WEBSITE UPDATE–EASTER AND BEN-HUR–4-4-21
EASTER MOVIES
For Easter weekend we’ve been eating deviled eggs (not Peeps because they have to get stale first to be really good) and watching BEN-HUR. We watched the 1959 Charlton Heston version and then the silent film.
I read the book long ago, and it was terrific. You may not know this, but it was written by General Lew Wallace, a Union Civil War general, and it out-sold even UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. It had several stage productions and continued to be the top-selling American novel right up till GONE WITH THE WIND. I remember loving the book, though some of you may find the style sort of old-fashioned and difficult to read. I especially loved the fact that the wise men were portrayed as actual people, with lives of their own, and that Balthazar was a major character in the novel.
Lew Wallace said the book was inspired by a talk he had had with an agnostic on a train one day, a talk in which the agnostic knew far more than he did about the Bible. He was humiliated by his own ignorance and decided to learn as much as he could about the Bible, and set out to do tons of research on Biblical history, which really shows in the book (especially in a time when people pretty much played fast and loose with historical facts.)
His research turned into the novel, BEN-HUR, A TALE OF THE CHRIST, and it tells the story of Jesus from the point of view of a Jewish nobleman who falls afoul of the Roman Empire and who encounters Jesus when he is a prisoner on his way to certain death in a Roman galley. It started the fashion of books told from the point-of-view of a peripheral character, books like THE ROBE (from the point-of-view of one of the soldiers who gambled for Christ’s robe as he was dying on the Cross) and THE SILVER CHALICE (from the point-of-view of the Roman slave who made the cup used at the Last Supper) and eventually led to an onslaught of books and movies from somebody other than the main character’s point-of-view: the Wicked Witch of the East (WICKED), Elizabeth Bennet’s silly mother (MRS. BENNET HAS HER SAY), the Big Bad Wolf (THE TRUE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS), to say nothing of MALEFICENT and the upcoming CRUELLA. Nearly all of these are terrible, but occasionally somebody–like Tom Stoppard with ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD (from the point-of-view of the two lackeys charged with killing Hamlet but who end up murdered themselves–gets it right, and Ben-Hur is one of those times.
Using a peripheral character is a great way to tell a story that everybody has strong opinions about, and BEN-HUR’s obliqueness (and the powerful plot of betrayal and revenge and redemption) is the reason why it’s the best of all the Bible-themed movies, except for LIFE OF BRIAN (which also tells the story from a different angle) and GODSPELL (which sets the story in the hippie 1960s and adds musical numbers and tap-dancing.) Movies like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and SAMSON AND DELILAH and especially KING OF KINGS are virtually unwatchable, but BEN-HUR remains a really good movie, in spite of the nearly three-hour length and the on-the-nose dialogue (helped some by Gore Vidal’s and Christopher Fry’s work on the script.)
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Even though it kills me to say it, Charlton Heston does a really good job as Judah Ben-Hur, which is critical since he as to carry long stretches of the movie all by himself, and the movie tells a really moving story and has a killer ending. The chariot race–which is pretty spectacular–gets all the attention, and there’s a bloody sea battle, but the really powerful scenes are the personal ones, and some of the actors are wonderful–Hugh Griffiths as the Arab who races a team of horses named after stars–Rigel, Aldebaran, Altair, and Antares (which delighted my teen-aged science-fiction self) and Jack Hawkins as the only decent Roman in the bunch and Israeli actress Haya Harareet as Esther, who’s my favorite character and who, unlike in any other sword-
and-sandals Bible epic, is the smartest person in the room and the moral center of the movie. I cried at the ending, even though I knew what was coming, just as I cried at the end of the book, which pretty much tells you how I feel about it.
After we watched the 1959 BEN-HUR, we watched the 1925 silent version, which was not as good–the plot has some holes and Esther is unaccountably played by someone who looks exactly like Mary Pickford, blonde long curls and all–but I for one think the chariot race is better than the one in the 1959 movie. The rumor is that one of the cameramen was killed while filming it, and, watching it, that’s easy to believe.
Anyway, I recommend watching both–1959 first and then the silent–and I also recommend watching GODSPELL and LIFE OF BRIAN.
And, whatever you watch, have a happy Easter and a blessed Passover!
Connie Willis
