Hello, Everyone!
As you may have noticed, I took a short “sabbatical” last week for Thanksgiving, and I will be extending my break through this week as well.
Looking forward to discussing the inimitable Lawrence of Arabia with you all next week!
Best regards, Sarah
Those familiar with Shakespeare’s plays know that the tragedies usually end with bodies strewn across the stage and shocked surviving characters trying to determine how they will live out the rest of their lives in the aftermath of the bloodbath. (Spoiler alert!) West Side Story, true to its source material Romeo and Juliet, doesn’t disappoint our morbid anticipation–yet the film does diverge pretty significantly from the finale of the tale of the famous doomed lovers.
As noted in West Side Story’s Weekday Warm-up, the film (and all its death) really addresses issues that have not ceased to be relevant to society: the sense and actuality of belonging to a country, teenage delinquency and feelings of inadequacy, and the never-ending war between love and hatred. All of these issues fuel the conflict and killing that occur in the story. The vicious rivalry between the Jets (led by Riff) and the Sharks (led by Bernardo) is fed by their racial differences—at least, on the surface. But both groups completely understand what it feels like to struggle to be accepted by society.
Riff (fourth from left) and the Jets
The Jets, racially white, are only second-generation Americans, sons of immigrants. They don’t have foreign-sounding accents, but there are hints that they have only recently come into what they see as their possession of the west side of town. At the beginning of the film, Riff reminds the Jets how they’ve defended their territory from other gangs: “Now we fought hard for this turf and we ain’t just gonna give it up…The Emeralds claimed it. We shut ’em out. The Hawks, remember, they tried to take it away, and we knocked ’em down to the cellar.” The Jets view the Puerto Rican Sharks in the same way as the Emeralds and the Hawks, but it is also possible to see the Sharks as the Jets—newly arrived young men who want to make a place for themselves in America. In the song “When You’re a Jet,” Riff and the Jets explain how being in the gang gives them a feeling of home: “When you’re a Jet, let ’em do what they can / You’ve got brothers around, you’re a family man! / You’re never alone, you’re never disconnected, you’re home with your own.” While these sons of immigrants find belonging in their gang, it seems like the song implies that they struggle with loneliness and disconnectedness in the world outside (or before) the Jets.
This feeling of having to claw one’s way into an American circle of acceptance is mirrored in the Sharks’ attitude toward America and the reception they are receiving in their new land. Anita, Bernardo’s girlfriend, grumbles, “Once an immigrant, always an immigrant.” But in the super catchy song “America,” Anita and her female Puerto Rican friends exult the positive facets of coming to America, while Bernardo and his male friends negate them with observations of how living conditions in America for Puerto Ricans are less than satisfactory—especially when they are constantly mistreated just for being new to the country and less white than many of those around them. “We had nothing [in Puerto Rico],” Anita insists, so life in America for the Sharks should be an improvement—in theory, their children would be like the boys who make up the Jets, somewhat established in the country, no longer complete foreigners.
What I find so ironic, then, is that if Riff and Bernardo would step back from their testosterone-fueled bickering over whose “turf” the west side is, they might realize that they are almost mirror images of each other—the only real difference is their race. The thing is, Riff only acknowledges that difference between himself and Bernardo and vice versa. Riff and the Jets experience a growing panic that the Puerto Ricans will invade and overtake everything that the Jets’ immigrant parents have fought to win for themselves and their children: “[The Puerto Ricans are] eatin’ our food. They’re breathin’ all the air…We gotta let ’em move in right under our noses and take it all away from us, or else.”
Bernardo and Riff, more alike than they realize, resort to a knife fight to settle their differences.
In one sense then, at the rumble, Bernardo and Riff’s knife fight is really a display of self-defense on both sides (a very offensive self-defense). Bernardo kills Riff because he wants to belong and is sick of being excluded, extorted, accused, misjudged, etc. Riff represents those who have mistreated the Puerto Ricans and stands in the way of Bernardo and his family’s welfare and success in their new world. On the other hand, Riff wants to kill Bernardo out of fear that the acceptance that he has received as a second-generation immigrant is in danger from new immigrants—people who could potentially steal his jobs, women, property, etc. It is tragic that there is no one to intervene between these two misguided and paranoid young men. What a waste their premature deaths are!
