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Ben-Hur

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Ben-Hur is the fictional story of Judah Ben-Hur, a Judean aristocrat who, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, is enslaved through the betrayal of his Roman friend Messala. Embittered and vengeful after regaining his freedom, he is redeemed after encountering Jesus Christ and witnessing his crucifixion. Originally a Lew Wallace novel of 1880, the story has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times.

Contents
1 The novel
2 1907 film
3 1925 film
4 1959 film
5 2003 animated film
6 Plot
7 External links

The novel

The story originated as a novel by General Lew Wallace which was published on November 12, 1880, by Harper and Brothers. Wallace's work is part of an important sub-genre of historical fiction set among the characters of the New Testament. The novel was a phenomenal best-seller; it soon surpassed Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) as the best-selling American novel and retained this distinction until the 1936 publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. In 1912, Sears Roebuck published one million copies to sell for 39 cents apiece: the largest single year print edition in American history.

The novel was quickly adapted into numerous stage productions, including one which recreated the climactic chariot race on stage using live horses, full size chariots, and a series of treadmills. With the subsequent development of the cinema, the novel was also adapted into four motion pictures.

1907 film

The 15 minute long 1907 silent film version still survives today. Like its successors, it features a chariot race. It was directed by Canadian director Sidney Olcott with a screenplay by Gene Gauntier based on the Lew Wallace novel. As a result of this film being made, the Kalem Company (the studio that produced this version of the film) was sued by the Lew Wallace estate and had to pay substantial fees for copyright infringement. It would forever change the way film versions of novels are made.

Cast:

1925 film

The second silent (and first successful feature-length) version appeared in 1925, and starred Ramon Novarro in the title role; Francis X. Bushman played his friend Messala. It was one of the most lavish and spectacular Hollywood productions of the silent movie era, reportedly costing a then unprecedented 3.9 million dollars. Some of the crowd scenes were reported to use up to 125,000 extras! Several big Hollywood stars of the time appeared as uncredited crowd extras during the chariot race. The great chariot race scene (for which 60 960 m (200,000 feet) of film, the most footage for any film in cinema history, were shot – eventually edited down to 229 m (750 feet)) is still regarded as a triumph of exciting film making and was much imitated, even so recently as the "pod race scene" in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace almost 75 years later, although seldom so well as in the original. Some scenes were in 2-strip Technicolor. The film was directed by Charles Brabin, J.J. Cohn, and Fred Niblo, and was produced and distributed by MGM; the film made MGM's reputation as a heavyweight force in Hollywood. The film is the third highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $5.5 million at the box office in 1925.

An early 1930s reissue added sound (i.e. music and sound effects tracks) so it became less of a silent film. As the decades passed, the original Technicolor segments were replaced by black-and-white dubs. These scenes were considered lost until the 1980s when Turner Entertainment (who by then had acquired the rights to the film) found the crucial sequences in a Czech film archive. Current prints of the 1925 version are of the Turner-supervised restoration, replete with the color tints and Technicolor sections to resemble the original theatrical release, but with the addition of a newly recorded stereo orchestral soundtrack by Carl Davis which was originally recorded for a Thames Television screening of the movie.

This film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

1959 film

The movie version of the story directed by William Wyler is the best-known today. It was done in the spectacular block buster style, and featured Charlton Heston as Judah ben-Hur and Stephen Boyd as Messala. It premiered at Loew's Theater in New York City on November 18, 1959.

This version won a stunning 11 Academy Awards (a number matched only by two other movies in the history of Academy Awards - Titanic in 1997 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2004):

This was a successful attempt to save MGM from bankruptcy.

MGM received over 40 scripts.

The film was also nominated for one further award

  • Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium - Karl Tunberg

2003 animated film

Charlton Heston's production company, Agamemnon Films (in association with GoodTimes Entertainment) produced a fourth version of the film, this one a made-for-video animated version of the Wallace story, with Heston himself giving voice to the title character. Despite running only 80 minutes (less than a third of the 1959 version's running time), it introduced the story to a whole new (if not younger) audience.

Plot

Elements of the story include leprosy, naval battles among galleys, the Roman hippodrome, Roman adoption, Magus Balthasar, the Arab sheikh Ilderin.

This section is a  .

External links


de:Ben Hur es:Ben-Hur fr:Ben-Hur

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