Ben-Hur | Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins | The greatest roadshow epic of them all finally gets the...

Ben-Hur | Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins | Review

DVDs:

Ben-Hur

	Ben-Hur Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins Warner Home Video, 2004 average customer review:based on 328 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The greatest roadshow epic of them all finally gets the DVD it deserves

The film that has become a by-word for the genre and the biggest of the roadshow movies of the fifties and sixties, 1959's Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ is from an audience point-of-view still a great movie, and considerably more intelligent than many modern critics would like to believe.

The best of the redemption epics of the Fifties, where suffering in the likes of The Robe or Quo Vadis makes their protagonists better in the creepily smug way that passes for movie righteousness, it turns its hero, Judah Ben-Hur, into a right s**t. Corrupted by revenge, he rejects Christ and turns away from passive resistance. Mistaken for Christ, he is himself betrayed by a friend and returns from his certain death (in this case the galleys) "like a returning faith," in the words of one of his faithful servants, but he has no faith himself. Having initially rejected Messala's overtures to "look to the west, look to Rome", indirectly the cause of his misfortunes, he becomes Romanised and a mirror image of his betrayer. The character exists in a constant state of flux and torment, journeying from slave-owning Jew to Roman slave to Roman citizen to symbol of resistance, never regaining his peace until the finale.

There was never an actor more at home in the genre than Heston, and he is in strong form here, although much of his thunder is stolen by Stephen Boyd as Messala (the role Heston was pencilled in for before Rock Hudson turned down the lead) whose intelligent portrayal of ambition is far more Oscar-worthy than Hugh Griffiths' hammily enjoyable Sheik Ilderim. Jack Hawkins and the remainder of the cast perfectly judge their roles, with Wyler's adept direction achieving a perfect balance between the religious, political and human elements of the story.

While making the most of the spectacle, he also ensures that it is often the quieter moments that most impress. An assistant director on the 1926 version's chariot race sequence, his sensitivity with actors ensures the film is driven more by emotions than events, and certainly the scenes dealing with his return to Judea are often genuinely moving without seeming so overtly manipulative as they doubtless would have in other hands.

Miklos Rozsa's score is one of the greatest ever written for any motion picture and is remarkably sensitive to the needs of the film (although Wyler did reputedly want to use Silent Night for the Nativity sequence!). The stunning ten-minute chariot race, played in real-time, has and needs no music, relying instead on the infinitely more effective roar of the crowd and thunder of hooves. The sequence also shows canny production design: the arena is suitably high-walled to limit the number of extras needed for the three-month shoot of the scene.

Ben-Hur is a film which still somewhat defies television in all its formats - the cinema is really the place to see this, the bigger the screen, the better. At an extra-wide 2.76:1 widescreen, it's not quite SuperTohoScope, but it's close, but the lack of picture area that was a major problem with definition and colour balance in the old letterboxed video releases is no problem for the DVD transfer, though it's still not recommended viewing on a small-screen TV. The film is not paced for TV but for the giant screen, inevitably draining some of its effect. Nonetheless, this is a great value-for-money special edition that may not be able to replicate the cinema experience, but does a good job of reminding you of it.

Shot under huge pressure - MGM made it clear that the future of the studio depended on the picture - the resulting stress contributed to producer Sam Zimbalist's fatal heart attack before the film was completed, and the tortuous route to the screen is well documented in this four disc set through documentaries and even screen tests for Haya Hayareet, Cesare Danova and Leslie Nielson! Even the popular stage production, which ran throughout the US for a decade grossing an astonishing $10m. In case you're wondering, diagrams are provided of how the chariot race was staged with real horses and carts!

Sadly, although extracts from the notorious unauthorised one-reel 1911 Kalem version are included on the 50-minute documentary about the making of the film, the full short - shot during a beach party, with the camera never straying from the finish line during the chariot race - is not included. The make-or-break MGM 1925 silent version is, in the Thames Silents version lovingly restored by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, and makes an interesting comparison. An even more famously chaotic production than the remake that saw several actors die during the sea battle and dozens of horses put down in the chariot race, it takes a very different approach to the story for much of its running time. Never is that more apparent than in the end, which sees Judah Ben-Hur raising an army and marching on Jerusalem to save Christ from the cross!

There's also a selection of original and widescreen trailers on the DVD are splendid examples of the classic Hollywood selling technique, hyping the film in several languages.

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Review

-Good movie.
-Masala and George Bush both say either you are with me or against me, hmm..
-In the last scenes pontius pilot actually seems a little reasonable and Ben Hur a little hard headed. But oppressive governments never last.
-The thunder storm after the cricifiction seems to have a vindictive mood and takes away from the Christ's message. Of course Christ's message is entirely lost in modern Christianity, where soldiers are allowed to be Christian.

Hollywood's Intimate Epic

There have been hundreds of reviews that have covered the plot of William Wyler's 1959 epic Ben-Hur. I will attempt to limite my review to the Four Disc Collector's Edition released by Warner Brothers Video.

The first two discs present the epic film. The transfer is excellent and the letterboxed widescreen do justice to the Camera 65 original negative. The print quality on this edition is flawless and the Dolby 5.1 mix is very responsive on a good home theatre system.

The film discs also contain a commentary by film historian and author T. Gene Hatcher with additional pre recorded comments by Charlton Heston. The commentary is well worth listening to with Hatcher going over the production process and Heston filling in anecdotes on the filming and on his relationship with Wyler and the cast. There is also a music only track which showcases Miklos Rozsa's Academy Award winning score.

The third disc contains the 1925 silent version of Ben-Hur directed by Fred Niblo. This version was one of the most seen films of its time. Far from being difficult to watch the film is excellently restored and features a new score by Carl Davis. This film is the equal to the 1959 version and in some ways I think that I may perfer it.

The fourth disc contains more standard bonus type features. There are two hour long featurettes on the production of the film: Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic from 1994 and Ben-Hur: The Epic That Changed Cinema from 2005. Both are excellent features and give some useful information on both the making of the film and its lasting influences on a new generation of filmmakers. There are also stills galleries, screen tests, news reels and trailers.

This is the definitive presentation of this classic film and is well worth the purchase price.

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Makes a fabulous movie even better!

I was delighted in all the extra "goodies" included with this set. There is a TON of behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, screen tests, and more. I never would have believed LESLIE NIELSEN as Messala, yet there's the screen test to prove he was considered for the role!! I hadn't seen the 1925 silent version of Ben-Hur, and when I watched it, I was struck by the similarites between it and the 1959 version - the arena for the chariot race was almost identical!! Truly a great package, no "fillers" or junk in this lot!

Dad Loves It!

What better way to give the old man one of his all-time classics than on DVD, and with the Collector's Edition!! My dad was so happy with this gift, and has already watched it twice!

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