Ben Hur (1959):Religious Hero

Ben Hur (1959): Scences 17 and 18.

The film Ben Hur (1959) is contextualised around the conflicting values and ideological conflicts between Imperial Rome and its Christian contemporaries. The story intercuts the narrative story of Ben Hur with episodes from the life of Christ, such as the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, the Trial, the Crucifixion and Resurrection . This establishes Christ as the oppositional challenge and motivational force against the corrupt totalitarian dominance of a pagan Rome. I am looking at the scenes 17, particularly 18.

Ben Hur is being driven through Nazareth, passing the home of Jesus, as part of a chain gang on his way to a lifetime as a Roman galley slave. 

 The Roman centurion issues the cruel mantra “no water for him!”and dashes the gourd from the desperate hands of the dehydrated Ben Hur.




"No water for him"

 

 As Judah collapses on the scorching dusty ground, calling to God in anguish, Jesus, in a deeply symbolic religious moment of the film’s narrative, defies the Roman soldier in order to give Ben Hur the life-giving water. This empowers Judah with transformational restorative faith to overcome his circumstance.

Christianity

A conventional film engendered with religious heroes has identifiable values, images and sounds. The Western Christian tradition in religious films such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004), show the extraordinary popularity and controversy generated by such religious films. The audiences in the United States of America reflect this interest and the message reinforced by religious schools, organisation and churches, who see these as interpretations of the Bible and primary sources of information concerning the origins of Judaeo-Christian values.(Grace 2009:2, 3). Between 1950 and 1965 more films of feature length based on the Bible and the history of Roman Empire were produced by Hollywood than in any other time period of film history.  This was due to the emergence of television during the 50s which diminished cinema audience figures and hence Hollywood responded by producing spectacular and lavish re-creation as of historical nature particularly placing its context in the ancient world. These thematic productions were enhanced by innovations of technology in screen size and colour the monopolistic Technicolour was enhanced by Warnercolour,De Luxe colour, tricolour and Eastman colour.  The standard screen size was expanded to cinemascope, Cinerama, techniscope, Warnerscope and beyond (Richards 2008: 53).  Though critics were disdainful of the ancient world epics nevertheless the masses endorsed them with their audience figures including Ben Hur .audiences were enticed by spectacle of exotic locations, extravagant and spectacular sets and costumes and actions including chariots races, battles and gladiatorial combats.

Ben Hur: History

The novel, Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ was written, in 1880 in Crawfordsville, Indiana, by General Lew Wallace, a flamboyant hero of the American Civil War, and later the Governor of the Territory of New Mexico. There is a statue of General Wallace in the Hall of Statuary at the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. Though Wallace had never visited the Holy Land and could have written of his adventures on the battlefields he chose to focus upon the turbulence history of the pagan Roman Empire, the years between the birth of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion. Wallace book became a bestseller with positive responses from schools and churches and church communities.  In November 1899 Wallace permitted the first staging of Ben Hur and was well staged the chariot race even been played on treadmills.  It was an enormous success and received with frenzied response, touring hundred of American cities.

When cinema emerged replacing stage productions as popular entertainment for the masses it turned to the ancient world of biblical history, classical mythology and ancient history .The production of the first Ben Hur, the 1907 fifteen- minute one- real film exemplified a powerful continuity between the stage of the nineteenth century and the twentieth century screen productions. The spectacular silent film which cost $4 million to produce was directed by Fred Niblo who had a cast of 125,000and starred Ramon Novarro and Francis Bushman. The 1926 silent version of Ben Hur, directed by Fred Niblo, follows very precisely on Wallace’s novel and was critically acclaimed for its limits of cinematic brilliance.

The 1959 production of Ben Hur: A Tale of Christ is a three and a half hour, Technicolor, widescreen, MGM, epic blockbuster and ranks as one of the most successfully claimed Hollywood films. It was directed by William Wyler and a remake of the MGM’s 1925 silent production of Ben Hur where Wyler had been an “extras” director. The 1959 production of Ben Hur past $15 million to produce and employed over 15,000 extras. Charlton Heston played the title role for which he won an Oscar, in fact the film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Musical Score.  The film was shot on location in Israel and in Italy.  Interestingly though the film narrative and the ethnohistorical narrative places the interaction between Ben Hur and Jesus in Nazareth in the DVD 2005 film commentary, shared with and presumably endorsed by Charlton Heston, film historian T. Gene Hatcher states this film sequence was filmed in Bethlehem.

Comparison with Ben Hur 1927

.As Richard (2008: 46) states the 1926 version of the film Ben Hur is a more grim and gruesome representation of the revocation of the tyranny of Rome and the inhumanity of the human race.

