(avg. read time: 36–72 mins.)
I am beginning a new series today. This one will be a series of reviews of biblical and para-biblical adaptations. The latter are not direct adaptations of biblical stories, but they adapt stories related to the Bible. The first review in this series is, in fact, an example of the latter in Ben-Hur.
It can be difficult for people today to believe, but the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ was for decades the most printed and most sold book in English besides the Bible itself. While it has yet to go out of print, its impact has faded. It is a sobering reminder of books that can seem hugely significant, even to multiple generations, can still fade without sustained engagement from readers generation after generation. Maybe it will turn around for Ben-Hur yet, but I am personally inclined to doubt it due to the quality of the novel itself.
Still, the impact it has had is undeniable. It has resulted in multiple stage productions since 1899, four live-action film adaptations in 1907, 1925, 1959, and 2016, as well as an animated film in 2003, and a TV miniseries in 2010. The first short film in 1907 led to a landmark Supreme Court case on film adaptations and copyright (Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros.). (Yes, film adaptations of other source material go back to the earliest days of the industry.) The 2016 film unfortunately might be emblematic of its fading impact, as it was an unmitigated box office flop. I may review these other adaptations later if there is expressed interest, but the one we are focusing on today is the most well-known, successful, and highly regarded of the adaptations: the 1959 film directed by William (legally, Willie) Wyler and starring Charlton Heston as the titular Judah Ben-Hur.
While I have done quite extensive adaptational reviews related to the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, I do not plan for all of these to be similarly as extensive as The Lord of the Rings or The Rings of Power. The biblical stories are not as extensively written, after all, but we will also have recourse to other sources on history. And while in this case I will be making reference to the original novel at several points, I do not see the point in doing so as extensively as I did for comparisons with Tolkien’s works. After all, despite Ben-Hur being one of the longest major theatrical releases in American film history, it manages to share practically no dialogue with the original story. The only line I can think of immediately that is an exception is the sentence “Down Eros, up Mars!” which, in the film, Judah and Messala say once in an entirely different context from the book. The movie clearly takes the book as an outline for its plot, since it covers many of the major events of the book, but even in such cases the way those events transpire is almost always different. Even so, I think that the movie makers did a remarkable job of reproducing the tone and spirit of the book despite deviating so much from the details of the original source. While the movie may not have reproduced the speeches of the book, many of its speeches and dialogues—with their sense of gravitas, contemplations that place the story’s events and characters in a light that transcends the ancient context, and exalted speech patterns meant to befit such exalted topics—reflect the sense of exalted self-importance of the speeches and dialogues in the book. Conversely, the book is missing the soap operatic quality of the scenes with Esther, which is just as well because those scenes were my least favorite in the movie (though it has a love quadrangle in its place, which is not great either).
The book also makes better sense of its full title (Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ) in how it interweaves the story of Jesus with the story of Judah Ben-Hur, though the movie makes contact with the story of Jesus at key points. The entire first book builds up the birth of Jesus and every book afterwards features either an appearance or reference to Jesus. Like the first book, most of the eighth book is occupied with summarizing and concluding the story of Jesus. Also, instead of having two direct encounters with Jesus, having friends encounter Jesus, and having a few references to him, the book has Judah become acquainted with Jesus to the point of becoming a follower and witness of his deeds and teachings. In fact, Judah follows him and bides his time until what he thinks is an inevitable revolution begins, since he has legions of fighters at his beck and call. It is when Jesus is arrested and later crucified—as well as his soldiers rejecting the call to fight on behalf of Jesus—that Judah sees the folly of his project.
A Christmas Introduction
The film begins with framing that is reminiscent of an old era of theater and opera, but which has fallen out of fashion. That is, the movie is introduced with a long musical overture, the first half (roughly) ends with an intermission and the second part is introduced with an entr’acte. These features marked longer movies in these days and for some time afterwards, and some wish they would return again, especially the intermission, if for no other reason than that the intermission in particular would allow for breaks to visit the restroom or return to the concessions. Unfortunately, this convenience is unlikely to return, since longer movies cut into the theater’s capability to feature X number of screenings, and thus cuts into their profit margins. They would not wish to cut into that further by adding so many minutes of extra filler when they already overstuff the screenings with so many previews before the movie starts so that you can consume all your concessions before the movie even starts. But anyway, on to the actual show.
The sense of reverence for the story is conveyed from the beginning in the fact that the iconic Leo of the MGM logo does not even roar to introduce the movie, as he typically did. We are then told by the opening narration that the story begins “in the year of our Lord” and that for nearly a century Judea had lain under the mastery of Rome. These are some odd chronological quirks, which are made stranger by saying that “In the seventh year of the reign of Augustus Caesar, an imperial decree ordered every Judean each to return to his place of birth to be counted and taxed.” I have gone over various matters related to the timing of Jesus’s birth in my first long series on this Substack. But you do not need to know the details of such chronological matters to find this setting odd. I think it is pretty clear that Jesus was not born in what we now call 1 BC/BCE, as Dionysius Exiguus, the founder of the BC/AD system, thought. But even if you go with that year, it has not been nearly a century that Judea has been under Roman rule. It was conquered in 63 BCE and was still a client kingdom at the time Jesus was born (which I think was probably 3 BCE or possibly 2 BCE). That is more than half a century, but it is a real stretch to call it nearly a century. And in any case, it is nowhere close to the seventh year of Augustus, who began reigning in 27 BCE. Maybe they missed a “twenty”? (For more on the census in particular, see here and here.) Unfortunately, the chronological issues are far from over.
While the narration is problematic for anyone who took it straightforwardly, the way the movie is shot is part of what makes it a preferable way to receive the story of Ben-Hur. A major reason why the novel is so extensive is because of Wallace’s elaborate descriptions of settings. In these shots, we see the truth of the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words, particularly in shot composition (in this way, the movie is reminiscent of Wylie’s previous movie The Big Country). Even while there is narration over the opening pictures, we can take in significantly more in quicker fashion than we can through reading Wallace’s descriptions. And for as long as this movie is with as much dialogue as it has, this is one of the ways in which it shows how less can be more. We will have several occasions to return to this point.
The narrator also tells us about how there was hope for a redeemer to be born to bring salvation and perfect freedom. The former is appropriately broad while the latter is an interesting description that I do not know has a proper correspondent to any known text. It is a phrase that appears again in the last act of the movie. Of course, as we have noted in other cases (e.g., here) there were diverse messianic expectations, although the expectation of a warrior king who would deliver the people from their conquerors was a particularly prominent one among those who actively expected a Messiah to come. We have also noted that these expectations became more prominent in the Roman era compared to other Second Temple eras.
The opening act then portrays the Christmas story. After Joseph registers himself with the Romans, says he is of the house of David of Bethlehem, and mentions his wife, the rest of the portrayal takes place without any dialogue. Again, this is an example of how less is more along with the reverence shown for the subject matter. Mary never says anything here or in the rest of the movie. No angels appear, and none of the other characters involved say anything here. The story is all conveyed with music and performances. It also may be a way of assuming the audience knows the story more generally while telling us that the main story takes place alongside of it. We are not introduced to Judah or any of the other major characters in this opening, but the story remains framed by the story of Jesus, and what the narration and opening pictures convey to us sets the tone and establishes the framework through which we are to understanding the story of Judah.
