Darenet #1
Ben-Hur
Revisited
by Michael Dare
When I first got involved in a custody battle for my son, Buster, the court ordered a DNA test to make sure he really was my son. The results came back 99.99% positive, laying aside the question of my paternity forever. Last night something happened that made the test moot. My son said something that would have proven he was my son no matter what the DNA said.
He's 12, which means that when he watches a movie it better have Arnold, Bruce, or Jackie Chan or his attention will wander. In a valiant attempt to broaden his horizons, I occasionally attempt to throw in stuff like "Bridge on the River Kwai" or "The Great Escape" just so he knows there a few films made before the 90s that are actually worth seeing. It's always a danger to show my son a film that I liked when I was his age, because occasionally they don't hold up. Remember that intense, ground-breaking, Academy Award winning car chase in "The French Connection?" Car chases have gotten so much better since then that to a 12 year old who's already seen all the "Lethal Weapons" and "BH Cops," "The French Connection" is totally lame. The old James Bonds particularly don't fare well. I remember loving "From Russia, with Love" when it first came out, but watching it again with my son was about as exciting as watching my hard disk defragment.
There are occasional surprises. Cary Grant in "Charade" and Gregory Peck in "Arabesque" totally held up because they were incredibly well written thrillers, full of humor and unpredictable plot twists. Trying to get him to watch "Adam's Rib" after he's already seen "Ally McBeal" and "The Practice" was an exercise in tedium. "Spartacus" was a great idea that made both of us cry at the end. "2001" was a bad idea that put him to sleep.
So when I came across a copy of "Ben Hur" at my local library, I wasn't sure if it would work. Yeah, it won 11 Academy Awards, more than any other film before or since, and my memories of the gallery slave ships and the chariot race were still vivid, but would a 12 year old be able to handle a 3 1/2 hour biblical epic that was almost 50 years old? Then I noticed that it was letterboxed and that was that. "Ben Hur" is one of the greatest wide screen movies ever made, and seen in pan-and-scan you literally miss half the picture. So I checked it out and took my chances.
I put it on and discovered to my immediate horror that it started with the birth of Jesus. Was this film going to proselytize and try to convert us from non-practicing Jews to non-practicing Christians? Memories of seeing the film as a kid came flooding back, and I remembered how, as a Jewish kid who went to Hebrew school three times a week, I felt alienated from the Christian parts of the film. I watched my son and he was fascinated. He was studying Roman times in school, and this graphic representation of life at the time of Christ was just what he needed to see. "Do we get to see him crucified?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"Cool," he said.
He kept watching as Judah Ben-Hur, played by the ultra-stoic Charlton Heston, stood on the rooftop of his house in Jerusalem with one of his servants to see a Roman parade pass by. The servant leaned on a wall and a couple of tiles accidentally came loose, falling to the street, narrowly missing a Roman officer, and getting the whole plot in motion. The Roman's come storming into the house and arrest Judah and his mother and sister. Judah's sent to become a gallery slave rowing Roman ships, and the mother and sister are thrown into a dungeon and forgotten.
The scenes of hundreds of slaves rowing the Roman ships into battle are just as good as I remembered, and Buster was as into the film as I was.
He's 12, which means that when he watches a movie it better have Arnold, Bruce, or Jackie Chan or his attention will wander. In a valiant attempt to broaden his horizons, I occasionally attempt to throw in stuff like "Bridge on the River Kwai" or "The Great Escape" just so he knows there a few films made before the 90s that are actually worth seeing. It's always a danger to show my son a film that I liked when I was his age, because occasionally they don't hold up. Remember that intense, ground-breaking, Academy Award winning car chase in "The French Connection?" Car chases have gotten so much better since then that to a 12 year old who's already seen all the "Lethal Weapons" and "BH Cops," "The French Connection" is totally lame. The old James Bonds particularly don't fare well. I remember loving "From Russia, with Love" when it first came out, but watching it again with my son was about as exciting as watching my hard disk defragment.
There are occasional surprises. Cary Grant in "Charade" and Gregory Peck in "Arabesque" totally held up because they were incredibly well written thrillers, full of humor and unpredictable plot twists. Trying to get him to watch "Adam's Rib" after he's already seen "Ally McBeal" and "The Practice" was an exercise in tedium. "Spartacus" was a great idea that made both of us cry at the end. "2001" was a bad idea that put him to sleep.
So when I came across a copy of "Ben Hur" at my local library, I wasn't sure if it would work. Yeah, it won 11 Academy Awards, more than any other film before or since, and my memories of the gallery slave ships and the chariot race were still vivid, but would a 12 year old be able to handle a 3 1/2 hour biblical epic that was almost 50 years old? Then I noticed that it was letterboxed and that was that. "Ben Hur" is one of the greatest wide screen movies ever made, and seen in pan-and-scan you literally miss half the picture. So I checked it out and took my chances.
