A mini shout-out to our friends Barino and Travis who got married this weekend!
Thanks to you, we watched this with an incredible hangover!
Jewish Prince and merchant, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), lives in Jerusalem with his mother Miriam (Martha Scott), sister Tirzah (Cathy O’Donnell) and a slave girl whom he loves, Esther (Haya Harareet). Judah’s old boyhood friend, a Roman tribune called Messala (Stephen Boyd) returns to Jerusalem. Initially delighted to see each other, the friendship becomes sour when Messala, in an attempt to counter Jewish-Roman tensions, demands that Judah encourage his people to succumb to Roman authority. Things gets far worse when Tirzah accidentally knocks down a roof tile, badly injuring a Roman Officer. Messala accuses Judah and his family of attempted assassination, strips them of their riches, sends Judah to a slave galley and his family to prison. Judah heads off on a series of adventures with only one thing in mind- vengeance on Messala. Oh, and some bloke called Jesus gets born and says Things.
Doug says...
There’s no denying it - Ben Hur is an epic film. Coming in at three and a half hours, and full of grand scenery and staging - including a long and intense chariot race at its core - nothing has been stinted on. The story of a person seeking revenge for a wrong done to them is timeless, and the story chucks in everything it can to try and dazzle you. They use the time length to its fullest, a scene where slaves are rowing a Roman boat to the beat of a drum is allowed to build to its fullest, starting off rhythmic and steady, and ending in chaos and terror.
There’s also a good performance from Charlton Heston in the lead who apparently was considered eye-candy, although it’s not hugely apparent to me if I’m honest. Other than him, it’s a massive ensemble cast with no real star turns but something I’m noticing is the larger and more epic the film, the less focus seems to be on getting brilliant acting turns. The scenery is allowed to upstage the acting itself. All in all, the most visually astonishing film we’ve seen so far, and just reading facts like they took a year to carve out the amphitheatre from rock, just for one scene should convey how seriously they took this film.
So that’s the good stuff. What’s not to love? Well, they’ve hugely overstuffed the plot. For some reason - and I’m not sure why - they’ve decided to crowbar a second, and completely irrelevant storyline in alongside it - namely, the life-story of Jesus Christ. Yup, you’ve got it. The last hour suddenly goes from the dramatic story of Ben Hur achieving revenge, to being about Jesus being crucified. And while there are various tie-ins between the two storylines (Jesus gives Ben Hur some water near the beginning etc), it feels so utterly irrelevant and worse - unnecessary. The last third of the film drags as we are suddenly asked to change our priorities and now focus on Jesus’ death.
Ultimately, this film needed to lose that storyline and focus on the very gripping story of Ben Hur. Essentially it has the promise of being Gladiator - a straight-forward revenge tale, but it’s hampered by including pontificating and somehow false-feeling Religious Musings. I understand it was made in a time when everyone was largely expected to be religious, but watching it nowadays, the religious aspects feel po-faced, shoved in and not really wanted. The film could lose that, tighten up some edges and be a fantastic two hour piece. As it stands, the ending is flabby and seems to attempt to inspire some religious fanaticism, but actually inspires boredom.
We also have the slight issue that what Ben Hur is seeking revenge for is never clarified. It mutates between wanting to get back at his former friend (side note: there is so much homoerotic tension in their scenes that I’d lay bets that the actors were secret lovers), to revenging the deaths of family members, to something even more random, but a bit too spoilery to talk about here.
It feels like a prototype for sharper, better films coming along - and I’m looking forward to watching Gladiator which won the same award forty years later. It’s a good end to what has been a decade of fantastic, diverse films and I’m already thinking about what will take the gongs in our annual PAD Awards…
Highlight
The chariot race. I mean, come on - it’s legendary. And rightfully so - it’s such a long and exciting scene that the very filming and production of it has gathered heaps of rumours and gossip along the way (one being that a stunt man died filming it - but never confirmed…)
Lowlight
The entire religious thread. It felt weirdly disconnected to what was otherwise a very promising film, and ended up extending the film to the extent that it became drawn out and dull.
Mark
4.5/10
Paul says...
This is the perfect film to end the 1950’s on and here’s why. There has been distinct patterns in the films we’ve watched so far in this project. The films of the 1930’s emphasised grandeur, lengthy time spans, life stories and Homeric moral lessons. The 1940s displayed a skinnier budget (possibly due to the war), with smaller-scale, character-driven, topical tales. The 1950s has combined the two. Production values have soared, colour has established itself firmly within the cinema, but the humane, character studies of the '40s have been sustained.
With its colossal scale and concentration on the title character’s motivations and pectoral muscles, Ben-Hur is the epitome of the 1950s film. The advent of colour and big-budget blockbusters also produced a wave of historical epics in the '50s and early '60s. El Cid, Spartacus, Quo Vadis? and The Ten Commandments fit into this category very well- all are colourful, all are grand, all are set in the past and all surpass the 3 hour mark. But Ben-Hur is generally considered to be the titan of this genre. It had the biggest budget, the biggest scenery, the biggest collection of extras and the biggest awards win, setting a record of 11 Oscars which has been matched by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings but never surpassed. This is not just a film, it’s a “Film”.
The grandeur of it is the most enjoyable part. The sea battle, the chariot race, and the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, are all the moments that you attend and gasp. Remember, no computers were used- the sets were built, the crowds are real, the stunts were just as heart-stopping as they seem. Life insurance must have been cheap back then.
The trouble with Ben-Hur, however, is that the human side of the story is turgid and uninvolving. It suffers from the same problems of Shakespeare’s longest tragedies like Hamlet and King Lear in that it mistakes a lengthy running time, hyperbolic speeches and drawn-out romantic scenes for high-quality. But, as our shortest Oscar winner, Marty, displayed, sometimes short and sweet is more preferable. The opening 45 minutes of Ben-Hur are particularly tedious, and it isn’t until after that bloody roof tile falls that the pace starts to hot up. Gone With the Wind has pretty much set the standard for Big Films 20 years beforehand, but Ben-Hur doesn’t have the same pace, the same complex characterisation, or the genuine emotion packed into the themes of war, loss, and survival. Charlton Heston may be pretty to look at when he’s sweating over an oar or a horse’s rein, but he ain’t no Clark Gable escaping Atlanta.
Ben-Hur’s not all bad. It’s a film worth watching due to it’s place in the annals of cinematic history, and it’s perfectly restful viewing on a hungover Sunday afternoon. But if you’re not the sort of person who goes for 3.5 hour revenge epics, maybe just look up the chariot race on Youtube and claim you’ve seen it. No one will know.
Highlight
THAT chariot race scene has to be seen to be believed. It’s a shame it’s the only one- I wanted more, dammit!
Lowlight
Similar to Doug, the religious side-story is so reverential and hallowed (the music changes to pipe organs each time Jesus walks on) that it feels irrelevant in this post-Passion of the Christ/Life of Brian world that we live in.
Mark
5/10
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