17 March 2015

Landslides in the Movies part 3:- Exodus: God and Kings

Posted by Dave Petley

Exodus: God and Kings

This is part 3 of my “Landslides in Movies” series (following Part 1 and Part 2). In 2014 the film-maker Ridley Scott released Exodus: God and Kings, an epic fantasy film that retells the biblical story of Moses as he rebels against the Egyptian Pharoah Ramses, and leads an exodus of 600,000 people from the plagues of Egypt.

A critical juncture in the movie comes when Moses is struck and buried by a mudslide during a heavy rainstorm whilst looking for his sheep.  The website comingsoon.net has a short film about how this scene was shot.  You should be able to see the video embedded below, or you can view it here.

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The film is interesting, not least because it shows the enormous effort that needs to go into creating even a comparatively small mudslide.  They actually did a pretty good job, the resulting mudslide is quite credible:-

Exodus: God and Kings

Exodus: God and Kings

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It is also interesting to see the care that was needed to secure the safety of Christian Bale when he was buried by the mudslide. It nicely illustrates the low survival rates from these types of landslides.