Photos courtesy Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer.
Ben-Hur holds a unique place in cinematic history for a wide variety of reasons. It’s a movie you’ve definitely heard of, but it’s only on the fringe of what I’d call an enduring classic. It’s highly emblematic of the time it was made, so much so that it’s often the go-to example of what movies were all about in the later stages of the Classical Hollywood era, but the fact is it’s three and a half hours long and most of it doesn’t hold up. Movies have evolved rapidly in the 57 years since its release, and one key scene aside, it represents something audiences just aren’t looking for anymore.
But at the same time, it’s cinematic holy ground. The film brought in 11 Academy Awards, a feat matched only by the fantastic success of Titanic and the honorary nostalgia around the third Lord of the Rings movie. It was a technical marvel in its time, and it remains just as fantastic because the techniques that made it so would begin to fall out of favor just a few years later. Remaking something with that level of success is sacrilege, even if the movie could use an update.
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