Of course, the actual presentation of the nativity scene owes more to traditional merging of stories in nativity scenes than any particular Gospel story. The shepherds and wise men—presented as three as they pretty much always are in Western tradition—are present together at the scene. But at least it avoids some of the extra peculiarities of Wallace’s work. I do not wish to be too hard on Wallace’s research, as it is clear that he used what was available to him and we have learned more from history and archeology since his time. Since I had just finished reading Josephus’s works in their entirety before I read Ben-Hur, I could tell that there were many points at which he was dependent on Josephus, and he is certainly a valuable source for this era (see here and here for more). But in other cases, he was going out on his own limbs. For example, in his version of the story, Joseph is Mary’s uncle. This is supposed to be a way for Mary to preserve her share of the inheritance from her father by marrying her next of kin (which is a misunderstanding of the case of Zelophehad’s daughters in Num 27 and 36). Also, because there is no narration about the three wise men traditionally named Balthasar, Gaspar, and Melchior, we do not get Wallace’s take on their origins here. Common Western tradition links Balthasar to Babylon, Gaspar to India, and Melchior to Persia. But Wallace has Balthasar be from Egypt (in the movie, he does later say he is from Alexandria), Gaspar from Greece, and Melchior from India, the only one of the wise men to be from the east of Judea. I have no idea what motivated Wallace to change the origins of the wise men from common Western tradition, but it was clearly not a map.
More Chronological Confusion
When we flash forward from this scene, the new setting is now AD 26. While this timing does fit for being before Jesus’s ministry, it does not fit with anything else. We are told that Valerius Gratus was to be the new governor when Messala comes to Jerusalem to be tribune. He is replacing a man named Sextus. As a matter of fact, Gratus succeeded Annius Rufus in 15 CE after Tiberius became the emperor, and he was, in turn, succeeded by Pontius Pilate in 26 CE (see Josephus, Ant. 18.29–35). Thus, it should be Pontius Pilate becoming the new governor if this is the year 26, but then Judah would not meet him when he does later in the film. Of course, this did not need to be at the succession of a new governor, but such is the tangled web of chronological errors made here.
From Nazareth to Jerusalem
Our first scene in this new setting is in Nazareth as Messala and his company travel through here on the way to Jerusalem. It is not obvious that this is the route that would be taken, but what is obvious is that this is a way of reinforcing the link between the main story and the story of Jesus. The scene that takes place here tells us that Jesus is not working on a table that Joseph has been hired to build. The man says Jesus is neglecting his work, but Joseph says he had talked with him about it, to which he had responded that he must be about this Father’s business. The man thinks that means he should be here working, to which Joseph responds with the assurance that Jesus is working. This quotation from Jesus fits with the book’s tendency to have Jesus’s direct discourse only be quotes from the Bible. However, in later scenes one will find that there are mixes of direct quotes and paraphrases that do not quite fit. Of course, there is some historical plausibility in the notion that people might paraphrase what they heard Jesus say and not always accurately quote him, but it is worth noting this tendency, particularly when the paraphrases are part of a message the film is trying to convey.
There is also a nice little detail here of a mezuzah being set by the entrance to Joseph’s workshop that the man acknowledges before he enters. The foundation of this Jewish practice rests on texts from Deuteronomy, specifically 6:4–9 and 11:13–21. The former text is especially significant for how it links to the foundational Shema prayer.
Next, we follow Messala to Jerusalem, where he reflects on the fact that he has achieved his dream of commanding this garrison. It is unclear how old he is supposed to be, as there is never any clear statement to this effect, but it is notable that at the corresponding portion of the book, Messala is 19 while Judah is 17. Of course, Stephen Boyd was 28 when this film was released, and Charlton Heston was 36. Each could pass for younger men, but not quite this young.
Anyway, the scene with Messala here is meant to establish that what the opening narration said of Judea still holds true. Sextus speaks of the rebelliousness of the Judeans and their hope for a messianic king who would lead them into an anti-Roman paradise. Messala dismisses such talk and the figures that have arisen because there was one predicted when he was a boy here. As Josephus documents, there were plenty of pretenders in the areas of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea from the time of Herod the Great’s death to the fall of Jerusalem. Beyond this, there was a widely present spirit of revolution. While the Hasmonean Dynasty that preceded Roman dominion was far from what people had hoped for in the days of the Greeks, it was preferable to the subjugation the Jews were under once again, even while they dwelt in their promised land. This is not to say that everyone was a revolutionary or even that the majority of the population was, but even many of those who did not join the bandits, the insurrectionists, or even the separatists like those who lived at Qumran had sympathies with their aims of independence and hope for deliverance from the current socio-economic-political state.
Sextus mentions some individuals he has heard of in this time, particularly John the Baptizer and Jesus. As I mentioned before, this is too early in the timeline for Jesus to be starting his ministry. Indeed, he is said to be known for performing magic tricks, or “miracles,” as the people prefer to call them. But Sextus also distinguishes him from other such leaders as he has seen or Messala has heard of because “He teaches that God is near, in every man. It’s actually quite profound, some of it.” This is the first case of what I mentioned previously about the movie sometimes paraphrasing Jesus in ways that are not quite right. I am not sure what teaching this is referring to, but the closest analogue is Luke 17:21 with the reference to the kingdom of God being “among you,” “in your midst,” or “within your grasp” (though it has been translated as “within you”). Still, I cannot help but think that this was part of Wyler’s wish (and/or the wishes of the writers) to make this a film that had more general religious appeal beyond Christians.
In any case, the line serves as a set-up for Messala to say, “There is divinity in only one man.” Of course, this is in reference to Caesar. The extent and influence of the imperial cult is debated, but there is plenty of evidence in Roman literature (to say nothing of inscriptions, coins, and so on) for this portrayal of Caesar. The Romans were hardly unique in this regard of presenting their rulers as divine or sons of divinity, but this was obviously the most prominent form of ruler worship in this part of the world.
Messala and Judah
Messala thinks he can be more successful than Sextus in carrying out the will of Caesar by suppressing the rebelliousness of the Jews, but Sextus challenges him, “How do you fight an idea? Especially a new idea?” Messala’s response is delayed, but he eventually says, “With another idea.” Unfortunately, that other idea is never explicitly declared. But I do not think that is necessarily a problem, as the script is not always explicit where it could be where the writers trusted audiences to either discuss something or draw the clear inferences themselves. In this case, the inference is not so clear, but from the context of how Messala speaks, it would be either about what could be summarized as “the greatness of Rome” or of the idea that it is better to work with your conquerors than against them, since Messala later says, “Persuade your people that their resistance to Rome is stupid.” That is what the other, more physical means of fighting rebellion aim to accomplish, but they do not really have lasting effect unless either the opposing idea is invalidated (as in failed prophetic or messianic movements) or people are demoralized in fighting against the dominant ideology.
Messala sounds every bit of the Roman conqueror he was introduced as being, but this scene also shows another side to him. When he is told that Judah Ben-Hur, a prince of the Judeans, has come, he sternly commands his centurion who was speaking in a mocking tone to treat him like a prince. He also reminds him that this land was his before it was theirs. There is a side to him that could be moved to treat the conquered with some measure of dignity, but it is the lesser and, indeed, fading part of his personality. This limitation of mercy is derived from his long friendship with Judah, but we will soon see that even that will be taken away.
Of all the characters in both the book and the movie, Messala is probably the one who has undergone the most change between media. In the movie, we see Judah and Messala interact as friends from childhood, as well as of a man whose life was saved by the other, before they become enemies. By contrast, Messala is antagonistic to Judah from the beginning of the story, and we must be told via narration—not any demonstrative action—that he was not always as he is now. There are no happy reunions, no fond remembrances by both him and Judah (as well as the latter’s family), no embraces, no hint of hospitality specially dispensed, no friendly competition, no gifts, no warm interactions with family (including a lingering attraction from the sister), no nothing. The movie makes clearer that Messala was once a youth of honor, kindness, and affability (as conveyed not only by his saving Judah but also by their reminiscing about what they used to do at Judah’s home when they were boys), albeit Messala was also one who was ambitious and desirous of his share in the glory of Rome. While the movie does not shy away from portraying Messala’s fall and the deplorable nature of his treachery—in fact, it arguably accentuates it—the movie also communicates that it was the cult of Rome that took Messala’s ambition and desire and corrupted it until he became unrecognizable as a good friend of old. This fact is one of Judah’s motivations—along with other personal torments he has suffered because of the Romans—for reversing his initial position of accommodating the regrettable reality of Roman rule to that of actively seeking its overthrow. In the book, Messala’s change has nothing to do with Judah’s revolutionary dreams, since it rather involves messianic fervor and upholding the honor and nobility of his people. Some mix of the book and movie elements would probably make for the best characterization of Judah, but the movie is superior in tying together Judah’s potential descent down the spiral of violence, Messala’s change of character, the more general state of the world under the Roman Empire, and the connections of these matters to Jesus.
