Kinematoscope

Man, I've been trying to work up the energy to write about 1959's epic Ben-Hur for the countdown project, but it hasn't been coming.

What's to say about a film that won 11 Oscars and is somehow all about Jesus while barely featuring Jesus? Stay tuned to find out how I muddle through it!

The Key Players:

Director William Wyler returns for the hat trick, star Charlton Heston makes appearance number two. His jaw remains squarely set.

In support are Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Haya Harareet, and Jack Hawkins.



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The Story:

It's been a couple months since I watched it, so it'll be more fun to see what I can remember without leaning on wikipedia:

Heston plays Judah Ben-Hur, a prince of the Jews (?), who returns home to Jerusalem. He's reunited with his sister, mother, and one faithful servant (who has a hot daughter named Esther).

He's also reunited with childhood friend Messala (Stephen Boyd), who is a Roman primed to take over governorship of the area. Messala wants Ben-Hur to spy for the romans and turn in Jews who don't like being ruled over and opressed and suchlike- Ben-Hur respects his friend but refuses to turn on his own people. He promises to counsel the Jews to avoid violent revolt, but Messala is not pleased.

The entire plot of the film is then set in motion by a falling roof tile- yeah, a teeny little roof tile. As Ben-Hur and his sister watch some Roman bigwig parade by, she accidentally knocks a tile right onto the guy, and the police come storming in to arrest everybody. Clearly this is all part of some devious, under-handed Jewish roof-tile-based revolution!

Messala, as chief of the guard or what have you, is in position to put a stop to all this, but dramatically refuses. Ben-Hur (after a brief escape attempt) is sent to work row on a slave ship, his family's fate unknown to him.

What follows is an improbable run from shirtless rower to adoptive Roman citizen to charioteer, involving a benevolent Roman luminary, and a hilarious shiek played by a scene-stealing Hugh Griffith. All the while Ben-Hur struggles with his desire for revenge, ignoring the pacifist teachings of some offscreen fellow named "Jebus" or something.

The Artistry:

Man, I can't even begin to imagine the scope of Ben-Hur. The extras! Imagine getting that many people together before the AI CGI extras that were developed for Lord Of The Rings. Or even the matte painting stormtroopers in Star Wars.

The chariot race, of course, stands out as an unrivaled piece of action film-making. Actual horses, actual chariots, an actual crowd- it's very authentic, to say the least.

I can't say I maintain any impression of Miklós Rózsa's score, other than that it was loud when the film was loud and quiet when the film was quiet. But I hear it's one of the greatest?

Charlton Heston does an admirable job- he's great at selling Ben-Hur's genuine struggle to reconcile his friendship with Messala with his people's pride at the beginning, and he remains compelling in the fall and rise of the character as the film goes on (and on).

The ending, which we'll get to, is a little more troublesome as he has to be entirely converted into a believer by a Christ figure played by an extra whose face is never seen.

But in many ways that's the best aspect of Ben-Hur (I would assume this is true of Lew Wallace's novel as well). The focus allows the movie to deal with the large theme of vengeance and peace without getting too heavy-handed, because the story of Ben-Hur is personal instead of allegorical.

Which isn't to say it's subtle, at all. Or short. Here's my question- what was the last film to have an actual intermission? One where, like in Ben-Hur, the word "INTERMISSION" actually appears on the screen and people get up to stretch their legs?

It seems like sacriledge to say Ben-Hur could be shorter, but some of the interpersonal drama once Ben-Hur returns and sees what's become of everybody is pretty slow...


THE ENDING! SPOILERS!

So once he finally returns to face down Messala in said badass chariot race, Ben-Hur discovers his former servant and his foxy daughter destitue but still devoted to him, and his mother and sister have supposedly died in prison.

In fact, they've both become lepers, which is apparently so shameful that they demand that Esther lie to him and say they've died.

In the race, Messala drives a chariot with spikes on the wheels and tries to destroy's Ben-Hur's chariot (he also has black horses to Ben-Hur's white horses). But he ends up crashing himself and is mortally trampled.

In a final act of douchery, he reveals to Ben-Hur that his mother and sister are lepers. Dun dun Dunnn! Enraged, he plans violent revolt at last, since Romans are as much responsible for their fate as Messala himself was.

Esther, however, tells him about the sermon on the mount, and convinces Ben-Hur that Jesus could heal his family. They're too late, however, and only arrive in time to see him carrying his own cross.

At this point, Ben-Hur recognizes Jesus as a stranger that once offered him water in his slave days, saving his life. He poignantly returns the favor before guards pull him away.

