Ben-Hur is entertaining on the most basic, primal level of cinema- it shows you something they photographed. The story is obvious, the acting is mostly hammy, the movie has ideas that could be articulated in a Sunday School class. But, as uncool as it may be to like this movie, I must say I did-it looked cool and it help my interest, most the time anyway.
Based on the novel by Civil War General Lew Wallace, which I have not read (why would I?) the movie recounts the adventures of Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) a Jewish prince who is falsey accused with his mother and sister of attempted murder by his ex-gay lover Messala (Stephen Boyd), consul to the Roman govenor of Judea. He is made a galley slave and has numerous adventures while trying to find and free his mother and sister, and also has a few encounters of a religious figure of some renown.
Is Charlton Heston hammy? Yes, but that hamminess at least means that he has a strong screen presence and we don't tire of watching him for four hours. He is easy to make fun of, but few actor are better at getting really really angry on screen (Al Pacino is one of them) and he really holds our attention. Stephen Boyd is the only actor in this movie who tries to create a three deminsional character with psychological motivation, everybody else, such as Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ildirum, the Arab equistrain is playing stereotypes (Griffith also won an Oscar).
Even though the screenplay was co-written by acclaimed novelist Gore Vidal, the movie is really, really stupid. Not one interesting idea is presented in it's three + hours. Some the simplistic ideas, such as "Jesus is good" I agree with, but a movie should go beyond such simplistic thaught.
But, despite some slow streches (such as totally unnessary romance between Heston and Haya Harareet), the movie maintains interest for it's running time. The chariot race is one of the greatest action sequences in movie history and it is really impressive to see such huge sets and historic costumes. At times I really did feel like I was back in ancient Rome, although our historian friend Bryan told us that movie wasn't that historically accurate.
SPOILER ALERT. I think that the movie also ends really well, although no one who watched this movie with me agrees. I think that Wyler did a terrific job in filming the Crucifixation. I did not think that the miracle at the end was stupid- Jesus was a miracle worker. The ending of the film has a sort of poetic quality that works. I honestly do not see why other people of faith at the screening thought it was stupid, although it's Catholic litergical elements might have appealed to me alone.
So is Ben-Hur a movie worth seeing? Yes, if you like epic movies, and most cineasts should probably check out the movie that blew out the 1959 Oscars. It probably didn't deserve any of them (except for Art Direction, which as I stated above is really impressive). Anatomy of a Murder was a better, smater film, Jimmy Stewart and George C. Scott as that film's dualing lawyers were better than Heston and Griffith here, and Otto Preminger is a way better director than William Wyler. But hey- this movie is a lot fun. It's a great film to watch if you are sick and have an afternoon to kill.
Ben-Hur (1959)