Yet Bernardo’s death does not come as a result of someone else’s twisted self-defense. Instead, Tony kills Bernardo out of mindless revenge for killing his closest friend Riff. Chino likewise kills Tony out of revenge as well (either for Bernardo’s death or for stealing Maria from him)—and Shakespeare’s readers know that revenge never works out how the killer intends. There are always consequences and very little fulfillment. Plus, all this carnage usually stems from an issue that could simply be talked over and resolved peacefully.
At the end of the film, after all the killing, the burden of revenge (and literally the means to do it) falls then to Maria who has several choices: kill herself (which would follow Shakespeare’s story line), kill Chino and continue the cycle of killing (she would then become next in line to die in retribution), or forgive. There are a few tense moments when it would seem that Maria will choose the first two options, taking out as many of the members of both gangs as she can before killing herself: “How many bullets are left, Chino? Enough for you, and you? All of you. You all killed him! And my brother, and Riff. Not with bullets and guns – with hate. Well, I can kill too because now I have hate! How many can I kill, Chino? How many and still have one bullet left for me?” But as she views the regretful, shattered faces gathered around Tony’s dead body, she makes a choice to end the violence, discarding the weapon of revenge. Members of both gangs help to remove Tony’s body, and Maria follows them out as the film closes.
Maria contemplates continuing the cycle of revenge.
But as usual, I suppose, I still have a few lingering questions. After Anita’s lie deceives Tony into believing Maria is dead and making himself vulnerable to Chino’s attack, what does the sisterly relationship between Anita and Maria look like after the film’s close? Does Maria ever find out that Anita carries quite a decent bit of the blame for Tony’s death? If she does, can she forgive what her closest friend has done? Does the peace between the two gangs really last? What does their non-aggressive relationship look like when the new day finally dawns? Throughout the film, the teenagers are referred to as “no good,” “disturbed,” etc.; what is the practical solution to what is basically their kill-or-be-killed life on the streets? Can society save them? Is it even society’s duty to remedy this problem? And here’s my final big question: considering how Romeo and Juliet so famously finishes with the deaths of both protagonists, why does West Side Story not kill off Maria too?
I think that the film uses Maria’s survival to show its viewers that there is a better solution to conflict than violence against oneself or against others. Maria deliberately chooses to approach the deaths of Riff and her brother Bernardo in a different way than Anita does. Anita, while viciously and unacceptably treated at Doc’s, still must know that her lie about Maria’s death will lead to more heartbreak. She either does not care that Tony, the love of her best friend, will be killed; or she doubts Tony is capable of truly loving Maria and figures he’ll just move on. Either way, Anita’s choice to continue the destruction marks her last appearance in the film and is directly contrary to Maria’s final stance on violence.
Violence only begets more violence as the film clearly demonstrates, and the senselessness and tragedy must end somewhere. And, sometimes it just takes one person to put down the weapon and walk away. Maria could have given Chino what he had demanded from Tony as payment for his murder of Bernardo: death. She also could have ended her own pain by shooting herself. But neither of these actions offers a solution to the pain of not being accepted or to the dilemma of teenage angst or to the strife of racism. Only forgiveness can make a fresh start both for the former immigrants and for the new ones.
The iconic “balcony scene” with Tony and Maria–before tragedy strikes.
The first of four musicals to win Best Picture in the 1960s, West Side Story (1961, Mirisch Pictures, Inc. and B and P Enterprises, Inc.; United Artists) nearly catapulted itself into the elite realm of films to have won 11 Oscars, the current record (in 1961, only one film to date had done so: 1959’s Ben-Hur). Instead, the film fell one Oscar short, winning all but one of its 11 nominations: Art Direction (Color), Cinematography (Color), Costume Design (Color), Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture), Film Editing, Sound, Directing for Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (Robbins also received an honorary award for his choreography), Actor in a Supporting Role for George Chakiris as Bernardo, Actress in a Supporting Role for Rita Moreno as Anita, and Best Motion Picture (the film failed to take home the Academy Award in its nominated category of Writing [Screenplay based on material from another medium]). Rita Moreno would go on to become one of a very elite group of entertainers to win the “grand slam” of American show business: capturing a Grammy, a Tony, and an Emmy (well, two Emmys actually) in addition to her Oscar. West Side Story remains the winningest musical in Oscar history (although I would probably argue that The Sound of Music is the greatest musical to ever win BP, but that is just me…).
