Summer 2011 Come Again?! Cecil B. DeMille’s Belief in Reincar- nation and Karma: Its Cinematic (and Other) Con- sequences Anton Karl Kozlovic Abstract tions in the arts, sciences, and business of moviemaking.3 he legendary movie director, Cecil B. T DeMille, helped co-found both Para- Not only did he become the iconic image of a mount Pictures and Hollywood, and quickly Hollywood film director, especially wearing became America‘s preeminent biblical his trademark puttees and barking orders filmmaker. He employed numerous strategies through a megaphone to milling minions, but he also became ―a master of the film narra- to achieve his artistic ends, but none as astute 4 as the audiovisual engineering of his pro- tive.‖ He is chiefly remembered today for found belief in reincarnation and karma; his four unforgettable Bible movies: The Ten which is still not very well-known today Commandments (1923), The King of Kings amongst the public or scholars. Consequent- (1927), Samson and Delilah (1949), and The ly, the critical religion, film, and DeMille Ten Commandments (1956), plus ―the near literature, along with selected feature films impossibility of mentioning his name without the epithet ―master of the biblical epic‖ at- highlighting his esoteric views, were re- 5 viewed and integrated into the text to en- tached to it.‖ hance narrative coherence utilizing humanist And yet, despite his exceptional filmmaking film criticism as the guiding analytical lens. fecundity, fame, and fortune, DeMille still It was concluded that DeMille‘s religious remains ―Hollywood‘s best known un- beliefs were complex, wide-ranging, and in- known,‖6 ironically, due to his directorial cluded various reincarnation and karma inci- longevity (1913-1956) coupled with being dents deftly engineered throughout his filmic ―one of the most complex and multi-faceted fare; thus needing urgent critical reappraisal men in America.‖7 Indeed, ―no one on the of his entire cinematic oeuvre. Further re- Hollywood scene ever contradicted his own search into DeMille studies, sacred cinema, legends more consistently than he did as you and the hidden metaphysical teachings there- got to know him better and better.‖8 As Hol- in is highly warranted, warmly recommend- lywood‘s leading cinematic lay preacher he ed, and already a long overdue aspect of Hol- became ―virtually the Sunday school teacher lywood history. for the nation,‖9 or as one anonymous Introduction: Hollywood’s Protestant churchman proudly proclaimed: Best Known Unknown ____________________________________ egendary producer-director1 Cecil B. About the Author L DeMille2 (1881-1959), affectionately Anton is a graduate of the Australian Film, Tele- known as ―CB‖, was a progenitor of Para- vision and Radio School with a Flinders Universi- mount Pictures, a seminal cofounder of Hol- ty PhD on the biblical cinema of Cecil B. lywood, and an indelible emblem of the DeMille. He publishes predominantly within the Golden Age of the American cinema. During religion-and-film field and guest edited the ―Ex- his artistic apprenticeship and seventy feature ploring Religion and Popular Film‖ special issue of the Australian Religion Studies Review (2008, films history, he pioneered numerous innova- Vol. 21, No. 3). Copyright © The Esoteric Quarterly 17 The Esoteric Quarterly ―The first century had its Apostle Paul, the hinting that he didn‘t exactly embrace the thirteenth century had St. Francis, the six- old-time religion: The Godless Girl [1928] teenth had Martin Luther and the twentieth showed some sympathy for the atheist hero- has Cecil B. DeMille.‖10 Although Cecil ine, and Adam’s Rib [1923] had an evolu- claimed near the end of his life that: ―my tionary flashback to caveman days.‖22 Nor ministry was making religious movies and did his religious orientations and unconven- getting more people to read the Bible than tional tastes stop there. anyone else ever has,‖11 his own religious Throughout his life, DeMille explored nu- heritage and esoteric interests were just as merous religious phenomena beyond the tra- complex and unappreciated as the public man ditional mainstream faiths, as his New York himself. Masonic Lodge membership demonstrated,23 Consequently, to address this under- and wherein his religious eclecticism em- appreciated facet of Cecil‘s life, work, and braced other belief systems tinged with the art, selected feature films along with the crit- esoteric, the spiritual, and what might today ical religion, film, and DeMille literature be called the ―New Age.‖ In essence, were reviewed and integrated into the text to DeMille was a spiritual seeker who rejected enhance narrative coherence utilizing human- the twin evils of churchianity and priestcraft ist film criticism as the guiding analytical claiming: ―I am not a regular church-goer. I lens (i.e., focusing primarily upon the textual do not boast of that: I state it as a fact. I world inside, but not outside, the frame).12 might be a better man if I were.