Tagline: The World's Most Honored Motion Picture (more)
Plot Outline: When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge. (more)(view trailer)
User Comments:
Grand if allowed to be grand
(more)
Date: 19 August 1999 Summary: Grand if allowed to be grand
I second the comments of the fellow who said that `Ben-Hur' must be seen on
a big, wide screen. Note (for instance) a particular shot in that scene
near the end, where we see Miriam surrounded by darkness, staring in fear
out at nothing in particular. Wyler places her illuminated face at the
furthermost left of the screen, with nothing but black to the right: it's
very effective, especially after three hours of detailed panorama. On TV
this is just another dull close-up. By a hundred subtle transformations of
this kind is Wyler's breathtaking work turned into stodge.
This is particularly fatal because Ben-Hur had some tendency towards stodge
to begin with. The portentous reminders of the divinity of Christ (`He says
- he says he IS doing his father's work') are far too many and all of them
stage-bound - and what do they REALLY have to do with the story of Ben-Hur,
anyway? Even without the Christianity, Wyler leads us through each scene
rather as if the story were some kind of museum exhibit.
Only on the big screen does it emerge that this latter feature is a virtue
rather than a vice. After all - at least it's a museum exhibit we're
allowed time to contemplate. Had the film been made today we would have
been hustled through in half the time, a long queue of impatient patrons
behind us, none of us getting a good look at anything and all of us feeling
short-changed. You have to be prepared to wallow in order to properly
appreciate `Ben-Hur'; but if you ARE prepared to wallow, there IS something
worth wallowing in.
company.
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