Sacred Cinema
Part III: The Triumph of the Intimate Epic
Celebrated by critics as “the zenith of the Hollywood epic cycle,” the 1959 version of Ben-Hur is, indeed, as Monica Cyrino puts it, “a cinematic triumph, in the compelling performances of the actors, the stylish simplicity of its script, the refined art direction, and the exceptionally powerful music. The film is both passionate and reserved, with thrilling action sequences and spectacular sets, yet it is distinguished by intelligent, evocative dialogue and radiant visual symbolism.” [5]*
The Best Picture of 1959 won 11 Oscars, a record that has been tied by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but never beaten, and neither of those films took home any Oscars in the acting categories. Charlton Heston won the Best Actor Oscar in the title role, and Hugh Griffith received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in his role as Sheik Ilderim. Wyler, who was an assistant director on the 1925 silent version of Ben-Hur, won his third Oscar in the Best Director category, and the film was also honored for its cinematography, film editing, art direction, set decoration, sound, special effects, and its glorious score, composed by Miklos Rozsa. It might have won 12 Oscars if Wyler hadn’t launched an ad campaign in Variety in which he publicly praised the script contributions of playwright Christopher Fry, even though Karl Tunberg was given sole screenwriting credit. Even Gore Vidal made a key contribution to the script. These controversies no doubt had a cooling effect on Academy voters, who awarded the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay to Room at the Top.
A Music Score for the Ages
Though every Oscar that the film received was well deserved, in my opinion, I hold a special place in my heart for the Rozsa score. I didn’t get to see Ben-Hur until 1969 when it was re-released in all its 70 mm glory for its tenth anniversary run at the Palace Theatre in New York City. Walking into that immense, majestic theater at the age of 9, seeing that famous wall portrait of Judy Garland, who had recently died, I settled into my seat, not quite realizing the depth of the cinematic moments I was about to experience. But I recognized the first three notes of the Overture instantly. Throughout the 1960s, I had listened countless times to the film’s soundtrack, a staple on our Victrola. I fell in love with every aspect of Rozsa’s score. Finally, I was able to integrate Rozsa’s music with the remarkable images on screen.
I have often wondered if the score penetrated my consciousness even before I was born. Given that my mother saw the film in theaters during its Christmas seasonal debut in 1959, around ten weeks before my birthday, and that she brought that soundtrack home with her and played it regularly, I was probably being serenaded inside the womb with Rozsa’s timeless themes long before I emerged into the “great blooming, buzzing confusion” of a new world. Cyrino captures the magnificence of the score eloquently:
The spare, graceful script is complemented by the elegance of the soundtrack, perhaps the most beautiful film score ever written. Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa … contributed … [more than] 120 minutes of stunning and eloquent music, [one of] the longest musical score[s] ever composed for a film, and certainly the most influential symphonic score of the epic film genre. Music is the vital soul of this film, enhancing the drama at every turn, and used with particular emphasis to express characters’ emotions in scenes without dialogue. The individual musical themes, each one easily standing alone as an extraordinary orchestral composition, are immediately recognizable as the plot progresses, whether the music conveys Judah’s angry struggle for freedom (the stirring drums of the galley theme), his romantic bond with Esther, or his redemption through Jesus. The absence of music, as in the ten minutes of the chariot race or the scene where Judah and Esther are reunited, becomes “as potent as its presence.” [6]
Cyrino was not alone in her praise of Rozsa’s music. Roger Hickman declared Rozsa’s work as “his defining masterpiece and one of the finest scores in the history of Hollywood filmmaking,” while Jon Solomon praised it as a “marvelously sweeping and full-bodied soundtrack.” [7] Rozsa himself held “[t]he music of Ben-Hur … very close to my heart.” [8]
And yet, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the composer. He recalled that Wyler had initially suggested using “Adeste Fideles” (“O Come All Ye Faithful”) for the Nativity scene. Rozsa was horrified, telling the director that it was an anachronistic eighteenth-century work completely at odds with the stylistic unity of the score he was composing. In the end, Rozsa’s compositions, “Star of Bethlehem” and “Adoration of the Magi”, are among the loveliest themes in the entire film — and even Wyler would later agree. [9]
This episode aside, Wyler’s directorial brilliance is what made Ben-Hur the cinema’s first “intimate epic.” To appreciate that brilliance, it’s important to revisit the story upon which it was built.
