Ben-Hur (1959)

Today I took the dive into one of the biggest classics that I knew of: Ben-Hur. This was one of the movies I had been intending on watching ever since I started this whole movie watching project, but I kept putting it off because it's over 3 hours long. Not only that, but 50's movies aren't known for being the most action-packed. Oh yeah, one more thing. This was yet another movie that pretty much just proved how ignorant I can be about old classics, and also why I started doing all this to start with. So what was I so unaware this time? That this was a religious film. I thought it was just about Rome, gladiators and chariot races. I got a little bit more than I bargained for. Hit the jump for my impressions.


This is a really long movie, but I don't think it will take to long to summarize the story. Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) was a Jewish prince, but one day he is accused of attacking a high ranking Roman officer. He is sentenced to the gallows of a Roman ship for years before winning his freedom and eventually returning to his homeland to seek revenge on the man who knowingly sentenced an innocent man. Along the way, he has several run-ins and encounters with Jesus Christ, although he doesn't realize who it is.

Judah survives for years in the gallows that normally kill most men

While I tried to get the story as brief as I could, the movie itself is far from brief. There's actually a lot that happens in the movie, but there's also a lot of down time between it all. There were a number of moments where the camera just seemed to hover around the characters as they looked at each other, or took its time with the emotional moments. The problem I had was that I wasn't caring about any of the characters because I was just so bored with the long drawn out sequences throughout the whole movie.

Larger than life set pieces to remember

On the plus side, the settings and the action set pieces that take place in them were pretty great. The word "grand" barely begins to cover them. Just the number of extras that populate all the background areas is massive! The ship battle while Judah is in the gallows was alright, but I really liked the GIGANTIC chariot race! I can't imagine they accomplished this without having some of the horses get hurt though. It was intense and seeing how some of the other chariot racers bit the dust was pretty crazy, but awesome.

OK, so on to my most embarrassing moments with this film. I had no idea there was going to be a heavy religious theme running throughout this movie. It starts from the very first opening moments of the movie, with the scene of Mary in the barn with baby Jesus and the 3 wise men visiting her. In fact, Jesus shows up quite a few times in this movie, from all points in his life. Although I was clueless going in about this aspect of the film, I ended up really enjoying the parts of the movie where Judah Ben-Hur's life would cross paths so many times with that of Jesus'. Another thing I liked about that aspect of the movie was how they never showed Jesus' face. We always see him from his back, and we always see the faces of the people who look upon him and they are always in awe. It was a really simple, but great visual touch.

I really didn't expect to find J.C. in this movie, but apparently I'm the only one.

There are so many great things about this movie, even things I never mentioned like the really good acting by all the people involved. Unfortunately, I can't get past the insanely long and boring bulk of the film. I was fighting myself, trying not to fall asleep for most of the first half of the movie. Once he got off the boat and the story was moving towards the chariot race, it was better, but then after the chariot race, it was getting boring again. I really can't recommend people go out of their way to see this movie, because I didn't feel I got enough out of it compared to the time commitment needed to watch it. It's really too bad, but the style and pacing of the movie were clearly just from another era, and that just wasn't for me.