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Director: William Wyler
Writers: Lew Wallace (novel), Karl Tunberg (screenplay)
Cast: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet
Genre: Epic Historical Drama Adventure
Length: 3hours 32minutes
Film Process: MGM Camera 65 anamorphic, 70 mm print, wide screen 2.76:1 ratio
An epic tale of Roman occupied Judea, set in AD 26. Against the backdrop of the Jewish uprising and the Roman reprisals on the revolutionaries, is the very personal tale of a wealthy Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and his families fall from prosperity to prison. This comes at the hands of his childhood friend, who's now grown into adult hood and is the Roman Tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd). What results is a clash between the Roman will to dominate and the Jewish people's longing to be free.
After refusing the Roman Tribune's demands for the names of the Jewish dissidents, Judah Ben-Hur's family is imprisoned and he's sold into slavery as a rower on a Roman Galley ship....Only the sheer will power of Ben-Hur to survive so that he might save his family from rotting in a Roman prision, keeps him alive.
Ben-Hur is an intelligently written, interwoven story that to it's credit always kept me interested in what was happening next. I've seen other big budget sword & sandal movies and some of them are nothing much more than sword play and a pretty girl in distress....But not here, not Ben-Hur.
This movie starts off with a brief prologue about a foretold event occurring in Bethlehem, the birth of a Jewish king. Then boom! we're 26 years into the future, that's AD26 and the film gets real interesting, real fast. I expected this movie to drag in parts, but it never did. That's because the 3 1/2 hour run time is used to tell a multi-story epic, that includes both intense action and tense emotional scenes, to drama and romance (not much romance so don't let that scare you away) to loyalty and revenge...and yes even spirituality and morality. It's a big movie and it's up to the challenge.
Part of the story arch is Ben-Hur's accidental meeting of Jesus of Nazareth. The film interestingly enough decides not to show Jesus's face, nor does he speak...and we don't see him from the biblical standpoint of performing miracles. Instead we see how his presences in the region has given the oppressed Jews hope, which infuriates the Romans causing even more bloodshed. What little we learn of Jesus in this time period is through the eyes of his followers. Overall this is tertiary story line.
Filmed on location in different parts of Italy and Lebanon, the film looks authentic...No CG here, it's not needed! Don't believe me, just watch the chariot race to see something amazing, something you won't see in a modern CG movie....a real chariot race done on film and in a grand scale! This was so impressive I stopped the DVD and re watched parts of the race, trying to figure out how they did these dangerous stunts. Even if a film maker today was going to do a real staging of the big chariot race, the stuntmen union wouldn't allow many of these stunts to be performed, too risky!
Ben-Hur is top notch, from the direction, to the casting, to he sets and costumes and locations, but mostly it's the heartfelt story that works today just as well as it did back in 1959.
BEN-HUR (1959)
Writers: Lew Wallace (novel), Karl Tunberg (screenplay)
Cast: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd, Haya Harareet
Genre: Epic Historical Drama Adventure
Length: 3hours 32minutes
Film Process: MGM Camera 65 anamorphic, 70 mm print, wide screen 2.76:1 ratio
Winner of 11 Academy Awards
Best Picture - Producer Sam Zimbalist
Best Director - William Wyler
Best Actor Leading Role - Charlton Heston
Best Actor Supporting Role - Hugh Griffith
Best Color Cinematography - Robert Surtees
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color
Best Costume Design, Color
Best Sound
Best Film Editing
Best Effects, Special Effects
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
Best Picture - Producer Sam Zimbalist
Best Director - William Wyler
Best Actor Leading Role - Charlton Heston
Best Actor Supporting Role - Hugh Griffith
Best Color Cinematography - Robert Surtees
Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color
Best Costume Design, Color
Best Sound
Best Film Editing
Best Effects, Special Effects
Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
An epic tale of Roman occupied Judea, set in AD 26. Against the backdrop of the Jewish uprising and the Roman reprisals on the revolutionaries, is the very personal tale of a wealthy Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and his families fall from prosperity to prison. This comes at the hands of his childhood friend, who's now grown into adult hood and is the Roman Tribune Messala (Stephen Boyd). What results is a clash between the Roman will to dominate and the Jewish people's longing to be free.
After refusing the Roman Tribune's demands for the names of the Jewish dissidents, Judah Ben-Hur's family is imprisoned and he's sold into slavery as a rower on a Roman Galley ship....Only the sheer will power of Ben-Hur to survive so that he might save his family from rotting in a Roman prision, keeps him alive.
Ben-Hur is an intelligently written, interwoven story that to it's credit always kept me interested in what was happening next. I've seen other big budget sword & sandal movies and some of them are nothing much more than sword play and a pretty girl in distress....But not here, not Ben-Hur.
This movie starts off with a brief prologue about a foretold event occurring in Bethlehem, the birth of a Jewish king. Then boom! we're 26 years into the future, that's AD26 and the film gets real interesting, real fast. I expected this movie to drag in parts, but it never did. That's because the 3 1/2 hour run time is used to tell a multi-story epic, that includes both intense action and tense emotional scenes, to drama and romance (not much romance so don't let that scare you away) to loyalty and revenge...and yes even spirituality and morality. It's a big movie and it's up to the challenge.
Part of the story arch is Ben-Hur's accidental meeting of Jesus of Nazareth. The film interestingly enough decides not to show Jesus's face, nor does he speak...and we don't see him from the biblical standpoint of performing miracles. Instead we see how his presences in the region has given the oppressed Jews hope, which infuriates the Romans causing even more bloodshed. What little we learn of Jesus in this time period is through the eyes of his followers. Overall this is tertiary story line.
Filmed on location in different parts of Italy and Lebanon, the film looks authentic...No CG here, it's not needed! Don't believe me, just watch the chariot race to see something amazing, something you won't see in a modern CG movie....a real chariot race done on film and in a grand scale! This was so impressive I stopped the DVD and re watched parts of the race, trying to figure out how they did these dangerous stunts. Even if a film maker today was going to do a real staging of the big chariot race, the stuntmen union wouldn't allow many of these stunts to be performed, too risky!
Ben-Hur is top notch, from the direction, to the casting, to he sets and costumes and locations, but mostly it's the heartfelt story that works today just as well as it did back in 1959.