Ben Hur and Spartacus

Slavery has been the subject to cinematic focus since the early days of cinema.  In 1913 the Italian Ernesto Pasquali characterised Spartacus with heroic qualities as he inspired his fellow slaves to revolt . In 1915 DW Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, with its dynamic quality of cinematic and cultural force, appeared at a crucial moment of the so-called Reconstruction protest in the history of the development of American institutions, and is one of the few examples of the development of modern constitutionalism being represented in visual culture providing a focus on the problems of race crucial to the Constitution as it explored issues of American citizenship and the segregatory legislation supporting the concept of the English colonists who felt compelled to create a cinematic narrative of racial inferiority to explain their enslavement of black African American labourers.

In the 1950s historical Roman epic films appropriated the ideological thematic themes of Christian versus paganism and totalitarianism versus freedom. However, whether the themes have a secular or religious (Judaic or Christian) backcloth, both emphasise individual freedom.  The films of the 1950s and early 1960s express post Second World War political and social resonance concerns of military and political tyranny .

Spartacus (1960) is concerned with the corrupting influence of power in ancient Roman’s political factions. It is the sober narrative of an appealing and charismatic hero’s tragic journey.  It is a breathtaking cinematic spectacle directed by Stanley Kubrick and produced by and starring Kirk Douglas as Spartacus the rebellious slave. The film was hailed as “the thinking man’s epic” (Newsweek, 1960).It was a huge box office success and won Academy Awards for the Best Supporting Actor (Peter Ustinov), colour cinematography, art direction and colour costume design and  won a Golden Globe as best picture. It is a secular narrative based on the historical novel of Howard Fast’s life of Spartacus and the Third Servile War, and is an anti-Mc Carthyite film with political resonance for the modern day. The thematic ideological message of totalitarianism versus freedom was the result of Howard Fast’s experience as a target of the anti-Communist campaign in Hollywood. Spartacus is characterised as the leader of the slave revolt 73-71 BC which almost brought down the Roman Empire. Spartacus became the hero of the organised left in the Soviet Union and Europe and Karl Marx call him “the most splendid fellow in the whole ancient history,” while the slain Spartacus became part of the mythology and martyrology of the soviet union. 

The central theme of Spartacus is the common narrative formula of epic Roman films of the subjection of oppressed chattel slaves, their voices of resistance and their uprising in pursuance of their innate longing for freedom and equality against the despotism of Rome and its decadent rulers in the dying days of the Republic. Its eternal fight against oppression has resonance for American audiences in the Cold War narrative of freedom versus tyranny, the struggle between totalitarianism and the free world (Murphy 2004: 10). Spartacus came to be seen as acutely relevant to the consolidation of  class struggle. Spartacus is an appealing hero to post-war American audiences as its narrative traces the tragic but heroic journey against the background of the spectacle of Rome, the corrupt oppressor, and its display of power, decadence and cruelty. American parallels between twentieth-century America and Roman civilisation .

The nineteenth century Italian novelist Raffaello Giovagnoli saw Spartacus as the forerunner of Garibaldi in his epic revolutionary novel Spartaco, which provided the basis for the first cinematic portrayals and characterisation to Spartacus produced during the First World War in Italy . 

 When Spartacus dies in battle his body cannot be recovered in the carnage of the battlefield hence thematically this renders him as a symbolic impetus “larger than any individual leader” (Journal of Film and Video 2004: 11)Spartacus is connected with heroes of the left such as Joe Hill though shot down can be found “were workingmen defend their rights.” he can also be a seen  affiliated to Tom Joad the hero fugitive of The Grapes of Wrath who states when bidding his mother farewell “I’ll be everywhere-wherever you look.  Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.  Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there” (Steinbeck 572). When Spartacus is forced by the evil Licinius Crassus (Laurence Olivier), the inhuman and evil Roman general, to kill Antoninus, to spare him from crucifixion, Spartacus tells Crassus, “He will come back and he will be millions.”

As Spartacus states to Antoninus explaining the revolution, “When just one man says ‘No, I won’t,’ Rome begins to fear.  And we were tens of thousands who said no-that was the wonder of it!”  The film is abouta revolutionary hero.

