100. Ben-Hur (1959)

Director: William Wyler
Starring: Charlton Heston
Synopsis: When a Jewish prince is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend, he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge.

Thoughts before watching: I do not recall if I have seen this whole movie before, though there are some scenes I am sure I have seen. I certainly have not seen it since I have been old enough to really appreciate it, I would have been a child. I have always been a fan of Charlton Heston. 

Review: Wow such an iconic movie, and what do I mean by Iconic? I mean that I have certainly seen many parodies of it (find me a better way to judge iconic, because I argue the more iconic a film the more it will be parodied). Really though this movie is classic, the chariot race is one of the scenes that I have seen a number of times, but it still gets the old ticker thumping a bit harder. The scale of this movie is just off the charts, it is hard to imagine because today computers can make a small movie look large, but this movie really is large. I cannot fathom the amount of costumes, props and extras that went into this movie. The other thing I found myself pondering is special effects, today is full of people denouncing CG, but there were scenes in this that used paintings to polish off what they built, to portray ancient Rome. This effect worked well, especially for the time, but even then it had to be obvious that some movie trickery was afoot, but people didn't care , they suspended disbelief to enjoy the film, and without the critical eye, the effects are super enjoyable. Same can probably be said today with CG, if people would just suspend disbelief a bit and enjoy films more, and just quite being so picky they would enjoy films more. 

The storytelling here is incredible, the way that they weave Judah's story in and out of the life of Christ is very effective. It never really seemed forced, or obvious, it just seemed that this man, in his quest for vengeance,  came across Jesus a few times. The music, the acting, the sets, the costumes, so much of this film is just so artistically done. This film is a masterpiece and has aged very well. The only complaint I could have is there is some pretty rough editing, there two or three parts of the movie where it is so obvious that the film was cut and spliced, probably with a different take, but one was so obvious because the positioning of Heston changes from one frame to the next without him moving, so those few moments did jar me out of the film and remind me that this is a film, if only for a moment. 


Rating: I have given this 8 out of 10


(Up next is #99 Toy Story)