Movie Monday: #100

A few weeks ago, while surfing the Internet, Carey came across the 10th anniversary edition of the American Film Institute's 100 Years... 100 Movies list. The list counted down the 100 greatest movies of all time - originally published in 1998, the list was updated in 2007. (Both lists can be found by clicking here.) So, Carey suggested that we watch one or two movies per week off the list. I've decided that each Monday I'll let you know what we watched and what we thought about it. We decided to start from the bottom of the list, so without further ado, Movie #100: Ben-Hur!

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Ben-Hur is the story of Judah Ben-Hur (played by Charlton Heston), a Jew living in Judea at the time of Christ, when Rome was trying to assert its dominance and control of the region. Messala, a Roman military Tribune and childhood friend of Judah's, returns to Judea intent on subjugating the land for the glory of the Emperor and Rome. The rest of the movie revolves around the consequences of an accident and Messala's treatment of his former friend and Judah's family. One of the most famous scenes ever in film - the great chariot race - provides entertainment and excitement before the last 30 minutes (or so) of the movie shows what happens to Judah and his family.

Interwoven into the story, in what the DVD case termed "fateful encounters," are meetings between Judah and Jesus Christ. Judah remembered a "kind stranger," but had no idea that it was Jesus until he witnessed the sentencing and crucifixion of Christ.

Overall, Carey and I found the movie enjoyable, but it was very long (almost 3.5 hours!). When I mentioned that The 10 Commandments, another Charlton Heston movie, is also very long, Carey joked that he must get paid by the minute. :-) The portrayal of the relations between the Jews and Romans was typical of this type of film-making, but the way that Judah's encounters with Jesus affected his entire life personalized the story and really made you care about the characters.

At one point in the movie, Judah, as a prisoner on his way to become a galley slave on a Roman ship, collapsed due to dehydration. His Roman captor would not allow any of the villagers to bring Judah water, but while this Roman's back was turned, an unknown person (whose back was to the camera) came forward and offered Judah water. When the Roman soldier turned around and saw what was happening, he yelled at the man. The man, who you assume is Jesus (based on his very Jesus-like hair, I guess), just looked at the soldier until the soldier became visibly uncomfortable and walked away. This reminded me of a scene in Star Wars: Episode IV when Obi-Wan Kenobi used his Jedi mind-powers to convince Imperial stormtroopers that R2-D2 and C-3PO "are not the droids you're looking for." At this point in Ben-Hur, I asked Carey if he knew that Jesus had Jedi mind-powers.

Having never seen the movie before, I was glad that it was on the list. The chariot race was exciting, the relationship between Judah and Messala was realistic and very "human," and the manner in which the lives of Judah and Jesus intersected was tastefully and respectfully done. I don't think I would count this among my absolute favorite movies, but it was enjoyable and I'm glad to have finally seen it.

Next up is #99: Toy Story. We actually own this and, since it's pretty short, we figure we'll watch it on Thursday night. (There's really nothing that we watch on television on Thursday night, so we'll watch the movie while we work on laundry and ironing.) Because we're borrowing most of these movies from the public library, we have to watch what we can get, so we occasionally see stuff out of order. We're trying our best to avoid this, but last weekend, Ben-Hur was unavailable and #98: Yankee Doodle Dandy was available, so we watched that last week. I'll post about that movie in the next week of two. Next movie on our list, after Toy Story, is #97: Blade Runner.

So, stop back next week for more Movie Monday!