I put it on and discovered to my immediate horror that it started with the birth of Jesus. Was this film going to proselytize and try to convert us from non-practicing Jews to non-practicing Christians? Memories of seeing the film as a kid came flooding back, and I remembered how, as a Jewish kid who went to Hebrew school three times a week, I felt alienated from the Christian parts of the film. I watched my son and he was fascinated. He was studying Roman times in school, and this graphic representation of life at the time of Christ was just what he needed to see. "Do we get to see him crucified?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"Cool," he said.
He kept watching as Judah Ben-Hur, played by the ultra-stoic Charlton Heston, stood on the rooftop of his house in Jerusalem with one of his servants to see a Roman parade pass by. The servant leaned on a wall and a couple of tiles accidentally came loose, falling to the street, narrowly missing a Roman officer, and getting the whole plot in motion. The Roman's come storming into the house and arrest Judah and his mother and sister. Judah's sent to become a gallery slave rowing Roman ships, and the mother and sister are thrown into a dungeon and forgotten.
The scenes of hundreds of slaves rowing the Roman ships into battle are just as good as I remembered, and Buster was as into the film as I was.
Judah Ben-Hur pulled valiantly on his oar as the Roman captain told them they were all condemned men who were only being kept alive to serve the ship. Then the ship is rammed and everybody dies but Judah, who also saves the life of the captain, pulling him aboard a small raft. The captain says "Why did you save me?" and Ben-Hur hands him an oar saying "I kept you alive to serve the ship." They don't write 'em like this any more.
So Ben-Hur goes to Rome where he is celebrated, but he longs to return to Jerusalem to find his wrongly imprisoned mother and sister. Several hours later, after a chariot race that's still one of the high points of all cinema, Judah finds his mother and sister in the Valley of the Lepers, which is just as pleasant a place as it sounds. We're spared close-ups of their skin falling off, but it's pretty clear they're not well and beyond hope.
Then Judah hears that there's this Rabbi from Galilee nearby who's been known to cure the sick, so he picks up his dying sister and drags his sickly mother out of the Valley of the Lepers and into Jerusalem. Bad timing. They get there just as Jesus has been sentenced to death, and he is dragging his cross through the streets towards the hill where he is to be crucified. Though this scene takes place 2,000 years before the advent of cell phones, somehow word has gotten out around town that this is your last chance to get a glimpse of Jesus before they kill him. The streets are packed with thousands of onlookers. The entire population of Jerusalem has crowded the streets to watch Jesus drag his cross across town.
But as Judah shows up with his sister and mother, people scatter, crying "Lepers! Lepers!" Apparently leprosy is pretty contagious, and nobody wants to be near them. They find a place up close, right by the side of the road, just as Jesus walks by. Jesus stumbles, and Judah offers him a drink of water.
And my son says, with a totally straight face, "Gee, if you want a good seat at a parade, I guess it's a good idea to bring a couple lepers with you."
I couldn't have put it better myself. He's my son all right.
So Ben-Hur goes to Rome where he is celebrated, but he longs to return to Jerusalem to find his wrongly imprisoned mother and sister. Several hours later, after a chariot race that's still one of the high points of all cinema, Judah finds his mother and sister in the Valley of the Lepers, which is just as pleasant a place as it sounds. We're spared close-ups of their skin falling off, but it's pretty clear they're not well and beyond hope.
Then Judah hears that there's this Rabbi from Galilee nearby who's been known to cure the sick, so he picks up his dying sister and drags his sickly mother out of the Valley of the Lepers and into Jerusalem. Bad timing. They get there just as Jesus has been sentenced to death, and he is dragging his cross through the streets towards the hill where he is to be crucified. Though this scene takes place 2,000 years before the advent of cell phones, somehow word has gotten out around town that this is your last chance to get a glimpse of Jesus before they kill him. The streets are packed with thousands of onlookers. The entire population of Jerusalem has crowded the streets to watch Jesus drag his cross across town.
But as Judah shows up with his sister and mother, people scatter, crying "Lepers! Lepers!" Apparently leprosy is pretty contagious, and nobody wants to be near them. They find a place up close, right by the side of the road, just as Jesus walks by. Jesus stumbles, and Judah offers him a drink of water.
And my son says, with a totally straight face, "Gee, if you want a good seat at a parade, I guess it's a good idea to bring a couple lepers with you."
I couldn't have put it better myself. He's my son all right.
Send Email