Ben Hur
From Zanecorpwiki
This is a great movie. The plot is not remarkable. Nor is the acting exceptional (though it does hold up and Charlton Heston and others have notable performances). However the production and direction are exceptional. Ben Hur was made in an era of grand films and is one of the grandest.
Ben Hur is about scale. This is a huge movie about huge characters and a huge time. There's something about knowing that everything you see is real (i.e., not computer generated) that really adds to this feeling of scale. Real chariots, real ships (well, the long shots are obviously models). Admittedly, it doesn't look as realistic as some of today's movie. Like many of the old grand movies, it has the feel of a play--complete with overture and intermission--but that's a good thing. Not as realistic, but more real. Maybe it's the fact that the movie itself is huge, whereas today's movies might contain huge subjects, they are themselves really just pictures on a green screen and unless the acting and direction are spot on, the viewer senses this.
As for the acting, Heston's performance, while not the most sensitive, is huge. The two best players in the film have to be Jack Hawkins, as Quintus Arrius, Judah Ben Hur's Roman patron and Frank Thring as Pontius Pilate. Both project the imperial grandeur of Rome while still playing as real people. In my opinion, Jack Hawkins is the best in the film.
If there's any notable weakness among the major characters, it would be Messala. Stephen Boyd doesn't do a bad job playing the character (he won a Golden Globe for the performance), but the character is a little too one dimensional. A few of the other supporting roles are a bit flat, and the women border on the melodramatic. Some of this can be attributed to the period of the film production. None of these problems are so great as to be distracting and they don't really detract from the movie so much as fail to add to it.
The heart of the film is the chariot scene. It's one of the greatest climaxes and still one of the greatest action scenes ever filmed. With no computer generated special effects, your watching an 18 acre set (the largest ever built) with 40 real horses thundering around an actual chariot arena. The best thing about the piece is that every second of the race is shown. You feel like you could be watching chariot racing on ESPN. And it is exciting. As desensitized as my generation is, I experienced a sharp intake of breath when the charioteer was trampled and came flopping out from under the chariot.
I did have some problems with the dénouement. The sudden shift at the end, as Judah follows Christ's crucification, seems out of place and tacked on. It does resolve some points, and it's clear why it was done, but it could have been done better. Up to that point, the Jesus subplot (which plays a much larger role in the novel subtitled, A story of Christ) had been handled rather well and serves to set the context of the time while playing no direct role in the movie. The Christian message at the end was weak and very much shoe horned in. The miraculous curing Judah's mother and sister, and Judah's sudden conversion are neither justified, nor really relevant to anything else that's happened in the movie. Again, it doesn't hurt the movie, but made me feel like shrugging my shoulders and saying, Okay...
Watching the movie, you don't really even notice the weaknesses though because everything that's good about this movie is so big and powerful. One could argue that my earlier complaints about the Messala character are misplaced because by and large what makes this movie work is the direct, powerful manner in which the story is portrayed. Still, the movie is somewhat of a period piece and some viewers may not be able to get into it. But if you find yourself drifting off, fast forward to the chariot scene and you will not be disappointed.
One bit of trivia: Rome generally didn't use galley slaves. But, hats off for putting Jesus up on the historically accurate tau cross.