A Story for the Ages
Written by General Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur was first published in 1880. It became a remarkable “phenomenon of popular culture,” as Neil Sinyard explains. [10] Indeed, “by the end of the nineteenth century, it had sold more than any other novel ever written.” Stage adaptations followed, as did a one-reeler in 1907, a 1925 silent epic, and the 1959 classic. Its adaptations extend to a 2003 animated flick, a 2010 television miniseries, and a 2016 reboot, which can’t be forgotten swiftly enough! It’s even inspired a few school plays.
The story is well known; I’ve provided a much more extensive summary of the plot in my 25-year-old review essay. Though the film opens with the Nativity, the defining events of Judah Ben-Hur’s life take place roughly in the five-year period between AD 26 and AD 31. Judah is a Jewish prince who lives with his mother Miriam and his sister Tirzah. He is reunited with his childhood friend, Messala, who once saved his life when they were boys. Messala is now a tribune of Rome in command of the garrison in Jerusalem. In their heartfelt reunion, the ambitious Messala seeks an ally in Judah, which would help him to consolidate his growing power. He urges Judah to help him stabilize the unruly Judean province by naming those among his countrymen who are plotting against Rome. But Judah wants no part of any collaboration. Messala views this as a betrayal and their friendship is irreparably damaged.
The entrance into the city of the new governor, Valerius Gratus, is stillborn when Tirzah leans on loose tiles from the roof of their home. The tiles fall and strike the governor. Messala, who discovers that this is an accident, has Judah arrested for the attempted assassination and his mother and sister imprisoned as accomplices. He tells Judah that “by condemning without hesitation an old friend” and his family, he will be feared. But Messala’s stated ambitions cannot hide the vengeful nature of his actions, in the face of what he sees as Judah’s unforgivable disloyalty. Even Judah’s steward, Simonides, is arrested and tortured. In the aftermath, his daughter, Esther, who loves Judah, seeks refuge in the abandoned house of Hur, along with her debilitated father.
Even as he vows revenge for the injustices that Messala has perpetrated, Judah is sentenced to the galleys. Crossing the desert, he is denied water by the Romans. His thirst is quenched by a compassionate carpenter.
Three years later, Judah, now a galley slave, saves the life of the naval commander and consul Quintus Arrius during a violent naval battle against Macedonian pirates, which miraculously results in a Roman victory. With Judah by his side in a victory parade, Arrius pleads with Emperor Tiberius to free Judah. Tiberius offers to release him from the galleys and grants Arrius custody of Judah as his slave. Trained as a champion charioteer, Judah is eventually adopted by Arrius as a son, who stands in the place of the son he lost. Now as the Young Arrius, Judah returns to Judea and confronts Messala, demanding that he release his mother and sister. They are found alive with leprosy in the dungeons and are sent to a leper colony.
Thinking his mother and sister are dead, Judah vows revenge. The chariot race is the inexorable focal point that promises to resolve the conflict between Judah and Messala. Even though Messala is fatally wounded, we soon realize that “the race is not over.” With his dying breath, and in one last act of cruelty, he tells Judah that his mother and sister are alive, and that they can be found in the Valley of the Lepers, “if you can recognize them.”
