Cinema: Down the Old De Mille Stream

Buddha. Shudder at the spectacle of human sacrifice! Thrill to the dance of the temptresses! Cringe as the prince’s eyes are poked out! Weep as the princess commits harakiri! Marvel at the miracle of the thousand lamps! Tremble while the mammoth, four-armed idol splits asunder! Do a double take when Buddha says: “Do not overdo anything.”

Japanese Moviemaker Masaichi Nagata takes a ride down the old De Mille stream and soon finds himself up Spectacular Creek without a paddle. This footless, episodic epic on the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha tries to crowd everything in Buddhist literature into one elephantine moving picture. The parallels between Japan’s first bid for a slice of the supermovie market and the Biblical pageantry of Samuel Bronston and Dino de Laurentiis are numbing: skyscraper temples to sinister gods, unseen choirs zum-zumming on the sound track, corps of nimble nautch dancers in every other reel. And when it comes to uplifting the masses or spreading the gospel, Buddha’s producers are no more missionary than the others. They aim for yen, not zen.