Best Picture: #32
Original Release Date: November 24, 1959
Rating: G
Runtime: 3 hours, 32 minutes
Director: William Wyler
Quick Impressions:
Nobody dies in Ben-Hur. I mean none of the actors, not on screen. This is a film that played in the background of my life throughout my childhood. I always seemed to wander through the middle of it, usually during the portion heavily featuring Jack Hawkins’s Quintus Arrius. (For whatever reason, that’s the part I most often catch.)
And every time this movie was on, somebody in the room would tell me that a stuntman actually died during the filming of the chariot race, and that his death could be seen in the film. Several years ago during a discussion with my parents, I tried to pinpoint which death was real and, after turning to the internet, made the shocking discovery that the stuntman’s death was not seen on screen at all. Yes, a stuntman died, but all the gruesome accidents in the film’s final cut show dummies or healthy stuntmen. Still, you would be amazed how many people insisted–on various movie blogs and message boards–that a dying stuntman really is visible on screen, that it was all some studio cover up. I didn’t find these posts particularly convincing, but I did appreciate their permission to keep the urban legend alive in my mind.
As we watched the chariot race this time, I told my kids what I believed was true. A stuntman did die, but his death was not left in the final cut of the film. Then, I double-checked again while writing this review, and lo and behold, nope. If you believe the official account (and I can offer no credible reason not to) then nobody died at all during the making of this film. Apparently, at least one stuntman did die during the filming of the silent Ben-Hur from 1925. (The making of that film sounds a lot more chaotic.)
I would imagine that the MGM studio publicity department was thrilled by all of these rumors of a death in the chariot race scene, though. I’m sure that urban myth only flourished to the extent that it has because nobody tried very hard to debunk it. Certainly, it made my five-year-old son, otherwise oblivious to the movie, pay very close attention to the chariot race. Watching carefully for a real accident does make the scene more exciting. (And there was a real accident, just not a fatal one.) It also makes you appreciate all the work that must have gone into filming such a spectacular, challenging, highly engaging sequence.
The Plot:
Judah Ben-Hur is a Jewish prince living in Roman occupied Judea at the same time as Jesus Christ. Though he resents the rule of Emperor Tiberius, Judah has no plans for violent insurrection himself. Then a new tribune comes to town, Messala, Judah’s childhood friend. Because of their one-time closeness, Messala offers Judah position and privilege if he will give him the names of any Judeans with (even vague) plans of resisting Roman rule. When Judah refuses to betray his people, Messala leaves his house as his enemy. Later, when the new Roman governor rides through town, he is injured in an accident that Messala chooses to interpret as a deliberate and malicious act perpetrated by Judah. Messala arrests not only Judah, but also his mother and sister, who disappear into a terrible prison. Years pass, and Judah ends up serving on the galley of a slave ship. Through a twist of fate (and perhaps by the hand of God), he saves influential Roman Quintus Arrias, who in gratitude makes him his own son and heir. Now known as Young Arrias, a hero of the Circus Maximus, Judah returns home for answers and revenge. Backed by a wealthy sheikh, Judah challenges Messala to a chariot race. The outcome seems likely to put an end to Judah’s quest for revenge, but at the last second, he learns something that shatters him to the core. Will his feelings of rage and hatred eat away at him forever? Will he become as consumed by dark thoughts as Messala, unable to let go of his pain? How can he be saved from this dark fate?
The Good:
I’m becoming a huge fan of director William Wyler. Obviously I can’t say that I wasn’t somewhat familiar with his work already, but his trio of Best Picture winners (Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Ben-Hur) is enough of a legacy for any filmmaker on its own. (And I mean, he also made Jezebel, Wuthering Heights, The Letter, Roman Holiday, The Children’s Hour, countless others!) Wyler has certainly done some excellent work across a number of genres. He’s a Hollywood name I never thought much about before starting this project, but I’ve discovered that I love his work.
