Ben-Hur –1959 (WINNER)
Ben-Hur was a behemoth of great special effects. There were phenomenal stunts, detailed scale models, absolutely first-rate rear-projection, masterful matte-paintings, incredible sound and sound mixing, fires, a naval battle, an exciting chariot race that lasted nearly ten whole minutes, and vivid, striking imagery that was a feast for the eyes! How’s that for a single movie?
Of course when people think of this film, the first thing that usually comes to their minds is the afore-mentioned chariot race, so I’ll start there. It was, even by today’s standards flawlessly done. Once the flags were lowered, the intensity went from zero to a hundred in an instant. The pace was fast and relentless, never slowing even for an instant. The wide shots made use of matte paintings composited with live action so seamlessly, it looked completely real. When the camera focused on the actors’ faces, the rear projected backgrounds were perfect. The actors looked like they were actually part of the projected images.
And the stunts! When a chariot was destroyed, broken, or flipped, the drivers were tossed about like rag-dolls. There was one great shot when the Charlton Heston’s stunt man was flipped over the front of his chariot, and then we saw Heston climbing back into the vehicle. The shot where his nemesis Messala, played by Stephen Boyd, crashes and is trampled by a team of horses, dragged behind his speeding steeds, trampled some more, then crushed under chariot wheels. They used a dummy, of course, but the transition from man to dummy was nearly undetectable. The whole race was memorable for a good reason.
But there was so much more in the film. The naval battle was just as exciting and visually stunning. But there were three other images that stand out in my mind, and really caught my attention, all of which were religious in nature, which makes sense, as the film is, after all, a biblical epic. In the beginning, the image of the star of Bethlehem moving through the sky and shining its light down on the stable was beautifully done. The dark and sleeping town looked perfect.
The other are two separate images at Christ’s crucifixion. Director William Wyler chose to never show us Jesus’s face. But there is a powerful shot of Christ hanging on the cross, shown from behind, against a dark and raining sky. The other is an up-side-down image of him reflected in a bloody puddle of water, shown only for an instant before the rain obscures the reflection. The artful effects really turned the sequence from just emotional to devastating. And the whole movie was full of similarly intense imagery. Wyler and his special effects really knew what they were doing, and deserve all the Oscars they won. And incidentally, I watched the chariot race from the 2016 remake. It was nowhere near as good as the 1959 version.