Exodus

MRS FREEMONT: Karen, would you like to go to America.

KAREN: Of course, everybody wants to go to America.

MRS FREEMONT: Then you will go. I'll cancel the rest of my trip and I'll take you with me. And you can go to school there, and later on to the university. And if you like it and want to you can become an American citizen.

I read a few Leon Uris novels growing up, both of them huge and focused on religious conflicts (Jews in the Middle East, Irish Catholics under Anglo Protestant rule). A couple of them were made into mini-series. The most famous Uris novel inspired a film by Otto Preminger, and that was Exodus (1960).

Like David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Dr Zhivago (1964), Exodus was shot in 70mm and as much as possible included visuals that could only be conveyed on that scale. Unlike Lean's films, Exodus takes the months leading up to the creation of the state of Israel as its historical arc, with anecdotal/conextual set pieces tucked in.

I am only two-thirds through Preminger's film, and am curious to see what happens with the recently widowed Mrs Freemont, an American whose husband was a wire service photographer, and Karen Larsen, a 14-year-old Danish Jew (the film strives to correct our expectations of who, what, when, where and why is a Jew) who may or may not be orphaned, something Mrs Freemont is eager to discover as well, because she wants to adopt Karen, take her home with with her. Will she? Or will she stay with Ari, take up weapons with him and grow oranges in a valley near Jerusalem?