Maria (Natalie Wood), Anita (Rita Moreno), and Bernardo (George Chakiris) at the dance at the gym.
None of the film’s memorable songs was eligible for an Oscar since the Academy requires that a song be specifically written for a film in order to qualify for the competition (hence, Original Song). Fun fact: prior to 1941, the only requirement for a Best Song nominee was that the tune had to appear in a film that was released during the award year; but as you can imagine, that lack of specificity led to a few controversies. For 1961, the award for Music (Song) went to Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer for the lovely “Moon River” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a legitimate winner, in my opinion, even if West Side Story’s “Tonight,” “America,” or “Somewhere” had qualified (but, man, do I get goosebumps every time I listen to the Ensemble version of “Tonight”—reminds me of “One Day More” from Les Misérables).
West Side Story’s songs are not original to the film because the film is based on the smash Broadway play of the same name. In the late 1940s, Jerome Robbins, who would become the choreographer and co-director of West Side Story, proposed an idea to Leonard Bernstein (the composer) and Arthur Laurents (the writer) for a new musical based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Robbins’ original idea was for the musical to focus on anti-Semitism, presenting a conflict between a Jewish family and an Irish Catholic family set in New York’s Lower East Side. The play’s original title was East Side Story, which doesn’t quite have the same ring as the final product’s name does! Laurents wrote the story, but the three men felt that the topic had already been addressed in other plays and abandoned their project. Nearly five years later, Laurents and Berstein met up in Hollywood. As fate would have it, their conversation turned to juvenile street gangs, a relatively new element of society that was fast making headlines in the 1950s. The men decided to return to their earlier project, East Side Story, and alter it to focus on Puerto Rican immigrants in Harlem and the gang environment there. The creators of the newly titled West Side Story now brought in a young Stephen Sondheim (the lyricist), who at the urging of Oscar Hammerstein agreed to assist with the musical’s songs. The result was a show that led one critic from the New York Daily News to exclaim, “This is a bold new kind of musical theatre – a juke-box Manhattan opera. It is, to me, extraordinarily exciting.” West Side Story ran on Broadway for 732 consecutive performances before going on tour. It nearly won the Tony Award for Best Musical of 1957, losing to The Music Man.
As we discussed a few months back with 1948’s BP winner Hamlet, Shakespeare’s genius is endlessly drawn upon for film inspiration. What is interesting about West Side Story’s take on Romeo and Juliet is how the film replaces the Montague-Capulet family feud with ethnic gang warfare, a concept that was anything but foreign at the beginning of the 1960s during which sit-ins were occurring across the South, as were the Freedom Rides and the integration of public schools. The conflict between love and hate in West Side Story plays out against the backdrop of racial inequality, a sick feature of society that still thrives today. West Side Story, though memorable for its classic songs, its stars like Natalie Wood, and its tragic teenage melodrama, really poses several extremely applicable questions: What makes an American? What is the solution to teenage lawlessness and delinquency? How does love persevere in a world full of hatred?
For more thoughts on West Side Story and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!
I don’t often like to be obvious. Okay, sometimes I still end up being obvious, but I don’t necessarily like to be so. With regards to The Apartment, the obvious focus of this post would consist of discussing how all the married men in this film constantly have affairs. So I started thinking how I could draw something more out of that unsavory aspect of the movie in order to create a thought-provoking post that people would actually want to read. So I thought and I thought and I thought…about men committing adultery. Highly unpleasant food for meditation. But, it led me to realize that all of the women in the film’s affairs are not technically committing adultery—because they’re not married. They’re accomplices in the married men’s committing adultery, I guess we could say.