Leaving Messala’s shattered body behind, Judah re-enters the arena, its sands stained with the blood of his former friend. The scene is framed in such a way that it demonstrates the hollowness of Judah’s victory. As Sinyard observes, Judah is “now a tiny figure in an empty stadium.” In a “conflict fueled by hatred and revenge, … there can be no winners.” [11]
In the aftermath of the chariot race, a new Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, conveys a message from Arrius, telling Judah that he has been made a citizen of Rome. Though Pilate recognizes the injustices done to Judah’s family by Messala, Judah will have none of it. “The deed was not Messala’s. I knew him well, before the cruelty of Rome spread in his blood. Rome destroyed Messala, as surely as Rome has destroyed my family.” Pilate urges Judah “not to crucify yourself on a shadow such as old resentment and impossible loyalty. Perfect freedom has no existence. The grown man knows the world he lives in, and for the present, the world is Rome.” Fearing Judah’s growing influence, Pilate urges him to leave Judea. “If you stay here,” he warns, “you will find yourself part of this tragedy.” But Judah tells Pilate that he is “already part of this tragedy.” He renounces his connections to Rome and even to Arrius. His family devastated, his friend-turned-enemy dead, his chariot victory meaningless, he is on a collision course with the oppressive Roman empire.
Consumed by hatred, Judah laments ever having taken a sip of the stranger’s water in the desert. “I should have done better if I’d poured it into the sand. I’m thirsty still.” His relentless desire for vengeance is the only thing he believes will quench that thirst, as he vows to cleanse the land in blood. His descent into darkness prompts Esther to declare: “It was Judah Ben-Hur I loved. What has become of him? You seem to be now the very thing you set out to destroy, giving evil for evil. Hatred is turning you to stone. It’s as though you had become Messala. I’ve lost you Judah.”
Judah is wounded by the comparison. Helpless and hopeless, he joins Esther to seek out Jesus of Nazareth, who has been known to cure the sick. They take Miriam and Tirzah from the Valley of the Lepers to the deserted streets of Jerusalem, where they discover that Jesus has been sentenced to death. As Jesus carries his cross along the road to Golgotha, Judah recognizes him as the same man who gave him water — and the will to live — in the desert. His own attempts to give water to Jesus are thwarted by Roman soldiers. He travels to Calvary and witnesses Jesus’s brutal crucifixion. As the skies darken and a storm beckons, Miriam, Tirzah, and Esther take cover in a cave. Upon the death of Jesus, Miriam and Tirzah are miraculously cured of leprosy. We see Jesus’s blood being carried by rain waters throughout the countryside, cleansing the land in ways that Judah Ben-Hur could never have imagined.
Some have criticized this “deus ex machina” finale, in which a divine Miracle resolves all. But these critics miss the point. The cleansing of Miriam and Tirzah is a physical manifestation of the far more profound spiritual miracle projected on screen: the cleansing of Judah’s soul.
Returning to his household after the crucifixion, Judah whispers to Esther: “Almost the moment he died, I heard him say, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ … And I felt his voice take the sword out of my hand.” When he discovers that his mother and sister have been cured of leprosy, his own healing is complete. The symbolic unity of the physical and the spiritual permeates the whole texture of the film and its climax, as the corrosive power of hate is vanquished by the transformative, redemptive power of love.
I must confess that, having seen this film (no exaggeration) a few hundred times over the past 56 years, there is something about the Hur family unit that resonates very deeply with me. Given that my dad died in 1972, and that I had become the sole male figure in our household, Ben-Hur reflected the close-knit unity that I shared with my own mother and sister. With my mother having died in 1995, and my sister having died in 2022, that special unity remains a blessed memory. It is no small wonder that, to this day, my eyes water at film’s end, every time I see Judah’s reunion with his mother and sister, all miraculously cured of life’s infirmaries.
The very real human conflicts that Ben-Hur depicts on screen are bracketed by two divine events: the first scenes of the Nativity and the final scenes in the shadow of the cross. Jesus makes a few cameo appearances, but we never actually see his face or hear him speak. More than anything, we feel in him the symbolic presence of a call for personal redemption. About the same age as Jesus, Judah is also on trial, and like Jesus, he must triumph over the darkness. The parallels with Jesus are quite explicit; when Judah wins the chariot race, Pilate places the crown of victory upon his head and declares him the cheering crowd’s “one true god, for the moment” — foreboding another who will stand before him, wearing upon his head a crown of thorns.