Everson (1978: 293) holds the 1927 film to be far superior to the 1959 remake, though it had a weakness in construction, placing of the two main sequences, the full-scale sea battle and the superbly staged chariot race, in the middle third of the film leaving nothing to anticipate in the final third of the film, save for the visit of Ben Hur to the leprosy colony. He particularly disdains the “ineptly amateurish miniatures used in the sea battle” and maintains that the chariot race, full of brilliantly executed stunts, is the saving grace of the 1959 film.The1959 sea battle was shot with models in a studio tank while the 1926 sea battle is more convincing being shot with real ships (Richards 2008: 46). The 1926 chariot race is recreated in the 1959 race with several identical set-ups with the central spina of the arena clearly emulating its 1926 predecessor.  But as Richards (2008: 46) states “Both remain among cinema’s greatest action highlights.” The Morsberger et al (1980: 495), Lew Wallace’s biographers, holds that “Wyler’s is better in human terms and Niblo’s in visual cinema…As pure cinema, silent film superior…..while the 1959 film lacks any special period distinction, silent film is both more sense of the ancient world and the flavour of the 1920s.”They commended the1929 film for its “visual pageantry.”

The 1959 Ben Hur,as other epics, was created against America’s political discourse of the Cold War and the anti-Communist McCarthy witch-hunt, provided analogies between the repressive barbarism of the Roman Empire and the political discourse of internal repression within the United States (Wyke1997: 23). Wyke (1997: 143) states biblical epics “became privileged sites for the Hollywood film industry to display and give scriptural authority to the ideology of America’s Cold War.” As Crowther (1959) points out the story of Ben Hur has contemporary and future concerns because of religious and political differences and conflicts which generate tyranny and persecution and give the old story as modern significance, with the spiritual message which Jesus propagated and the ideal message of the unity of mankind.

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston who played the part of Ben Hur is mainly associated with epic roles and played positive heroes such as Moses, El Cid, and Ben Hur.Richards (2008: 45) holds that Ramon Navarro made a more believable youthful17-year-old Ben Hur than Charlton Heston in the 1925 production and that the chariot race with 12 chariot and 48 horses and the sea battle shot with full-scale triremes were as spectacular as anything in the 1959 production. Mourlet (1960) states “Charlton Heston is an axiom…his presence in any film being enough to instil beauty.  The pent-up violence expressed by the sombre phosphorescence of his eyes, his eagle’s profile, the imperious arch of his eyebrows, the hard, bitter curve of his lips, the stupendous strength of his torso…through him, mise en scène can confront the most intense of conflicts and settle them with the contempt of a god imprisoned, quivering with muted rage.”

Ben Hur

Ben Hur displays the decadence, splendour and grandeur of the ancient Rome, with its corrupting Imperial arrogance and wealth, while it also creates a romantic vision of Christianity and its birth. the two juxtaposing when the ionic hero Jesus Christ defies the brute cruelty of the Roman military tyrants escorting the chain gang of slaves through Bethlehem on their way to a lifetime of slavery at the Roman oars, a mere tog in the Roman military machine, by giving Ben Hur, the hero, life-saving water. In real life of course this did not take place because Ben Hur is a fictional but also an inspirational character hence there can be no ethnohistorical or biblical evidence of such an interaction. However, in order to synchronise with the pious orientation of the audience, it is deeply important to establish the religious symbolism of the film narrative with the visual symbolic defeat of the evil of Roman personified in the Roman soldier issuing the cruel mantra “No water for him!”

The importance of favouring the Christian tradition and its ideal in the narrative is to maintain and reinforce the value system against that of pagan Rome. When Jesus performed miracles it was to justify the piety and authenticity of Christ’s message against sceptics, as when Ben Hur’s mother and sister, Miriam and Tizaha, are cured of leprosy by the healing waters of rain mixed with the blood from the crucifixion. A new faith destined to overthrow the tyranny of Rome is established, a new Christian society of freedom and tolerance.

The Roman epics explored the themes of liberty and tyranny. As Wiseman (2005: 43 states, the orthodox perception of Rome was as “The despotic enemy of Christianity.” The opening voice-over of Quo Vadis (1951) states, “That any force on earth can shake the foundations of this pyramid of power and corruption, of human misery and slavery, seems inconceivable.” But a miracle occurred, Jesus Christ appeared to spread the gospel of redemption and love.” Ben Hur’s contextualising is within the conflicting ideological values between Imperial Rome and its Christian contemporaries. 

