Deserves every single Oscar that it won (and more)

Rating: 10/10 (14 October 2011)

Simply put this movie deserves each and every Oscar that it won, and more. One wonders whether, if it was put to the Oscars today whether it would have easily wiped the floor with Titanic, but that is beside the point, Ben Hur is one of the best movies that I have ever seen.
The subtitle of this movie is 'a story about the Christ' and as you watch this movie it becomes quite clear how this is so. To put it better, it is a movie about the Christ as seen through the eyes of Judah Ben Hur. Ben Hur (Charlton Heston) is a Jewish noble who is torn between his loyalties to his people and his duty to Rome. Every time he is faced with that choice, he chooses his people, and in doing so tends to make enemies of Rome. His first enemy is Masala, a Roman diplomat in Jerusalem, and when his sister accidentally knocks a roof tile onto a Roman dignitary, he is arrested and sold as a slave. While traveling through the desert on his way to Ceserea to be put onto a slave galley he meets a man in the wilderness who gives him water.
However, to cut a very long story short, he saves the captains life during a battle with pirates, and is made a freeman. He then returns to Jerusalem where he confronts Masala in the famous chariot race, and wins. However, he discovers that his family have been outcast as lepers and rages against Rome. But this rage is tempered through the teachings of Christ, and the movie concludes with him sitting at the foot of the cross watching Jesus die.
Water plays a significant role in this movie. Christ gives him water in the desert which enables him to survive. His life is again saved when he is on the water after the slave master frees him from his chains. When he watches Christ go to the cross, he attempts to return the favour by giving him water, and when Christ dies, rain falls from the heavens in a ferocious storm.
Ben Hur is about the rage that overwhelms us, and the freedom that Christ gives us from this rage. Ben Hur is torn by betrayal. He was betrayed by Masala when he was sold as a slave, and he was betrayed by Rome when his mother and sister where thrown into the leper colonies. He is further betrayed by Rome when he takes his mother and sister to see Christ only to find that he has been sentenced to death.
I wish to finish with a discussion on how Christ is portrayed in this movie. You never see his face and you never hear him speak. We always see him at a distance, or from behind. His words do not come directly from him, but are passed on by his faithful followers. However, it is the words about not seeking revenge that take the center stage in Ben Hur because it is Ben Hur's desire for revenge that is destroying him. He is a friend of Rome, but he is in danger of alienating them once again through his love for the family that he has lost.