![]() ![]() While Wyler has never been shy about bringing political connotations to his work, Ben-Hur isn’t as directly metaphorical as what Dalton Trumbo and Stanley Kubrick did with Spartacus. This knowledge of authentic character relationships allowed him to reframe the Ben-Hur narrative as a story of two best friends turned into sworn enemies the tragedy of the story is seeing Ben-Hur grow into a messianic hero representative of democracy, while Messala succumbs to his greed and grows to represent imperialism. What’s fascinating about Ben-Hur is that it’s somewhat of an anomaly in Wyler’s directorial output while Wyler could certainly wrangle together impressive casts and work with extensive budgets, his previous acclaimed work included romantic comedy classics like Roman Holiday, civil dramas like The Best Years of Our Lives, and period romances like Wuthering Heights. Regardless of your religious affiliation, Ben-Hur is an astounding piece of blockbuster entertainment that is still being imitated to this day. While many of these accolades are certainly in part due to the film’s groundbreaking technical advances, there’s a difference between Ben-Hur and the more obliquely religious historical epics like The Ten Commandments, The Greatest Story Ever Told, or Jesus of Nazareth. The film won eleven Academy Awards, setting an all-time record that would later be tied by both Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King it was also selected as one of the ten greatest films of all-time by the American Film Institute in 2007. ![]() The accolades and acclaim that Ben-Hur has received rival those of any other historical epic. As the two former brothers fall into conflict, Wyler explores the rise of Jesus Christ ( Claude Heater) as a backdrop. Loosely adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Ben-Hur explores the relationship between the Jewish prince Judah Ben-Hur ( Charlton Heston) and his childhood friend Messala ( Stephen Boyd), who has since become a staunch advocate of the Roman Empire. Between elaborate action sequences, numerous locations, dozens of original costumes, and painstakingly crafted architecture, Ben-Hur needed to invest in getting its historical details accurate in order to tell its incredible story. Although a 1925 film of the same name had told a simplified version of the same narrative epic, director William Wyler put together a production so ambitious that it risked the future of the industry.
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