The film Spartacus opens with a voiceover establishing the narration: “In the last century before the birth of the new faith called Christianity, which was destined to overthrow the pagan tyranny of Rome, and bring about a new society, the Roman Republic stood at the very centre of the civilised world…yet even at the zenith of her pride and power, the Republic lay fatally stricken with the disease called slavery.  The age of the dictator was at hand, waiting in the shadows for the event to bring it forth.”

The film opens with Spartacus labouring in the salt mines of the Roman province of Libya, “dreaming the death of slavery,” thus anticipating a “new faith and the presumably democratic society it will engender.” The visual exposition of the excruciating suffering of the slaves in Death Valley, overseered by Roman guards and slave drivers, representing the formidable tyranny of the Roman Empire, belies the establishing narration about civilisation. This scene is resonance of the cinematic representation of the environmental landscape of slavery of the protagonist in William Wyler’s Ben Hur (1959), who after his unjust arrest and enslavement, is seen being driven, under the Roman whip, shackled and dehydrated, across the steering hot desert of barren landscape, under the scorching sun of a cloudless expansive sky to the slave galleys at Tyrus. The mounted Roman soldiers, representing the might of Rome, place their priority of animals over slaves, as seen in the centurions command, that the horses being watered first at the well in Bethlehem. In Ben Hur a collapsed slave is ruthlessly tossed into the bowels of the desert sandhill, while in Spartacus,Spartacus is ruthlessly beaten for his act of humanity in helping a collapsed slave and barraged by the Roman soldiers curse, “Get up Spartacus you brazen dog!” as he is kicked into the ground, his integral humanity and human gesture disregarded.

 Yet this very act of rebellion when brought to the attention of  Batiatus, his recognition of the unbroken spirit of Spartacus in an arena of Roman subjugations of chattel slave causes him to purchases him for his gladiator school.

 The struggle in Spartacus is for freedom against Roman power set out in the Republic and is an epic story conflict of tyranny and revolt, a struggle against oppression and slavery.

Historically the Spartacus slave rebellion fails, not ameliorating the situation of slaves in the Roman times and the filmatic necessity of rendering a hopeful message. The gladiators having escaped from Batiatus’s gladiators’ school, however, instead of dispersing into the countryside more imperceptibly to live as free men, stayed together, elected Spartacus as their leader of their slave resistance and set up camp on Mount Vesuvius. The community of rebel gladiators and slaves was organised alone democratic lines, each individual assigned and occupation to suit his talents.  These idyllic interludes of the camp domesticated and humanised Spartacus and his relationship with Varinia (Jean Simmons), a slave girl from Britannia, develops and her pregnancy, their embryonic child, provides the symbolism of hope for the future.

 This iconic resonance of the idyll is further illustrated by the visual differentiation between the Romans and in colour the senators wear bordered white togas which contrast with the brown wool cloaks single huge tunics and rough furs of the slaves of Spartacus’s army walking through the idyll of the rustic snowy or leafy landscape .

Despite settling for, awhile within the boundaries of Italy itself Spartacus’s ambition was to lead his army of freed slaves out of Italy and to return to their places of origin.Spartacus becomes a proto-Judeo- Christian narrative and Douglas consciously foregrounds the Zionist elements of Fast’s novel. He states in his autobiography Ragman’s Son, “I come from a race of slaves.  That would have been my family, me.” Kirk Douglas saw Spartacus as an opportunity of the Zionist statement similar to that in Otto Preminger’s Exodus (1960), with Spartacus a Moses/Christ figure leading his people to the Promised Land. Though the narrative has Old Testament resonance and symbolism, the crucifixion at the end of the film invokes Christian parallels .

In his final address to inhabitants of his settlement Spartacus says “I’d rather be a freeman among brothers, facing a long march and a hard fight, than to be the richest citizen of Rome, fat with food he didn’t work for and surrounded by slaves…As long as we live, we must stay true to ourselves.  I do know that we’re brothers, and I know that we’re free.” The slave army in Spartacus is a singular company of blood and nations but united first in their bondage and now in their freedom.

