Ben-Hur (1959 film)

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Ben-Hur
Film poster
Directed by	William Wyler
Produced by	Sam Zimbalist William Wyler
Written by	Karl Tunberg, Gore Vidal (uncredited), Christopher Fry (uncredited)
Starring	Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	November 18, 1959 (premiere in NYC) December 16, 1959
Running time	212 min.
Language	English
Budget	$15,000,000 (approx. $109,000,000 [2006])
IMDb profile

Ben-Hur is a 1959 epic film directed by William Wyler, and is the most popular live-action version of Lew Wallace's novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ ( 1880). It stars Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur and Stephen Boyd as Messala. It premiered at Loews Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. The film went on to win eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, a feat equaled only by Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003).

Plot

Judah Ben-Hur is a rich Jewish prince and merchant in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1st century. Preceding the arrival of a new governor, Judah Ben-Hur's childhood friend Messala arrives as military commanding officer of the Roman legions. At first Judah and Messala are happy to meet after years apart, but their different political views separate them; Messala believes in the glory of Rome and worldly imperial power, while Judah is devoted to his faith and Jewish nationalism. During the welcome parade for the governor, a roofing tile falls down from Judah's house and startles the governor's horse, nearly killing him. Although Messala knows that it was an accident, in order to intimidate the restive Jewish populace by punishing a powerful local family and good friend, he sends Judah to the galleys and throws his mother and sister into prison. Judah swears to come back and take revenge. En route to the sea, Judah is denied water when his slave gang arrives at Nazareth. He collapses, having lost the will to live, when an as-yet unknown Jesus Christ gives him water and a motivation to survive.

After three years as a galley slave, the ship to which Judah is assigned becomes the flagship of Quintus Arrius, sent by the Emperor to destroy a fleet of Macedonian pirates. Judah's new commander notices his resolve and will to survive, although he declines the offer to transfer to Arrius' gladiatorial team, declaring that God will aid him. The Roman armada attacks the pirates and his galley is sunk, but Judah manages to save the life of Arrius. They are soon rescued and Arrius adopts Judah as his son. Thus regaining his freedom and wealth, and having learned Roman ways (including becoming an expert charioteer), he eventually returns to Judea. Soon the Arab sheik Ilderin hires Ben-Hur to drive his chariot and Judah defeats Messala in a chariot race before the governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Messala, who attempts to cheat his way to victory, is mortally wounded in the race, but tells Judah where he can find his mother and sister: In the "valley of the lepers," as they had contracted leprosy while in prison. Although he has accomplished his goal of revenge on Messala, Judah's soul remains tormented.

The film is subtitled "A Tale of the Christ", and it is at this point that Jesus's presence is substantially increased. After Judah sees his mother and sister in the leper colony, Judah's love interest Esther witnesses the Sermon on the Mount. She tells Judah about it; they take his mother and sister to see Jesus, but they cannot get near him, as his trial has begun. Judah attempts to give Jesus water during his march to Calvary, echoing Jesus's kindness to him, but is shoved away by the guards. Judah witnesses the crucifixion. His mother and sister are healed by a miracle, as are his own heart and soul. He tells his family that as he heard Jesus talk of forgiveness while on the cross, saying, "I felt His voice take the sword out of my hand". The film begins with the Magi visiting the infant Jesus, and ends with the empty crosses of Calvary in the background and a shepherd and his flock (a prominent Judeo-Christian symbol) in the foreground.

Cast

Production

Financing

Ben-Hur was an extremely expensive production, requiring 300 sets scattered over 340 acres (1.4 km²). Its production was a gamble made by MGM to save itself from bankruptcy at $15 million; the gamble paid off when it earned a whopping total (in its time) of $75 million.

Aspect ratio

The movie was filmed in a process known as " MGM Camera 65", 65mm negative stock from which was made into a 70mm anamorphic print with an aspect ratio of 2.76:1, one of the widest prints ever made, having a width of almost three times its height. A special lens which produced a 1.25X compression was used along with a 65mm negative (whose normal aspect ratio was 2.20:1) to produce this extremely wide aspect ratio. This allowed for spectacular panoramic shots in addition to six-channel audio. In practice, however, "Camera 65" prints were shown in an aspect ratio of 2.5:1 on most screens, so that theaters were not required to install new, wider screens or curtail the height of screens already installed.

Casting

Many other men were offered the role of Ben-Hur before Charlton Heston. Burt Lancaster claimed he turned down the role of Judah Ben-Hur because he "didn't like the violent morals in the story". Paul Newman turned it down because he said he didn't have the legs to wear a tunic. Rock Hudson was also offered the role.

Out of respect, the face of Jesus is never shown. He was played by an old friend of director Wyler, Claude Heater, who received no credit for his only film role.

The chariot race

Even by current standards, the chariot race in Ben-Hur is considered to be one of the most spectacular action sequences ever filmed. Filmed at Cinecittà Studios outside Rome long before the advent of computer-generated effects, it took over three months to complete, using 8000 extras on the largest film set ever built, some 18 acres (73,000m²). Eighteen chariots were built, with half being used for practice. The race took five weeks to film. Tour buses visited the set every hour.

The large "island" in the middle of the stadium is fictional. It was designed to aid filmmaking, since a backdrop of a stone wall is cheaper to film than a backdrop of thousands of extras. In a real stadium, such an island would prevent spectators from viewing the race properly.

Charlton Heston spent four weeks learning how to drive a chariot. He was taught by the stunt crew, who offered to teach the entire cast, but Heston and Boyd were the only ones who took them up on the offer (Boyd had to learn in just two weeks, due to his late casting). At the beginning of the chariot race, Heston shook the reins and nothing happened; the horses remained motionless. Finally someone way up on top of the set yelled, "Giddy-up!" The horses then roared into action, and Heston was flung backward off the chariot.

