Ben-hur (1959)

SUMMARY

Judah Ben Hur is a Jewish Prince. When his boyhood friend, a Roman named Messala, is named Tribune of Jerusalem, Judah refuses to betray his people to him. Messala frames Judah for an assassination attempt to advance his career, condemning Judah to death and imprisoning his entire family. Judah swears revenge and will stop at nothing to destroy the man who destroyed his family.

MY THOUGHTS

I’m gonna get this out of the way. This is my favorite movie of all time. That’s not to say it doesn’t have it’s flaws but this is a biased review. This is a film I grew up with and the only real reason I am doing a review of it is because the remake came out this year and I want to do a review of that and maybe an article on it and our culture of remakes.

Why is this my favorite film? I can only get into it so deeply. I could talk for hours, and have, about why I love this film, so everything I am about to say should be taken as a sort of cliff notes version of my opinion.

STORY IS KING

The story of “Ben-Hur” is simply phenomenal. Granted it is an epic with a running time to match its grandeur and with that comes a lot of time to tell the story, but that story is told in a classic style that just isn’t seen much anymore. It is content to let you get to know the characters and not rush through their introductions and conversations, which explore deep motivations. These motivations drive the emotion and action of the film, so even though some of the stylings of the movie seem old fashioned compared to flashier films, the emotion of those scenes land more forcefully than almost any blockbuster you’ll see in the theaters this year.

It may be a long film, but it isn’t a boring one. The story is huge and when the story is big, so is the run time, because in great films, story is king.

IGNORED THEMES

The theme of “Ben-Hur” is another stand out success for me. It’s a theme largely ignored today and especially for the Christian looking for a movie with themes in line with their worldview, it’s a theme more artistically and fairly treated than in most Christian films today.

The theme of this film can be spoken of in two ways for me. The first, is that revenge, even once truly accomplished, can never satisfy the longing the wronged party feels. The second, is that only Christ can heal that which justice can only punish.

These are themes which Hollywood largely ignores today. Most art ignores them. We see plenty of revenge films where a man swears revenge, gets at the bad guy, refuses to take revenge, then is forced to kill the bad guy when they are attacked, but this is not the same. At the end of the day, the bad guy is dead and the good guy gets closure for the wrong that was done.

The problem is that this is not how life really works. This is how stories work but in real life, revenge does not heal. It punishes.

In “Ben-Hur,” the hero kills the villain only to find out that the wound his family has suffered will not heal. The villain dies with forty-five minutes left in the film! What could possibly be left to accomplish in that last act? The director shows that when all of man’s efforts to put things right have failed, the power of Christ is what heals those wounds, by restoring to Judah all that had been taken from him. Revenge could never do that.

This theme, that revenge, even justice, cannot assuage humanity’s desire for resolution and healing is almost completely ignored today and it is a powerful and needed message.

SET PIECES, ACTING, AND EPICS

These three I lump together because they work together to give this film a scale that few others accomplish. “The Ten Commandments”, “Spartacus”, “Lawrence of Arabia”, and “Ran” are all epics on a grand scale, appreciated by critics for their massive accomplishments. “Ben-Hur” belongs on that list.

The set pieces are masterfully done, especially the chariot race, where you never lose track of the action, who is in what place, why they are doing what they are doing, or the emotion that they are feeling at any given moment. The sea battle is terror inducing as you watch dozens of men scramble for their lives as their ship goes down. A ship they have been locked and chained to.

The direction does not shy away from long wide shots and would rather show you the world the characters live in than hide it from you to save money. In fact, it revels in showing you the slow lap of a field of chariots around the Great Circus, just to show you the stage these men will be required to race upon and its epic size and audience.

The acting is from a forgotten and unappreciated age for most audiences but I love it. There is something about the way lines are delivered and even written that gives them a weight which I find myself devouring as it is spoken. While they make pronouncements and speak in every room like they are performing to the back walls, it seems almost natural that they would. The scale of their speech is not so much realistic as it is matching of their surroundings. I see the remake and I think, this man doesn’t talk like a prince, and I have a hard time imagining him talking to an emperor and doing anything but cowering, but Charlton Heston (“The Agony and the Ecstasy”) and Stephen Boyd (“Fantastic Voyage”) speak with authority and power, which befits their station and the scale of this epic.

WEAKNESSES

That’s not to say this film is perfect. It’s not. The acting while many times fittingly large and grand, is sometimes too large and grand. No one will probably ever accuse Charlton Heston of being too subtle an actor.

The treatment of Christ in the film is heavy handed, though I would argue not nearly so heavy handed as in the remake. Luckily, in the day this film was made, people restrained themselves when depicting Christ and this practice saves the movie from making Jesus more of a character than he should have been. Like explosions, films best use Jesus sparingly, rather than splashing him on the screen every chance they get.

Lastly, the film is long. There are definitely sections that could be trimmed and even cut completely (I’m looking at you opening nativity scene and narration.) It was made for an audience with attention spans and youtube has unfortunately put this film out of reach for many.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It’s the greatest. What can I say? I love this film. I recommend it to all of my film friends and none of them watch it. I recommend it to all of my Christian friends and none of them watch it. I recommend it to my in-laws, and wife, and none of them watch it.

I hope someday they do. I hope you do. So here is my final plea.

If you like classic films, watch Ben Hur,

or

If you like epic films, watch Ben Hur,

Or

If you like Christian films, watch Ben Hur.

Just Watch Ben Hur.

On a side note:

Since whitewashing of casts is a current topic in film communities, yes this film whitewashes. However, I would like to point out that one of the main characters, the main love interest and female lead in the film, Esther, is actually played by a Palestinian, Haya Harareet. I just find that to be some interesting casting in an age when no one would have batted an eye.

Review Written By:

Michael McDonald