Book Review: The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation

Authors: Charles Solomon
Publication Date: 1998
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd. (Abrams in the US)
Pages: 192 pages

 

Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another book review! Howl is still in progress, but it’s proving a real battle to find enough time to get a good run at it, so I didn’t want to let another week slip by with no post. The procrastination I’ve been doing with these Ghibli films has been the worst I’ve ever had – I was only reviewing three but, so far, we’re at four months and counting with the third yet to go up. It’s ridiculous; my theory is that since I like them all so much, paradoxically, it’s making it harder to write about them because I’ve got no burning criticisms to make. Of course, that didn’t stop me when I was reviewing The Prince of Egypt, but anyway… I digress.

On that topic, let’s take a look at the splendid companion volume to that film, written by Charles Solomon in 1998. This one is absolutely gorgeous, one of the prettiest in my whole art book collection; the subject has been treated almost like high art and the result is simply delicious. It catches your eye right off the bat with a bold cover featuring the parting of the Red Sea, and inside, it’s richly illustrated on glossy paper with elegant formatting throughout, making it a treat just to look at it. I don’t think it’s available as an e-book, but you wouldn’t want this in that format anyway, believe me.

The book begins with an introduction from “The Prince of Egypt crew”, which reflects the passion and ambition they had for the project. From there, each section is arranged chronologically and opens with a one-page summary of each part of the film, followed by a short discussion of how different aspects of the production were handled, such as the costume design or the voice acting. Then, the sections are further broken down scene by scene, giving us a thorough exploration of the film’s creation. Within these sections, we’re offered a lavish array of concept art, storyboards, line animation and finished stills, accompanied by snippets of info on the production and lyrics from the film’s songs (even the Hebrew parts!).

“Act One” contains the Chariot Race, Seti’s Reprimand, The Banquet and Truth Revealed (which includes the famous Hieroglyphic Nightmare sequence). “Act Two” then covers the Desert Journey and Through Heaven’s Eyes. Act Three contains Burning Bush and Return to Egypt, a particularly colourful and evocative section, and Act Four wraps up with When You Believe and Red Sea.

At the end of the book, we then get a fascinating section called “Realising the Vision”, which is where most of Solomon’s written work on the production is to be found. We have here a range of double-page spreads dedicated to The Project (which covers the initial formation of DreamWorks and the conception of the film), Story, Design (mentioning the influence of Doré, Monet and Lean), Layout, Voices, Animation (that gets four pages), Background, Music, Effects and “The Back End” (in other words the checking, colour modelling and ink & paint departments). Solomon’s text is, as always, engaging and thorough, neither too dense nor too scanty; he and Jeff Kurtti rarely put a foot wrong with their art books. The book closes with the usual bibliography and acknowledgements, along with some beautifully formatted film credits.

I’m glad this book exists because it’s devoted to a very deserving film, but I’m even gladder that it was written at the time – there’s no beating the nineties art books when it comes to style and this one has it in spades, making it a true treasure for fans of The Prince of Egypt or the medium in general. I cannot recommend this one highly enough and would rank it up there with the Hyperion series as one of the best examples of what the art book format can be. You won’t be sorry to add this to your library!

 

Thank you so much for reading, and as always, for your continued patience as the weeks slip by with no sign of the promised film review. I hate to keep making excuses because it’s at least partially down to procrastinating, but I have had a strangely busy January. I do think that once I get past Howl, the next couple of reviews shouldn’t be so difficult because I have next to no resources for them – there’s no art book for The Red Turtle, and certainly not for something as obscure as The Wild Thornberrys Movie! The Ghibli films are a different story, however; I’ve got about five thousand words of notes for Howl alone, and turning those into a ten-to-twelve-thousand-word review is a daunting prospect. (What’s that? Make it shorter? Good grief, are you mad?) Anyway, the film review should be the next thing I post, hopefully around the middle of next week if all goes well, so until then, take care and staaay animated!

 

Buy it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prince-Egypt-New-Vision-Animation/dp/0500019134/ – UK
https://www.amazon.com/Prince-Egypt-Charles-Solomon/dp/0810943697/ – US