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Submitted by cinemascope on Fri, 2006-04-21 14:49. :: Classic
Movie title:
Ben-Hur
Starring:
Charlton Heston, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet, Jack Hawkins, Frank Thring
Directed by:
William Wyler
Written by:
Karl Tunberg (uncredited: Gore Vidal, Christopher Fry)
Genre:
Action/Adventure/Drama/Romance/Historical
Year:
1959
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Runtime:
214 minutes
Imdb:
Rating:
Synopsis
In the time of Chirst, two young men who had grown up together in Judea - one a Jewish prince, Judah Ben-Hur; one an occupying Roman soldier, Messala, are re-united, but this meeting leads to an argument which itself results in Ben-Hur being thrown into slavery and exiled. He vows to return and take his revenge.
In the time of Chirst, two young men who had grown up together in Judea - one a Jewish prince, Judah Ben-Hur; one an occupying Roman soldier, Messala, are re-united, but this meeting leads to an argument which itself results in Ben-Hur being thrown into slavery and exiled. He vows to return and take his revenge.
Review
When people say 'they don't make them like that anymore', this is what they're talking about: an epic on a huge scale - three hours long, with massive sets, sprawling vistas, and a narrative stretching over thirty years, filmed in 70mm with a magnificent and sweeping score from Miklos Rozsa and a cast of thousands, capped with a towering granite-jawed central performance from Charlton Heston. Intimate scenes between Ben-Hur and his childhood friend turned sworn enemy Messala drip with homo-eroticism thanks to an uncredited re-write by Gore Vidal, while huge set-pieces like the awesome sea battle between galleys crewed by thousands of shackled-at-the-oars slaves make for a larger-than-life spectacle that was just the shot in the arm that cinema needed to fight off the threat of the emerging medium of television. And that's before you even get to the jaw-dropping and deservedly legendary chariot race sequence. The stunt-work on this part of the move are unsurpassed since, and watching the 24 horses and six chariots career around the purpose-built arena is still one of the most thrilling pieces of cinema committed to film. The eleven Oscar haul and blockbuster box-office business not only revived the movie industry, they saved a studio - MGM would surely have gone under if Wyler's epic hadn't struck big. The studio heads gambled everything on Ben-Hur, and we, like they at the time, should be grateful for that. A true classic.
When people say 'they don't make them like that anymore', this is what they're talking about: an epic on a huge scale - three hours long, with massive sets, sprawling vistas, and a narrative stretching over thirty years, filmed in 70mm with a magnificent and sweeping score from Miklos Rozsa and a cast of thousands, capped with a towering granite-jawed central performance from Charlton Heston. Intimate scenes between Ben-Hur and his childhood friend turned sworn enemy Messala drip with homo-eroticism thanks to an uncredited re-write by Gore Vidal, while huge set-pieces like the awesome sea battle between galleys crewed by thousands of shackled-at-the-oars slaves make for a larger-than-life spectacle that was just the shot in the arm that cinema needed to fight off the threat of the emerging medium of television. And that's before you even get to the jaw-dropping and deservedly legendary chariot race sequence. The stunt-work on this part of the move are unsurpassed since, and watching the 24 horses and six chariots career around the purpose-built arena is still one of the most thrilling pieces of cinema committed to film. The eleven Oscar haul and blockbuster box-office business not only revived the movie industry, they saved a studio - MGM would surely have gone under if Wyler's epic hadn't struck big. The studio heads gambled everything on Ben-Hur, and we, like they at the time, should be grateful for that. A true classic.