Spartacus stops an organised fight which the freed slaves were enforcing onto slave-owners seized along their march. Unlike the Romans with their disregard for human dignity or sanctity of human life, Spartacus states “I swore that if I ever got out of the [gladiator school] I’d die before I’d watch two men fight to the death again…..What are we becoming?  Romans?” As Spartacus declared to Batiatus while still enslaved, “I am not an animal.”

The Spartacus film states nothing of the previous slave revolts which historically might have inspired the gladiators, but rather gives only the hopes and fears that the name of Sparta will call forth in the future .

Spartacus says “I imagine the God of slaves…and I pray…for a son who will be born free.” Roman law did not give slaves the right to marry and gave the master rights of ownership over the children of slaves.  It is one of the visual representations of slave resistance in Spartacus to see the presence of children within the encampment snuggling closely within their parents’ embrace. It is the symbol of the universality of the bonds of family outside the bonds of slavery. When Spartacus is paired with Antoninus by Crassusto fight to the death and Spartacus swiftly kills him to spare him from crucifixion Antoninus states “I love you Spartacus as I love my own father” an anguished Spartacus responds “I love you, like my son are never see.” Though the slave resistance fails, the survival of Spartacus’s son offers a symbol of resistance and hope for the future. Yet Spartacus does see his son for Varinia, with the help of Gracchus and Batiatus escapes from Crassus’s villa and on the way out of Rome comes before her husband’s cross.  In the iconic posture of Madonna and child, and she holds up their newborn child, vowing to the dying Spartacus that his son will grow up as a free person, promising to tell him “Who his father was, and what he dreamed of.” This indicates a victory for Spartacus, through these words, the last he hears as he slumps dead on the cross which was unable to defeat his spirit. This is resonant of the opening titles which depict pictures of clenched fists, hands, and Roman faces visually and symbolically dissipating, cracking before our eyes.

Spartacus and Draba

Woody Strode, former Rams football star, had made a successful transition to Hollywood and is introduced as the monumental and noble black Ethiopian Draba. During the same year as Spartacus was released,1960, Strode appeared in John Ford’s reform western, Sergeant Rutledge, where he portrayed an African American soldier unjustly indicted for the rape and murder of a white girl. As Bogle (2001: 185, 186) states, Sergeant Rutledge “marked an important step in the evolution of racial consciousness.” This encroached upon the traditions of the early days of film productions where African American actors had been rigidly consigned to mythical characterisation.

 Strode, with his magnificent physique, plays the muscle bulging bare-chested fellow gladiator of Spartacus. Draba is the only black gladiator in the gladiatorial school and initially states that it is not wise to have friends amongst the fellow gladiators, “If we’re ever matched in the arena together, I’ll have to kill you.” This statement prepares for the inevitable when Spartacus and Draba are matched in a private combat and compelled to fight to the death for the entertainment of Crassus and his decadent guests, comfortably ensconced well above the arena of contest and danger, establishing a “divisive social space” between the physical dimensions of high and low and the social dimensions between free and slave (Davies 2000: 36).  At the end of their contest Draba is holding his trident at his Spartacus throat who we see in close-up bracing himself his death while the aristocratic heartless Romans screech tauntingly “Kill him!  Kill him, you imbecile!” The reverse angle close-ups on Draba’s face reveal to us his innate nobility: he is thinking of the inhumanity of what he has been forced into doing.

He refuses to kill his opponent, instead throwing his trident in fury at the heartless spectators in their elevated box and leaps to attack the Romans, but is speared by a Roman guard in his back and the kill is completed by Crassus, who slices the sinews between drapers his neck with a dagger. When Draba suddenly attacks the Romans, the greatest surprise is his jump upwards, a difficult leap, that connects the two worlds through violence. Draba’s corpse is hung upside down by the ankles like a carcass as an explicit warning to other slaves against rebellion: “He’ll hang there till he rots.”  A Draba’s sacrificial death renders the film a timely civil rights dimension, as he sacrifices his life rather than to kill. Draba’s death and dangling corpse condense the shameful history of slavery, lynching, and racial oppression in the United States and legitimates Spartacus’s revolt in terms of contemporary civil rights efforts. During their enforced slavery, the African-Americans had been excluded from cultural and political equality, while after Emancipation they were excluded politically and culturally from civil society by lynching, rioting, intimidation and the Ku Klux Klan .

