make a choice. The film is epic in story and scope with several memorable sequences including a solar eclipse, a stoning execution, a cataclysmic cave-in and a spectacular visit to the Coliseum. The film must be seen in its wide-screen format in order to appreciate the magnitude of its composition. Quinn gives an understated performance with surprisingly little dialogue. His grunting, mumbling approach near the beginning fortunately gives way to a more comprehensible, accessible performance later. The film has a parade of famous actors each of whom is billed in order of appearance except for Mangano (who unfairly gets special treatment due to her marriage to the producer!) It's really Quinn's show, but several others get a chance to shine. Gassman is given a heroic and dignified role, Andrews adds weight to the film with his surehanded presence and Palance is quite notable as the unbeatable gladiator. With his ear-to-ear, snarling grin and his stony stares at his opponents, he presents a formidable foe in the arena. The production is quite eye-filling and visually arresting, but also relentlessly downbeat. Jurado, as Quinn's second favorite bed-mate, adds a little earthy humor to the proceedings, but is dispatched without much ado. There is a tad of unintentional humor along the way thanks to some of the conventions of film-making at the time, but mostly from the entire sequence featuring Lazarus, recently risen from the dead and not looking too great for it! The hysterically wan and creepy looking performer does little to encourage anyone's desire to be resurrected! It's an oddly under-appreciated film, though, which can stand proudly aside its cousins such as "Ben-Hur" and "Spartacus".

How incredibly appropriate if not downright eerie that the sun should turn on a full eclipse during the filming of BARABBAS that was captured by the Technirama 70 cameras for the crucifixion scene.

Arguably the "forgotten epic" when talk of the 60's blockbusters brings inevitably mention of BEN HUR, KING OF KINGS, FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, SPARTACUS, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, GENGHIS KHAN, CLEOPATRA, SODOM AND GOMORRAH, etc. Many see in this film an individual depth and emotion, lacking in other such works. Quinn in fact brings (despite the poetic license taken with historical confirmation) to Barabbas, a portrayal of a man tortured by his past, his reason to still be alive and his destiny. From the claustrophobic escape from the sulphur mines to his gladiatorial deeds in the arena, Barrabas is a driven man of open-ended religious conviction. He embraces Christianity but does he understand it? He saw Christ die in his place and lived his life to find out why!

Palance whose face has been his career, was the ONLY choice as Torvald the head gladiator who lives only to kill! It was one of his best ever roles.

I saw this film in London at its premiere in 1962. It received luke-warm critical reception at the time but had a successful run in the West End of some six months or so. Has had far less screening on television and cable than other epics of its ilk which is a pity as it had a lot to offer the discriminating viewer.

BARABBAS rocks. We saw it at the drive-in in the early 60's and the whole family loved it, all nine of us. I'm not always enamored with Anthony Quinn. Sometimes he seems conceited. But as Barabbas he is brilliantly humble, yet powerful. This is by far, his best movie ever. His faces say a thousand words a thousand times. It's as though he was transformed and really became the character, not played it. He is stoic and disturbed, tortured by the crisis within his soul. Barabbas is the man the crowd chose over Christ and this is a fictionalized account of his life after Christ was crucified. Jack Palance gives the second greatest performance of his life as the man who trains, and sometimes kills, gladiators. That evil laugh. That face. What corner of hell gave birth to this man? It's almost as good as his Jack Wilson gunfighter role in Shane. Palance is so mean in Barabbas that all sorts of pacifists would gladly kill him if they had the chance. There are a couple of slow spots but the sets are fantastic and the story is great.

How did Jack Palance sleep at night?

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