With this “Tale of the Christ” as context, the film deploys the motifs of birth, death, and rebirth with monumental effectiveness.
Why Wyler Matters
With a script that included contributions from Tunberg, Fry, Vidal, and others, Wyler’s immense skills in drawing out the best performances from his cast were no fluke. He still holds the record for having directed more Academy Award-winning performances among actors than any other director in history (14 in total). Wyler elevates the entire film with his ability to nourish the characters even in the quietest scenes that take place against a spectacular backdrop. [12] He creates “an intimate spiritual journey,” in which the main character struggles “against the political, cultural, and spiritual powers aligned to thwart him.” [13]
But Wyler’s expertise with actors is only one aspect of his contributions to the film’s transcendent qualities. As Sinyard acknowledges, the director employs a “pervasive imagery of water, stone, steps, blood, rings, gifts, and variations of light and dark [that] resonate with cumulative force to take full advantage of the story’s potential for contrast, conflict, ambivalence, and irony.” Wyler illustrates the central themes — “the futility of violence” and the “gradual relinquishing of force in favor of forgiveness” — with superb effectiveness. [14]
Homoerotic Intimacy as Subtext
There are so many other subtexts to this 1959 epic that are of interest. Sinyard reminds us:
The reunion between Ben-Hur and Messala at the beginning of the film is superbly acted by Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd. Both bring emotional intensity to the scene that, judging by the embarrassment and laughter that follows their initial embrace, seems to take both characters by surprise. It is well known that Gore Vidal suggested a homoerotic subtext to this relationship that would help explain Messala’s subsequent vindictiveness toward his dear friend and (possible) lover. The rumor is that Wyler went along with this suggestion, provided that it was implicit rather than explicit, and that no one told Charlton Heston. The subtext works when Messala’s remarks on his supposed view of the political situation takes on erotic subtones, linking the personal and political undercurrents of his relationship to his one-time Jewish friend. [15]
Back in 1969, when I first saw this film at the age of 9, gay though I am, I could not have possibly articulated the homoerotic aspects of the Judah-Messala relationship. But even at that age, seeing the characters embrace, the way they looked into each other’s eyes, their cups of wine intertwined as a reflection of their love, I know that I sensed a kind of romantic bond between them. Once you’ve been made aware of this subtext, it is impossible to deny. When Messala tells Judah that the Roman “emperor is devoted to his empire” and that “he’s particularly fond of Judea,” Judah responds, “and Judea is not fond of the emperor.” Messala laughingly retorts, “Is there anything so sad as unrequited love?” — a question that has far more ironic and tragic implications for the development of the story. The Roman Messala is yearning for a renewed connection with his Jewish friend, which requires that Judah betray his own people. The deep love between Judah and Messala dissolves into a deeper hate, marked by acts of cruelty and an unending, mutual desire for vengeance.
Political Subtexts
There are other subtexts in Ben-Hur that are worthy of analysis. It has long been recognized that many of these Biblical epics filmed in the 1950s and early 1960s were a product of a distinctively post-World War II and Cold War historical context. Explicit parallels between Rome as a stand-in for fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union abound. But the film can also be read as an implicit critique of HUAC and the McCarthy era. It can be seen in Messala’s demands that Judah become an informant against those Jews plotting against Rome. “Either you help me, or you oppose me, you have no other choice. You’re either for me or against me,” Messala warns. But Judah will not be a traitor or a killer for Rome. His rejection of Messala is also a repudiation of Rome itself: “Rome is strangling my people and my country, the whole earth. But not forever. And I tell you, the day Rome falls, there will be a shout of freedom such as the world has never heard before.” In this conflict, the personal and the political are reciprocal implications of one another.