The scene is well integrated, evoking the busyness and the density of a slave chain gang being driven through the desert to their destiny in the galley ships. This scene is truly a morally spectacular scene and is important because it is here we are introduced to Jesus as a man of compassion and defiant courage against tyranny and the first scene where Ben Hur’s life touches that of the Christ’s.  It shows Jesus as a formidable religious entity and leader. It is here that he inspires an intense response from Ben Hur while at the same time instilling a response of inaction in the Roman soldier as he propagates his mantra “No water for him!” Jesus also shows his power to impress others. We only see the back of Jesus’ as he asserts a high moral attitude as he contests against the inhumanity of the tyrant Roman soldier, whose face contorts awkwardly and unmasks as he eventually turns away leaving Jesus once again to tend to Judah.
The camera, music and acting lure the audience into believing there is something truly astonishingly powerful hidden from our view in the face of Christ who becomes established as the oppositional challenge and motivational force against the corrupt totalitarian dominance of a pagan Rome and demonstrates the power of the redemptive power of Christian ideology. It is through this action, reinforced by Ben Hurs awed response, which we see on camera, which reinforces the audiences’ allegiance to the Christian ideology.  Ben Hur dehydrated and near to death, falling to the ground, blazed by the sun, brutalised by his circumstance and the tyranny of the Roman machine calls on God and at this point the narrative responds with the appearance of Christ as Saviour.

While in the film both spectacle and narrative are important, at this stage the action integration seamlessly into the narrative.

There are the two plots in Ben Hur ,one centres on the personal story of Ben Hur’s and his family and his quest for vengeance against Messala, which  story intercuts with episodes from the life of Christ, such as the Nativity, the Sermon on the Mount, Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, the Trial, the Crucifixion and Resurrection. This narrative path establishes Christ as the oppositional challenge and motivational force against the corrupt totalitarian dominance of a pagan Rome (Richards 2008: 45).

The acting gives us a feeling of direct engagement as the passing of the gourd to Ben Hur enables the spectator to feel the potentiality of this new moral faith. This sequence of action functions as a pivotal transitional moment in the film’s narrative. The giving of water to Ben Hur by Jesus Christ inspires him with hope and redemption.  When Arrius leaves him unchained during the fight scene Ben Hur states “Once before a man helped me.” When Ben Hur is were rescued from the sea by Roman galley and Arrius hands him water to drink, water is again symbolic.

Wyler recreates the landscape environment with accurate representations. Ben Hur is an epic story and its widescreen landscapes are psychologically appropriate for its epic quality. The landscape is revealed by a display of cinematic technology that places the audience alongside the protagonist. The Roman soldiers are on horseback representing the formidable might of the Roman Empire.  The blazing sun scorching down on the shackled enslaved chain gang, trudging, near death against  excruciating thirst and the tyranny of the Roman whip, a collapsed possibly dead slave tossed ruthlessly into the bowels of a desert sand hill. The scene feels absolutely real in the interpretation of events and evokes real emotion. The classical music is of full orchestration, deeply strident with brass and keeps time with the trudging feet of the slaves. Miklos Rozsa’s score arouses an emotional response in the audience viewer- listeners of the martial dehumanising might of Rome and the hopelessness and despair of the slaves who had driven through this pitiless desert, their feet blooded, their hands bound and chained .These initial desert scenes across a wild landscape and a wide expansive sky were filmed before Charlton Heston was chosen to play Ben Hur and hence the slave chain gang is filmed without his presence and all in the gang are short in stature.  The film production crew had to leave the country at short notice when the Libyan government discovered that the film was primarily about Christianity and hence moved to Israel where the government had given consent for the filming of the desert scenes.

The next scene is shot in the little village of Bethlehem in Israel and is materialistically crucial to the film’s narrative. It  is considered by film historian T. Gene Hatcher to be one of the best of film, as he states in his in the DVD 2005 commentary, “This is a very good the scene, one of the best.” It is the first time we see Jesus Christ in the film, however, we never see his face, which, as Hatcher states, was one of the adamantine insistencies of the director, William Wyler. Jesus never speaks a word, but Wyler understood the effect which he would have, would be unmistakably seen on the face of the Roman centurion and of Ben Hur.

As the motley procession of straggerling prisoners and soldiers on horseback enter the village we see them through the woodened framed window of a stone house, creating a framed and moving scene from the interior of the building and, as the group go past, the inhabitant is the spectator watching the scene, just as we, the watching audience are, however, we do not know it is Jesus, but just someone watching from the wooden slated shutters. There is a wooden bucket on the sill, perhaps with the symbolism of water. We hear the thematic sounds of a saw, a flickering shadow moving to its rhythm. This is clearly a carpenter’s workshop. We see a hand, and a sleeve which is rolled up. The camera moves to the framing of the door and the man puts down his saw, which we see with its wooden frame. He leans on a table which is covered with workman’s tools. This is clearly a carpenter’s workshop and the man a carpenter. We are beginning to see the clue to his historical and biblical origins. This is reinforced by reverential classical music, the orchestration of which is accompanying these revelations. Miklos Rozsa’s musical authenticity synthesis with the costumes, architecture and ancient armaments to arouse a pious emotional response from the audience of viewer listeners and, in this scene, it creates a realistic historical illusion of the ancient setting at the heart of Christian religion. Rozsa transcends the contemporary ecclesiastical, romantic, oriental, ambience modes endeavouring to recreate the authentic ancient music of the Greco-Romans by adapting and synthesising melodies fragments of their ancient extant music. He was assigned to score the music for Ben Hur for which he deservedly won an Academy Award and set a standard by his achievements in both Ben Hur and also in Quo Vadis for the epic genre for the next decade for filmmakers striving for classical and historical authenticity (Solomon 2001: 326-328).

