The 1959 quintessential film epic stars Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur, a Jewish prince in the time of Christ, in a tale of revenge, redemption, and one huge chariot race. Stephen Boyd and Jack Hawkins co-star and William Wyler directs.
This movie is big. It's incredibly big. If this movie were a symphony, it'd be Mahler's 8th. MGM pulled out all the stops, and it certainly shows. The epic clocks in at 212 minutes (nearly four hours). It quite literally has a cast of thousands. It was fantastically expensive for the studio -- indeed, it was conceived as a gamble to stave off bankruptcy. Oh yeah, and the story too! Judah's fall from grace, galley enslavement, Roman adoption, triumphant revenge and Christian conversion runs the gamut of emotion and action.
The scale of the film alone would make it impressive, and as it stands, I think it is Ben-Hur's one lasting claim to fame. They just don't make movies that way anymore -- the film is the last great biblical epic that was financially successful. So in that sense, it feels quite dated. The film's length is not helped by the somewhat ponderous pace -- if it were made today, I'm sure the director would have slashed a lot of the character development in deference to the action scenes.
No, wait. Another claim to fame has to be the famous chariot race scene. It holds up extremely well, especially considering it was filmed long before any major advances in special effects. However, in a way, this dovetails into the epic sweep of the film, since thousands of extras and an entire life-size coliseum were used for the scene.
The other usual stuff (screenplay, acting, cinematography, costumes, score) are all up to snuff for AFI fare, though none are particularly impressive. Heston is Heston -- very intense. The supporting cast is strong. It's all very nice to look at.
So it's big. That's cool. I definitely get the sense of grandeur. But somehow it wasn't enjoyable as Giant, one of the other really big movies we've seen. I dunno. Maybe I'm not into swords-and-sandals as much. Anyway, if you like your movies big, this one'll do it for ya.
(See this post if you're confused why I'm reviewing movies.)
Comments (1)
I never cease to be amazed at how small the world is...
When I stumbled across your blog three(?) years ago, I remember you'd just started your AFI countdown. I'm impressed that you are still at it! I haven't seen "Ben Hur" since I was a kid, but I remember loving it, probably because of the gradeur. That was the same reason I loved "Lawrence of Arabia." However, when a prof showed the huge battle scene on the big screen in Holland Hall, it wasn't nearly as impressive. Probably because I'm bigger now.
Posted by Kat | November 9, 2008 10:10 PM
Posted on November 9, 2008 22:10