Ben-Hur is a great film simply because it gives us a good story told well. At over three-and-a-half hours long, this sprawling tale about larger-the-life people occupying immense spaces is certainly an epic. Yet what motivates Judah is so simple. He has a strong sense of self. He will not betray his people. But when he is himself betrayed by an old friend who turns malicious, he becomes bitterly vengeful. He seeks vengeance through every avenue open to him, but it never makes him happy. That’s it.
Watching Ben-Hur is like watching a storybook. It’s filmed on location (though in Italy, I think, not Judea), and its massive sets and stunning outdoor locations are a major asset. The film won an unprecedented eleven Oscars, including much deserved awards for cinematography and set design.
At first, the massive sets seem almost surreal in their grandeur. Their sheer scale makes them seem like something out of a story. But after a while, we get used to these enormous spaces, and the director and cinematographer use them so effectively. I’m honestly fascinated by how intensely personal the story is. We follow one man’s changes of fortune and of heart.
Often films focusing on faith veer disastrously off course. What makes a good religion doesn’t always make a good movie. The sacred doesn’t usually translate well to the screen. It’s easier to make something sappy or grotesque than something that general audiences can find genuinely moving. Ben-Hur works better than most “religious” films by keeping Christ at a distance and focusing instead on the very human Judah. For Christians, the end of the film should be uplifting. But non-Christians might well find it moving, too. (In fact, director William Wyler was Jewish.) I am Christian, but what Judah learns from his interactions with Jesus still works as a powerful epiphany (in the secular sense) whether or not you believe Christ is divine. (Even the miracle at the end works in any event because Judah’s change of heart to a degree prompts it.)
Visually the film is engrossing, and its Oscar-winning score accompanies and enhances the story perfectly. (The music is so good, in fact, that we happily listened to the entire Intermission and Entr’Acte sequences without fast forwarding through them. And, I mean, Ben-Hur is quite long, and bedtime comes early on a school night.)
The acting is all top notch. Charlton Heston has a rare quality of delivering performances that are simultaneously mockable and excellent. Few others manage this to the degree that Heston does. He’s his best self and a parody of himself all at once. Usually, if actors are easy to mock, they’re not very talented and vice versa. But Heston is both which makes watching him so pleasurable. He has tremendous screen presence. At times, his intensity seems a bit over-the-top. Still, you believe it. His Oscar win feels very deserving. I can’t imagine anyone else in the role.
I also really love Jack Hawkins as Quintus Arrias. I wish he got to come back for a curtain call. I had a much less positive reaction to the character Hawkins played in The Bridge on the River Kwai, but Arrias just seems like such an upstanding Roman citizen. The character’s inclusion lets us know that not every Roman was a completely horrible, morally bankrupt monster. That’s extremely helpful in a story like this.
As Messala, Stephen Boyd gives stirring performing, too, especially in his final scene. It’s weird. Boyd gives us such a clear idea of where Messala stands, yet his determination and motivations remain so puzzling.
Welsh born Hugh Griffith won Best Supporting Actor for his charming portrayal of Sheik Ilderim. I have mixed feelings about this. The performance is good, and the character is a bit of a scene stealer for sure. But Griffith’s skin has obviously been visibly darkened for the role, and doing that is so frowned upon today. It’s hard to watch and not be a bit put off by it. Granted, it’s not the same as blackface. He’s not putting on a minstrel show. The character is funny, but he is not the butt of jokes. It just looks weird to me now. He does give a good performance, though, and his win is probably a testimony to the popularity of the film. I also find it somewhat cheering that an Arabic character in a film about Jesus directed by a Jewish man would be singled out for praise by the Academy in 1959. (I’m sure the Academy was delighted by that, too. It’s usually quite self-congratulatory.) The sheikh’s oft-stated message of working together is a nice sentiment.
