Since the American Film Institute released their original and seminal “100 Years … 100 Movies” list in 1997, I’ve been meaning to work my way through the full list. It felt like a challenge any film buff worth her salt should be able to accomplish in no time. Ten years later, the AFI released an updated list and, seven years after that, I’m finally undertaking the challenge. I’ve done the math and, if I watch one movie a week, I’ll finish the list just in time to start all over again with the 20th anniversary list. Some of these will be gimmes — 34 weeks from now, I’m going to kick back and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark for the hundredth time and I’ll enjoy every minute of it. But these movies were chosen based on specific criteria and, as much as I love Vertigo, I’m not 100% certain I agree with their decision that it’s the 9th most popular and historically significant film of the last century. Of course, you’ll have to wait about 90 weeks to find out what I decide.

 

#100: Ben-Hur

As one of the roughly 50 titles on this list that I haven’t already seen, here’s what I knew going in: Chuck Heston, at some point, partakes in a chariot race. Here’s what I wish I’d known: THIS MOVIE IS THREE AND A HALF GOD DAMNED HOURS LONG. Even as a huge Pete Jackson/LOTR fan, that’s a daunting run-time, to say the least. Still, I figured I could handle it — I grew up watching The Ten Commandments every year on TV, so it couldn’t be that terrible.

The first scene, prior to the classic 50s-style 10-minute-long credits, was a depiction, with almost no dialogue, of the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem.  …What? I thought this was some epic gladiator movie! What the fuck is Jesus doing here? After the credits, we find ourselves in Judea, I think. There are a couple of old guys — one of them clearly a carpenter — discussing said carpenter’s dreamer son, who spends most of his time walking around, not building tables and other carpenter-type-activities. We get a behind-shot of this son walking and, hey, from behind? That dude could totally be Jesus! Then we cut to an extended shot of hundreds of Roman Centurians marching through the desert. Some Roman guys do some talking about an uprising in Judea against Roman rule and how you can’t fight an idea, man, because it’s, like, in people’s minds! One of these guys is Messala, basically some Roman middle-management type. He grew up in Judea and was friends with the sort of Prince there, Judah Ben-Hur. Messala figures he can manipulate this friendship to find out who the Judean dissenters are. He heads to Judea to have a little chat with his old buddy.  Judah, however, isn’t really into turning state’s witness on his family and friends and the two part on uncomfortable terms. When the Romans march into town, Judah and his sister sit on the roof of their estate to watch the spectacle. His sister leans over the edge to get a better view and accidentally knocks off some loose roof tiles, which land on a Roman muckity muck. Messala sees an opportunity to intimidate the Judean populace and throws the book at the Ben-Hur family,  sentencing Judah to be an oar-bitch in the galleys of Roman war ships while his mother and his sister are to rot in prison. At some point, he tells Judah, “I asked you to help me. Now you have.”

What I’ve explained in the above paragraph takes up roughly the first hour of the movie. During the next hour and a half, we watch Judah enter slavery, have another from-behind-cameo from Jesus, and save the life of his Roman master, who ultimately adopts him for this deed because of course he does. Do you know when that Chariot Race takes place? About two and a half hours in. The race lasts about 10 minutes and is pretty much as cool as you already think it is, and you should probably already think it’s in-fucking-credible because they were really racing chariots and just filming it. It’s perfectly tense and invigorating, with just the right mix of suspense and gorey payoff. Our hero wins the race, Messala, the cheating villain, dies of injuries sustained from being trampled by chariots, and Pontius Pilate declares Ben-Hur the One True God of his people. And then there’s still another hour of fucking movie left. I think it’s safe to assume that, in the 1950s, no one gave a fuck about concise pacing to move a story. There were parts of this movie where a fade in covered a day. There were other parts where a fade in covered fucking months — months in which Judah learned how to race chariots and became the talk of Rome. But no, we’ll just skip over the action-packed part and get back to scenes of Charlton Heston painfully overacting and taking 5-second pauses every three words. If you’ve ever seen Meet Joe Black, then you’ll understand what I mean when I say that Ben-Hur is probably where Brad Pitt found his inspiration to play Death.

In the end, Judah finds Christianity when, while witnessing the Crucifixion — because, you know, those Jesus-from-behind-cameos had to be there for a reason —  he hears Jesus say, “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.” And, per Judah, “His voice took the sword from my hand.” … What?  Oh, also, Christ’s death, from miles and miles away, magically cured his sister and mother of the leprosy they somehow contracted while locked in a cell together for years, isolated from any and all humanity, for a crime they didn’t commit. So, there’s also that.

I get it. The scale and spectacle of it — the money, time, effort, and number of people invested in creating this movie should put it in some kind of hall of fame somewhere. The sets and miniatures and production value were all really impressive, even almost 60 years later. Still, when I asked my mom, a woman who is a month shy of 72 years old and watches Gone with the Wind every god damned time it’s on, if she wanted to watch Ben-Hur with me, her immediate reaction was an exaggerated eye-roll and a groan of, “UGH, God, no.” She was almost of legal age when this movie was cutting edge and still looked at me with nothing but pity in her eyes when I told her of my undertaking. And now I know why. So much of the film is just so unnecessary. An 8-minute epic scene of Ben-Hur’s slave-master-turned-adoptive-father walking up a carpeted marble staircase to greet Caesar and formally adopt Ben-Hur in front of gods and country doesn’t need to fade in to 8-minutes of a party that would put Gatsby to shame and ends with our hero telling his adoptive father that he must leave Rome for Judea for his sister and mother. That time could have been better spent.  It’s really just a three and a half hour excuse to make maybe the world’s most iconic “chase scene” to date. But hell, if we’re judging based on cultural impact, then I think Mel Brooks is far more deserving of this spot since I walked away from watching Ben-Hur singing, “We’re off on the road to Judea! We certainly do get arou-ou-ound! Boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom-chicka!”

 

**Author’s Note: If you don’t get that Mel Brooks joke, do yourself a favor and watch History of the World: Part 1, since video evidence of my punchline doesn’t seem to exist you YouTube.