Charlton Heston plays Judah Ben-Hur, a proud Jew who runs afoul of ambitious boyhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) in this 1959 epic that boasts an unforgettable chariot race and earned 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Heston) and Best Director (William Wyler). Condemned to life as a slave, Judah swears vengeance against Messala and escapes, later crossing paths with a gentle prophet named Jesus.
Jason
Your eyes are full of hate, forty-one. That's good. Hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.
I just finished watching Ben-Hur and I'm having a lot of mixed feelings. I mean don’t get me wrong the movie was good but it definately had its flaws. I should probably start off by saying that before I watched this movie I had pretty much no idea what it was about, but from what little I did know I thought I wasn’t going to like it. I don’t enjoy Braveheart or Gladiator and I thought this movie was in that same style just taking place in a different time period. Boy was I wrong.
This movie did a lot of things right, and I think the most obvious one for me was Charlton Heston. He was superb. He brought a lot of life and emotion to the character that not many actors could, and because of this I was brought into the story almost immediately. The sets/locations, music and costumes were also done very well. They all helped me continue my emersion into the story.
That being said there were definitely some things I didn’t like about the movie. The first one might be my own fault but the fact that the movie comes on two discs and has an intermission hurt my viewing a little. We ended up watching the two parts on different days and the first half was very good and when it was over I was very much looking forward to the second part, but the second half was lackluster at best. Some of you might think that that’s my own fault for taking a movie meant to be watched in one sitting and watching it over a couple of days. It could ruin the flow or whatever. I think in this case it doesn’t matter. Even if I had watched the movie in two parts it would still have a bad ending. This leads right into my final point.
The story had a lot of flaws. If I watched a movie and it was just the story of Judah Ben-Hur that movie would be awesome, and probably about an hour shorter then this one, but that’s not what I watched. What I watched was a movie about not only Ben-Hur but also about Jesus. Before I go any further I should explain something. I am Jewish, but by title only. I lean towards the scientific side of the religion vs science argument. What I’m basically saying while the story of Jesus is interesting, I have no real emotion stake in it. In the first half of the movie the references to Jesus are small, even a little amusing, but the second half totally changes that. The last half hour of the movie is Jesus being put on the cross, and the affect it has on people. It really just didn’t do it for me.
Final Thought-Ben-Hur is a good film and deserves to be on the list of the 100 greatest movies, though it has its problems so it probably doesn’t deserve to be much higher then it is now.
Bryan
We Shall Celebrate Among the Dust: Ben-Hur Part 1
I decided that Ben-Hur offered an interesting opportunity. Because of its length, we decided to separate viewings at the Intermission. By leaving time between acts like this, I have a chance to share my opinions and perspectives half way through the movie, and can respond to my expectations in a second post at the end of the movie. So, without further ado, this is part one!
I’ll start by noting that the three of this seemed to approach Ben-Hur differently than when we had screened movies together in the past. Not only were our expectations different (get to that in a sec) but we seemed to approach the movie the way we would approach a painting in the MET, not how we’d approach a new television pilot. Such is the power of the AFI Top 100 list; we chose this movie because it is touted as the 100th greatest movie ever. We didn’t actually expect to love it, but we expected there to be something of quality that could be admired, even if the movie as a whole wasn't be escapist and purely enjoyable. For the record, Ben-Hur defied my expectations.
I was amused by how the three of us latched onto different aspects of the film. I (with my history degree) found myself musing over the ramifications of being adopted by a Roman Consul and trying to remember what the position of tribunal was in the roman bureaucracy. Meanwhile, Jason was talking about hamsters as plot devices (?) and Frado was commenting like a geezer about how much he misses movies in Technicolor. Jason’s intro describing us as geeks is well deserved.
As to our expectations, the length of the movie really was disconcerting. A six minute musical interlude followed by a montage of Christ’s birth that had little to do with the plot did nothing to assuage those concerns. But once the title credits aired, the pace of the movie was surprisingly fluid. There was enough time spent to develop characters, intermixed with enough plot moving action that I did not find myself bored. The costume and plumage was magnificent, and really was an addition rather than being a distraction (I’m looking at you, 300!) I found the first segment of the movie cathartic- I was falling asleep before they splashed the title across the screen, and was interested and engaged when I reached the intermission script.
As I mentioned before I have a degree in history- at one point in the movie I found myself trying to figure out how accurate historically the setting was. I decided that that really doesn’t matter, because the setting managed to be both emotionally charged and idyllic at times. Whether this portrayal of
I will wait to pass judgment as a whole until I’ve seen the conclusion, but I’ll take this rare chance to describe my expectations for a movie midway. I went into the first section expecting very little, and now I am looking forward to quite a bit. I am hoping that all of the scenes that seemed to be establishing the setting and mood of the movie have a payoff towards the end. For example, I am hoping for:
- A kick-ass chariot race
- A chance for Ben-Hur to show off his wicked spear skills
- Count of Monte Cristo- like revenge
- Some way to resolve the leprous mother and sister situation
- Continued pacing that keeps me interested
Finally, I hope they avoid being overly preachy. I have been impressed with how well they can work the holy land as a setting, especially set at the time when Jesus was a young preacher. People of faith have lots to grab onto that makes them feel like they know a bit about the period, while those who are not coming to the movie with a strong Judeo-Christian background are not hit in the face with overt messages, nor left in the dust because they don’t know biblical history. I am impressed with the line they have walked so far. And with that I’m off to watch the second half!
I Will Not See Him Half a Man!
Ben-Hur Part 2
I am glad that I took the opportunity to blog each half of Ben-Hur separately. I managed to put down the expectations that were raised before the intermission, so that I can quantify the degree to which the movie failed to follow through on that lofty potential.
Let’s take a look at the points I was looking for specifically:
I am glad that I took the opportunity to blog each half of Ben-Hur separately. I managed to put down the expectations that were raised before the intermission, so that I can quantify the degree to which the movie failed to follow through on that lofty potential.
Let’s take a look at the points I was looking for specifically:
- A kick-ass chariot race- Check! I was happy with the start of the act when it opened up with the Arab Bedouin taking odds on the race. The race itself was exciting- perhaps a little longer than it needed to be, but with the amount of time spend leading up to it I won’t grudge them a few laps to revel in it.
- A chance for Ben-Hur to show off his wicked spear skills: Nope. Not the biggest loss, but I’m mildly disappointed
- Count of Monte Cristo- like revenge: Not really, but (Spoiler) Messala’s death scene and Judas standing over him in triumph was effective, without forcing Judas to blemish his character with morally dubious approaches. Kinda wish he speared him though
- Some way to resolve the leprous family situation: Check! Maybe not how I would have approached it, but a happy ending nonetheless.
- Continued pacing to keep me interested: I’m sorry to say that this simply did not come about. The biggest problem was that the movie tried to pull off 2 climaxes, and this simply wasn’t sustainable. After the chariot race and Messala’s death, the movie set about to lead into a second climax rather than resolve and settle from the first.
I wouldn’t have a problem with them wanting to end with Jesus’ death, but the movie did not establish it as an effective outcome. Religious overtones in a film can be very effective, but not as an extra level added upon an already lengthy movie. Had the movie drawn to a conclusion a half hour earlier- perhaps with Ben-Hur’s family being healed by Jesus as he headed to the garden to be arrested, the movie would have ended leaving you wanting to see more, and would not have dragged along. The conclusion that was chosen hurt the quality of what preceded it.
Thus my question becomes: how much do you penalize a movie for a lackluster finish? Is a movie that is awesome for almost 2 hours but leaves a bad taste in your mouth better than a movie that is mostly mediocre, but has an amazing finale that leaves audiences amazed?
Final Thought - In the end I’ll agree with my compatriots: This movie is top 100 material, but belongs in the lower 100. This was 100 and just barely made the list: If this is really the worst movie on the list, we are in for quite a treat. I doubt that all the movies on the list will stand up to this, however.
Alfredo
A grown man knows the world he lives in. For the moment, that world is Rome.
What to say about Ben-Hur? Let me start with this. When Jason first brought the idea of watching these one hundred movies we all jumped right on board. We were excited and really looking forward to it. That is until we started looking at the list of movies and how long they were. There at the top of that list at 212 minutes long was Ben-Hur almost instantly trepidation hit us all.
Come movie night, Bryan, Jason and myself started almost instantly riffing on the movie (a la Mystery Science Theatre). The six minute long overture did not at all help ease our fears of a long drawn out movie.
However once the overture and first scene were over I was captivated. The second major scene of the movie involves an entire Roman legion walking from Rome to Judea. Literally hundreds of extras filled the screen. The use of real people and what could easily be considered “cheesy” special effects was probably what captivated me the most about this movie. We come from a time in which CGI rules with an iron fist. Had this movie come out today every person except for those in the foreground would have been computer animated. The interior of the galley in which Judah is a rower would have been all green screened as would have been the opposing ship the rammed through the ships hull.
The movie came in two disks because again, it’s nearly four hours long. I couldn’t find a single bad thing to say about the first two acts if I tried. The sets and costumes were superb the acting, especially Charlton Heston’s astounding. The mix of drama and action were mixed superbly. The end of second act even left me wanting more.
Sadly the third act was fairly lack luster. The movie begins with the birth of Jesus Christ and throughout the entire movie we hear references to him. There’s even a scene in which a giant of a man offers Judah a drink of water as he’s being dragged through a desert by centurions. Not once is His name actually said. I really liked the way they alluded to him. Making Judah’s story a smaller part of what was Jesus’ story. This was ruined for me however when the final half hour of the film suddenly shifted from that to the crucifixion.
Although Judah’s story does come to an end it seems to take a back seat to what’s going around him. Mind you, this isn’t me going against the religious messages that were in the movie. My problem is the fact that the story moved from being about one man to being about an event. I don’t know about my other constituents but I was actually rather confused by this sudden shift.
Regardless of my personal distaste for how the movie ended I was over all very thrilled to have seen this. Having never seen it I hope this will play as an excellent example for the other movies on this list of yet to have seen.
I understand now why Ben-Hur was placed on this list. I also can see why, when compared to some of the other movies on this list it was placed at number one hundred. The conclusion of this post, like the ending of the movie, was lackluster.
Angel
(Did not Watch)
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