I wish we saw a little more of Martha Scott as Miriam, Judah’s mother, and Cathy O’Donnell as Tizra. O’Donnell also appears in the director’s The Best Years of Our Lives, as the loyal girlfriend of Homer, the sailor disabled in the war. She doesn’t have the opportunity to say or do much here, but I was glad to see her again. And because of her, I noticed a similarity between Ben-Hur and Wyler’s earlier film. Just as Homer tries to pull away, yet his fiancée keeps reaching out to him despite his disability, Judah reaches out to his mother and sister late in the film, despite their horrified attempts to push him away. On the surface, Ben-Hur and The Best Years of Our Lives don’t have much to do with each other, but because of the same actress’s presence, I noticed a common theme I might otherwise have missed. And now, the longer I think about it, the more commonality I see between the two films thematically. I may write something more about Wyler and his work in the future. I honestly never paid attention to him before, but he directed three Best Picture winners (and all three of them are so good!).
The most conspicuous face in the cast belongs to Haya Harareet as Esther. She is shockingly beautiful. She has the perfect face and presence for the role. You see her face and think, “Yes, that’s exactly what someone listening at Jesus’ feet should look like.” Not only does she have lovely features, but she channels an expression of peace and wonder with seeming effortlessness. Also, Heston has quite a cinematic face himself, and hers pairs with it perfectly. He’s sort of angular, vaguely blond, with blue eyes. She has dark hair and eyes and a round, full face. Perhaps it seems superficial to dwell on her looks, but many of her most effective moments are largely non-verbal. She’s excellent at emoting.
For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, I also really loved Frank Thring as Pontius Pilate. I thought, “Ah yes, there’s Pontius Pilate, all right,” as if I knew the guy or something.
Best Action Sequence:
The chariot race in Ben-Hur is one of the most gripping action sequences in any film. Today, blockbusters are filled with action sequences. Most big movies that draw huge crowds to the theater offer several action set pieces, each bigger and more shocking than the last. Most of these rely heavily on CGI. But this chariot race was filmed in 1959, and I think you could sneak it right into any big action movie playing today. It still works. It’s thrilling to watch (much more exciting, actually, than the pod race in The Phantom Menace which definitely seems to draw inspiration from it).
Both my kids were absolutely glued to the screen. My son was determined to figure out which person died. (Keep in mind, he’s five and doesn’t understand death, so he’s not actually reveling in someone’s gruesome demise. For him, it’s basically a high-stakes game of Where’s Waldo?)
It’s easy to see why crowds were fooled for years into believing they were witnessing an on screen death because before HD resolution, enormous screens, and the pause button, it must have been quite difficult to sort out the stuntmen from the dummies. Shooting this scene must have been challenging. And I can’t imagine how long it would take to edit. I read that it was shot without sound, that the sound was added afterwards. That may be one of the reasons the movie won the Oscar for Best Sound. Everything feels so real and immediate.
Watching for the most realistic accident is weirdly pleasurable. I feel less guilty about my voyeuristic enjoyment of the spectacle now that I know that, actually, no one died. But imagine how exciting it must have been to watch a live chariot race! Rome must have been thrilling in its heyday. (I went in 2000, and it was pretty darn thrilling then.) On a big screen, this one was probably as immersive as the hypnotic bull fight in Around the World in 80 Days. But it’s not only thrilling to watch, it’s the heated climax of the ongoing conflict between Judah and Messala (both of whom clearly feel betrayed by the other).
I also like the sequence on the ship, but that could be just because it’s the part of the movie that I see more than any other.
Best Scene:
Ben-Hur is full of paired scenes, a significant moment, then a later echo. (Sometimes, we get multiple echoes.)
Probably the strongest scene in the film is the late moment of water giving, the moving echo of a much earlier incident. (I mean when someone gives water to someone else.)
I’m also personally quite partial to Judah’s final meeting with Messala, simply because of Boyd’s relentless intensity in the scene. (Heston makes such a dramatic entrance, too!)
