
If I find it hard to speak of 1925's Ben-Hur in isolation, that's not just because the Charlton Heston version is more famous, but because I've always had a special regard for it. Yes, despite my sniping at '59 Ben-Hur's pretensions, my feelings towards it are generally warm. I can't quite defend the film objectively, and can understand how some would find it wooden, overbearing, and pretentious. But it reminds me of a boyish sort of Catholicism, one as taken with the desert vistas and adventure stories and architectural grandeur as with any more subtle spiritual or ethical elements of the Christian story. I've always had a weakness for epics, for films you can get lost in; the experience is something like losing your way in a cavernous museum, wandering from room to room calling out your friends' names but half-hoping you don't find them. (The sense of adventure within comfortable bounds is the same - while you can get lost in epics, they're peculiarly nonthreatening.)
As I've indicated, many of this Ben-Hur's charms lie elsewhere. It's a more intimate and economical "tale of the Christ"; however, it still contains scenes of breathtaking spectacle. Among them are the battle between pirates and Romans in which a Roman hostage is bound to the front of the pirates' ship and used as a battering ram to attack his own fleet. There are parades filled with exotica of the Roman Empire, marching through Jerusalem, echoed later in the film by Jesus entering through the city's gates on the back of a donkey. And also, of course, there's the chariot race filled with mayhem but interestingly, not as bloodthirsty as the later Ben-Hur (my friends and I, sick bastards that we were, would hit the slo-mo button on the VCR remote to watch the stretcher-bearers get trampled when they couldn't make it off the racetrack in time). Nonetheless, even this time around several charioteers wind up as welcome mats for the stomping hooves behind them.
The chariot race is, for those of you who don't know (but have for some reason stuck with me here), Judah Ben-Hur's attempt at revenge against ex-friend, now mortal enemy Messala, a Roman soldier who betrayed him, sending the Jewish prince into a life in exile and presumably killing Judah's mother and sister. This Ben-Hur follows the same general contours as the later one, though it deviates in many of the details, including what happens to the Hur family's slaves, and also Judah's actions after the chariot race. The latter instance is actually one place where the 1959 Ben-Hur tops the 1925 version in intimate, personal detail. Here we see Judah form an army of Jews to fight for their "Messiah" but, when told of Jesus' death and wish for peace, they lay down their arms. This storyline is silly and anticlimactic (I don't know if it's in Lew Wallace's novel), and I prefer it when, in the later movie, Judah has achieved revenge but still feels lost, before reuniting with his family (now lepers) and encountering Jesus at the crucifixion. It connects more effectively with the story's message of redemption.
Actually, here the religious elements exist in an odd balance with the adventure story. Though it usually gets knocked as Sunday-school nonsense, the later movie actually balances the two elements off of each other rather nicely. In both versions, we never see Jesus' face, but in the later film this conceit is handled more subtly, whereas in 1925 the filmmakers create all sort of elaborate hide-and-seek games, like restaging the Last Supper but placing a random additional disciple in the foreground so that he just perfectly blocks Jesus' face (though we still get to see the holy ring of light emanating around the edges of the disciple's profile). Also, the earlier film, despite having an altogether shorter running time, lavishes a lot more attention on the first Christmas, which serves as a prologue in both versions. Actually, much of its recreation is charming - I particularly enjoyed the crude "shooting/shifting star" special effect - but it does seem like a distraction from the story's main arc.
Oh, and one more thing, particularly pertinent given all the Prop 8 talk circulating in the blogosphere. Gore Vidal has infamously claimed that, in doctoring the 1959 screenplay, he added a homosexual subtext. Supposedly Stephen Boyd was informed, and played this element (a supposed gay tryst in the background of reunited friends Judah and Messala) to the hilt; but director William Wyler warned against telling Charlton Heston, who would be horrified. It's a humorous anecdote, but ironically the homoerotic overtones are even more pronounced in the 1925 version. Messala pretends not to know who Judah is when approached in pubic, then they sneak off behind an arch somewhere and embrace. And when Judah grabs Messala's meaty bicep (this Messala is about twice the size of Boyd and looks like he could crush the rather waifish Roman Navarro with one fist)...well, I defy you to eschew Vidal's interpretation.
4 comments:
I keep forgetting that this in our school library. I should get that out over the weekend.
Let me know what you think.
You know those kids who saw "Star Wars" when they were 8 and now they're obsessed with the thing? For me, that was "Ben-Hur." I am especially passionate about the '59 version - but I really like the silent version, whose silent chariot race I show to my film history class. (Also, I was lucky enough to see the silent version on the big screen in a Catholic church when I was in college.)
As for the remake, I watch it yearly and I jump at any chance to see it on the big screen - notably at the Castro in San Francisco and at the Wang in Boston on a screen and sound system so huge the balcony shuddered during the race sequence.
In many ways the silent version is even more epic - the sea battle for instance is much longer and more detailed: poisonous catapulted to the Roman ships! As for the rebel army - that's in the novel, which I have read a number of times (though it takes a lot of patience). I prefer the '59 race - it's visceral every time! But I note the similarities. Didn't Yakima Canutt work on both?
I agree - I like the post-race tension in the '59 version after Messala's death - my favorite death scene of all time! Later, I love the line, "It's as though you had become Messala!"
Thanks for this article. I loved your observations about these memorable films. I feel the same way you do about epics! I yearn for epics to get lost in - that's why this year at the movies is such a bummer.
If you want more of my passion for Ben-Hur go to gather.com and put in "the beauty of Ben-Hur" in the search to read an article I wrote last year. I'm Richard Bellamy on gather.com and I post as Hokahey on the Cooler where I came across the link to your site.
Thanks for the great observations, hokahey. I saw Ben-Hur at about the same age, and it's stuck with me too. (I suspected the army was in the book - kudos to the '59 screenwriters for leaving it out.)
I will definitely check out that review...
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