As we’ve seen, a similar dynamic is on display in The Robe, where Tiberius gives an imperial commission to Tribune Marcellus Gallio to unearth the names of those who subscribe to the “treason” of a new fanatical religious sect. It is on display in The Ten Commandments as well, which I’ll explore in the next installment.
Ben-Hur also incorporates Wyler’s provocative attempt to bridge the gap between Jews and Arabs, in their joint opposition to the tyranny of Rome. The Arab Sheik Ilderim, whose glorious white horses he hopes Judah will ride to victory, places the (anachronistic) Star of David on Judah before the chariot race. He tells Judah that the star “will shine out for your people and my people together and blind the eyes of Rome.” Jack Shaheen in his wonderful 2001 book, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, notes the importance here of the unity of “fellow Semites” in contesting the oppression of the ruling class. [16] Alas, Middle East politics was not as unified as Wyler’s vision. Some Arab League countries, such as Jordan, banned Ben-Hur, for featuring Israeli actress, Haya Harareet in the role of Esther.
The Chariot Race
No consideration of Ben-Hur would be complete without a brief discussion of the chariot race, one of the greatest action sequences ever filmed. Wyler’s impact on the film can even be felt when he decides not to direct a scene. For the chariot race, Wyler handed over directorial responsibilities to second-unit director Andrew Morton and famed stuntman Yakima Canutt, whose son Joe doubled for Heston, especially at that moment when Judah is flipped over the front of the quadriga. McGee tells us that unlike the 1925 chariot race sequence, in which many stuntmen were injured and several horses were killed, the 1959 production sacrificed neither man nor beast. [17] Aside from the use of remarkable matte paintings that were integrated into the horizon of the arena, there was nothing fake about the sets or the crowds. This was no CGI affair. Populated with over 10,000 extras, the arena that was constructed at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios stood at 18 acres, with 1,500-foot straightaways paved with 40,000 tons of white sand from Mediterranean beaches. Though Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston did many of their own stunts, all the charioteers were trained stuntman. Heston had commanded a three-horse chariot in The Ten Commandments, but he was, at first, ill-at-ease about controlling the quadriga. Canutt told him: “You just stay in the chariot, Chuck. I guarantee you’re going to win the damn race.” And that damn race, from its cinematography and editing to its sounds and stunts, remains one of the most breathtaking achievements in cinema history.
But the chariot race would not have had an ounce of human drama absent the intimate characterizations that Wyler built. Still, though we are fully invested in the outcome of the race, it becomes clear that Judah’s quest for vengeance is not a quest for justice. The race and the arena within which it takes place illustrate the destructive effects on all those who participate. It becomes a larger metaphor for the savagery of the Roman imperial system that makes victims of both “losers” and “winners” alike.
An All-Time Favorite Movie Line
Before concluding this installment, it’s worth mentioning that Ben-Hur provided me with one of my all-time favorite movie lines, which I’ve used to great effect in my professional life. It’s a line that is repeated twice in the film. When the consul, commander Quintus Arrius, boards the ship on which Judah is a galley slave, he tells the chained rowers: “We keep you alive to serve this ship. So, row well and live.” In the wake of the naval battle, Judah rescues Arrius and swims to safety upon a raft of broken wood. The consul asks Judah to let him die, rather than to face the humiliation of what he thinks is a clear naval defeat. Judah’s reply to Arrius is gold: “We keep you alive to serve this ship. Row well and live.”
In later years, anytime I was working with authors, peer readers, and editors who were exhausted in the face of tight deadlines, I have always repeated that mantra. Deadlines were met. It worked every time!
Just as it might be said that Charlton Heston starred in the first intimate epic of the modern cinematic age, it’s also true that he was at the center of the last great costume epic of Old Hollywood—Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 classic, The Ten Commandments, to which I turn in tomorrow’s final installment.
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* All notes, sources, and references will appear in Part IV, the final installment of the series.