Indeed, part of what makes this epic story digestible is the focus on the personal story of Judah. The relationship he has with Messala, despite their history of friendship and the wishes of both to have remained friends, encapsulates the tensions of the Judeans with Rome. Various parts of their dialogue point to barely subdued unease at the dynamic between one as a representative of the conquerors and one as a representative of the conquered people longing for freedom. One example is when Messala speaks of how he wishes for Judah’s help and advice in governance, and the first thing he tells him is to withdraw the Roman legions and give the people back their freedom. Of course, Messala overlooks such wishes because he thinks Judah can still be sympathetic to his cause because of his opposition to violence.
Part of the ideological tension is also shown in Messala’s dialogue in how he speaks with such pride of Rome and Caesar, who he insists to Judah is a god. Part of the idea he appears to be using to fight revolution is apparent when he says, “It’s a Roman world. If you want to live in it, you must become part of it.” For Jews and, later, for Christians, this was the pervasive pressure. While there was violent conflict and persecution, more often they dealt with other more personal and subtler pressures to assimilate to the world around them, even at the cost of compromising one’s allegiance to the one God they worshiped.
It also comes through in his belief that “it was fate that chose us to civilize the world.” This was a frequent point of Roman imperial ideology that the gods or the force of fate sometimes considered above the gods chose them to be the rulers of the world. The emperor was thus linked, even cultically, with Jupiter, the supreme god of the Roman pantheon. This is also a point that was reaffirmed in the great epics of the time and others that I have reviewed in the aforementioned series on Roman literature. Truly, this ideology was expressed at times as a realized eschatology in which the long-planned will of the gods had come to fruition, that the survivors of Troy had risen from its ashes to conquer the Greeks who defeated them along with the larger Mediterranean world.
Another element that people sometimes try to add to this relationship stems from comments from Gore Vidal. He was one of the people brought in to improve Karl Tunberg’s script, and he claims that he added a homoerotic subtext to the relationship between Judah and Messala. Naturally, this element was not part of the story by Wallace, nor was Vidal accentuating any part of Tunberg’s script. Whether you think it is in the movie depends on how much stock you put into what Vidal said and how you construe elements that would otherwise convey friendship in light of such comments. Obviously, Heston has denied that there is such a subtext. But as far as I am aware, Wyler never addressed the claimed subtext, only that he did not remember talking with Vidal about it or particularly about Boyd’s acting. Much like people who thought the same element would be worked into the Tolkien biopic years ago, I think this claim is overblown and requires for its alleged necessity the belief that deep friendship is a disguise or elaboration of erotic love, which betrays that the one thinks this way has never had friends (to paraphrase C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves). When I compare the early scenes between Judah and Messala to a scene that was deleted from the theatrical release of Spartacus (the one about the oysters and snails with Crassus and his slave Antoninus), which came out the next year, I would think it should be apparent what a gulf there is between a scene with clear homoerotic undertones in the latter and the scenes that are claimed to have such in Ben-Hur. (It is also not clear as to when this supposed relationship as lovers would have happened. We do not know how old Messala is, but he says he lived in Jerusalem until he was 14, and he has clearly been away for some time, though it is not clear that he was away ever since then.)
Falling Out
The predominant issues again come to the fore in their second interaction at Judah’s home. After the warm reunion with Judah’s family (including Martha Scott reprising her role from The Ten Commandments as Charlton Heston’s mother, this time named Miriam), Messala talks with Judah about his opposition to violence. He has spoken with others and most of them agreed with his opposition to violence against the Romans. But that is not reassuring to Messala because he said “most” and not “all.” Messala wants Judah to name names so that he can round up the dissidents. Neither of them agree with the people in question, but Messala sees them as criminals and Judah sees them as patriots. And thus the irreconcilable difference between them boils to the surface. Judah favors freedom for his people, but not violence, yet he would not inform on his people for that reason to risk them being rounded up by the Romans. But Messala puts the rule of Rome and the order that supports it above everything else, meaning that he is fine with sacrificing dissident Judeans if it means bringing order, and he thinks everyone else should be fine with that, too. And so the conversation escalates to Judah saying what he really feels, “And I tell you the day Rome falls there will be a shout of freedom such as the world has never heard before.” In turn, Messala gives Judah the bottom line, “You’re either for me or against me.” When given the choice between the lives of his people—even though he may not think of himself as being as close with them as he is with Messala—and his friendship with Messala, Judah ultimately cannot bring himself to side with Messala. Others in his own time chose differently, and so it has continued to be that some do their best going along to get along with the ruling power. But those who choose any other path like Judah did here find that their situation can become precarious, no matter how exalted their station may be or how well-connected they are.
Simonides and Esther
But before we get to that, we get our first scene with Simonides, the merchant who works for the family of Hur, and his daughter Esther. Simonides’s presence in the story is diminished compared to the book, though there is a tribute to his larger role in the book through referencing that he worked at Antioch, where much of his place in the story was in the book. Conversely, Esther’s presence is increased. She is the love interest here as she was there, but that romance occupies a larger part of the story here and Judah does not have a romance before Esther like he does with Iras in the book (before she ultimately gets into a relationship with Messala). As I said before, the romantic scenes between them are my least favorite in the movie. The direction, blocking, and musical overlay of these scenes evoke old soap operas. That is not to say that the romance is uninteresting, particularly given how significant it is to Judah’s character arc later in the movie, or that the romance is poorly written as such. My issue is more with the presentation and how difficult it is for me to take it seriously. Maybe the romantic side of Wyler’s previous The Big Country was done better because he had more complicated material to work with in the dynamics of the characters involved (the person Esther is engaged to marry at this point never appears on screen, almost like he did not really matter).
False Imprisonment and Sentencing Without Trial
After the relationships with these two characters are established, we return to the storyline of Judah and Messala. Messala is accompanying Valerius Gratus in his procession for his inauguration as governor. Judah and Tirzah watch this procession from the roof of their house. We first get the reactions of both of them to Messala passing by with the palpable sense of loss and pain on their faces for what is now a broken relationship. But then when Gratus comes by, Tirzah leans against the edge of the roof and a set of loose tiles fall and crash to the ground near Gratus’s horse, which spooks him and causes him to throw Gratus against the wall, knocking him unconscious.
Naturally, the Romans come into the compound to arrest who they can. Messala has a chance to stop it, but he says nothing. He allows Judah, Miriam, and Tirzah to be taken, but he instructs his soldiers to let the servants go. This is a subtle action that fits his stated solution earlier of finding the leaders of rebellion. His order works from the top down, and so he thinks his opponents operate the same. And as far as he can tell, this has the appearance of rebellious activity, despite Judah’s word that it was an accident.
The sequence that follows is what most truly shows the depths of Messala’s villainy. He investigates Judah’s roof and learns that, in fact, the tiles are loose. Judah’s story is plausible, and he has no real reason to suspect malevolence or violent intent (since he knows that Juda is opposed to violence against the Romans), nor does he have reason to hold his mother and sister in prison. But he decides without trial to send Judah to Tyrus, which I am guessing is supposed to be Tyre. He is condemning Judah to be a galley slave. He is also condemning his mother and sister to rot in prison for some indeterminate time. He does not believe that Judah did what he charges him with doing, nor does he think his mother and sister are guilty. He simply states that Judah and his family are useful for his own ambition of bringing order to Judea. If he uses them as an example when it is known that they were friends of his, he incurs fear among the populace. For if this is what he would dare to do to his friends for even attempting to harm the governor, what would he do to those who he has no positive disposition to for doing something similar? There is nothing more to say, nothing more to be done. His will is set, and he has callously chosen his victims for his own ends. Likewise, when Simonides comes to appeal to Messala, thinking that he should know better than to think that Judah is guilty, Messala orders him to be detained for questioning. These events alter the courses of the entire family of Hur and those connected with them like Simonides and Esther.
