The Bible...In the Beginning () is a 1966 religious epic film produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by John Huston. It recounts the first 22 chapters of the Biblical Book of Genesis, covering the stories from The Creation and Garden of Eden to the binding of Isaac.
Released by 20th Century Fox, the film's ensemble cast features Huston, Michael Parks, Richard Harris, Franco Nero, Stephen Boyd, George C. Scott, Ava Gardner, Peter O'Toole and Gabriele Ferzetti. The screenplay was written by Christopher Fry, with additional material by Orson Welles, Ivo Perilli, Jonathan Griffin, Mario Soldati and Vittorio Bonicelli. The film was photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno in Dimension 150, a variant of the 70mm Todd-AO format. The musical score was by the Japanese composer Toshiro Mayuzumi.
Premiering in New York City on 28 September 1966, the film received mixed reviews from critics. The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures included the film in its Top Ten Films list of 1966. De Laurentiis and Huston won David di Donatello Awards for Best Producer and Best Foreign Director, respectively. Toshiro Mayuzumi's score was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. The film was originally conceived as the first in a series of films retelling the entire Old Testament, but these sequels were never made.
Plot
Part I
The film begins with the Creation. God creates the heavens and earth, including the first man, Adam and the first woman, Eve. Both live in the utopical Garden of Eden until a Serpent convinces Eve to disobey God by eating a fruit from the tree of knowledge, and in turn Eve convinces Adam to do the same. God punishes the Serpent and banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden.
Eve gives birth to two children: Cain and Abel. When they are older, Cain becomes a farmer and Abel a shepherd, and they both make regular ritual sacrifices to God. When Cain offers his share of harvest and Abel offers a lamb, God favors the lamb sacrifice. Cain, filled with jealousy, murders Abel and runs away. Adam and Eve mourn the loss of both their sons, but God gives them another, who they name Seth. Generations come to pass, and most of the descendants of Cain grow evil.
God is displeased by his creation and intends to destroy it all via a global flood. He makes contact with Adam's descendant Noah, and commands him to build an Ark in order to save himself and his family. Noah obeys and, after the ark is finished, two pairs of clean and unclean animals and birds are brought to the ark. After the door is shut, a storm occurs and the fountains of water erupt, flooding the earth. All living things outside the ark die while the occupants survive. Forty days later, with Noah's wife counting the days, the ark lands in the mountains of Ararat, where the animals and birds disembark. God then promises Noah to never again destroy his creation by flood. This is symbolized by a rainbow.
Part II
The second part begins with a visual representation of Noah's descendants and a brief depiction of the story of the Tower of Babel, in which the king Nimrod defies God by ordering the construction of a colossal tower and firing an arrow from the top of it towards the sky. God responds by confusing the people to speak different languages, making them disperse across the Earth.
The remainder of the film tells the story of Abraham. God chooses him to become a father of a great nation by migrating his family to the land of Canaan. Abraham wants a child who would inherit his position, but his wife Sarah is barren. Sarah offers her handmaiden Hagar to bear Abraham's children instead. Hagar becomes pregnant with Ishmael, but God promises that Abraham will have another child with Sarah, and his child will be called Isaac and will inherit Abraham's position instead of Ishmael. Hagar and Sarah begin to grow resentful of each other.
The men of Abraham start quarreling with those of his nephew Lot, and so they agree to part ways. Lot decides to try and live with his family in the city of Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham receives the visit of three angels, who announces Sarah's pregnancy and God's plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. Abraham intercedes for the sodomites. Two of the angels go visit Lot, telling him and his family to flee the city and never look back. Then the angels bring down fire, destroying the city, and Lot's wife looks back and she is turned into a pillar of salt.
Sarah finally gives birth to Isaac, and Abraham gives a feast for Isaac. Sarah, fearing that Ishmael might kill Isaac as Cain did to Abel, asks Abraham to send him away. Abraham exiles him along with his mother out into the desert. With Ishmael on the verge of death, Hagar cries out to God for help. Then God miraculously creates a spring from the sand, promising that Ishmael will be a father of a great nation and that he and his descendants may prosper.
God then instructs Abraham to kill Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham is devastated, but obeys and takes off towards the mountain Moriah, alone with Isaac, in order to make the sacrifice there without telling his true intentions to him or his mother. In a scene unique to this adaptation, Abraham and Isaac make a stop at the devastated ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, where they ponder the wrath of God. In Moriah, as Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son, God stops him, revealing it was all a test to see if Abraham would still obey God no matter what. Instead, Abraham and Isaac sacrifice a ram that was stuck in some nearby bushes.
Cast
Production
Seven Arts Productions contributed 30% of the budget.
Casting
Ava Gardner was reluctant at first to play the part of Sarah, but after John Huston talked her into it, she accepted. She later explained why she accepted the role: