Ben-Hur is one of the original big, important movies. It's based on a historical novel about a Jewish prince who had a few encounters with Christ which, though brief, changed his life. In Hollywood, sixty years ago, most people still respected Christianity. These days, a movie like
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe causes complaints just by containing an allegory of Christ's death and resurrection, even though it doesn't have to be interpreted that way. In 1959, the makers of
Ben-Hur had no issue with making Jesus, the miracle worker, the Son of God, a pivotal character in the movie. And
Ben-Hur wasn't just some genre film; it was an A-picture, a big-budget studio film, and Oscar bait.
The way this film was shot shows, to me at least, how filmmaking has evolved over the past century. In early film, edits and camera movement were rare. In many ways,
Ben-Hur looks like a filmed stage play. The camera is usually static and it often lingers on wide shots. Filmmakers today are cut-happy. It's as if they must film a dozen angles of every scene AND use each angle at least once in the final cut. This film only cuts and moves when necessary, and that's one of the things that makes it a great movie. It doesn't hold your interest because of constant cuts and motion; it holds your interest (or at least it should) with the content of the scenes.
Charlton Heston always holds my interest. Maybe I have a man-crush on him... that's okay. He earned his Best Actor Oscar in this film. Stephen Boyd held his own as the former best friend-turned antagonist. Some people claim there's a homosexual subtext between them... balderdash. Just another example of homosexuals trying to legitimize themselves by shoehorning their lifestyle into a place where it was never intended to be. Interestingly enough, Christ is not heard speaking in the film and we never see his face. I like this move. Not in a “he's too holy to be depicted by our art” kind of way, but in a “it gives him a unique mystique” kind of way. “Unique Mystique”... that might make a good name for a band.
And of course, there's the famous chariot race, during which apparently no one was killed despite the rampant rumors. It's one of two action-oriented sequences in the film... and with a sword-and-sandals epic like this, one might think there'd be more, but
Ben-Hur fills most of its 224 minutes with genuine drama. And with a legendary figure like Charlton Heston in the lead, that is more than enough.
