The Story of The Message
By Maged Hebtah
Translated by Abdelazim R. Abdelazim
09/08/2004
“A director over here is the same as a director over there. There is no difference between one director and the other. Creativity is creativity. Creativity is not confined to the so-called ‘international’ cinema; it is itself an international language.”
Al-Akkad did not say these words out of modesty but out of a firm belief that international and Western cinema do not in the least outshine the Arabic cinema in individual creative capacity. They are merely more advanced in a technical and economic sense as well as in the mechanisms of cinematic production. He mentions the Egyptian actor Abdullah Ghaith’s performance in the Arabic version of The Message, which greatly surpassed superstar Anthony Quinn’s performance in the English version.
The Message in Court
Despite its huge international success, The Message has been banned in both Egypt and Syria. However, leafing through the movie’s censorship file, I was surprised to find not a single paper referring to an objection against the film, either from Al-Azhar[1] or any other party. On the contrary, the file contained evidence that the movie’s screenplay had been approved by a number of scholars from Al-Azhar.
Al-Akkad himself affirmed the approval of Al-Azhar. “In fact, I was sitting side by side with Sheikh Muhammad Mutwalli Al-Sharawy as he was watching the film, and in the end he asked for more. I brought Harry Kiggaf from Hollywood to stay in the Cairo Nile Hilton for a year to write the screenplay for the film in cooperation with Abdul-Hamid Jodda Al-Sahar, Tawfik Al-Hakim[2], Ahmed Chalabi[3] and, from Al-Azhar, Dr. Abdul-Moneim Al-Nemer and Dr. Al-Beisar. Thus, I find the ban imposed on the movie an insoluble puzzle. I filed a lawsuit against the bans 28 years ago, which is still being studied by the court!
“What makes the puzzle more complicated,” Al-Akkad adds, “is that more than one Arabic channel showed the film without either asking my permission or anybody informing me about a lifting of the ban.”
The Essence Is Profit-Making
In addition to his well-known Islamic productions, Al-Akkad has produced a number of high-profile Hollywood films.
Most of these movies do not bear Al-Akkad’s name, such as the Halloween series, which already has eight sequels. Reflecting on the large audiences that such movies draw, Al-Akkad notes that in Hollywood a director-producer should ask himself two questions before producing a film: Who is your audience and what would you like to say?
“The cinema,” he adds, “is about entertainment in the first place. However, a good director employs entertainment to put across the ideas he would like to transmit. In this lies the artistic cleverness of the author and screenwriter. The essence of every piece of work is to establish a channel of communication with the audience and reap enough profits to produce the next movie. Unfortunately, some believe that success and making profit is a crime and shame.”
“The success of a movie,” Al-Akkad resumes, “depends on the audience and on the profits it makes. This does not involve degradation, but we have to come down to the audience, however low its level may be, and then try to subtly raise them up. This can be done neither by mystery, haughtiness, or the use of pedantic cinematic language.
“Neither Oscar prizes, Cannes prizes, critics, or decorations equal the success of a movie in the theaters. If you managed to produce a masterpiece movie without being able to gain the audience’s approval, the movie is a total fiasco. We, as cinema professionals, consider ourselves to be the link between the idea, the art, and the audience. Our success lies in our ability to employ the idea and the art to bring about a reaction: to make people cry, laugh, suffer and be thrilled.
“Furthermore, home entertainment devices have passively affected cinema and theater; at home you sit in front of a big screen, smoking, eating, and drinking. Accordingly, the cinema-goers in the USA and the rest of the world are mostly the young; 80 percent of the total audience thus imposes its interests—sex, fear, and love—on the cinema industry.”
[1] Al-Azhar, located in Cairo , Egypt , is the biggest and most well-known institution of Islamic learning in the Islamic world.
[2] Famous Egyptian novelists.
[3] Famous Egyptian scholar of Arabic language and linguistics.
Source: Islam Online
09/08/2004
“A director over here is the same as a director over there. There is no difference between one director and the other. Creativity is creativity. Creativity is not confined to the so-called ‘international’ cinema; it is itself an international language.”
Al-Akkad did not say these words out of modesty but out of a firm belief that international and Western cinema do not in the least outshine the Arabic cinema in individual creative capacity. They are merely more advanced in a technical and economic sense as well as in the mechanisms of cinematic production. He mentions the Egyptian actor Abdullah Ghaith’s performance in the Arabic version of The Message, which greatly surpassed superstar Anthony Quinn’s performance in the English version.
The Message in Court
Despite its huge international success, The Message has been banned in both Egypt and Syria. However, leafing through the movie’s censorship file, I was surprised to find not a single paper referring to an objection against the film, either from Al-Azhar[1] or any other party. On the contrary, the file contained evidence that the movie’s screenplay had been approved by a number of scholars from Al-Azhar.
Al-Akkad himself affirmed the approval of Al-Azhar. “In fact, I was sitting side by side with Sheikh Muhammad Mutwalli Al-Sharawy as he was watching the film, and in the end he asked for more. I brought Harry Kiggaf from Hollywood to stay in the Cairo Nile Hilton for a year to write the screenplay for the film in cooperation with Abdul-Hamid Jodda Al-Sahar, Tawfik Al-Hakim[2], Ahmed Chalabi[3] and, from Al-Azhar, Dr. Abdul-Moneim Al-Nemer and Dr. Al-Beisar. Thus, I find the ban imposed on the movie an insoluble puzzle. I filed a lawsuit against the bans 28 years ago, which is still being studied by the court!
“What makes the puzzle more complicated,” Al-Akkad adds, “is that more than one Arabic channel showed the film without either asking my permission or anybody informing me about a lifting of the ban.”
The Essence Is Profit-Making
In addition to his well-known Islamic productions, Al-Akkad has produced a number of high-profile Hollywood films.
Most of these movies do not bear Al-Akkad’s name, such as the Halloween series, which already has eight sequels. Reflecting on the large audiences that such movies draw, Al-Akkad notes that in Hollywood a director-producer should ask himself two questions before producing a film: Who is your audience and what would you like to say?
“The cinema,” he adds, “is about entertainment in the first place. However, a good director employs entertainment to put across the ideas he would like to transmit. In this lies the artistic cleverness of the author and screenwriter. The essence of every piece of work is to establish a channel of communication with the audience and reap enough profits to produce the next movie. Unfortunately, some believe that success and making profit is a crime and shame.”
“The success of a movie,” Al-Akkad resumes, “depends on the audience and on the profits it makes. This does not involve degradation, but we have to come down to the audience, however low its level may be, and then try to subtly raise them up. This can be done neither by mystery, haughtiness, or the use of pedantic cinematic language.
“Neither Oscar prizes, Cannes prizes, critics, or decorations equal the success of a movie in the theaters. If you managed to produce a masterpiece movie without being able to gain the audience’s approval, the movie is a total fiasco. We, as cinema professionals, consider ourselves to be the link between the idea, the art, and the audience. Our success lies in our ability to employ the idea and the art to bring about a reaction: to make people cry, laugh, suffer and be thrilled.
“Furthermore, home entertainment devices have passively affected cinema and theater; at home you sit in front of a big screen, smoking, eating, and drinking. Accordingly, the cinema-goers in the USA and the rest of the world are mostly the young; 80 percent of the total audience thus imposes its interests—sex, fear, and love—on the cinema industry.”
[1] Al-Azhar, located in Cairo , Egypt , is the biggest and most well-known institution of Islamic learning in the Islamic world.
[2] Famous Egyptian novelists.
[3] Famous Egyptian scholar of Arabic language and linguistics.
Source: Islam Online
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