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

We're getting very familiar with war at this point, but today we explore what happens afterward for the first time in the postwar classic The Best Years Of Our Lives.

A Best Picture winner (and six other Oscars besides), it was the hugest success since Gone With The Wind back in 1946 (we're talking like Shrek-level money). Will it live up to the hype? And at a staggering 2:42 in length, will I stay awake the whole time?

The Key Players:

When William Wyler isn't making romantic comedies, he makes really long epic-type movies.

The film focuses on three soldiers, played by Frederic March, a multiple Tony and Oscar winner (A Star Is Born, Inherit The Wind); Dana Andrews (Laura, The Ox-Bow Incident); and Harold Russell, who never any other major roles for reasons soon apparent.

In support are screen legend Myrna Loy and Teresa Wright, once again playing a small-town sweetheart.



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The Story:

Three GIs return home to Boone City, a midwestern town in an unamed (I think?) state. Al (March) is a middle aged sergeant returning to a life as a banking executive with a family. Fred (Andrews) is a younger soda fountain clerk who had just married when he shipped off. And Homer (Russell) is a pink-faced sailor who unfortunately lost both hands in an explosion at sea, though he's handy as all get out with the hook protheses that replaced them- Harold Russell was a real-life veteran amputee, a non-professional actor that lost them in a training accident.

There are some joyous but awkward reunions to start: Al's family, including his wife Millie (Loy) and grown daughter Peggy (Wright) are overjoyed to see him, but he's edgy and decides to take them out on the town. Fred can't find his wife, who's found work at a nightclub downtown. Homer's family and young fiance are happy to see him, but have trouble treating him regularly- either staring at his prothetics are obviously avoiding looking.

Fred runs into Al and co. out on the town (Boone City somehow has a remarkably happening nightlife), and both soldiers end up so plastered that Millie and Peggy take them home and put them to bed. In the morning Peggy makes Fred breakfast and gives him a ride the work, the two seeming to get along well.

Al goes back to work, but approves a risky loan for a fellow veteran to his boss's chagrin. Later he gives a rousing, half-drunk speech at a dinner in his honor about the future of the country and his willingness to bet on it (or something). It's a small wonder he doesn't get fired.

Fred meanwhile, is falling for Peggy they share a chaste kiss, but her father and Fred's conscience intervene to call it off- even though Fred's wife is a shrill, materialistic woman that he realizes he hardly knows.

And Homer starts to push Wilma away in self-pity and despair. Fred gets fired from his reclaimed soda-fountain job, and Al starts drinking all the time. What's a soldier to do?


The Artistry:

I have to say, I started the film, and a little later checked the length- 2:42! What? No way could I watch it all in one sitting.

Or so I thought. Afer a slow first hour or so, the mechanics of The Best Years Of Our Lives really picks up, owing especially to the love triangle and Russell's strong performance- one the Academy saw fit to reward with an honorary Oscar, even though he was up for Best Supporting Actor.

The chemisty between Wright and Andrews might have been my favorite part- it's one of those rushed romances that might be hard to buy (like when boring detective guy falls for her in Shadow Of A Doubt), but their energy together sold it for me. And the film doesn't go out of its way to paint his wife as a shrew- he forces her to stop working, so her complaints about his lack of income are pretty legit. They're just not right for each other. The moment when Wright tells her parents "I'm going to break that marriage up!" I totally pumped my fist- that seems like a bold thing to get an audience to root for in 1946 after all. Consider the deathly seriousness that A Brief Encounter treated the very idea of infidelity with a year earlier.

March and Loy have a fittingly complex relationship, but you can see why they'd love each other- there's a great scene where they explain to their daughter how much loving someone can be a struggle when she claims they've had it easy all their lives.

And I have to mention Gregg Toland's cinematography- there's a standout scene near the end when Andrews relives flying in a bomber that simulates a takeoff with camera-movement that stands out- though Hugo Friedhofer's score helps immensely- when it's not being typically 40's bombastic.

THE ENDING! SPOILERS!

Al keeps drinking, but measuredly- Wilma gets it through Homer's think skull that she loves him no matter what, and Fred's wife up and divorces him.

He runs into Peggy at Homer's wedding, and it ends with a kiss. Aw.

END SPOILERS


Overall: Should It Be Higher, Lower?

Higher. Not emphatically, but I liked it a lot more than I would've guessed. It's not an extensive psychodrama (PTSD wasn't a commonly accepted disorder until post-Vietnam), but it has elements of that "never the same again" feeling (I think the title is supposed to be ironic), and it's a compelling drama on its own.

The Legacy:

Seven Oscars: Picture, Director, Editing, Score, Screenplay, Actor (for March) and Supporting Actor for Russell- who with the honorary took home two for the same role. Also NFR, AFI, and so on, not to mention box office reciepts that would be plus $400 million in today's money.

The Best Video Of It On YouTube:

"I've made up my mind."
"To do what?"
"...I'm going to break that marriage up!"