The crucifixtion brings the film to its climax as Ben-Hur hears Jesus ask for the people's forgiveness even as they kill him and realizes he's been a little revenge-obessed, and then a miracle occurs in which the blood of Christ, seemingly washed down into their cave in the rainwater, heals Ben-Hur's mother and sister completely. Bonus!

So all's well that ends well. Presumably all of the Jews would recognize Jesus as their savior and king on this earth and in the next realm, and these new, so-called "Christians" would never persecute anyone themselves.

END SPOILERS


Overall: Should It Be Higher, Lower?

We'll say it should stay right here, even though for all the production value I can't say I need to sit through it again.

The Legacy:

It won a record 11 Oscars, since tied by Titanic and The Return of the King- though it is the only one of the three to have any acting awards included, as Heston won Best Actor and the hilarious Hugh Griffith won Supporting Actor.

As such, it's on lists and in vaults and everything else required of a cultural touchstone- although the only homage to it I can think of is the car race from Grease with the spiked hubcaps.

The Best Video Of It On YouTube:

Chariot time!



Leftover Thoughts:

-The nativity story is briefly acted out as a prologue. Forgot to mention this.

-I feel like this film really gets to have its cake and eat it, because it preaches pacifism but also has Messala get trampled and all. The other Roman villains are mainly offscreen, though I think Pontus Pilate is around for the washing of the hands bit.



Coming Up...

155. The Manchurian Candidate

154. Avatar

153. Scarface

Whatup, folks? Next up is the original 1968 Planet Of The Apes, which to my shame I have actually never seen before. But I’m savvy to countless pop-culture references that spoil the ending, and I have inexplicably seen the Tim Burton remake.

The Key Players:

Our director is Franklin Schaffner, who mostly worked in TV before busting out with Apes, and winning the Best Director Oscar for future entrant Patton. The screenplay was written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, which explains why it feels like a double size Twilight Zone episode. They were working from the novel by Pierre Boulle.

In every scene of the film is Charlton Heston, who you may know as Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid, Robert Thornton (who found out what Soylent Green was), Marc Antony (three separate times!), or that crotchety old guy in Bowling For Columbine. He died on April 5 this year, and is a lock for the end of the “People We’ve Lost” montage at the Oscars.

Robert Gunner and Jeff Burton play Heston’s human companions, Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall are the apes most sympathetic to his cause, but the only other big part is Maurice Evans as the wise but ruthless Dr. Zauis.



The Story:

We open with Heston, the captain of a deep space mission (to where or what exactly we never find out) making a final captain's log before he goes into a deep sleep. Some recent theory suggests, he narrates, that traveling near the speed of light will cause centuries to pass on earth while they only experience six months (no mention of Einstein here, oddly. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of relativity as it relates to space travel since I saw Flight Of The Navigator as a young child. Because that movie is awesome: it has time travel, an adorable alien thing, and the voice of Pee Wee Herman. But I digress.)

Anyway, he takes a six month nap, only to awake to a ship crashed in a lake, one of his companions dead thanks to a cracked stasis chamber (the only lady astronaut, alas), apparently on some alien planet with little signs of life.

Until they find a jungle, and some mute human-appearing creatures that steal their clothes while our heroes are skinny dipping. They watch the simple-minded locals climb some trees, and speculate that at least they’ll rule the roost on this planet.

Cue the intelligent, superior race of apes, that come swooping in (on horseback?), kill one of our adventurers (the black guy-totally saw that coming) and capture Heston.

Then it turns into, essentially, a reverse Scopes Monkey Trial, as the apes argue about what the presence of a speaking human means. But nobody’s any match for Dr. Zauis, who occupies the unique position of both Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith in the ape community.

The Artisticness:

Given that references to this film mostly involve the campiness of certain screaming moments that we’ll get to later, I found it surprisingly moody and well, cinematic.

The first thing I noticed is a distinct 2001: A Space Odyssey influence, but then I looked it up to find that it was released… three days earlier? So scratch that. But there’s a definite Kubrickian pacing and use of extreme noise to portray the early crash-landing and desert sequences. Not to mention Jerry Goldsmith’s score, which pitched and groaned like "Peter and the Wolf" on LSD or something.

I appreciated the patience the movie had, to let us get to know Heston and co. before getting into the nitty gritty. He and Robert Gunner have an entire conversation about the reasons they’d sign up for a seven hundred year journey as they explore that I enjoyed- Heston’s character is the kind of cynical but inquisitive know-it-all that I recognize from the work of Robert Heinlein. All in all, it’s half an hour before we see our first ape.

