Ben-Hur
Dir: William Wyler
1959
***
Oscar wins mean very little to me, Ben-Hur beat films that were better than it and the better films that year weren't even nominated. Many an unworthy winner has been awarded since. Personally I felt Ben-Hur to be over-hyped, as many of the classic epics are. I do appreciate the production that went into the making of it, as cynical as I can be about big budget studio film, there is much I enjoyed and respect about this film but it's hard to ignore the huge faults also. The story, a far from perfect adaptation of Lew Wallace's novel, is full of contradictions. I'm not going to go into faith, belief or Christianity but I know a bit about it and for the most part it gets it wrong. Although I realise this is a work of fiction, the factual elements are completely incorrect (Julius Ceaser died before the birth of Christ) which is always a source of annoyance to me with films of this nature. Considering the film is 3 and a half hours long, much of the story is skipped. You'd think that that amount of time would allow the story to be told in its entirety but William Wyler lets every scene hang unnecessarily. The melodrama replaces decent acting for the best part of the film and the performances that are worth speaking of (Stephen Boyd) are overshadowed by the awful performance from Heston and the cartoon character like Hugh Griffith who I'm amazed won and was even nominated for best supporting actor. Hype is a funny thing really, as soon as a film becomes a multi-Oscar winner it becomes somehow untouchable. Ben-Hur has dated badly and is not quite worth the investment of time it takes in which to watch.