We do get the married and outlandish Mrs. Margie MacDougall, whose husband is a jockey imprisoned in Cuba for drugging a horse (hello, Cold War—and how random!). It seems quite clear that Baxter, who meets Margie at a bar, is not actually going to go through with the proposed fling, even though he takes Margie home and tells her he’s a “sexpot.” In fact, I’m not sure that Margie would have gone through with the affair either since all she does is talk about her husband and bewail her loneliness—furthermore, how many women looking to cheat on their spouses would actually introduce themselves to prospective lovers as “Mrs.”?
Back to the women who do participate in affairs. The film clearly informs its viewers that it is improbable (and unconscionable) that a married woman would enter into an extramarital relationship—even though her husband most likely will. Frankly, when would she have the time to do so? Her every waking moment is spent in pleasing her frequently absent husband—keeping house, raising children, cooking meals, making the social rounds. In short, married women are to be June Cleaver. Single women fall into two groups: “good girls” and “fair game.” And in The Apartment, I don’t think we actually ever see any woman from the former group—although, like Baxter, we are at first led to believe that Fran is one of the girls who does not let herself be romanced by the predatory, older, married men in the office building.
It is interesting that the film shows us that seemingly wholesome Fran can still fall in love and allow herself to participate in an affair with, excuse me, a self-centered jerk of a married man like Jeff Sheldrake. Perhaps the movie is saying that any woman can make such a mistake and find herself feeling as broken and desperate as Fran does when she realizes that Mr. Sheldrake has a long history of stringing along impressionable women from the office. Her suicide attempt becomes even more sympathetic if we are to think along the lines of “But for the grace of God, there go I.”
Fran’s rendezvous with Mr. Sheldrake in the same corner booth that he shared with all his former mistresses.
Another factor to consider in the relationship between men and women in The Apartment has to do with money. In this particular office complex, men work as accountants, clerks, and executives. Women mostly perform secretarial duties, man the telephone switchboard, and operate elevators. But it is obvious that the company executives neither view women as qualified for the higher-up positions nor worthy of the same pay as their male employees. Sounds a bit familiar. To go a step further yet, Fran confides in Baxter that when she applied for a secretarial position at the company, she failed the typing test because she cannot spell. The company’s solution was to “[give Fran] a pair of white gloves and [stick her] in an elevator.” How many more of the nameless female employees have stories similar to Fran’s? Not only are the women in the office complex exploited by their married male co-workers, but they are also under-educated and underpaid.
Baxter on his way to be promoted, fomenting adultery in exchange for his own office.
One could argue that the office women are compensated in different ways (dinners, alcohol, jewelry, etc.) for their services—at least those who allow themselves to get involved with the wealthier and more powerful men in the company. In a way, this exchange of goods for sex amounts to prostitution; however, women are not the only ones who play this game of giving something of themselves in order to receive some benefit. In fact, we could look at Baxter as a “call girl” of sorts too—he’s at the whim of the higher-ups at his office; he’s compensated (financially and job-wise) for the use of his property (the apartment); and he’s discarded when no longer wanted. Both men and women, therefore, are taken advantage of by those in positions of authority in The Apartment—sexual pressure is put on women (and also in a way on Baxter as enabler/accomplice to the trysts) and employment/advancement pressure is put on men (and women too). Men’s economic vulnerabilities (having to support families and themselves) are exploited, as are women’s emotional ones. Capitalism doesn’t always have to do with money. People can just as well be used as currency.
In a film about an office and the goings on that occur among its employees, the film’s title directs us to look closely at the significance of Baxter’s apartment. To be obvious again, the apartment is the locale in which the men physically cheat on their wives, but the men’s infidelity of thought and emotion and intent is not contained within the walls of Baxter’s abode. It’s a problem that begins in their minds and hearts.
In The Apartment, the corporate world is a mess, much as it is now. Yet even more troubling than the ethical morass of the business world is the swamp of the human heart. It neglects the feelings of others. It undervalues fellow human beings regardless of gender. It uses and abuses people for a few moments’ pleasure–or for a brief hiatus from the pain of a lonely and unfulfilling life. I think that oftentimes those who inflict hurt are just as broken as those who end up maimed like Fran.
In Fran’s compact mirror, Baxter sees he is just as broken as Fran.
