Ben-Hur

Around 1991, when I kicked off ;my video collection in earnest (the few kids' films I owned up to that point didn't really count towards a self-conscious canon), Ben-Hur was one of the first VHS tapes I purchased - or that my father purchased for me anyway; at 7, I didn't have much in the way of a disposable income. I remember seeing the case in a video store somewhere in Boston - around Easter, I think. I was impressed by the grandeur of that iconic poster on the cover, with the title chiseled out of the hard rock of a canyon face, against which a Roman statue leaned while tiny chariots raced around the huge letters. I was spurred on too by the bulk of the video package - remember that at this time, long films got two cassettes, creating a hefty physical size to match the scope of the movie within.

The Wide View 1957 - 1959 • "32 Days of Movies" Day 12

The twelfth chapter in "32 Days of Movies", an audiovisual tour through 366 films.
(2015 update: included Vimeo embed after the jump)

View "Chapter 12: The Wide View"

The Wide View

"Are we kids here or what?" Increasingly, the answer was "No" - for better or worse. As the fifties rolled to a close, American cinema underwent its first stirrings of adolescence. Puberty would strike with full force by the mid-sixties, crippling the movies for a time with growing pains, failed attempts at worldliness, and alienated lassitude. Yet initially this onset of maturity offered many Hollywood films a valuable edge. Whether locking a steady gaze on the brutality of war, shining a harsh light on the cynical modern media, or nakedly exposing the sexual voyeurism of audience and auteur alike, today's selections show hints of the quantum leap in content and style which would seize a moribund industry in 1967.

Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur, 1925 incarnation, is an enjoyable adventure film, somewhat overburdened by a sense of dutiful religiosity and a letdown after its climactic chariot race. That race, however, is still exciting 80 years later and many of its moments equal those of the more famous remake. One shot in particular, of the horses' hooves pounding into the camera from a low angle, is as dynamic as anything I can recall from the 1959 Ben-Hur. Indeed, given the limitations (read, frequent strengths) of silent cinema, this Ben-Hur is more visually spry and inventive than the later film, unburdened as it is by stirringly grandiose but also intimately inappropriate widescreen and Technicolor.

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.)