The story-telling, while it gets a little heavy-handed in the reverse ape-man chicanery, is intelligent enough not to get too overly expository. And the level of dialogue puts most modern sci-fi to shame. This is, I suspect, perhaps a combination of Serling’s sense of erudite pondering (Heston says to himself at the beginning “Space is boundless- it squashes a man’s ego.”) and the Boulle’s novel (he’s also famous for The Bridge On The River Kwai).

Once you get your brain to stop asking questions about why the apes read, write, and speak English (Heston never seems to question this, much like on the original Star Trek), there’s plenty of fun in the “heresy” being discussed: Heston represents a “missing link” for some apes that theorize that apes “evolved” from man. It would be even funnier if this debate had gone away in the last forty-five years…

That said, it’s hard not to roll your eyes when the apes say things like “You know what they say- human see, human do,” or “I never met an ape I didn’t like.” Or at the moment when, when sitting in judgment during a tribunal, three apes strike the see/hear/speak no evil pose.

THE ENDING! SPOILERS!

OMG you guys it was Earth the whole time! You maniacs!

But seriously, in the trial of science v. religion, science loses (like it always does), and Heston is sentenced to be lobotomized. Sympathetic ape scientists bust him out, and they eventually end up finding incontrovertible proof of the earlier existence of intelligent men (including a heart valve and eye-glasses, but Heston doesn’t quite put the whole “Earth in the future” bit together at this point) and show it to Dr. Zauis, clearing the good apes of heresy.

Heston rides off (with his new, mute gal-pal), and Dr. Zauis then orders the proof of ancient cultures destroyed and the good apes arrested again (bummer). A young progressive-type ape exclaims in anguish “Why must knowledge stand still? What about the future?” To which he replies “I may have just saved it for you.”

Implicit in that teachings of the ape religion, apparently, are that they must avoid the warring, destructive nature of an advance, completely “civilized” culture. Hence the text of their 29th Sacred Scroll (Verse 6):

“Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.”

Anyway, Heston finally reaches the iconic ruins of the Statue Of Liberty, and has his famous hissy-fit at the folly of man’s past. After all the buildup, parodies of this scene had led me to imagine it would be way more over-the-top than it was.

END SPOILERS

Overall: Should It Be Higher, Lower?

I’d say higher, maybe, since it outdid any of my expectations, and has proved highly influential. It’s definitely not as campy as it’s made out to be, and it’s a heck of a lot better than the Mark Wahlberg version (man, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve said “it’s a heck of a lot better than the Mark Wahlberg version I’d have… fifteen cents, at least).

The Legacy:

Let’s see: it spawned four sequels and two television series, as well as countless pop-culture parodies/homages (well, they’re countable, but we’ll let Wikipedia do the work. My favorite, hands down, is the Simpsons where Troy McClure (who you may know from such self-help films as Smoke Yourself Thin! And Get Confident, Stupid!) revives his career by starring in the musical “Stop The Planet Of The Apes, I Want To Get Off!”).

And it’s even a visual precedent for things like the scene in Star Wars: A New Hope where the Jawas stalk R2D2 through the desert much as the primitive humans follow the astronauts soon after they land.

The Best Video Of It On YouTube:

Final scene, anybody? Watch this, and tell me if it's as extreme and over-acted as you've been led to believe. I feel like I've been short-shrifting Charlton Heston this whole time as a scenery chewer (though I've never seen Ben-Hur. Sacrilege, I know.). I mean, saw what you will about the guy, but he's not post-Scent Of A Woman Pacino in terms of pure salted ham.



Leftover Thoughts:

Difference from the novel #1: the apes speak a different language entirely, which the hero has to learn to prove his intelligence. Thank you. Although, while I thought it convenient that Heston has a convenient injury to his throat when initially captured, it provided a great buildup to the classic line “Get your paws off me, you damn dirty apes!”

Difference from the novel #2: (Spoilers) The planet of the apes is actually a different planet in the book, but the hero returns to earth proper to find that the exact same thing has happened, vis a vis apes being in charge and all (?). Boulle allegedly has claimed he wishes he thought of Serling’s ending. (End spoilers)

Speaking of which, I’d like to think that I’d have seen the ending coming if I didn’t already know it, but I guess I can’t claim that with complete impunity.

My favorite exchange: “I didn’t realize man could be monogamous.” Heston: “On this planet, it’s easy.”