Ben-Hur was released on November 18, 1959, and is the third film adaption of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It was written by Karl Tunberg (Gore Vidal and Christopher Fry are uncredited writers), directed by William Wyler, produced by Sam Zimbalist, and stars Charlton Heston (in his Academy Award winning role), Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, and Hugh Griffith (also in his Academy Award winning role).
I wasn't looking forward to this film for two reasons. First, I'm not very religious, and rarely enjoy films about Jesus, or anything similar. Second, it's 3 and a half hours long. Not very appealing to someone of my generation, even for film lovers. I mean, I knew it would be good. After all, it won 11 Oscars (a feat only accomplished by this film, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King). But I just thought I plain wouldn't like it. However, it is on the list.
As you probably guessed, I enjoyed this film. However, I didn't think it was absolutely brilliant. There were two problems for that. The first was the last act of the film. A good chunk of the film was all about the politics of Rome and Judea and Ben-Hur's (Charlton Heston) revenge on childhood friend and Roman Tribune (assistant to the Governor) Messala (Stephen Boyd). In the third and last act, the film focuses more on Ben-Hur relationship with Jesus, which is still entertaining, but not as interesting as the rest of the film.
The second problem is the running time. At roughly 3 and a half hours, it's a long film. The first two hours fly by, but after that, the film starts to drag on. Admittedly, this is when the film starts to get into the Jesus section, so that does have a lot to do with it. Quite frankly, everything after the chariot scene is pretty boring, at least to me. I imagine someone strongly religious would find that to be the best part of the film.
Because of my disdain of the last hour and a half, I'm mostly gonna sing praises for the first two hours. Everything about this was absolutely brilliant. It was all about Ben-Hur gaining revenge of Messala for exiling him to the galleys and sending his family to the dungeons. We see his incredibly lucky life, where he becomes the adopted son of a Roman official, and great charioteer. He returns to Judea, seeking revenge on Messala. With the help of Ilderim (Hugh Griffth, in his Academy Award winning role) he enters into a chariot race against Messala, and defeats him, when Messala accidentally gets trampled by another chariot. Up until this point of the film, I found the film to be absolutely brilliant, with the chariot race in particular being the highlight of the film. Some of the deaths in this scene are still shocking today, and dare I say, this remains one of the best action scenes in film today.
The acting is phenomenal. I've never seen Charlton Heston act before, and he was tremendous. He could play any character in film, he's so damn good. I find it interesting how initially he acts so friendly with Messala, a Roman, while trying to be a good Jew, standing up against the tyrannical Romans. But as soon as Messala betrays him, he goes into straight vengeance mode. He was absolutely tremendous, and more than deserved his Oscar. I thought Stephen Boyd was also terrific, and was surprised to find out that he didn't win an Oscar for this film. Instead, Hugh Griffth, who plays the sheik Ilderim, won Best Supporting Actor. While he did a good job, I don't think he was in the film enough to win the award. The directing and writing are both also fantastic. Once again, I have to say the chariot scene was the highlight of the film, but definitely in the directing area. Like I already said, one of the best action scenes on film. The writing was also great, but I can't really give any real reasons why without spoiling things that shouldn't be spoiled. I'll say this, though. Before the third act (or Jesus act, as I like to call it), we have one slight appearance from someone we all recognize that was a rather brilliant piece of writing. His intervention in the film allowed Ben-Hur to keep living, and gave him a reason to keep going. Rather brilliant.
Overall, this film is very good for the first two hours, then drags on a bit for me. While it is long, I do recommend everyone see this film, religious or not. And yes, it is over 3 hours, but films released during the Golden Age of Cinema (as it has been called, for all those who didn't know) were typically this long, some even longer. Overall, this films gets a 7.5/10 for enjoyment. Very good for the first two hours, but then starts to drag when Jesus gets involved.
Next time, I'm watching Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tim Burton's version of the popular musical.
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