Leftover Thoughts:

-Not clear to me why Virginia Mayo (Andrews' characters' wife) is on the poster despite being the smallest role in the ensemble.

Coming Up...

Tue, June 1st: 187. The Exorcist

Fri, June 4th: 186. Kind Hearts and Coronets

Tue, June 8th: 185. Children Of Men

So I missed some time. Maybe I just wanted to roll over in bed and petulantly shirk away my duties like some sort of princess or something. You can all have your money back, I promise. Anyway, let’s get to 1953’s Roman Holiday.

The Key Players:

Our director: William Wyler, thrice an Oscar winner and helmer of similar romantic classics like Funny Girl and How To Steal A Million, and then also Ben-Hur. What?

Our screenwriter- Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood ten blacklisted for supposed communists sympathies. This screenplay actually won an Oscar, but Trumbo’s widow didn’t get it on his behalf until 1993. Good thing Hollywood is completely devoid of prejudice these days, right?

And of course this is Audrey Hepburn’s big coming out party. Do I need to write some sentences about who Audrey Hepburn is? Or Gregory Peck, for that matter? I say no, no I don’t.

A supporting role for the city of Rome in this one- allegedly the decision to shoot in black and white was made so the stars weren’t overshadowed by the background vistas.



The Story:

Pretty simple: Hepburn is a princess (of somewhere that isn’t Italy) visiting Rome, Peck is an American journalist (like all the real journalists are).

Hepburn, weary of her life of constant public appearances and functions and royal oppression, has a pseudo-panic attack, and so her handlers give her a shot and put her to bed. Then she decides to escape for a night on the town, only to start falling asleep on the sidewalk from the drugs.

Enter reluctant savior Peck, who eventually realizes who she is, and that a story about her highness with her feathers down would sell some newspapers- hence a plan is born.

But wait- what’s that in the air? Is it love? Is it pizza? Nope, probably love.

The Artisticness:

For a Hollywood just emerging from the studio system, I imagine the great appeal of Roman Holiday was the novelty of location shooting- who wouldn’t prefer the palaces and alleyways of Rome to the same fake snow and dance halls that you saw in the last twenty Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies?

And to Wyler’s credit, he uses the location well- letting the first third of the film unfold slowly as Hepburn sleepily makes her escape.

Hepburn and Peck don’t overplay the romance either, at least not until late in the game. But even then, the plot doesn’t approach anything ridiculous or contrived.

THE ENDING! SPOILERS!

So I think the best part of the movie, and maybe it’s just from the fifties, is that Hepburn and Peck don’t have a torrid affair or anything, they just realize they really care for each other after only a couple of days, and then get sad when she has to return to her princessy duties. And it's not to be chaste or anything, just that anything more would be ridiculous for the time frame (but you can fall in love with Natalie Portman in four days. Just getting that straight).

So there is a tearful goodbye, but otherwise it’s light on melodrama, which is nice. In fact, it’s kind of amazing to me that a film this laid back in scope could be nominated for so many Academy awards and win three of them (Hepburn, screenplay, and… costume design? Okay…).

No romantic comedy about a little two day jaunt through Italy would ever get a Best Picture nomination these days, which is a shame.

END SPOILERS


Overall- Should It Be Higher, Lower?

Man, I’m really blowing though this entry, aren’t I? They won’t all be 1400+ words, I guess. But really, I liked this film, and I’m glad I finally saw it for historical purposes, but I don’t see a particular need to see it again.

So let’s say 243 is just right, who knows? Maybe I’d watch it if I felt like going to Rome.

The Legacy

Clearly, Hepburn went on to a long and storied career, mostly as a princess-like character in other things. She never did win another little golden statue, though, not even for acting like a blind person.

Peck was actually top-billed for this film but has been overshadowed by his costar in hindsight, and is mostly remembered for being semi-creepily sixteen years older than Hepburn’s 22 years when this was filmed. He won an Oscar much later for killing a mockingbird, or something.

Roman Holiday, for it’s part, has become one of the many films selected for the US National Film Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." But I won’t be buying a copy. Maybe as a gift…

The Best Video Of It On YouTube:

Gregory Peck with the good old Ancient-Statue-Bites-Off-Hand bit. And I know this is because I’m familiar with Peck’s later work as a wise older gentleman and not his early work taking roles Cary Grant turned down (as this role was), but it’s scenes like this that get a little too “kindly old grandpa” to overcome the age difference.



Leftover Thoughts:

• Eddie Albert does have some fun slapstick scenes where Peck spills things on him to keep him quiet. There’s some other fun screwball moments, but not enough to watch this again.
• I thought I missed the country Hepburn’s “Princess Ann” is from in the opening newsreel, but it’s actually never named, and not really important. The point is in her country no one has any fun, which is why she needs an American journalist to show her how.
• This was however, a huge step up from Network. Gah.
• The trailer up there informs us that "all the things happen to them that you'd always hope for on the happiest day of your life!" So don't feel bad about your miserable existence, John Q. Moviegoer, just escape to Rome and forget it.