‖24 DeMille This film studies methodology assumes that disliked churchianity in particular because: audiences are cultured, enjoy, and accept the ―There‘s a danger in worshipping the Church cinema as fine art, whilst it fosters the inter- and forgetting that your worship should go to pretation of motifs, symbols, and themes de- God. You should worship God. People forget ployed therein. All of which are fruitful ped- that and the priests sometimes permit them to agogic steppingstones for guided discussion forget it so that they worship the Church, the within the classroom, home, or pulpit. forms, the rituals, and they lose sight of the Great Divine Mind which is in all of us, and DeMille’s Complex Religious which we can call.‖25 Furthermore, as Heritage and Inter-Faith DeMille lectured his costume designer, Ar- Interests nold Friberg: ecil was the biological son of a Christian …the truth is put upon the world and C father, Henry Churchill DeMille, an the priesthood and that thing be- ―Episcopal lay reader‖13 who studied for the comes subverted. The thing that once church but was never ordained,14 and a Se- was priesthood now becomes priest- phardic Jewish mother, Matilda Beatrice craft. The physical power and the ―Bebe‖ DeMille nee Samuel,15 an ―English glory of the church––the building Jew.‖16 Consequently, Cecil has sometimes and so forth…starts to become more been academically described as a ―half- important than the core of the thing Jew‖17 which he also called himself,18 but itself and pretty soon the real thing is lost and it becomes a church of men nevertheless, he firmly declared within his 26 autobiography that: ―I am an Episcopalian.‖19 instead of a church of God. Although DeMille was ―a religious man, a That is, DeMille was more interested in di- 20 genuine believer,‖ he had an unconvention- vinity than dogma, essence rather than form. al belief in religion and God and was ―no As Robert S. Birchard reported: ―For Bible-thumper. He put a far higher premium DeMille…God could be known only on the on faith than on dogma, but belief was most personal level. In later years he would 21 there,‖ and as filmographer Robert S. go out of his way to avoid outwardly offend- Birchard noted: ―Despite his religious epics, ing organized religion, but the fact remains DeMille had made some disturbing films that one almost never finds a sympathetic 18 Copyright © The Esoteric Quarterly, 2011. Summer 2011 clergyman of any belief as a major character is said He created all men in His image— in DeMille‘s work.‖27 In fact, some DeMille- then He would dwell in every heart—in eve- an clergymen were downright scary, notably ry mind—in every soul.‖ Secondly, after the villainous Inquisitors seeking to destroy Moses met God upon the holy high place and Joan of Arc within his religious biopic Joan returned home full of spiritual awe, he sagely the Woman (1917). ―The pictorial treatment said of God to an inquiring Joshua (John of these clerics makes them seem as implac- Derek) and before Sephora: ―He is not flesh able as they are inhumane. Their posturings but spirit…the light of Eternal Mind—and I make the cassock and cowl the very image of know that His light is in every man.‖ cruelty, vanity, self-indulgence, and inscruta- DeMille was also a strong advocate of per- bility.‖28 sonal prayer. He claimed that: ―Prayer is the DeMille‘s dislike of priestcraft was particu- most powerful force in the world, if we can larly self-evident in The Ten Commandments use it. It‘s more powerful than the atomic (1956), his last but ―long-lasting pop-culture bomb, more powerful than electricity.‖32 Pri- artefact,‖29 wherein the Egyptian high priest or to releasing The Ten Commandments Jannes (Douglas Dumbrille) pleaded to Phar- (1956), he publicly said: ―we cannot remain aoh Rameses (Yul Brynner) before the He- close to God unless we set aside periods of brew Moses (Charlton Heston) and said: time as God‘s time—periods of rest from the ―The people desert the temple. They turn affairs of the world and the body to seek true from the gods,‖ but to both of them Rameses communion with the Spirit of Truth, in medi- bitterly retorted: ―What gods? You prophets tation, in prayer, and vital contact of our [Hebrew] and priests [Egyptian] made the minds with the Divine Mind.‖33 Journalist gods that you may prey upon the fears of Bela Kornitzer once asked if he was a reli- men!‖ Nor was DeMille‘s anti-organized re- gious man and DeMille answered: ligion stance just an aberration at the end of I am one if faith in God and belief in his long directorial career; it was also evident Divinity is religion…But I must say at the start of his career within The Woman that I don‘t believe the practice of God Forgot (1917), notably its flashback to forms is necessary in religion.