"Ben-Hur" Retrospective: A Hollywood Titan Crumbles on Reflection

In another world, this is a gloriously campy, homoerotic, religious spectacle. As it is...

August 15, 2024

On April 6, 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant, with his forces getting defeated by the Confederate Army in Tennessee, ordered General Lew Wallace to move his unit up the River Road and settle at Pittsburg Landing to support Sherman’s 5th Division.

‍

Instead, Wallace took his men along the Shunpike. In the early afternoon, a member of Grant’s staff found Wallace and informed him that the Union army was getting forced back. With the battle lines shifted, if Wallace continued along his current course, he would find himself at the rear of an advancing Confederate force.

‍

Wallace had two choices: fight through the Confederate rear and reach Grant near the desired destination or reverse course and take another path to Pittsburg Landing. He changed course, forcing his unit to countermarch 14 miles through muddy roads. He would not arrive at the battlefield until 6:30 that evening, hours after Grant wanted.

‍

The Union turned the tide the next day and won the battle, and the matter seemed like a simple miscommunication. Grant did not show contempt, and the North celebrated their victory. Unfortunately, Union losses were heavier than expected. People wanted answers, and Grant was happy to give one.

‍

Grant claimed he’d ordered Wallace to take the River Road and arrive at Pittsburg Landing at midday; Wallace insisted he did not receive specific instructions on where to go or how. Grant believed a rumor that Wallace only followed written orders and chastised him for avoiding the conflict. Wallace could not refute this: his reputation was ruined.

‍

He spent the next two decades trying to clear his name, writing and visiting Grant several times, though no matter the avenue, his pleas went unheard. It was not until 1884, when another General’s widow sent him a letter Wallace had written her the day before the battle detailing his intention to take the Shunpike, that Grant conceded. He got a letter published absolving Wallace, but the damage was done.

‍

Wallace never indicated that his experience inspired his epic novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ, but it did. It is the story of the titular Jerusalem-born Jewish prince who seeks revenge upon his childhood friend when he lets him get enslaved and his family imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit. He vows revenge on his former friend and spends the next several years suffering to exact that revenge. It is a tale of getting wrongly accused, seeking redemption, meeting successes and failures along that rocky road, and ultimately finding resolution.

‍

The movie is a similar story. Judah gets enslaved and his family imprisoned for a crime none of them committed. He seeks vengeance on Messala for his betrayals and does not rest until he has it, but the film fails to capture the meaning of that revenge or who Judah is and why. It does not know what about the man, not just what happens to him, makes his story worth our investment. Thus, it tells and shows many things but confuses a collection of events for a story. Stories have purpose, self-belief, ambition, ideas, and momentum. Each step gets imbued with this idealistic purpose and ambitious conviction. It knows everything is building something because a story's purpose is self-realization.

‍

Ben-Hur strives to be a story without understanding the meaning of the word. It relies on melodrama, believing that tuning the dramatics to their highest emotional decibel equals substance, rendering it unaware of its themes' potential to make us question how we navigate our lives.

‍

Judah is a principled man, built on values carved from moral marble. He is infallible in his virtue and impeccable in ethical stature, so his flaws are those of his surroundings. Judea falls victim to an objective evil bent on ruling the world from the root of its ideals to the pennies in its pockets. Its intent on such domination renders Judah a powerful protagonist in concept, but it does little to show the why of the thing.

‍

He fights for something because the fight gets forced upon him. He has no choice: he gets chained to a ship and forced to row, and his mother and sister get imprisoned unjustly by his closest friend. His choices get made for him. He does not have it within him to do or be what he does or becomes on his own power, only because circumstance dictates it.

‍

We know Rome is fated, but not its people: we do not know why. We know Judah and Messala bonded in their youth, but not why. It hints at a change in Messala, but to imply these two men were so alike that deviation is this shocking feels disingenuous. If this lifelong friendship collapses under ideological opposition, we should know the extent of their relationship outside launching a spear at the same wooden beam. Movies can work well when a character lacks autonomy, but they must recognize this and not make them only a product of their environment.

‍

Even the movie knows this. Judah knows he has previously received aid from men with mysterious intentions. He ponders it when Jesus quenches his thirst on the march through Nazareth and as he gets unshackled from the ship before the sea battle. He asks but never answers because the movie has no answer. It says his purpose is unfulfilled, but that purpose cannot simply be doing incredible things in the scope of his own life: a view that narrow does not justify the extent it asks us to invest.

‍

Yet, it still knows how to be a great movie. Ben-Hur is spectacle incarnate, a monument to massive set pieces, elaborate staging, lavish costuming, and organic effects. It creates a sense of drama even if it cannot develop its themes. It has thrilling action in a fiery sea battle and a pulse-pounding chariot race, even if it feels like it spends more time building to the action than actually showing it. It is colorful and epic and leaves the impression of being more entertaining than it is, but sometimes impressions mean more than the immediate feeling. After all, we spend far more time not watching a film than watching it.

‍

Unfortunately, Ben-Hur devotes itself to the irrelevant. A story must be true to itself: anything that does not expand or develop is a waste.

‍

Ben-Hur is a revenge tale. When vengeance gets claimed, the film effectively concludes; carrying on means establishing an entirely different movie with different stakes, devoted to people we’ve spent little time with under vaguely developed circumstances. We do not care about Tirzah and Miriam's leprosy. We do not care that they’ve gotten banished to a leper colony.

‍

We do not care about his relationship with Esther, though it has a general human purpose: love is the epitome of need. We need affection and validation, assurance and affirmation. We need the things we see in ourselves to get realized outside our own realization. We crave support in creating new concepts and identities to latch onto as we navigate life. We need love in life, but not necessarily in movies.

‍

Ben-Hur believes Judah needs Esther, but only because it is a movie that assumes it needs romance, not because it is a story where man needs woman.

‍

Judah doesn’t need Esther. He also doesn’t need to find Christ, help Christ, or see his mother and sister again. He "needs" it simply because it happens. Thus, we claim it had to happen, but we must remember a critical truth: movies are choices.

‍

They are much like us. We want to be a million different things before we die, see the world in all its glory, and deep dive into every experience life offers, whether good or bad. But we eventually accept our ambition will always be too great, and understanding this world is impossible because we existed for millennia before we got here and will for millennia after we’re dead. We cannot be, see, and do everything.

‍

Every switch in career, friendship formed or lost, lover embraced or rejected, is a choice: movies must make those same choices. Refusing to accept their inherent limitations is to lose themselves altogether. If we must accept that we can only do and be so much, our creations must know that too.

‍

Of course, in his mind, Lew Wallace didn’t know about making the wrong choice. Tacticians can debate the merit of his countermarch, whether he should have attacked the Confederate advance or instinctively known what General Grant wanted and done it. But we cannot always make perfect choices. We cannot always know another's mind or the right path ahead. We cannot always know what is best for us, others, or our cause. We don't always possess the knowledge to impart wisdom or the value of that wisdom, but Ben-Hur doesn’t know enough to justify everything it forces on us.

‍

Widows will not write letters to excuse it; former Presidents won't publish notes to absolve it. Despite its redeeming qualities, Ben-Hur is too overstuffed and dull for anyone to take up its cause. It has only itself, and a movie with such pointed source material should never be alone. Yet, just like Judah, as he stares out at the empty arena, it is alone, wondering what to be, where to go, and having no idea how to get there.