Vatican daily recalls 50th anniversary of Ben Hur

cna ^ | November 18, 2009

[NYer]

Vatican City, Nov 18, 2009 / 03:51 pm (CNA).- The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano (LOR) published several articles in its November 17 edition which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the movie “Ben Hur.”  The film, which was released on November 18, 1959 and starred Charlton Heston, became the first movie to receive 11 Oscar awards.

In an article entitled, “Hollywood in Rome For A Christian Story,” LOR explained that the movie was filmed in the studios of Cinecitta by director William Wyler, who created a screenplay free of much of the heaviness of the original novel written in 1880 by Lew Wallace.

Ben Hur demonstrates Wyler’s ability to balance the storyline with the personal struggles of the characters. Many of the film’s scenes, including Ben Hur’s conversion to Christianity, were contextually unusual in a movie of this magnitude. LOR said the film would also be remembered for its use of the most advanced special effects of the day.

The Vatican daily also noted that the book by Lew Wallace “was a world-wide best-seller for many years and earned the author a level of fame enjoyed by very few writers.”

“The reader enjoys a particular treasure from the very first pages of the novel which are dedicated to the encounter between the Magi,” LOR underscored, adding that the reader is effortlessly transported to a time and place of long ago. Thus Wallace not only lays the groundwork for the modern historical novel, but surprisingly also delves into cultural anthropology,” the article said.

LOR also praised the film’s star Charlton Heston, who was married for 64 years, “a record for Hollywood,” to Lydia Marie Clarke, with whom he had two children, Fraser and Holly.

Their marital love led actors like Kirk Douglas to say, “Neither Ava Gardner or Sophia Loren distracted him. He only had eyes for Lydia.”

[NYer]

• What inspired Lew Wallace to write Ben-Hur?
  Lew Wallace answers this question in various articles, speeches, and other of his writings. In 1876, after a conversation on a train with a well-known atheist, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, Lew Wallace realized that he didn’t know as much as he would like to about his own faith. (He attended the Methodist Church off and on throughout his life, but consider himself indifferent to religion.) He thought that the idea of doing research for a book he could write would be the best motivation for him to tackle reading the Bible. He had already written a short story describing the journey of the wise men to Bethlehem—a subject which has fascinated him since he was very young. This became the first book of Ben-Hur, with the rest of the novel describing the “religious and political conditions of the world at the time of the coming,” as he says in his Autobiography. Although he may have been indifferent to religion before writing the book, he says in the preface to The First Christmas, 1899, that the act of writing resulted in “a conviction amounting to absolute belief in God and the divinity of Christ.”
  

  

[TexasRepublic]

I just bought the movie but had to settle for DVD because it has not been released on BluRay. With all the junk already released on BluRay, why isn’t one of the best films of all time published on BluRay?

According to his daughter, William Wyler once joked that it takes a Jew to make a good Jesus movie.

[NYer]

With all the junk already released on BluRay, why isn’t one of the best films of all time published on BluRay?

They will begin with the latest films and, over the course of time, work backwards. I'm not familiar with BluRay .. does it offer an improved version of the film? Some of my most favorite movies are in black and white; I can't imagine that modern technology can improve on any of those.

Enjoy Ben Hur!

[monkapotamus]

They have higher capacity so they can store high definition content.

[Verginius Rufus]

Lew Wallace was made the scapegoat for a serious snafu at the battle of Shiloh. Victor Davis Hanson has an interesting account of that and Wallace's later life in his book Ripples of Battle.

[NYer]

They have higher capacity so they can store high definition content.

So how does that work with movies from the 30' up until the present?

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Lew Wallace was made the scapegoat for a serious snafu at the battle of Shiloh.***

He also governed New Mexico during the range wars in which Billy the Kid was a participant and wrote another novel THE FAIR GOD about the Conquest of Mexico, that is up till La Nochie Triste. It was going to be made into a major Warner Brothers motion picture back around 1964 but never was.

[SevenofNine]

I hear from TCM website they are working on BLue ray version of Ben Hur also Ten Commandsant keep eye on TCM website it coming

[monkapotamus]

"So how does that work with movies from the 30' up until the present?"

A higher resolution transfer from the original film elements will show greater detail if you have a high definition display. These discs have greater capacity so they can store these large files. There is also room to store higher resolution/lossless audio formats, whereas with DVD audio is usually compressed.

[NYer]

Thank you. I do not have a HD television yet. There is so little of worth on cable these days.

[onedoug]

Trail Theater, Coral Gables FL, early 1960...50 cents....

I’ve seen at least once every year since, even through Vietnam 68-69.

[TexasRepublic]

I'm not familiar with BluRay .. does it offer an improved version of the film? Some of my most favorite movies are in black and white; I can't imagine that modern technology can improve on any of those.

The BluRay offers a dramatically improved image, provided that you have a large enough HD screen to display the quality that is there. You get the impression that instead of watching a TV, you are looking through a window. I have several movies in both DVD and BluRay for comparison. I have a 46" 1080p Samsung LCD television and the clarity of BluRay or live over-the-air broadcasts compared to standard definition is really stunning. My Panasonic BluRay player offers upconversion, which really does make a noticable improvement to regular DVDs, but they still don't measure up to the sharpness of BluRay. Even old B&W movies look sharper than ever on BluRay if the transfer is done well. I just bought the Wizard of Oz on BluRay - Wow!!! My Ben Hur movie on DVD is nice, but not as crisp as a BluRay would be; that is one of the few movies that I will upgrade when it is released.

[TexasRepublic]

...another novel THE FAIR GOD about the Conquest of Mexico, that is up till La Nochie Triste. It was going to be made into a major Warner Brothers motion picture back around 1964 but never was.

A pity. Hollywood is cranking out tons of garbage while a great movie theme is being overlooked. They need to produce a historically accurate, large-budget movie about Cortez and his conquest of Mexico. Imagine what Mel Gibson or Peter Jackson could do with it. Only Alexander the Great rivalled Cortez. What kind of guy would land a few hundred soldiers on the shore of an unexplored country, burn his ships, and go on to conquer an advanced empire of millions? The truth is stranger and more unbelievable than fiction, and it is well documented.