Best Scene Visually:
This is tough. I love the visuals in this movie. So many scenes stand out.
I love how often the landscape is used to construct a scene with meaningful depth. We often get people peering down (or up) from another elevation.
When Judah hides behind a rock while Esther talks to his mother and sister, the whole screen is used to show us a vast space, but all the characters we see have a slightly different take on what is happening, and Heston is given a private space to express the intensity of his emotions to the audience. We get an intimate moment in a vast landscape.
Later on, reflection is used in a striking way when Esther, Miriam, and Tizra huddle together during a dramatic storm.
I love another late scene when Judah is looking through the cave for his sister. Just the way the organic space is used there sent a thrill through me.
But my favorite visual moment is when Judah returns to his desolate, (mostly) empty house after his years away. This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire movie. Forget any deeper meaning or symbolic significance–and it’s loaded with both–this moment creates such eerie energy. The feeling I had while watching it is usually engendered by science fiction.
The Negatives:
I do not understand Messala. He does not behave like a rational human being. (Granted, he’s a government official at the height of the Roman Empire. They often did behave strangely.)
I have seen some kind of TV special (a spot on TCM, I think) talking about Gore Vidal’s contribution to the script. Apparently he ran with the idea that Judah and Messala had been lovers in their youth. Boyd was told this and played his scenes with that in mind, but Heston was not informed of this bit of backstory.
I’m not sure that’s an adequate explanation for Messala’s persistent malice, though. I mean, yes, it if you were in love with someone, had actually been in a fully realized sexual relationship, and then that person persistently denied it, that would be very upsetting. I find this situation easy to imagine. But…still…Messala isn’t twenty anymore, is he? Aren’t their teen years long past? The actor is 28. Heston is 36. No matter what happened in their youth, they have grown into (powerful) men, and Messala’s malice seems excessive. It’s like the King George song from Hamilton, the whole, “I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love.”
I do understand why Messala wants Judah to help him, and I certainly understand why Judah refuses. I also understand why Messala wants to make an example of his old friend to prove his loyalty to Rome. He’s all about advancing his career. He’s a man of ambition. I get it. But his behavior after that becomes less and less clear to me. And his decision to destroy the lives of Judah’s mother and sister and even their servant just seems like bizarre overkill. His behavior after the chariot race is particularly strange (though spellbinding). I just find him an enigmatic figure. If you were in love with someone, wouldn’t you at some point…remember your love for that person? I mean yes, you’d be angry and irrational. But there reaches a point…
If we just go with Heston’s take on the material, that they were childhood friends, and we assume Messala is just desperate to further his career, his behavior when Judah returns still doesn’t really make sense.
I just don’t understand the deranged malice of Messala. Pontius Pilate is friends with Judah’s new Roman father. If Messala’s just thinking about his career, it would be much more expedient to try to patch things up. And then at the end, why is he so determined to twist the knife? I find his behavior confusing.
I also find it somewhat funny (even to the point of being actually comical) that when Judah is arrested, he insists he doesn’t believe in violence and murder, that he never would have attempted to murder the governor, that he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Then he proceeds to attack and kill every single person who gets in his way for the whole rest of the movie. But I suppose he’s driven by desperation.
I’ve already mentioned the weird discomfort I feel seeing an actor’s skin darkened dramatically. And if you’re going to judge the movie by today’s standards, the battle at sea does not look particularly real, either. The acting in these sequences is top notch, though.
Overall:
Ben-Hur is an impressive epic, a personal story told on a massive scale that still holds up sixty-one years later. It’s definitely one of the strongest Best Picture winners of the 1950s. It makes me want to go back to Rome. (I mean on a trip, but I would be up for going back in time to ancient Rome, too. If I did that, and someone offered me Roman citizenship, I would definitely take it, even if I were planning a violent insurrection against the state. I don’t what Judah’s thinking! If someone offers you Roman citizenship, you should always take it!)