A Film Canon

A radical departure from the sword-and-sandal blueprint pioneered by DeMille, Ben-Hur is indebted to Wyler's elaboration of the chamber drama as a cinematic genre, and subsequent ability to reclaim naturalism from the most potentially theatrical tableaux. Not only does this produce an unusually intimate epic, preoccupied with interiority and conversation, but it effectively structures the narrative around the attempt to escape a series of claustrophobic chambers - the dungeons, the galleys, the Valley of Lepers - culminating with the revenge ethic of the old dispensation and, finally, the constrictions and pathologies of the pre-Christian body itself. Concomitantly, Wyler generates tension through a series of uneasy identifications - between master and servant, friend and lover, imperialism and totalitarianism - that recall the semi-incestual proximities of his earlier films, and culminate with the syncretism of Jew and Roman, whose violent, expansive consequences requires one of the most distorted aspect ratios in classical Hollywood for proper expression. That said, this conservation of spectacle ensures that, when the latter occurs, it rivals the great silent epics in its visceral power - most iconically in the charioteering sequence which, in little more than fifteen minutes, stretches the screen to a curvaceous, almost three-dimensional immersion, in a similar manner to Around The World In Eighty Days; or, alternatively, draws upon Wyler's deep-focus heritage to envision a depth proportionate to widescreen. However, even this hyperbolic visuality is nuanced by the pervasive suggestion of a sublimity too great for a direct gaze - generally, in the life of Christ that frames the narrative, and gospel iconography that suffuses Judah Ben-Hur's (Charlton Heston) ancillary trajectory; specifically, in the identification of Christ's face with those of the lepers, and the resultant dialectic between horror and wonder, which culminates with one of the most grateful depictions of the crucifixion in all cinema, as well as explaining the peculiar attention given to Balthasar, and dependence upon Lukes gospel.