#100 "Ben-Hur"

As you can see, I'm not exactly going in order as I go through the AFI list, and that's purely out of film access.  I don't currently own a copy of "Ben-Hur" but I do own a copy of "Toy Story", which is why that came first.  I am, however, trying to stay within groups of ten in my slight skipping around. Anyways.

"Ben-Hur" is one of my Dad's favorite films, which makes it pretty surprising that I'd actually never seen it, or really knew anything about it beyond the fact that it stars Charlton Heston and has a pretty intense chariot race in the middle of it.  It had always kind of intimidated me, and every time I came across the film on TCM or the like, it was always about halfway through.  But I finally did it.  I located a copy, sat down and watched "Ben-Hur".

"Ben-Hur" won eleven Academy awards at the 1960 Oscars, which is a big deal, even bigger back then when there were significantly less categories.  Yes, "Ben-Hur" won eleven out of twelve nominations.  Only two other films since then have accomplished that, "Titanic" and "LOTR: Return of the King".  Winning Best Picture, Best Director for William Wyler, and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Charlton Heston, this telling of the story of Judah Ben-Hur stands out from the rest.

Judah Ben-Hur, a young Jewish prince and merchant, welcomes home his childhood friend and new Roman tribune, Messala, to Jerusalem.  Time has not been kind to their friendship, and cultural differences soon tear their friendship apart.  When the new governor arrives from Rome, Messala escorts him through the streets past the Hur compound where Judah and his sister are watching from their rooftop.  When the governor is injured by a falling tile, the entire Hur family is arrested, with Ben-Hur being sent to the galleys and the women thrown in the lower levels of the prison.  Ben-Hur swears to avenge his family, attempting escape several times, and throughout his journey his path crosses that of a radical Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazereth (whose face is never shown).  He saves the life of a slave ship commander who takes him in as a surrogate son and in Rome, Judah becomes a famous chariot racer.  As he makes his way back to Jerusalem, he comes across a Sheik who gives Judah his revenge against Messala in an epic chariot race.

Cast:

Charlton Heston, a regular in the 1950s Bible-set epics, stars as the titular Ben-Hur.  He was the only actor in the film that I had seen in other things, besides Sam Jaffe from "Gunga Din".  His Best Actor Oscar is well deserved.  Heston deftly portrays the emotionally deteriorating effects of the deep need for revenge, and then powerfully switches to blissful relief when he is reunited with his mother and sister.  Like how Arrius sees the drive to survive in Ben-Hur, the audience can clearly see that drive through Heston's eyes and body language, willfully powering through all turmoil to return to his family.

Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur

In supporting roles are Stephen Boyd as Messala, who won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor; Hugh Griffith as the Sheik, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor; Martha Scott and Cathy O'Donnell as Ben-Hur's mother and sister, respectively; and Haya Harareet as Esther, his love interest.

The film was directed by famous director William Wyler ("Roman Holiday", "Funny Girl").  The screenplay is credited to Karl Tunberg, and featured massive rewrites by Gore Vidal and playwright SN Behrman.

I found the women in this film particularly strong, especially Haya Harareet.  The scene where lies to Ben-Hur about his mother and sister is a standout for me, as were the scenes where she tries to stop him from approaching his mother and sister in the Valley of the Lepers.  The heartbreaking emotional presence of the women in these scenes is strong.

Production:

In the tradition of most "epics" from the 1950s, this movie was huge in both scale and budget.  

The famous chariot race between Messala and Judah Ben-Hur

The chariot scene alone used 1,500 extras on any given day of filming.  It was filmed with a budget of $1 million, and filming took place for five weeks.  Two hundred miles of racing were used to complete.  The straightaway of the racetrack was 460 meters long, and the track was wide enough to fit more than nine authentically built four-horse chariots.

The Jerusalem set totaled around 10 square blocks and was historically accurate.  In total, over three hundred sets were used, built over fourteen months.  These sets, in Italy, were spread over 148 acres and nine sound stages.  One hundred wardrobe fabricators crafted more than 100,000 costumes and a thousand suits of Roman armor.  The scale seems unfathomable.

Music:

The 1960 Acadamy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture was awarded to "Ben-Hur" composer, Miklos Rozsa.  He composed approxiamtely three hours of music for the film, around two hours of which was used, making the score one of the longest award winners.  He personally conducted the 100 piece orchestra.  I think the thing that makes this score stand out amongst other film scores was the fact that Rozsa researched ancient Roman music to incorporate into the score.  It features a lot of brass fanfares.

Overall:

I can't believe it took me this long to see this film from start to finish.  I love the way that Wyler handled the way Judah Ben-Hur's story intersected with Jesus's.  You never see his face or you see him from a distance, which I think places more focus on Ben-Hur as the main character.  In other films where this sort of thing happens, too much emphasis is placed on Jesus's appearance.  You simply see a man that he comes across multiple times.  I appreciated that.

The acting choices, and also the cast choices, were well made.  The American cast played the main Jewish characters (excluding Harareet) and British actors were cast as Romans, which I thought helped differentiate the peoples.

And the scale of this film is unbelievable.  The landscape and size of the sets are hard for me to truly believe.  The fact that a multi-tiered jail was built on a sound stage of that time period blows my mind.  The Valley of the Lepers is a huge pit with three massive cavern openings.  Ben-Hur's home compound is incredibly detailed, with the Star of David in the window coverings of an upstairs room.

I would definitely recommend this film to anyone who wishes to observe incredible staging and costuming.  The amount of detail is astounding.  I would also recommend tissues at certain points. I cried...

*****/5

Have you seen "Ben-Hur"?  What did you think?  Let me know in the comments below!