The use of galley slaves was a known practice, but it was not a particularly common sentence even for what Judah is charged with. It might have been more likely for one who was a prisoner of war. But this sentence and the decision to leave his mother and sister to rot owes more to inspiration from one of Wallace’s favorite stories (and rightly so): The Count of Monte Cristo. It is not direct borrowing by any means, but the elements of false charge for crimes against the government by a supposed friend (or supposed friends in the case of The Count of Monte Cristo and its own inspiration in the story of Pierre Picaud), being left in prison to rot (though now it is not so for the main character), the suffering that comes with those connected to the falsely accused, and the plot of revenge upon release, among other elements (such as the exalted station acquired while the accused is away) owe more to this modern story than to any element of the ancient world or the source material therefrom.
Pulling into Nazareth, Feeling About Half Past Dead
After this, Judah and his fellow prisoners are dragged across the desert on the way to the port. I suppose you could technically go through a desert to get to Nazareth on the way to Tyre, but it seems like a rather roundabout route. The desert is more east and south of Jerusalem. But it is not like they filmed in Israel, after all.
But eventually they arrive in Nazareth with the prisoners being horribly dehydrated. A centurion refuses water to Judah without an explicit reason given, and thus Judah appears to be on the verge of death if he goes on much longer. He prays for help and his prayers are answered in one of the most remarkable scenes in the movie. A man approaches him with water and saves his life. The centurion who said there was to be no water for Judah scolds the man and approaches him threateningly, but when he straightens up, we see from the back that this is Jesus (played by Claude Heater in his only film role). We never see his face in the course of the movie.1 As with the Nativity and other scenes involving Jesus, Wyler has adopted an approach of “less is more,” in part by not telling what so many other adaptations have already told, not to mention the Gospels themselves, nor does he try to add to the Gospels in any substantial way. This is simply presented as an incidental contact with Jesus and his story (even though it is inconsistent with what was said earlier that he had already garnered a significant reputation). But it is an incidental contact that proves crucial to the story of Judah. And while we never see his face, we do see the face of the centurion reacting to him. Simply being stared down by this man is enough to make him relent on his ruthlessness to Judah and to ask himself other questions we are not privy to. This is a small part, but the actor delivers a wonderfully layered performance without dialogue. The same applies to Heston. Outside of the centurion’s initial protest, the three prominent characters in this scene say nothing to each other.
And while the score is clearly made prominent here, I think this scene is another example I would point to of how well this movie does in telling its story visually without dialogue. For as long as it is and for as much as is said in it, some of the best scenes in this movie are light on dialogue. This scene is one of the best examples of how you could watch it muted and be able to tell both what is happening and how the people involved are feeling.
The Galleys
Unfortunately, while Judah has been saved, he has not yet been delivered from his troubles. He still goes to the galleys, and the next time we see him, he has been a rower for three years. This part of the movie also contains one of the most memorable parts of the score that accompanies the rowing, which is especially effective in the scene when the rowers are commanded to progressively increase their speed, which is accompanied by a progressively faster score. This helps to illustrate in multiple ways the rhythmic monotony of a galley slave’s life. We also see here a minor fact illustrating how inconsistent the movie is with the book even in places where there is no particular reason for it. The book has Judah’s number as LX while the movie has his number as XLI.
As in The Count of Monte Cristo, it is in this situation where he meets the man who will enable him to achieve a more exalted place in life, although the person is meets is far far away from Abbé Faria. This man is Quintus Arrius—not based on a historical figure, although there were known individuals with such a name—a jaded consul of Rome. Faria restored Edmond’s hope, renewed his faith, edified him with his extensive knowledge, and gave him a sense of purpose, Arrius scoffs at Judah’s sense of purpose and hope for his future, as he thinks that Judah has no way out but what he can offer (which is to be one of his gladiator slaves), since Judah is either going to stay on a ship for the rest of his life or, if the ship sinks, be chained to sink with it. He does not believe Judah’s God will help him any more than he believes that the gods help him. He claims Judah has a “stubborn faith” to believe existence has a purpose, saying, “A sane man would have learned to lose it long before this.”
As Judah discerns, this implies that something happened to cause him to lose what faith he once had. What that cause was gets no explanation here, and I think that is for the best. On the one hand, it allows the audience to speculate in the meantime before the cause is stated indirectly. On the other hand, when that cause is stated indirectly, it allows for viewers to connect the dots for themselves without the script needing to spell it out for them. In fact, originally, Arrius did speak in this scene of his dead wife and son. But in the revision, the revelation of his dead son is held off until later in the movie in a more emotionally impactful scene (which, unfortunately, leads to a noticeably harsh editor’s cut for this scene in its current form).
Still, for the time being, we can tell that something about Judah has left its mark. When the ship is preparing for battle, the order is given to chain the slaves to their anchor points. But Arrius says not to chain 41. Arrius never explains this decision he makes, but he clearly sees something in him. Maybe it is the fact that he maintains his sense of purpose despite the years of toil enslaved to others. Maybe it is something else. Judah does not understand it either any more than he understands why the man in Nazareth gave him water. In any case, this decision from Arrius will not only allow the story of Judah to continue, but it will save many more lives, including his own.
The naval battle we see is not representative of any particular battle in history. The Macedonian fleet Rome is fighting against is not a standard army, as Macedonia had been conquered long ago. Thus, it is a fleet of pirates. This was a challenge that the Romans and previous Mediterranean kingdoms had to face. Augustus marked as one of his accomplishments in his reign that he brought peace to the sea by defeating the pirates (Res Gestae 25). The Roman navy was crucial to its dominance and maintenance of its preferred order in the Mediterranean, and it had played crucial roles in the Punic Wars, the Battle of Actium, and so on. In these days, it was more useful for protecting supply and trade routes. That is ultimately be what this battle was for, and it could also be part of quelling a rebellion.
The battle scene is a hectic demonstration of how ancient naval battles were conducted. The combat is necessarily short-range to make archery and artillery from flaming balls more likely to hit a moving target. You either want to capture the other ships, set them ablaze, or ram them to breach and sink them. Arrius’s ship rams another ship and is in turn rammed by another ship. This would have meant the death of the galley slaves, but because Judah was spared from being chained, he is able to overcome a guard and get the keys to free most of the other slaves.
He is also able to go to the deck to save Arrius’s life before and after he falls from the ship. Without him, Arrius would have either drowned or committed suicide because of his apparent shame. But then he would not have lived to learn that his ship was one of the few the Romans lost in what was otherwise a resounding victory. Since he had lost his sense of hope, he would not of his own volition have lived to learn of his victory, to receive his triumph in Rome, and to see his and Judah’s lives changed for the better. Some capacity for faith is restored to him as well, as he says to Judah upon learning of the victory, “In His eagerness to save you, your God has also saved the Roman fleet.”
In Rome
This relationship enables Arrius to appeal to Tiberius on Judah’s behalf to have his sentence suspended, for which he is released into Arrius’s custody. Because Judah is released into Arrius’s custody, he is able to race his chariots. Because he is able to race his chariots, the course of the story after this is made possible. While Judah is shown to have some appreciation for horses prior to this, it is probably the fact that the exalted and now more highly honored Arrius can afford to give him the best horses, the best training, and the best means of practice that Judah develops into such a fine charioteer.
