I know, I know. I've done it again. It's been a month since I last blogged, but I promise I will write more often now. I'm sorry. Right, on with the blog.
As you may have noticed from the title I have finally kicked off with my task and made a start on the AFI list, starting with number 100
Ben Hur (1959). Now to be honest when I saw that this was the first film I was going to be watching I was a bit wary. As one of my friends said it feels like you need about three days to watch it, well it's more three and a half hours. It's very long. But I made a commitment so I sat down to watch it last night. Probably a bad time as due to the epic nature of the film (in literally every way) I found that when the film finally came to the intermission (yes it's so long it has one of those) I found I could not take any more for that evening, and I resumed the second act the following morning, which I feel was the best way to watch it ( and luckily the second act was an hour shorter thean the first).
As you may or may not know the film is set amongst the same time as the birth and life of Christ, hence why the novel the film is based on is called
Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Although this is a bit misleading as the story is not in the bible but made up by American civil war General Wallace, and follows the story of a Roman and Judean boys, or men, and Christ just makes appearances now and then and takes centrestage briefly near the end, though the filmmakers are very careful no to show his face. I was actually a bit suprised by the first scene in which you see Ben Hur (Charlton Heston), meeting old friend, new Roman Messala (Stephen Boyd). I got this reaction because, it may have just been my view, but it seem almost, I'm slightly wary to put this, homo-erotic. This may seem a bit crazy but the way they greeted each other, the hugs, the hand grabbing, the words they used "still close", "you're in my heart" (or something like that), I felt like these guys have a very close emotional connection. And, I have just remembered, in the making of documentary, one of the writers, Gore Vidal, said that he wanted the scene to play out as if they were old lovers. Ha! See, I told you.
Of course, this scene sets up the huge betrayal that is to come for these two. And so begins the journey of Juddah Ben Hur (why his full name is not the title for the film I'm not sure cos they of call him the Prince of Judea etc). In this LONG journey we see him wrongly convicted of attempted murder, become a slave, then rescuer, then adopted son to a Roman counsellor (he looks about 35 but hey it was ancient Rome), then returning hero, chariot race winner, then possibly converted to Christianity and reunited with his family, emphaisi on the vagueness of whether or not he was actually converted by seeing Christ on the cross and his mother and sister healed of their leprosy.
This film for me had some very impressive scenes, one of which was , obviously, the chariot race, in which, according to one of the crew, no one died in or was severly hurt, contrary to my beliefs. I did learn that a few of the accidental crashes are actually in the film sequence and Charlton Heston did have a stunt double, mostly for the wide shots. I also leanrt how good the film's effects were back in 1959, half of the stadium shown in the wide shots were actually matte painting inserted into the film to make the place look larger and doubly occupied, and this effect was used many times for shots of mass filled streets and stadium filled arenas. It still looks convincing today. Even the battle at sea is impressive, even though you can tell, it miniatures. The acting in the film is as you would expect, very melodramatic, with sharp head turns, people emotionally flinging themselves here and there, and great cries of joy and despair. Nowadays it may look over-the-top but as it's an old film it's accepted. Cahrlton Heston is good in his role, holding a certain intensity throughout most of the film, although his eyebrows never seen to move, they look almost heavy, and his mouth often make wide, snarling movements. Stephen Boyd is nicely detestable as the Roman Messala, and I am sure they added a bit to much fake tan to Hugh Giffith who played the Arab Shiekh. The only non-Americans in the cast were the Romans, played by, can you guess, yes correct British actors and the main female role of Esther went to Israeli actress Haya Harareet.
For the most expensive film of the time ($15 million) and with 11 oscars, the film is still impressive with its grand locations, shot in Rome, its hundreds of extras and the mammothness of its production (took over a year to film). The film has a certain grandeur about it, I couldn't help but be wowed by it. But after two and a half hours of it I started to feel restless, until the chariot race started. I just felt like most fo what had happened in the film was dragged out a lot and could have been cut down, but maybe they wanted to film as much of the novel as they could, I don't know. I do think this is a film you need to film in your lifetime but make sure you are prepared for the length of it and are willing to sit through something that feels a bit longer than it should be.
Overall, impressive but a bit too long.
That is all for now but I will be back again soon to talk about the next film and/or moan about something, hurrah! Until then,
insert something cheesy here to make you mildly happy so that it has a good sign off for this post. Bye.
