You think you know your history ...but do you really ?
Jump forward to the 1990s and we have the remake of The Mummy and people like myself start doing odd things like watching both films very carefully and writing 'compare and contrast' essays like the one you are reading. As a daughter of a historian and part of a family very interested in social history I suppose I have a fair grounding on what was going on in the 1920s and 30s. My father has given me insight from his teaching point of view and I have also heard about what our ancestors were doing from family oral history and my grandparents talking. When I watched the 1999 film I was a little upset at the lack of women characters as I knew from reading books on Egyptology and the people involved that there were women out there too, but that is just an aside. I know even the remake of The Mummy is not a true period piece but we are watching a version of history created to look and feel as we in the new millennium would like to remember it. Why is a time such as this treated as a romantic age (even Steven Sommers the director said this is why he set at this time) and something we should fantasise about? Can't we think of the realities of a time without shower gel, antibiotics, factor 25 and insect repellent? It is interesting to hear how hard a time the actors who made the modern film on location had with all these modern conveniences when they were out in Morocco filming. The original film was done in the American deserts so was pretty near base while the modern actors had to spend time away from homes and families too. How much worse would it have been for the plucky real archaeologists in the 1930s suffering these privations?
Our modern concept of the 1930s people has changed over time too it seems. While in the remake of The Mummy Evy and Jonathan, and Dr Chamberlain the British archaeologist in the American party speak with posh English accents in the modern film, if you compare them with the original actors they are a mere shadow. Their actions are of those of modern people being those of the 1930s and trying to emanate an accent that is long gone and would seem false to modern ears. It is no coincidence that Rachael Weiss played in the film Land Girls - this is set in an only slightly later time of the Second World War and her accent works there nicely too. I did so much like the curator of the museum in the new film however - he had got the feeling about right, although like everyone else his accent needed a bit of a hand, he sounded too modern too. The Americans in the film I am afraid didn't wash with me at all - the 'Damn Yanks', including Mr O'Connell could have walked right out of a cowboy movie and didn't feel at all dated - but then that?s probably what was meant any way. We Brits always end up in films as a certain stereotype no matter who is making a film or when, unless it's a home-made one of course. Americans have this 'screen friendly' way of portraying themselves no matter what, and this is probably why a certain South African born actor is learning to speak with the accent of his adopted new country to try to leave his villain roles. That the remake of The Mummy has been influenced by other films is obvious - especially Indiana Jones and maybe this is what is happening and why the damn Yanks got involved. It has filled that gap but not replaced the adventures of intrepid Indy once his series of films ended and Harrison Ford abdicated from the adventurer role. Whether Brendan Fraser is filling this with aplomb or difficulty is a good question but I think O'Connell is definitely the brawns while Indy is the brains.
I can read hieroglyphics and hieratic...
This brings me smartly on to the Egyptian and Heiroglyphics in the remake and the original film. Both films have done their little best to be as authentic as possible by liberally sprinkling hieroglyphic art and spoken Ancient Egyptian liberally all over their sets, props and dialogue. The Scroll of Thoth is a better idea than the Book of The Dead I must say. The former is famed in Egyptian Myth, the latter was just a guide to the underworld which was buried with most Egyptians in their tombs or coffins. The shots of the scroll in the originall film are, just to confuse you,from the Book of the Dead of Ani the scribe. This and other people's copies of the scroll are held at the British Museum and Ani's story in hieroglyphs is painted on the walls of the mummy collection galleries if you want to go and have a look. I would be really interested to find just who did the work on the language and written signs in the original film as it is all so clear, if anyone knows about this an e-mail would be very exciting. My hieroglyphs are not so good to be able to handle too much this far - I am learning as we speak - but I was very easily able to read what is in Im-ho-tep's coffin (although it is written backwards) and it did say what Ralph Norton translates it as! I am also starting to struggle with the spoken language from the 1932 film, this must of course all be as per the late much maligned Wallace E. A. Budge who was the curator of the Egyptian collection at the British Museum for many years. He did most of the first translations of a lot of original Egyptian texts including the real Book of The Dead. Mr Stuart Tyson Smith had quite a dig at poor Mr Budge in the film Stargate, Smith did all the Egyptian for this and the remake of the Mummy.
I got a nice e-mail from Mr Smith when I wrote for guidelines on how he had done it, there is a good link to the information he gave me on my links page. However I'm still struggling with the changes in grammar from the Middle Egyptian I am learning to that Smith says was spoken in the 19th Dynasty by Imhotep High Priest of Osiris, it is a little complicated! You will have seen my rant about what was on the front of the Canopic Jars (and the size of them) in the pages linked to 'You Know Your Treasure' earlier in this site. At least they got Seti's cartouche right on the key but why the signs above it 'djed medu' say 'Words said' I can't tell you. I could go on all day about people using text willy-nilly without asking what it says, but then I don't know if writing garbage, which is what is written on most of the walls in the remake, is any better.