Moreover, the relationship between them is such that Arrius announces at the party he hosts that he is adopting Judah as his son. This is the scene where he indicates that the crisis of his life that he suffered to lead him to his jaded outlook was losing his son. Again, the more restrained approach taken to writing this scene has helped one to see the larger significance for Arrius as a character without needing to spell out everything for the audience.
However, this scene also shows the chronological issues plaguing this movie. Judah said he was in the galleys for three years. By the time he returns to Judea, he is said to have been gone for four years, meaning that he has been in Rome for roughly a year. In fact, it could be that he was there for over a year, since Drusus will say that his mother and sister have been imprisoned for almost five years. And yet, Pontius Pilate is only now on his way to Judea to serve as prefect. His tenure began in 26 CE, when this main story began, and not in 30/31 CE, the current date.
Returning to Judea and Meeting the Sheik
Judah admits that he is not content in Rome, and with Arrius’s blessing, he proceeds to journey back to Judea. Along the way, he encounters Balthasar, one of the three Magi from the opening. Unlike in the book where all three reappear later in the story after the introduction, only Balthasar reappears in this adaptation. Part of the reason for the reappearances in the book was due to a motif Wallace sought to set up in linking Gaspar to faith both in a major exposition of his and in the virtue he exemplifies in the course of the story. The same applies to Melchior in linking him to love. As for Balthasar, he was linked to good works. I am not sure why the triad went from faith-love-hope to faith-love-good works, but that is how it was in the Wallace novel. To simplify the story, the movie now features only one of the Magi and does not make use of the motif. Balthasar is more of a personal connection with the story of Jesus from beginning to end, and he serves as a moral exemplar for where Judah should be at the end of the story, while the other character he meets at this point of the story—Sheik Ilderim—better represents where he is at the moment.
Now, of course, something that some people have found objectionable about this movie in more recent years is Hugh Griffith’s casting as Sheik Ilderim while wearing “brownface.” The Welsh Griffith playing an Arab is more like the Jewish Eli Wallach playing a Latino in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (or The Magnificent Seven, for that matter) or the Egyptian Omar Sharif playing a Russian in Doctor Zhivago than it is like Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Al Jolson’s extensive use of blackface caricature in The Jazz Singer. Nothing in his performance is a disrespectful representation of an ethnicity (indeed, he is particularly likable). I get that some viewers will still find this too distracting to potentially enjoy, like they might with the other examples I have cited, but I do not. If you were looking for ethnic plausibility in this movie, we drove past it long ago. Only one person of the major characters fits ethnically, which is the Israeli Haya Harareet playing Esther (her father Simonides, a minor character, is played by Sam Jaffe, who was a Jew born from Ukrainian Jewish parents). Otherwise, Americans play the Judeans and other Jews while British actors play the Romans. Pontius Pilate is played by an Australian and Balthasar is played by a Scotsman. Even if the skin tone is not necessarily far off, the ethnicities are. Moreover, Ilderim’s horses are not Arabian but are distinctly European. And unlike the other examples I have cited, I am not sure how many actors from Saudi Arabia were in the Hollywood system at the time (that is, if your goal is actually more authenticity and not a shallow kind of “representation” where anyone with a generally similar skin tone would do).
Ilderim is quite a likable character and the first impression he makes is how much he cares for his horses. As his driver is training them for an upcoming race, he intervenes the moment the driver uses a whip to drive them. He threatens to kill him if he sees him do it again. When the driver proves unable to control the horses through a turn, he chases him down and takes the reins himself while criticizing him for treating his horses like animals. But he calms himself upon meeting with Balthasar, who he is hosting for the night, and hearing Judah’s analysis of how to make his team of horses into a proper team. He thereafter tries to persuade Judah to be his new driver. If it were not clear before how deeply he cherishes his horses, the after-dinner scene makes this crystal clear in how he speaks of and to his horses like they are his children. Griffith’s affectionate performance and improvisational work deserve some special credit here because apparently he did not like filming the scene with horses, but one could not tell this from the actual performance. (Heston speculated that it had something to do with how these beautiful creatures took the focus of the audience off the human actors.)
It is in this scene that Judah learns that Messala also races chariots. Since Ilderim can tell that Judah has something against Messala, he tries to persuade him to be his driver so as to humiliate Messala for losing to a Jew in the circus. He does not know the details of what Judah has gone through, but he is trying to leverage his vengefulness to finally defeat Messala. But Judah insists that he wants to handle Messala his way.
Balthasar warns Judah against pursuing the path of revenge, saying that he has no right to kill Messala, and that his punishment will come. In this way, Balthasar exemplifies a capacity for faith beyond what Judah has already shown. His own faith in God’s justice and faithfulness is upheld by his encounter with the Christ-child by following God’s call to him. Indeed, he says he is here to find him again now that he is a grown man. He is assured that God lives in him because of this whole Christmas event, and because this man lives on earth, “all our lives from now on will carry his mark.” While Balthasar has not heard Jesus speak, this speech shows how he is ready to receive his teaching.
This exhortation from Balthasar does not take full effect here. As I said, he exemplifies the type of person Judah ought to be by the end of the story, but that is not where he is now. It may be that he has enough of an effect that Judah never actually carries out an attempt to kill Messala. We will return to this effect later, but where he is now in his development is closer to Ilderim, who acknowledges, as Judah tacitly does, that Balthasar is a good man, but the fact is that not enough men are like him. And so it is thought by people like Judah and Ilderim (i.e., most people) that a more realistic ethic cannot simply leave such judgment to God. Ilderim also makes a final appeal by reminding Judah that there is no law in the arena and many die there.
A Home in Shambles
With that, we leave these characters for a time and travel with Judah back to his home in Jerusalem. As with the first scene in Nazareth, there is a nice touch of detail here in featuring the mezuzah at the entrance of Judah’s house. It was not given focus earlier, but here Judah is overwhelmed with relief and gratitude to see it is still here. But at the same time, we see clearly that not all is well. While the mezuzah is here, the house is seemingly unattended, as a breeze blows the door open. When he ventures inside, he finds that it is, in fact, occupied.
This scene features the tender reunion of Judah and Esther. She never married because of what happened following Judah’s arrest. While this is, again, not a direct parallel with The Count of Monte Cristo, the rippling effects extending from the main character’s imprisonment that forever altered the lives of those who were affectionate towards him resembles that story. In this case, Esther never married because she could not leave Simonides. He had been tortured until the Romans were sure he was hiding nothing (which reminded me of a rather sadistic scene in Pan’s Labyrinth involving the villain telling a man how he would finally believe anything he told him by the time he got to using a certain instrument). It is a keen and subtle reminder of just how dark the reality of this occupation by the Romans could be. That torture left Simonides with non-functioning legs, and Esther could not leave him for a new family in this condition.
Simonides is also attended by Malluch, a man he met in prison. He is mute in the movie as a result of having his tongue cut out, unlike in the book (he is actually the one who arranges the wager, for example). An interesting consequence of this change is how he is thus made not only to serve Simonides but to complement him. Simonides is Malluch’s voice and Malluch is Simonides’s legs. In this way, they are reminiscent of the famous parable of the blind man and the lame man combining to take fruit from a tree they were not allowed to access as a representation of both the body and soul being involved in deeds and both needing to be judged (hence the need for resurrection; Apocr. Ezek. frag. 1).
This scene is also a prime example of how well this movie deals with complex emotions. That is partly a result of the quality of the screenplay, but it is more the result of the quality of acting. Writing for a screenplay can only convey so much without the benefit of narration that a novel provides for what a character is thinking. Thus, the weight falls upon the actor’s shoulders to not only deliver the lines but also present the undercurrent of emotions in what cannot simply be spoken. Simonides is described by Esther as a man who has been beaten down by hate and bitterness for what was done to him, but he is genuinely astonished and overjoyed that Judah has returned beyond hope. He cannot imagine that Judah’s mother and sister have survived in prison after all these years, but he acknowledges that it he would not have thought it likely that Judah would have survived either. He thus describes him aptly as, having come back “like a returning faith.” After all these years, all he really wants is to laugh again and to celebrate, declaring, “There will be joy again in this house. We will celebrate among the dust.” Immediately after he forces these words out, he collapses in tears. He had been trying to put on a brave face, but the complex welling up of contradictory emotions eventually became too much for him to contain.