To give the scene more impact and realism, three lifelike dummies were placed at key points in the race to give the appearance of men being run over by chariots. Most notable is the stand-in dummy for Stephen Boyd's Messala that gets tangled up under the horses, getting battered by their hooves. This resulted in one of the most grisly death scenes in motion pictures at this time and shocked audiences.

There are several urban legends surrounding the chariot sequence, one of which states that a stuntman died during filming. Stuntman Nosher Powell claims in his autobiography, "We had a stunt man killed in the third week, and it happened right in front of me. You saw it, too, because the cameras kept turning and it's in the movie". There is no conclusive evidence to back up Powell's claim and it has been adamantly denied by director William Wyler, who states that neither man nor horse was injured in the famous scene. Another urban legend states that a car can be seen during the chariot race; the book Movie Mistakes claims this is a myth.

However, one of the best-remembered moments in the race came from a near-fatal accident. When Judah's chariot jumps another which has crashed in its path, the charioteer is seen to be almost thrown from his mount and only just manages to hang on and climb back in to continue the race. In reality, while the jump was planned, the character being flipped into the air was not, and stuntman Joe Canutt, son of second unit director Yakima Canutt, was considered fortunate to escape with only a minor chin injury. Nonetheless, when director Wyler intercut the long shot of Canutt's leap with a close-up of Heston clambering back into his chariot, a memorable scene resulted.

The galley sequence

The galley slave sequence is anachronistic: in reality, galley slaves did not exist until the 16th century. The Roman navy was, from the outset, comprised completely of volunteers. All seamen, be they rowers/sailors or marines, joined up of their own volition and received regular pay and leave.

The original design for the boat Judah is enslaved upon was so heavy that it couldn't float. The scene therefore had to be filmed in a studio, but another problem remained: the cameras didn't fit inside, so the boat was cut in half and made able to be wider or shorter on demand. The next problem was the oars were too long, so those were cut too; however, this made it look unrealistic because the oars were too easy to row, so weights had to be added.

During filming, director Wyler noticed that one of the extras was missing a hand. He had the man's stump covered in blood, with a phony bone protruding from it, to add realism to the scene when the galley is rammed. Wyler made similar use of another extra who was missing a foot.

Possible homosexual subtext

In interviews for the 1986 book Celluloid Closet, and later the 1995 documentary of the same name, screenwriter Gore Vidal asserts that he persuaded director Wyler to allow a carefully veiled homoerotic subtext between Messala and Ben-Hur. Vidal says his aim was to explain Messala’s extreme reaction to Judah Ben-Hur’s refusal to name fellow Jews. Surely, Vidal argued, Messala should have been able to understand that Judah, his close friend since childhood, would not be willing to name the names of his fellow Jews to a Roman officer. Vidal suggested a motivation to Wyler: Messala and Judah had been homosexual lovers while growing up, and then separated for a few years while Messala was in Rome. When Messala returns to Judea, he wants to renew the relationship with Judah, but Judah is no longer interested. It is the anger of a scorned lover which motivates Messala’s vindictiveness toward Judah. Since the Hollywood production code would not permit this to appear on screen explicitly, it would have to be implied by the actors. Knowing Heston’s aversion to homosexuality, Vidal suggested to Wyler that he direct Stephen Boyd to play the role that way, but not tell Heston. Vidal claims that Wyler took his advice, and that the results can be seen in the film, however, Vidal is the only person ever to make this claim, and all others queried about it have denied that it was even considered, including William Wyler and Chartlon Heston, who, when asked about Vidal's story, insisted that Vidal had little to do with the final film..

Differences between novel and film

There are several differences between the original novel and the film. The changes made serve to make the film's storyline more immediately dramatic.

• The most striking difference is that Ben-Hur does not actually kill Messala, although the latter is seriously injured in the chariot race. In revenge for this, Messala plots to have Ben-Hur murdered, but his plans go wrong. It is revealed at the end of the novel that Iras (who is Messala's mistress and does not appear in the 1959 film) has murdered Messala in a fit of anger.

• Another striking difference is that Ben-Hur becomes a convert to Christianity much sooner in the novel, not after the Crucifixion, and he does not display the harsh bitterness that he does in the William Wyler film. Similarly, the healing of Ben-Hur's mother and sister takes place earlier in the book, not immediately after the death of Christ.

Awards and recognition

The film won an unprecedented 11 Academy Awards, a number matched only by Titanic in 1997 and The Return of the King in 2003. It won Best Motion Picture, Best Leading Actor for Charlton Heston, Best Supporting Actor for Hugh Griffith, Best Director, Best Set Decoration, Colour — Edward C. Carfagno, William A. Horning, and Hugh Hunt, Best Cinematography, Colour, Best Costume Design, Colour, Best Special Effects, Best Film Editing — John D. Dunning and Ralph E. Winters, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Best Sound.

The film also won the Best Motion Picture, Drama, Best Motion Picture Director, Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd and a Special Award to Andrew Marton for directing the chariot race sequence. It won the Best Motion Picture, the Best Motion Picture and the DGA award Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Motion Picture.

In 1998 the film ranked #72 on the American Film Institute list of the Best American Movies of All Time, and #56 at AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers. In 2001 the film ranked #49 on the American Film Institute list of the Most Thrilling American Movies. In 2004 the film was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry. In 2005 the music score of the film ranked #21 on the American Film Institute list of the Best Score of American Films.

DVD release

Ben-Hur has been released to DVD on two occasions. The first was on March 13, 2001 as a two-disc set, and the second on September 13, 2005 as a four-disc set.