Tell me the old old story...

Rating: Null/10 (28 October 2008)

Despite gaining First Certificates in Temperance and Scripture studies -or maybe because of it - I grew to hate having to go to Sunday-school when I was a kid. It trapped and depressed me, like rehearsing for your own funeral every week, all best-clothed and po-faced. I wasn't a huge fan of day-school either but at least it embraced a broader livelier plain and the brainwashing was less oppressive. This always comes to mind when I watch the last hour or so of BEN-HUR. The fun people have left the building - Messala's bitten the dust and the Sheik's picked up his winnings and taken his horses back home - and we're left with the humourless Hurs looking for a miracle.
On its original release I still paid lip-service to the doctrines and the blend of the secular and the mystical had cast a spell. The continuing-on into other things beyond the blood-and-guts chariot race seemed rather cool and impressive and the film's technical shortcomings - the ultra-cheapo naval battle and some jarring editing slips - could be overlooked. Now that the doctrines have lost their hold the faults are less forgivable and the gear-shift towards the end quite detrimental. The keen edge of narrative-realism gives way to acute New Testamentitis, everyone parroting the legend like they've been hit on the head with a mallet. They know who this Christ is all of a sudden, because they've read the script and been to Sunday-school. The essential mystery of Christ is not explored but ritualised. The hapless Wyler must forsake drama for dramatic cliché (I don't think Gore Vidal wrote these scenes).
On the other hand it doesn't help that for reasons of multicultural politics the Christian story is soft-pedalled. The carpenter is practically knocked off his feet in the film's opening rush to Roman spectacle while the great "no water for him" scene can sustain - despite the organ-music - through sheer humanist power. The road to the Cross is convincingly agonised but the curing of the Hur women through some sort of remote-control amnesty - unlike in the novel - makes no kind of sense. The fine symbolic moment showing Christ's blood flowing out into the world clashes gruesomely with the corny twittering in that cosy little cave. Of course we're glad the family is reunited - a key Wyler concern - but if it had to be done by magic it's a pity the film finally lacked the conviction that my old Sunday-school mentors would have roundly endorsed.