The scene then moves to a dialogue between Ether and Judah where they properly catch up. Like Balthasar, Esther seeks to dissuade Judah from carrying out revenge against Messala. She knows what hate can do to a man because of her father, but she says, “I’ve heard of a young rabbi who says that forgiveness is greater, and love more powerful than hatred.” Compared to the earlier paraphrase, this is a better one. And what makes it work as a paraphrase is Esther’s own admission that this is something she has heard secondhand. She has not heard Jesus for herself yet, but she has well enough passed on the gist of Jesus’s emphasis on forgiveness and his hard teaching on loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you. But as yet, Judah is not ready to receive this message. He indicates that he is not immediately out for Messala’s blood, provided that he can return Miriam and Tirzah to him.
Messala Sees a Ghost and Drusus Sees Lepers
And that is the message Judah conveys to Messala when they see each other once more when Judah gets access to him under the guise of being Quintus Arrius’s son come to give him a magnificent dagger. Messala is rightly stunned to see Judah, but he rather nonchalantly asks if he gifted him the dagger to use on himself. And yet we see that in spite of everything, as Judah indicated to Esther, and as I think evinces the influence of Balthasar, he is willing to let go of his vengeful intent if Messala will only restore his family to him. And now that Messala is on the wrong side of the power imbalance, he sends his attendant Drusus to inquire about them.
When Drusus arrives at the prison, he learns that Miriam and Tirzah still live, but they have become lepers. We do not directly see them here, and shots in the subsequent scene obscure them in darkness. This is one case where telling rather than showing can be effective, as it shows the horror of others to look upon what the camera will not show us. And obviously the women do not wish to show themselves, so the camera is informed both by the sensibilities of the characters and the apparent sensitivity of the director. While the Romans are content to let them go their own way while they set fire to the cell, the women return to their home only long enough to tell Esther to lie to Judah by saying they were dead. They wanted him to remember them as they were rather than see them as they are. And so Esther lies rather poorly to Judah, claiming she saw them dead before but did not have the heart to tell Judah sooner. Since Judah’s vengefulness enables him to think the worst rather than probe this lie, he is motivated to find Ilderim and agree to his arrangement.
A Baffling Wager
When we have come back from the intermission, Ilderim has arrived to make his wager with the Romans. As I mentioned before, the book version has Malluch make this wager with Messala and his fellows. Instead, we are shown how well Ilderim plays head games with the Romans through manipulating their arrogance. The amount of the wager is still massive in the book at five talents with 6 to 1 odds, but the movie version is incredible: 1,000 talents with 4 to 1 odds. Even with Messala’s confidence in his victory, it is understandable why he might blanch at this amount. We are not told whether these are gold talents or silver talents, but a silver talent was equivalent to 6,000 denarii or 6,000 days’ worth of wages for an average field laborer. 4,000 talents would be 800 more talents than what Caesar Augustus paid to 320,000 plebeians (at 60 denarii per pleb) in 5 BCE (Res Gestae 15). Of course, the amount is meant to be impressive, not plausible. The average moviegoer was/is not going to have a conception of how much a talent is in terms of a practical payout (the box he brings may amount to 1, although this correlation is not made in the movie), but 1,000 of something is still going to sound like a significant wager in the absence of such context.
The Hippodrome
After the wager is set and we have one more scene emphasizing the connection Judah has made with Ilderim’s horses, as well as his resolve for the race, we come to the race itself. It is set in a rather massive hippodrome in Jerusalem. The book has the race set in Antioch, and some, including the technical advisor Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, have thought that to be more credible. That may be so in terms of the size of the hippodrome, but the idea suggested in the commentary that a hippodrome “this large” in Jerusalem would have led to Jewish revolt much earlier is difficult to justify. According to Josephus, Herod had built three hippodromes/amphitheaters, all of which would have been smaller than this set (the racetrack had straightaways approximately 460 m long; the one at Antioch had straightaways that were 490 m long). One was in Caesarea (Josephus, Ant. 16.136–138), which I was able to get a rough picture of when I was in Israel.
Another was in Jericho (Josephus, Ant. 17.176–181; War 1.666), and another one was, in fact, in Jerusalem (Josephus, Ant. 15.268–270; 17.255; War 2.44). However, there has been no archaeological evidence found of the one in Jerusalem, and given how we cannot be certain of its exact location or even size per se, it was removed from the miniature of first-century Jerusalem that is now on display at the Israel Museum, despite being part of the older model. (Note that the model is 1:50 scale.)
The setting itself is not implausible, but the way it is presented is. This was not filmed in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and if you have ever even seen the old city, you will notice that the surrounding area in the movie does not look anything like the vicinity of ancient Jerusalem. I do not really consider that a mark against the movie, but for me a production does get extra credit for attention to such detail, and this one does not get it.
The Famous Race
Prior to the race, Judah pauses for a brief prayer: “God forgive me for seeking vengeance, but my path is set. Into Your hands I commit my life. Do with me as you will.” That he feels compelled to pray in this way once again shows the influence of Balthasar. It also shows complexity of characterization. He has committed himself to vengeance, but he acknowledges that it is not the most righteous path. Thus, he is willing to accept what consequences may come if he has done wrong. It is similar to the complexity of characterization with the titular count in The Count of Monte Cristo when he is in the process of realizing his vengeful designs (as well as in the aftermath of their realization). And even after all of this, he never actively seeks to kill Messala, whereas Messala’s potentially murderous intent is clear from his chariot spikes (long before they were a decoration for many a lowrider).
Then we get the pomp and pageantry leading up to race, the acknowledgment of Caesar, and finally the race itself. The racing scene is the most famous part of this entire movie. It has sometimes been imitated (like with the pod race in The Phantom Menace), but its quality has never been duplicated. There is no musical accompaniment, Wyler distributes the reaction shots well, and the way the story in the race progresses is quite natural and not contrived (unlike the video game-type scenario in The Phantom Menace when the hero just has to start from last place and manage to beat the best pilot). We see early on and throughout the race how dangerous—even lethal—this sport can be for participants and even for non-participants. We have already established Judah’s quality as a racer, and we see it here in how he is able to have patience to make a comeback, how he is willing to work within the parameters of his sponsor, and how (because of his arrangement and his training) his team of horses handles the turns better than others. We also see Messala’s quality as a racer combined with his willingness to race dirty with every trick in his book. And in the end, it is Judah’s quality as a racer combined with Messala’s overreaching aggressiveness that ultimately lead to Messala’s downfall, rather than any direct action of Judah’s. We see throughout the race how others suffer when their chariots are disabled because of what Messala and his chariot spikes can do. But when he tries to use them and his whip against Judah, this ultimately causes his wheel to get hung up on Judah’s wheel, leading to it becoming disconnected when their chariots come out of the bind, which in turn leads to Messala losing his grip on the reins of his horses and being trampled by another chariot (and that also without intent). Thus, the hero is kept free from cold-blooded killing, and we even see his concern when Messala is hurt. But at the same time, that highlights how fruitless such a quest for revenge has been. Again, this screenplay handles complex emotions well.
