"A strange, stubborn faith"

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2009)

In the 1950s, while the up-and-coming independent studios were focusing on gritty small-scale dramas, the majors eked out the last of their glory days with giant-budget spectacles. While at first it was thought the immensity of these pictures was enough, at some point the studios felt the need to adapt and set off in search of the Holy Grail known as the "intimate epic".
To this end, it made sense for producer Sam Zimbalist to assign this project to director William Wyler, perhaps the finest director of human interaction who ever lived, but also one who was not afraid of big action scenes or outdoor vistas. Here Wyler shows a good handling of the Cinemascope canvas, making compositions with a lot of depth to them, which evens out and gives definition to the extreme width. He doesn't just do this with the massive sets, but also with the arrangements of people. For example when Messala comes to visit the Hur household, we see Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd in the foreground at opposite ends of the screen, and beyond them Martha Scott and Cathy O'Donnell slightly closer to screen centre. This creates a kind of perspective effect which draws the viewer in and focuses us on the actors.
But a production of this size cannot be made on the efforts of its director alone. Wyler is backed up by a distinguished technical crew, and in fact perhaps Wyler's biggest contribution was how closely he seems to have worked with them, in particular cinematographer Robert Surtees. While the photography in Ben-Hur is rarely exquisite, it is extremely well-tailored to the moods and dramatic necessities of the picture. One of Wyler's trademarks was keeping to very selective angles, for example having an actor's back to the camera, or part of their face obscured behind a bit of scenery, so as only to show certain facets of their performance. Here he does not shoot with such stark variations, and mostly keeps the players in side-view mid-shots with long takes. However Surtees does a Wyler-type job with his lighting, for example keeping Haya Harareet's face well lit while her body is in darkness, capturing and emphasising her reactions, which are the best part of her performance, such as her shocked look when she is first kissed by Heston. For Heston himself, Surtees uses heavy contrast lighting, which makes the actor's face appear more expressive (and, I have to say, more handsome) than it actually is. Other than this, Surtees's biggest coup is his extraordinary nighttime photography which makes the nativity scene and the romantic meetings between Heston and Harareet truly outstanding.
Other honourable mentions go to film editors Ralph Winters and John Dunning, and composer Miklos Rosza. It is the editing process which really makes the handful of action sequences work, especially that of Jack Hawkins urging the rowers to greater speeds, which is a delightfully intense montage of a kind rarely seen in classic-era Hollywood. Rosza's score is both stupendous and lavish, as his often were, utilizing some rather complex arrangements, with counter-melodies audible beneath the main themes. It's a score that can easily change moods to suit the scene, but also sounds authentic for the times being dealt with.
Wyler and Zimbalist were sticklers for authenticity, and one example of this I am quite impressed with is that the nails go through Christ's wrists, not his palms, which is historically accurate. There is one rather glaring error though – the depiction of the lepers. 1959 was a good year for leprosy on screen, from the use of real victims in The Nun's Story to the awesomely nonsensical zombie-lepers in Fritz Lang's Indian diptych. However, according to the MGM makeup department, leprosy looks like a mild case of acne – rather an anticlimax after all the fuss made over it by the characters.
The cast of Ben-Hur is frankly a bit of predictable box-ticking. People like Heston, Hawkins and Finlay Currie were an established part of ancient-world epic furniture, and the rest of the cast is filled by the usual assortment of respected theatre actors. Still, why complain when each is doing a good job? Heston is for once not the embarrassing lump of wood he normally was. His vocal delivery still leaves something to be desired but his emoting is spot on. Haya Harareet manages to stand out in what is a rather small role despite its being technically the female lead, and it is her contribution that makes the romantic angle work. I feel the Oscar for best supporting actor should have gone to Stephen Boyd and not Hugh Griffith. Boyd's performance is one of the more theatrical but it is also the most elaborate in that league – look at those tiny significant gestures he makes, such as a little rubbing of his thumb as he grasps Heston's arm in friendship. Admittedly though Griffith's lively appearance is very refreshing after the waves of pomposity, and I am faintly amused by the fact he sounds incredibly Welsh.
So, were Zimbalist and Wyler successful in creating an "intimate epic"? No, not quite. They should have taken a tip from the recently-deceased Cecil B. DeMille. These ancient tales were so far removed from viewers' reality that any attempt at emotional sincerity was bound to fail, and the most entertaining epics are those that simply revel in their breathtaking grandiosity. Still, Ben-Hur contains much to enthral us, and in one respect shows the superiority of the vertically-integrated studio system. Although the system's glory days were over, the studios could still be trusted to bring together a tight and professional creative team who could all work towards the same goal. Perhaps the most poignant thing about Ben-Hur is that it is one of that system's final triumphs.