Stage Four in Ben-Hur: Chapter 1 Part 6 of
THE BIG PICTURE: A POST-JUNGIAN MAP OF GLOBAL CINEMA
by James Whitlark, Ph.D.
Stage Four in Ben-Hur (1959)
The basic outline of Ben-Hur is a paradigmatic stage-four tale. The protagonist
first appears a pious yet moderate Jew, trying to promote peace and order by talking
against vengeance and violence. Betrayal by a friend causes Ben-Hur’s Shadow to possess
him (an enantiodromio). He becomes a Roman citizen, charioteer in an arena
displaying idols, and an advocate of violence. In this, he resembles Messala, who
represents the embodiment of evil to him. Then, as Christian, Ben-Hur reforms, thereby
coming to terms with his Shadow–all in a record-breaking religious pageant.
“[T]he most expensive production [$15 million] in movie history up to that time,”
the film earned twelve Oscar nominations, victorious in eleven, more than any other
film before Titanic, partly, one may suspect because Fry’s King James style
and stage-four subject, which no longer caught the mood of Broadway, still met expectations
in the Bible Belt (John Eastman, 35). Ironically, the category where the movie failed
was screenplay, “because of a union quarrel over crediting Christopher Fry along
with Karl Tunberg, S. N. Behrman, and Gore Vidal” while Maxwell Anderson also contributed
to the screenplay (Solomon, 134; Elley, 131-35; Heston 1976, 49). Also ironically,
precisely because that screenplay was so well suited to its time, it is one of the
reasons the movie has aged so badly–certainly no longer appearing to be among the
most exciting films ever, except perhaps to those advertising Christian video clubs.
Liberation vs. Salvation
“Historically, in the American West, the emergence of this system [stage four] came
after the gunfighter (Level 3), and it was expressed as, “We need a government of
laws, not men’” (James and Woodsmall, 175). Ben-Hur ends with presages of
such a government. The chariot race is a token overthrowing of the Romans, shown
as conducting a government of men rather than of laws. The 1925 Ben Hur was
banned from Fascist Italy because it also had that message, the opposite of Mussolini’s
policies, particularly since the winner of the race was Jewish (Elley, 127). In the
1959 version, the issue of Ben-Hur’s religious need to forgive Messala comes from
the highest stratum of stage four–a recognition of their similarity, an acknowledgment
of his own Shadow.
In the late 1950s, the major denominations constituted a very reserved and dignified
Christianity. To conform to this, the movie treats Christ with a quintessence of
traditional respect. Since then, Born-Again Christianity has converted Jesus into
a bumper sticker or shirt slogan–emotional commitment shown very openly. Presumably,
it has helped people at stage three to enter stage four, though at the lowest phase
and with a strong admixture of stage three.
Since the unconscious is a repository of all one has experienced, even after consciousness
matures beyond stage three, it continues in the unconscious. Its significance, however,
changes. The goat-footed, randy god that was a Trickster at stage two becomes a devil
(i.e., Shadow personified) at stage four. Similarly, the egotism accepted as the
norm at stage three becomes another component of the Shadow at four, which, nonetheless,
(like all the archetypes) is more dynamic than its conscious counterpart.
One of the least dated portions of Ben Hur is thus the chariot race, where,
in the grips of his Shadow, the protagonist regresses to three. An assistant director
of it in the 1925 version, Wyler, when asked to direct the 1959 Ben-Hur, first
said that he was only interested in the stadium scene (Solomon 178, 128). Heston
trained daily for his part in it. In terms of the energy devoted to production, the
static Crucifixion was anticlimax compared to the hurtling scythe chariot of the
race. While Wallace’s novel has “A Tale of the Christ” on its title page, the 1959
movie does not present it with the main title but later, as if an afterthought. To
devout Christians, however, the Crucifixion is not an anticlimax nor is Christ an
afterthought. For some reason, Heston decided that his character should not cry at
the Crucifixion, but when he acted that scene it so moved him personally that he
wept in spite of himself (Heston 176, 64). Contemporary Christians presumably felt
the same. Since, in the movie, stage three is presented only to be rejected, sympathetic
treatment is reserved for particular religious and political versions of stage four.
The film addresses these through anachronisms.
Anachronisms
One series of incongruities come from viewing first-century Judaism (centered on
the temple of Jerusalem) from the perspectives of modern Christianity and Judaism.
A narrator, for instance, describes that temple as “an outward form of an inward
and imperishable faith.” The phrasing adapts the Anglican/Episcopalian definition
of a sacrament, thus interpreting the ancient Jewish temple with modern Christian
categories. The ambiguous wording, however, equally predicts the survival of Christianity
or Judaism after the fall of a temple (which, in the movie, is still standing).
Coming from a Jewish background, “Wyler stated that [what appealed to him most was]
the theme of Jews fighting for their freedom,” i.e., its analogies with modern Zionism
(Elley 131). The movie, however, was not as openly Zionist as Spartacus (1960)
or King of Kings (1961): “Its one moment of overt propagandizing is when the
light catches Ben-Hur’s Star of David as he leans triumphantly over the mangled Messala
(Stephen Boyd). However, the latter’s dying boast of ‘It goes on, Judah .... The
race is not over ...,’ and the fact that it is an Arab Sheik Ilderim (Hugh Griffith),
who asks Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) to wear the star (‘to shine out for your people
and my people together and blind the eyes of Rome’), shows the film pleading for
a general Middle East solidarity and an end to foreign interference rather than Zionism
as a solution to the Jewish problem” (Elley 131-34).
In addition to seeing Roman Judaea as modern Israel, Wyler also imagined it as analogous
to the American Revolution. He cast the Roman invaders as British actors and the
Jews as American ones. This chauvinism may have helped an American audience identify
with the ancient Jews struggle for their own laws, but probably did not endear him
to the English. In 1977, Peter Ustinov remarked: “I’ve always thought that only
the Americans can do Ancient Roman pictures. Both cultures have the same kind of
relaxed, rangy pomp. Both have exactly the same kind of bad taste” (Elley vi). Thus
Ustinov, who made a career playing depraved Romans in American productions, revenges
himself on such films, likening degenerate Rome to the United States. Casting by
country involves the same kind of ethnocentricity that the ending expects Ben Hur
to transcend. In the 1950s, overt ecumenicism/covert prejudice was the status quo,
but today this worldview no longer appears quite as impressive as when the Academy
Awards treated Ben Hur as if its ota were the greatest ever filmed.
Continue to THE BIG PICTURE Chapter
1 Part 7
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