The Death of Messala
And that quality continues in the scene after Judah’s victory celebration. For he must now visit Messala as he lies dying from his injuries in the hippodrome. Boyd’s performance as a dying man is exceptional. There is none of the typical sanitizing for the speech of the dying here. We hear every belabored breath, every coarse exertion to make speech, and every struggle as he attempts to hold on to see Judah and taunt him one last time even from his position of weakness. This was also a particularly taxing scene for Boyd and Heston to film. Wyler (like the later Peter Jackson) was known for doing more takes than others thought he needed to in order to get just what he wanted. But what exacerbated that issue here was that he wanted Heston to be indifferent in his reaction to Messala dying, but Heston had difficulty trying to be indifferent in this setting.
This is also a significant departure from the book. People might be surprised that this plotline with Messala is resolved with still over 40 minutes left in the movie, but at least in this regard it is similar to the book in that this resolution (complete with Messala getting trampled) happens late in Book 5 out of eight books that compose Ben-Hur. But the major departure is in how Messala dies. Book Messala is left disabled after the race, which forces him to recede into the background of the story until near the end of the book when we are told he was killed “off-stage” by Iras after they made each other miserable as lovers. Movie Messala dies as a direct result of the race. His death thus also signals a definite transition from the revenge plot to the plot of resolving the fallout of Messala’s actions. The sequence in the movie better illustrates the vanity of revenge, while the sequence in the movie is simply about shifting focus to Judah’s intersection with the story of Christ, as Judah afterwards participates in a rebellion and joins with Jesus, thinking him to be the leader that the movement needs, until he later becomes a follower and bankroller of the Jesus movement.
The movie version is definitely a better presentation of this plotline, but it is not without fault. There is an unanswered question here as Messala informs Judah that his mother and sister are not dead, despite what he knows Judah thought. The question is: how did Messala know that Judah thought his mother and sister were dead? The lie was spoken by Esther without any involvement from Messala. There has been no scene showing their interaction in which Judah accused Messala of killing them. He would have had no reason to make Judah think that they were dead and every reason to say that they were still alive, lest Judah should make an attempt on his life while he was on the wrong side of the power imbalance with Judah’s adoptive father being above him in the Roman hierarchy. I am not sure who is at fault for this oversight or if multiple people involved in the writing overlooked it, but it could have been fixed with a simple tweak. If you slightly cut down on Messala’s dialogue, you could have Judah make some statement that Messala has gotten what he deserved for betraying Judah and killing his mother and sister. Messala could then respond, “They’re not dead,” and the dialogue could continue as it does after that line.
The Valley of the Lepers
Before he dies, Messala tells Judah to look for them in the Vally of the Lepers. I cannot definitively say that such a place did not exist, but I know of no positive evidence for its existence. Full-blown leper colonies appear to be a later development than this time and place. But one could argue that this was more of an informal gathering place where lepers traditionally came so that they would not be alone. Judah confronts Esther for her lie while she and Malluch come to provide food for Miriam and Tirzah. Of course, he deserves some blame for believing such a poorly presented lie, but for the time being, Judah goes on avoiding Miriam and Tirzah (though not without some strong insistence from Malluch). Eventually, Judah, Esther, and Malluch head back to Jerusalem from wherever this is.
Come and See Jesus
On the way, they encounter a large crowd gathering. It turns out to be a crowd that has come to hear Jesus, and Balthasar is among them. He tells him he has found the one he visited when the man was an infant, and now he knows him to be the Son of God. Judah says he is happy that Balthasar has found what he is looking for, but he remarks as he takes a drink from the nearby creek about a turning point in his life that he does not yet realize is connected with the man the crowd came to see. He wonders if it might not have been better to pour the water the man gave him into the sand than to have seemingly wasted the last few years and to come back to everything in his Judean life being worse. As it is, he is still thirsty. And so he rejects Balthasar’s invitation to listen to Jesus because he has business with Rome, while Esther and Malluch stay behind. As with other scenes with Jesus, we do not hear him speak. We will only hear later via another character a sample of what he taught.
It’s Rome’s World and You’re Just Living in It
We see in the next scene that Judah has convinced himself that Messala was not his real target of vengeance; it was Rome. Pontius Pilate had told Judah that Arrius informed him that Judah was to be made a citizen of Rome with all the privileges related thereto. But Judah has no interest in such an offer, as he believes Rome is the root of the evil in his life. Pilate understands Judah’s frustration, but he insists that what could be done has been done with Messala dead for his transgressions. But Judah says, “The deed was not Messala’s. I knew him, well, before the cruelty of Rome spread in his blood. Rome destroyed Messala as surely as Rome destroyed my family.” Messala did what he did for the purpose of carrying out the will of Rome, upholding the order of Rome, contributing to the greatness of Rome. He had changed because of Rome. Of course, Judah is overlooking the conscious decisions Messala made to go along with this order, whereas his family had no choice in what happened to them.
Pilate’s response to Judah’s declaration about Messala and Rome’s corruption of him is interesting: “Where there is greatness, great government or power, even great feeling or compassion, error also is great.” This is a roundabout way of saying that in this order, as with any, you must take the rough with the smooth. And, in his way of thinking, because the peaks of goodness in the Roman order are greater than others, so too the valleys of error can be greater. In fact, it could be that because greater error is possible that greater goodness can be achieved, for people learn through fault. Such is life. And as he says, similarly to Messala earlier, “A grown man knows the world he lives in. And for the present, the world is Rome.” This well represents the view of a man in power, particularly one who is trying to persuade a friend not to turn against the order that it is his job to protect. Right and wrong are less of a concern for such a person than order and disorder, as well as the costs associated with each. Since Judah cannot bring himself to simply accept the Roman way, he must sadly give back the ring Arrius gave him as a token of his adoption into his family. It is simply the right thing to do.
Jesus’s Sermon
As I said, we do not see in the movie what we do in the book of Judah’s revolutionary designs, including his role in a real-life incident (presented as more effective for the rebels in the book) of the Jewish protest against Pilate using temple money to build his aqueduct. The story is rather built on him avoiding going any further down that path altogether, rather than going down it before turning to follow Jesus. And so in the dialogue that follows Esther directly quotes pertinent parts of Jesus’s teaching for this situation. She mentions how he said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Later she says in repudiation of his vengeful ways, “I know there is a law in life. That blood begets more blood as dog begets dog. Death generates death as the vulture breeds the vulture. But the voice I heard today on the hill said: ‘Love your enemy. Do good to those who despitefully use you.’” This shows that what she heard was an iteration of the Sermon the Mount or Sermon on the Plain, or at least portions of the teaching contained therein. On the level of the movie’s setting, this makes sense because Jesus probably taught such things not only once or twice, but many times over. On the level of the production, I imagine this was the occasion used both because these are, indeed, parts of Jesus’s teaching that have direct bearing on the plot, and because the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount (as well as the similar Sermon on the Plain) are among the most recognizable teachings of Jesus. But these words alone are not enough to move Judah from his path. Even Esther declaring that Judah is becoming Messala himself, though impactful, probably would not have been enough, if not for the encounter to come.
A Painful Reunion
When Esther comes to meet Miriam and Tirzah for the first time after her encounter with Jesus, she now thinks of seeking their cure, as she know that Jesus is in Jerusalem. And it appears that this is not a moment too soon, as Tirzah is deathly ill. It is at this point that Judah comes on the scene and defies Miriam’s will. This scene is another example showing how well this movie handles complex emotions, as Miriam is caught between wanted to preserve her son from the sight of his family in such poor condition but also wanting to be with him if these are Tirzah’s final hours. She has deep-seated grief mixed with reluctant happiness at being with Judah, which also accentuates her grief knowing that her son insists on bearing witness to all of this.
Judah agrees with Esther’s plan to take them to be healed by Jesus. The book does indeed have them healed as Jesus is on his way into Jerusalem, and it is at this point that they are reunited with Judah. This well illustrates what we also see in the Gospels of various healing events. This conjunction of events poignantly illustrates a restoration from death to life—in familial and social terms as well as in medical terms—like other such healings Jesus performed. But the movie changes up this storyline so that Judah refuses to let any barriers continue standing between him and his family and he himself takes them to find Jesus for their healing. Unfortunately, they do not find Jesus in time. By the time they arrive in Jerusalem, they learn from a blind man that the streets are quiet for now because the people have assembled to hear the verdict given for Jesus.
