BEN-HUR

(November 1959, U.S.)

For its biblical film genre, trying to decide whether you prefer BEN-HUR or THE TEN COMMANDMENTS is almost like taking the Pepsi-Coke challange. Both are biblical films, both feature Charlton Heston in the starring role and both represent the era of great 1950's epics. However, each story is like two sides of the coin; old testament and new testament.

The opening title card calls BEN-HUR, "A Tale of the Christ". The fact is, though, Jesus Christ really only serves as a backdrop comprising of approximately 30 minutes or so of film. This is the story of Judah Ben-Hur, a wealthy Jew who spends much of the film determined to seek revenge against his childhood friend Messala (played by Stephen Boyd), now a Roman military tribune who viciously sentences Judah and his family after some falling tile from Judah's rooftop nearly kills the visiting governor. Although Messala knows it was an accident, he condemns Judah to the galleys, and imprisons his mother and sister to intimidate the restive Jewish populace by punishing the family of a known friend and prominent citizen. Keeping in mind that Jesus Christ serves merely as a subplot that ties dominant characters together later in the film, it is interesting to see that when Judah nearly dies of thirst while a slave en route to sea, he is mercifully given some water by none other than Christ himself, though Judah has no idea yet who this man is or what he will become. It is simply a chance encounter. As for what happens to Jesus Christ at the end of the film, I think everyone already knows that, whether you follow Christianity or not. As an atheist, I have neither the knowledge nor the desire to discuss that topic any further.

Now let's talk about the famous chariot race. Even by current filmmaking standards, it's considered to be one of the most spectacular action sequences ever filmed. George Lucas famously ripped it off during the pod racing sequence in STAR WARS: EPISODE I-THE PHANTOM MENACE(1999). Here's another interesting piece of movie trivia; 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 Messala that gets tangled up under the horses and battered by their hooves. This resulted in one of the most grisly fatal injuries in motion picture history (up until then), and really shocked audiences.

Getting back to that Pepsi-Coke challange analogy, if you were to ask most members of my (Jewish) family which film they preferred, most of them would faithfully pick THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. While I'm not knocking DeMille's spectacular film, BEN-HUR is far superior in storytelling, performance and cinematography and also won the Oscar for best picture of 1959.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Messala: " Look to the West, Judah! Don't be a fool, look to Rome!"
Judah Ben-Hur: "I would rather be a fool than a traitor... or a killer!"
Messala: "I am a soldier!"
Judah: "Yes! Who kills! For Rome! Rome is evil!"
Messala: "I warn you...!"
Judah: "No! I WARN YOU! Rome is an affront to God! Rome is strangling my people and my country, the whole Earth! But not forever. I tell you the day Rome falls there will be a shout of freedom such as the world has never heard before!"