{"id":13058,"date":"2011-09-29T23:57:16","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T22:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=13058"},"modified":"2011-10-01T01:58:40","modified_gmt":"2011-10-01T00:58:40","slug":"blu-ray-ben-hur-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2011\/09\/29\/blu-ray-ben-hur-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Blu-ray: Ben-Hur"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the most important Blu-ray releases of the year is this impeccable restoration of William Wyler’s 1959 Roman epic.<\/p>\n

Depicting the adventures of a Jewish prince (Charlton Heston), it charts his rich life in Judea, subsequent fall into slavery and rise as a champion charioteer in Rome.<\/p>\n

Along the way we see his encounters with his mother (Martha Scott), sister Tirzah (Cathy O’Donnell), Roman rival (Stephen Boyd), former slave (Haya Harareet), a naval commander (Jack Hawkins) and even Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

A blockbuster release of its time, it was one of the most ambitious film projects ever attempted up to that point.<\/p>\n

Adapted from Lew Wallace’s best-selling novel, it had previously reached the screen in 1907 and 1926, but by the 1950s Hollywood were under threat from the rapidly growing medium of television.<\/p>\n

MGM were in financial trouble and decided to mount a biblical epic along the lines of Cecil B DeMille<\/a>‘s Samson and Delilah<\/a> (1949) and The Ten Commandments<\/a> (1956), which were both huge box office hits.<\/p>\n

In addition to tapping in to this hunger for ancient religious stories, the major studios came up with various technical innovations to lure audiences away from their television sets.<\/p>\n

Various larger film formats were introduced to create a bigger and more expansive image on the screen.<\/p>\n

This culminated in epics such as The Robe<\/a> (1953), the first film in the widescreen process known as CinemaScope<\/a>, and The Ten Commandments, which utilised the greater resolution of Paramount’s VistaVision<\/a> format.<\/p>\n

With Ben Hur MGM decided to shoot in a new process known as ‘MGM Camera 65’ (later known as Ultra Panavision 70<\/a>), which meant that it has an unusual aspect ratio<\/a> of 2.76:1, making it one of the widest films ever made.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This was appropriate because they also spent a huge amount on creating a vast epic at a cost of $15m – then a huge amount – and over 300 sets, including a spectacular Roman amphitheatre at Rome’s Cinecitta Studios<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MGM’s gamble to stave off bankruptcy succeeded, with Ben Hur becoming the highest grossing film of 1959<\/a> (making $90m worldwide) and winning 11 Oscars, a feat only equalled since by Titanic (1998) and The Return of the King (2004).<\/p>\n

Its critical reputation suffered during the 1960s, as a new generation of directors and critics reacted against the expense and spectacle of the previous decade.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Director William Wyler was even quoted as saying<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cCahiers du cin\u00e9ma never forgave me for the picture.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps he was too versatile to be pegged as an auteur in the way that Orson Welles or Alfred Hitchcock were, or maybe after winning three Best Director Oscars he was too much of an ‘establishment’ figure for young guns like Truffaut and Godard to re-evaluate and champion.<\/p>\n

However, although these large scale biblical epics were scorned by certain cinephiles of the day as an expression of the stifling conformity of the 1950s, they can also be seen as coded parables which echoed the concerns of writers during the era.<\/p>\n

When Messala demands that Ben-Hur either stand with him or against him, he not only echoes the Manichean<\/a> cry of McCarthyism<\/a> but also the world view of more recent administrations<\/a> (the following year Spartacus<\/a> – scripted by blacklisted<\/a> screenwriter Dalton Trumbo<\/a> – would take this theme even further<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But what makes this restored version of Ben Hur fascinating to revisit is that Hollywood now is undergoing a similar kind of seismic change that it went through fifty years ago.<\/p>\n

Instead of television wreaking havoc with the established order we now have the Internet and whereas once we had studios looking for salvation in biblical epics, now they turn to large scale fantasies from the church of Marvel or DC.<\/p>\n

Even the 3D craze of the 1950s<\/a> has updated itself in recent years with a newer, digital form<\/a>.<\/p>\n