7/10 - Just to explain how I have been doing this, I have watched about 30 of the movies in a random order and I am now beginning to just go through from #100 to #1. I will always post the films in that order... Starting with Ben-Hur!
I was sort of dreading watching this movie because it is almost 4 hours long. But, I actually liked it a lot. I suppose that the “epic” nature of the film and cinematography—huge sets, thousands of people on screen at once, extremely wide aspect-ratios, and dramatic battle scenes—has to be met with an “epic” length. Of course, probably 2 hours could be cut off this movie and the story could be condensed, but in a way I kind of enjoyed the longer runtime because it let William Wyler (director) and the actors really indulge in the luxurious glamour of the filmmaking and story.
Speaking of the story, this may sound silly but I was surprised to find out that it was religious. Realizing that I don’t know anything about Ben-Hur or biblical history in general, I was somewhat confused the whole time as to what the relationship was between Judah (Charlton Heston) and Jesus Christ. Interestingly enough, you don’t see Jesus’s face in this film, which I liked! What I got from it, with some explanation from my mom, is that Judah is basically the Neville Longbottom of the film; in other words, it could have been him. Born around the same time, also Jewish, and full of kindness and morals, he is suspected several times of being the Messiah who is starting all that trouble (who we know to be Jesus). He even passes up an opportunity to see Jesus, though again we only see the back of him, so that he can speak with Rome. Towards the end, Judah reciprocates the same compassion to Jesus as he had to Judah at the beginning. Though I am sure you can guess at least some of the ending, I won’t spoil it—I was still on edge the whole time. I like that the title card said “Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ” because it really is not about Jesus Christ at all, but about Judah, who lived at the same time.
This film, as much as it seems to be about religion, is also very strong in its themes of colonialism. The Romans have taken over Judea, and much of Judah’s story revolves around tyrannical leadership from Messala (Stephen Boyd, pictured on the right below) and the Romans’ mistreatment of the Jews and Arabs. Part of the question I have, though, is whether Judah returns to Judea to help his people, or to seek revenge purely because of what Messala did to him and his family. While the central moral question is whether it is just to enact revenge on those who have harmed you, even Jesus tells God to forgive his executioners, inspiring Judah to perhaps lighten his vengeance against the Romans.
The film’s most famous scene, in which Judah races Messala in horse drawn chariots, is stunning. The landscape is huge, as is the arena, and the dozens of horses pulling colorful chariots is beautiful. It’s a long scene—the lead-in to getting them in their places is like ten minutes. And of course Messala would have spikes on his wheels. There were even a few moments in this scene when I genuinely gasped!
Overall, I enjoyed this movie very much! The story is interesting and the cinematography is, well, epic. This film makes me want to learn more about religion, since I have never been a religious person, but I feel that to better understand literature there are many parallels to biblical stories that I should be aware of.
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