The carpenter moves towards the frame of the door, transfixed by the mounting disturbance, a few feet from his home, around the village well. The gentle village atmosphere which is reflected in the calm quiet tidiness of the villagers in their homes and environment is shattered by the moans of the blooded cowering slaves as they are beaten from their desperate struggle at the well, the shouts of the centurions saying “no water for them!” and visual chaotic tragedy and cruelty that besets the scene. The Roman soldiers, before the very home and eyes of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, display their pagan tyranny and the formidable might of the Roman military machine, putting the value of slaves below that of their horses, as they demand the horses be watered first.

This is the first time we see Jesus and we never see his face, which as Hatcher (2005) states, was something William Wyler was right to insistent upon and follows the tradition in other such epics where Jesus’ face is also not shown.  On the Sermon on the Mount we see him deliver his preaching from his back and this is also the position when he is confronting Pontius Pilate during the interrogation scene of his trial while the scene of the crucifixion is perceived from a great distance.  On two occasions the film powerfully witnesses to interactions between Ben Hur and Jesus Christ. Henry Harrington saw and heard Claude Heater performing in an opera in Rome and it rightly believed that he had potentiality to look like the traditional nineteenth-century illustration of Jesus Christ.  In fact Heater was from California and did not perform in any further film, but rather had an unsuccessful attempt at political career in the United States. However, there is no doubt that he was appropriate for this role in Ben Hur.

The camera focuses from outside in the courtyard and pans along as they are waiting their turn water. When it is Ben Hur’s, for no reason that has been made clear, the centurion knocks the gourd out of his hands and says "No water for him!” which becomes a mantra throughout the rest of the scene. It is a wonderful scene. This is the first of two occasions where the film powerfully witnesses the interactions between Ben Hur and Jesus Christ. In this first exchange Ben Hur collapses near Jesus’ home after the Roman soldier cruelly excludes Ben Hur from being allowed to drink water. After the soldiers and the horses have finished drinking, they allow all the prisoners to drink with the exception of Ben Hur who tries desperately to catch water as the Centurion deliberately drinks in front of him, then he collapses totally defeated and in despair on the dusty road, his hands bound and blooded, calling God to help him. In one of the great moments of Christian love of the film, Jesus quietly reaches towards Judah with a gourd of water, pours it over Judah’s face which he gently caresses.

The prisoner and gulps the water down gratefully. When the Centurion walks threateningly towards Jesus with his mantra “No water for him” we only see the back of Jesus’ as he asserts a high moral attitude as he is willing to contest against the Roman soldier, whose face contorts awkwardly and unmasks as he eventually turns away leaving Jesus once again to reach out Judah.

 The camera and acting lure the audience into believing there is something truly astonishing hidden from our view in the face of Christ. Judah gulps down more water, and then looks in awe at his saviour, of whom we only see the hand, which Ben Hur grasps, again we do not see Jesus’ face.

According to Gene Hatcher in the DVD 2005 commentary, Wyler delayed shooting of the scene for three hours in order to ensure the Centurion who plays in this scene came from Rome after the production team decided against his attendance because of cost. As Hatcher states this was a good decision.

Water has great symbolism and is a significant element in the film. The second interaction between Ben Hur and Jesus occurs as Jesus carries the cross on the way to Calvary to his crucifixion and as he stumbles near Ben Hur, who is near extends a gourd of water to man who rendered him the same humanity.

This water is of course in the ocean scene, and when Judah and Arrius are rescued by the Roman fleet Arrius hands Ben Hur, who has just saved his life, thus enabling him to know the fleet’s victory, him a cup of water before he drinks himself.

According to Hatcher (2005), William Wyler made Heston do several takes of the drinking scene in the village, because he held that “Heston was not thirsty enough, did not drink enough.”

As the slaves move on we see cameras it moves in close, its shadow moving across the back of Jesus .Because of the gift of water by Jesus, Ben Hur’s energy is restored, he is prepared to endure the extremes of suffering in the hope of being reunited with his mother and his sister. Though he is still in shackles Ben Hur is no the abject victim of his circumstance.

However Ben Hur is still motivated by personal revenge and he triumphs because in the end he puts away his sword and clearly becomes a Christian. Other conflicts are resolved with the death of Mesella, his marriage to his childhood sweetheart, Esther, and the redemption from disease of his mother and his sister.