‘He Gave Me Water’

Ben-Hur: A Story of the Christ, 1959, Review by James LaFond

Ben Hur was one of my favorite movies in childhood and it was time to view it again. I was surprised at how the rather cartoonish depiction of The Nativity plucked sentimental strings in my mind even as the spotlight effect of the star above shone like God’s own spotlight on the stable where the god of my parents took human form. Despite the warm feelings the Holy Night prologue brought to me, welling up out of my childhood induction, the presentation did seem contrived for the benefit of the believer, certainly not for the non-Christian.

The style of the story, placing the fictional Judah Ben-Hur literally in the shadows of both Roman administration in Judea and the life of Christ, was very smartly done with the usual overreliance on serendipity. 

The most striking aspect of the film was its accurate portrayal of Caucasian slavery and its discussion as a blessed and brotherly institution of love, with Ben-Hur’s Hebrew slaves literally basking in the glorious light of his benevolent ownership. Certainly the best and most authentic aspect of the film was the hellish life of the galley slave. Unlike the classical Hellenes, the Romans used slaves to row their oared ships, as did European and Islamic navies up until the 1600s and 1700s respectively. The worst job in military history is richly depicted and starkly deprived by a Roman Consul, a brutally rational yet honorable and loving military man. 

The depiction of Jesus’s ministry, unlike the Nativity, was done in a more appealing fashion, particularly the early Hollywood custom of not showing the face of Christ, but presenting him in outline. 

As far as the presentation of masculine values, the Roman characters shine in their various shades: from red hot, to sterling to wilted gold. None are depicted as evil, but seem to be used to portray human behavior across its normal scale, where the Hebrew cast are one and all saints or martyrs. Almost all of the best lines are reserved for Roman characters, who are very well acted, with balance going to Ben-Hur, and Balthazar the wise man and the flamboyant Arab who provides Ben-Hur with a prize team of white horses for the iconic chariot race:

“…Until all men are like him [Jesus] we must keep out sword bright.”

The chariot races in the Circus were very well done and give the viewer a great appreciation as to why that was the longest lived sport in the ancient world, from at least 800 B.C. [probably centuries earlier] and continuing for centuries after the fall of Rome in the west under its continuation in Constantinople.

(c) 2018 James LaFond