Despite Draba’s refusal of friendship in the dehumanising arena of slavery, he displays greater nobility of spirit than any other gladiaton.He lost his life but gained his dignity. The impact of Draba sacrifice has provided the impetus and the spark within Spartacus for the gladiators’ revolt.

The relationship between the Spartacus and Draber compares with the relationship in Gladiator of that between Maximus and Juba, however the latter is portrayed unproblematically compared with the tension in Kubrick’s cinematic theme between Draber and Spartacus.  In Gladiator there is a theme of racism when Commodus declares with the intent resonance of Hitler’s megalomania Nazi eugenics that he intends to marry his sister, Lucilla, to produce an heir of pure blood so that Commodus and his progeny will rule for a thousand years. However this is an isolated case and a moral aberration.

Fast makes the Roman aristocrats and nobles are aimless, decadent, effete and vigorously impaired. Licinius Crassus  becomes obsessed with Spartacus, the annoyance turns to threat turned to unattainable myth “I ‘m not after glory, I’m after Spartacus and I mean to have him” he states after the final battle.  His homosexual attempt to possess Antoninus (Tony Curtis) the young Sicilian slave, was thwarted when Antoninus joins Spartacus “No man can withstand Rome.  No nation.  How much less…a boy?” Likewise his attempt to possess Spartacus’ woman, Varinia, failed, hence Crassus the Roman embodiment of patrician power was twice emasculating.

When Crassus tries to identify Spartacus he has met with solidarity with the mass declaration of “I am Spartacus.” Even Batiatus refuses to betray him. This is clearly an attack on McCarthyism. During the McCarthy hearings persecuted Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s looks to Spartacus as a moral and political symbol of justified defiance of governmental repressive ,authority .Kirk Douglas even took this defiance a step further in his determination to break the blacklist by giving Dalton Trumbo full screenwriting credit which, combined with Trumbo crediting of the scripting of Exodus by Otto Preminger, he succeeded in doing. Trumbo was a victim of the blacklist because of his defiance of the House of Un-American Activities Committee because of his refusing to testify. Trumbo delivered a script of great wit based on Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus (1951).Trumbo sought to identify Spartacus’s struggles with the contemporary resonance is of American politics of the 1950s.

 Howard Fast the author of the novel Spartacus (1951) upon which the Kubrick film is based was a Communist based on the Jeffersonians democracy and not the orthodox Marxist-Leninist.

Fast was unofficially blacklisted. He had previously honoured that heroism of the oppressed of American historical mythology from novels such as The Proud and the Free, Freedom Road and Tom Paine.  Despite his status as a best-selling author, no commercial publishing company would take a book by Fast, due to the negative influence of J. Edgar Hoover who was obliged to publish Spartacus independently. The novel became an immediate success. Despite its vast American modified left-wing perspective influences which enlighten Spartacus as a “counter-hegemonic discourse of the 1950s.”Fast (1990: 294) claims that reading Spartacus “became an act of defiance by people who live the climate of the times.” As Murphy (2004: 11) recognises the vast American modified left-wing perspective influences enlighten Spartacus as a “counter-hegemonic discourse of the 1950s.”Fast had served on the board of the Joint Anti Fascist Refugee Committee which raise funds for Spanish refugees and was amongst the eleven, a members of the committee found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to open their books to the HUAC.

 Music

In Spartacus Alex North’s music is unyielding, heavy on woodwind and brass, and even in the love scene in the cell oboe and coranglais were used rather than string instruments.

In Ben Hur Miklos Rozsa’s musical score and authenticity is an integral part of the film, using romantic, oriental and contemporary ecclesiastical ambience modes to recreate the fragrant melodies of the ancient extant music of the Greco- Romans, thus creating the resonance and atmosphere which seamlessly binds scenes , unifies sequences, support the action and emphasises the emotions of the protagonists.  

Ben Hur was concerned with contradictory and complex discourses of imperialism and notions of new American imperialism had spiritual resonances. it told the story of the fight of freedom against oppresson, an oppression of Roman tyranny.