Behold the Man
Yet again, the actual scene of Jesus taken from the Gospels of Jesus’s sentencing is presented without dialogue in another case of the “less is more” approach. There is even an unnatural shadow added in post-production to obscure Jesus’s face. The sentence is not spoken, but we do see it carried out after Pilate washes his hands of the affair. As in other cases where this story intersects with the story of Jesus, there is an assumed familiarity with the latter that Wyler and the rest of the crew take in presenting it alongside the main story. Indeed, as with the Nativity scene, some familiar elements persist despite lack of biblical support. Particularly, Jesus is presented as carrying the whole cross (which likely would have been hundreds of pounds), while the others who are crucified are shown more accurately as carrying the cross beams that will be affixed to the vertical beam. We never see a straight view of Jesus on the cross, so it is not clear if he is pierced through his hands or wrists, though it appears to me as if the nails were placed accurately. Oddly, though, the others who are crucified do not have their wrists nailed at all. Their arms are tied over the cross beams and bent behind them.
What I appreciate that is accurate to the Gospels is the presentation of the crowds. Popular teaching and preaching often presents the crowds who jeer at Jesus being the same people as those who welcomed him in the Triumphal Entry earlier in the week. While such a contrast may be homiletically useful, it does not have a solid basis in the actual texts of the Gospels. It can only be maintained by seeing all the crowds as identical. But even then, the crowds are not presented as being of one mind in responding to Jesus and his torturous march to Golgotha. And so the people of the crowds in this movie show a diversity of responses to Jesus.
The additional flair that the movie adds is twofold. One, the leprous Miriam and Tirzah show pity for him while also seeing something inspiring. Miriam notes that in his pain she saw a look of peace. Later, they will even speak of how they are not afraid anymore. They find a special connection with the suffering Jesus whom they otherwise have no relationship with.
Two, at the point when Jesus drops to the ground and Simon of Cyrene—though not named in the movie—carries the cross the rest of the way, Judah has come to get a closer look at Jesus. He could tell from a distance that the man was familiar somehow. But it is not until this moment after Judah has drawn water for him that he actually comes face-to-face with Jesus. As with other such moments in this movie, they say nothing to each other, but there is a palpable welling up of emotions in Judah as he finally realizes why he recognizes this man going to be crucified. This was the same man who saved his life years ago when no one else was there to care for him. He had stood up to the Romans without needing a weapon in his hand. And it was his gift that he had recently scorned for how it prolonged his life. And so a number of questions arise all at once. Who really is this man who saved me? Why did he do it? What brought him here? Why is he now condemned not only to death, but specifically to death by crucifixion? How could such a thing have happened for a man who has taught what I have heard others say he taught? What could such a man have done to deserve this? What is the meaning of all of this? Since the man has touched my life and left his mark upon it, what does all of that mean now that he is inevitably going to die like this? These questions can only partially be answered in the course of what is left of this movie, but he feels compelled to follow Jesus to Golgotha to learn what he can.
It is there that he sees Jesus being lifted up on his cross, and he again finds Balthasar. He has seemingly accepted his invitation to come and see too late. But Balthasar cryptically says, “To this end he said he was born … for this cause, he came into the world.” This death is the beginning of what is to come. Judah does not have the means of making sense of such statements at the moment, but he compelled to know what it all means and how such a man as saved his life should say that this seemingly empty death should be his purpose.
The Hands of the King Are the Hands of a Healer
As Jesus dies and darkness, along with a heavy rainstorm, falls upon the land, the scene switches focus to Esther, Miriam, and Tirzah. They have taken refuge from the storm underneath a bridge. In the process, Miriam and Tirzah feel themselves being healed of their leprosy and restored to full health. Unlike their healing in the book, the healing in the movie proves to be a heavy-handed illustration of the healing effects of Jesus’s death, though it raises questions, such as: Are we to think that all lepers in the land were healed? If not, why were these two in particular healed, other than the fact that they are characters significant to the story?
Of course, unsurprisingly in light of a frequent focus of mine, a problem I have had with Ben-Hur since the first time I saw it was when it ended. Why did it end at the crucifixion and hang all significance upon it and not at the resurrection? It turns out to be a problem shared with the source material. The first reference to Jesus’s resurrection is in Book 8 Chapter 9, and it simply notes that Jesus’s death “was necessary to faith in the resurrection, without which Christianity would be an empty husk.” Wallace says that, but we get no reference to the resurrection itself, the resurrection appearances, or to the gospel proclamations of his resurrection alongside the rest of the gospel story. In fact, when the story flashes forward to the future, it only refers back to the crucifixion, not the resurrection. I am curious as to what Wallace thought the resurrection was and why it is important in light of how the biblical narrative contradicts the expectations he attributed to Balthasar.2 Could it be that he thought of “resurrection” as simply another term for Jesus having life after death? I am not sure, and for all the ink Wallace spilled reflecting on matters of faith, love, virtue, hope, religion, character, the nature of humanity, Rome, Israel, the character of God’s kingdom, Jesus’s life and ministry, and the crucifixion, he apparently ran out of ink to spill on the matter of resurrection.
Interestingly, Tunberg’s original script had improved on this. Before the movie ended, we were supposed to hear reports of Jesus’s resurrection, particularly of his empty tomb and his appearances to the disciples. That would have been truer to the Gospels, rather than just immediately ending things after his crucifixion. But the decision made by Wyler and others was to go a different route.
In any case, when Judah returns home after the storm, we see how Jesus has affected Judah. He is once again only quoted after the fact, as Judah says he heard him say on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It was not until Judah himself saw and heard Jesus that he was ready to receive what he had to say. And the fact that he could say this from the cross made it all the more powerful for him, now realizing the connection he had with this man. The effect of his death is seen both in what it has done for his family, as the movie closes with him being reunited with his healed mother and sister, and in what it has made him resolve to do, for the last line spoken in the movie is, “And I felt His voice take the sword out of my hand.” And so Judah finds a new lease on life with his family and loved ones restored to him, the root of bitterness removed from his heart, and new possibilities of what makes for peace opened in front of him.
Thus ends one of the great (para-)biblical epics. I have not done as thorough a comparison here with the book as I have done with adaptations of Tolkien’s work, but I would argue that it told its story better than the book told it for all the differences there were between them. It is the version I would recommend for experiencing the story of Judah Ben-Hur. I would only recommend the book if you have an historical curiosity, as I do not think it is especially well written. But it would be good if more books like it could be written with historical attentiveness to illuminate the world in which Scripture was written. If I have ever the chance and God is willing, I would like to write something like it, maybe as something like an anthology. But that is for another time. For now, I simply recommend we do our part to keep the legacy of this fine film going through continuing to watch it, analyze it, discuss it, and recommend it to others.
I have read that this has to do with a British law that Jesus’s face could not be shown nor his speech heard if he was not the main character in a production. Of course, the law is never quoted or otherwise cited, nor is it ever explained why this law carried such force. The film was not shot in Great Britain. The studio was not located in Britain or subject to British law. Nor, as far as I am aware, was the movie even edited in Great Britain. I imagine that the studio wanted the movie to show in Great Britain, but did that have such an outsized influence? Or is it more likely that this was an artistic decision? That is what I am inclined to think.
In Book 7 Chapter 3, he says: “Ah! what happiness to me in the promise that when the tomb opens, as soon it will, to receive the worn-out husk I call myself, the now viewless doors of the universe, which is but the palace of God, will swing wide ajar to receive me, a liberated and immortal Soul!” The surrounding dialogue says much about the necessity of an immortal soul, but not of the necessity for resurrection.