“No! I warn you! Rome is an affront to God! Rome is strangling my people and my country, the whole Earth! But not forever. I tell you the day Rome falls there will be a shout of freedom such as the world has never heard before!”
While most well-known for its famous chariot race scene, Ben-Hur is a years-long epic story of revenge told alongside the tale of Jesus Christ. While it may seem like an odd pairing at first, the brash and violent Judah Ben-Hur is the perfect foil to the character of Christ, as the two navigate in the same world but in different circles, brushing up against each other in the most meaningful and heartbreaking of ways. It has everything: action, romance, adventure, and ultimately, a well-deserved happy ending.
History
The film was originally a remake of the 1925 silent original, and went through a lot of changes in production. Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, and Marlon Brando all turned down the role, and Charlton Heston took it, coming hot off his recent performance in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, another hugely successful biblical epic. It’s largely due to The Ten Commandments‘ success that a massive $7 million budget was approved, which later ballooned to over $15 million, making it the most expensive film ever produced at that time.
MGM opened a new casting office for the sole purpose of casting the 15,000 extras and 365 small speaking roles, only 45 of which were considered principal cast. The scale of the production was absolutely massive, with over 300 sets and over 1,000,000 pounds of plaster used in construction. The filming took around 9 months, almost 5 weeks of which were dedicated solely to the chariot race scene.
Importance
Ben-Hur is essential for its production and scope, as well as for redefining the epic for years to come.
All the sets of Ben-Hur feel lived in, and it’s no accident. Painstaking efforts were made to design every costume, coach every extra, and design every set to feel fully realized. Many scenes in this movie were breathtaking because of the sheer scale. The sheen we expect from a modern computer-generated crowd is missing here, replaced with a living, breathing mass of people. It’s a collective power that can’t be faked, and brings an inherent grandiosity that makes the stakes feel massive.
The chariot scene is, of course, the best example. The rumor that someone died during the shooting of this scene was believable because of how well this scene is shot. The chariots and horses are real, manned by master class stunt performers to create a nail-biting intensity that only builds throughout the scene. Ronald Holloway of Variety said in his review that the chariot race “…will probably be preserved in film archives as the finest example of the use of the motion picture camera to record an action sequence.” He was completely right.
Legacy
Ben-Hur immediately made back twice its massive budget in its opening weekend, remaining at number one in the box office for a staggering six months. While it was not the first epic of the time, it remained one of the most memorable due to its scope and its famous chariot race scene, which still holds up in modern rewatches.
Ben-Hur was one of the earliest films to film the entire production with the MGM Camera 65, displaying a wide aspect ratio. It remains tied for the most Oscar wins of all time (11) with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
A documentary titled Ben-Hur: The Epic that Changed Cinema was released in 2005, highlighting modern filmmakers such as George Lucas, Ridley Scott, and Irvin Kershner, and how the film has influenced their own works.
George Lucas in particular cites his pod racing scene in Episode 1: A Phantom Menace as directly inspired by the chariot race scene, referencing it throughout in the design of the pods, the tussle between Anakin and Sebulba, and the lap counter. Ridley Scott cited Ben-Hur as inspiration during the production of Gladiator, calling the film a “master course in production design.” All-time director Akira Kurosawa would name Ben-Hur as one of his all-time favorite films.
Ben-Hur is arguably the historical epic. Despite its release around Quo Vadis, The Ten Commandments, and Lawrence of Arabia, many of the former don’t have such a well-known sequence that will go on to influence films for years to come. It remains one of my all-time favorites and is well worth a watch if you’ve never seen it.
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