Unlike Spartacus, Judah Ben Hur (Charlton Heston) begins the film’s narrative of Ben Hur  as a wealthy Jewish Prince, the head of Jerusalem’s most noble families, while Spartacus was the son of the slave and born into slavery, Ben Hur experiences a carefree youth which is cinematically enhanced by early scenes of comradeship ,where the problems of nationality were in material.His slavery is instigated when he is arrested after a tile is accidentally dislodged from the roof of his palace striking the Governor during his ceremonial arrival. Ben Hur is unfairly discredit, and betrayed by Messala (Stephen Boyd) a boyhood friend but also a Roman tribute and a symbol of Roman totalitarianism. Despite Messala knowing that he is innocent Judah is arrested and assigned to an almost certain death as a galley slave, while his mother and sister are imprisoned. Ben Hur’s determination for revenge against Mesella makes the relationship and driving force of the film.

Chained to a group of slaves, dehumanised and desperate, shackled, near death through dehydration Ben Huris driven through the desert by Roman soldiers shining in the gold of their uniform against the blazing sun, formidable in the cruelty and representing the might of the Roman Empire, the inhumanity of slavery could not be more stark.

Three years later Ben Hur still serves as an enslaved galley slave determined to wreak revenge on Messala, his revenge keeping him alive. But one day the Roman Consul Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins) arrives from Rome to inspect and prepare the ship for battle.  As he scrutinises the slaves, becomes cognisant of Ben Hur and test his strength against the whip and is impressed by is his self-assurance and anger. “We keep you alive to serve the ship.  So row well and live.” Testing the stamina and ability of the slaves at high speed Ben Hur withstands the trial.a bond of mutual respect is formed Arrius orders Judah’s legs to be unshackled, this enables Ben Hur to save the life of Arrius during an attack of the fleet by pirates .this enables the Roman general to know of the fleet’s victory and hence to ingratiate the relationship so that he is adopted by Arrius and becomes the champion charioteer of Rome and end his slavery..

Ben Hur’s enslavement as a galley slave as a representation of part of the Roman penal system, has provided a unique cultural impact in popular historical discourse.  As James (2001: 38) states “In reality, there was no legal basis for institutionalise galley slavery [within the] the Roman judicial system and its punishments.” He holds if such measures existed in time of crisis they would have been temporary and not part of the system of judicial punishment.

The relationship between Ben Hurand Mesalla is central in the cinematic narrative. The battle is finally played out in a Roman arena through the chariot race, a metaphor for male hostility, which ends in violence and unforgivingness and Mesilla’s death.

Ben Hur is motivated throughout the film by personal revenge but he triumphs finally because in the end he puts away his sword and clearly becomes a Christian. Other conflicts of the narrative are resolved with Mesilla’s death, his marriage to Esther, his childhood sweetheart, and his reunion with his mother and sister whose redemption from disease comes through Christian faith and salvation as Christ passes them on the way to Calvary. The film ends after the crucifixion with a message of redemption and renewal, Ben Hur declaring of Jesus,” He is not dead.  He would live forever in the hearts of men.”

 In Ben Hur William Wyler sought to articulate the theme of Jews fighting for their freedom but the film demonstrates the Zionist fervour of works like Spartacus or King of Kings from the same period”.however,there is an exception when Ben Hur leans over the dying body of Mesella and the light catches Ben Hur’s Star of David.  The fact that Sheik Ilderim (Hugh Griffith) requests Ben Hur to wear the emblem “to shine out for your people and my people together and blind the eyes of Rome” suggests a plea for Middle East solidarity rather than Zionism. Ben Hur had struggled between his emotional attachment to Arrius, symbolising Roman ideals and mammon, and his emotional attachment to Esther symbolising hearth and home and Judaeo-Christianity . 

The Rome of the historical cinematic epic stands for America with corruption at its heart and in its foundations and based on the inhumanity of slavery and whose citizens forego a civil society for the barbarianship. 

Roman epic films permit a framework of cinematic heroism of the struggle between the opposition, moral forces of morality, civilization and individual freedom against the moral corruption and oppression of Rome.  It is this pro- social function in the epic heroes depicted in their struggles against oppression and enslavement which engenders itself in the popular mythology of the Roman epic film genre.

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.

Ben Hur