The Ten Commandments (1956 film) The Ten Commandments (1956 film) The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American epic religious drama film produced, directed, and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, shot in VistaVision (color by Technicolor), and released by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on "Prince of Egypt" by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, "Pillar of Fire" by J.H. Ingraham, "On Eagle's Wings" by A.E. Southon, and the Book of Exodus. "The Ten Commandments" dramatizes the biblical story of the life of Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of his real brethren, the enslaved Hebrews, and therefore leads the Exodus to Mount Sinai, where
Ten Commandments is read in "parashat Yitro" around late January–February, and on the festival of Shavuot, and the Deuteronomy version in "parashat Va'etchanan" in August–September. In some traditions, worshipers rise for the reading of the Ten Commandments to highlight their special significance though many rabbis, including Maimonides, have opposed this custom since one may come to think that the Ten Commandments are more important than the rest of the Mitzvot. In printed Chumashim, as well as in those in manuscript form, the Ten Commandments carry two sets of cantillation marks. The "ta'am 'elyon" (upper accentuation), which makes each Commandment into a separate