At the end of the film (spoiler alert!), Fran has realized her affections for Baxter and runs up the stairs to his apartment when she hears what she believes is a gunshot, the sound of Baxter ending his life in despair because of his unrequited love for her. For a few seconds, the film’s viewers observe how Fran identifies Baxter with her formerly desperate self. Both characters have been taken for granted and abused by people dangling promises of love and wealth, and Fran understands the emptiness that comes from giving oneself to someone whose cares are physical and whose concerns are minimal. Fran is relieved to discover that Baxter has only popped the cork on a wine bottle, and the film closes with a charming scene of Fran and Baxter playing cards, an activity they undertook earlier in the film during Fran’s recovery in the apartment. I would like to think that the simplicity and healing that occur at the film’s close indicate a message that broken people don’t have to continue to yield to the pain inflicted by others, nor do they have to resort to suicide as an escape from abuse. Broken people can start over. The world might not change its lustful, promotion-hungry ways, but we don’t have to let our lives be dictated by those norms.
Baxter and Fran, finally satisfied enough with each other, finish their card game in the apartment.
Welcome to the groovy 1960s! And just as we catapult ourselves into a fresh, new decade, we get a film about capitalism, sexism, and infidelity. Wonderful.
Not all the films from the 60s will be like The Apartment (1960, The Mirisch Company, Inc.; United Artists). We’ll get a monster epic drama in Lawrence of Arabia, as well as the period drama A Man for All Seasons and the racially charged drama In the Heat of the Night. We’ll also throw in a comedy of sorts with Tom Jones and the only rated-X movie (later downgraded to R-rated) to win Best Picture, Midnight Cowboy (looking forward to that one, sarcasm intended). For me, though, film in the 60s is more defined by blockbuster musicals (BP winners West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Oliver!, to name a few). My parents, who spent the 1960s as pre-teens/young teens, flooded our childhood with the music and melodies of these films. To sum up the decade that lies before us, then, I’m looking forward to the nostalgia of some of the best-loved films of all time, while dreading a couple of the decade’s other winners—but hey, these films are definitely indicative of the somewhat wholesome/somewhat rowdy/oftentimes chaotic 1960s.
Fran and Baxter chat on the way up to the 19th floor.
The Apartment took home Oscar’s biggest prize in one of those years that was pretty intense for film as 1960 saw the release of all of the following “classics”: Spartacus (the big epic), Inherit the Wind (the Scopes Trial, Hollywood-style), The Alamo (directed by and starring John Wayne), Pollyanna (a childhood favorite), and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (gives me the heebie-jeebies just mentioning it)—not to mention a pretty successful remake of 1931’s BP winner Cimarron. Altogether, The Apartment received 10 Academy Award nominations, including: Cinematography (Black-and-White), Sound, Actor for Jack Lemmon as C. C. Baxter, Actor in a Supporting Role for Jack Kruschen as Dr. Dreyfuss (I loved him!), and Actress for Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik. The film won five Oscars: Art Direction (Black-and-White), Writing (Story and Screenplay—written directly for the screen), Film Editing, Directing for Billy Wilder, and Best Motion Picture. Wilder personally took home three Oscars for The Apartment as he wrote, directed, and produced the film (he added these Oscars to the two he won for writing and directing 1945’s BP The Lost Weekend). Perhaps The Apartment was destined to win Best Picture since it makes reference to at least two other BPs: Baxter tries to watch Grand Hotel on TV while eating dinner (but he only sees ads), and someone refers to Baxter and Fran’s time together in his apartment as their “lost weekend.” A third BP allusion is possible with Baxter’s neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss—his name brings to mind The Life of Emile Zola and Zola’s defense of the innocent Alfred Dreyfus.
I totally don’t remember this pose of Baxter’s from watching the film, but I couldn’t resist including it!
I find it a bit funny when the change from one decade to the next, in effect just a new number, is so in sync with the actual transformation of the times; but 1960 seems to usher in a whole new world, in a sense (pardon my Aladdin pun). That year featured the first televised presidential debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon—the funny thing about that being the people who watched the debates on TV believed Kennedy had “won” and those listening on the radio said Nixon was victorious! Kennedy, of course, was elected President in November 1960. Just a few months before Kennedy’s win, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960, and Harper Lee published the wonderful To Kill a Mockingbird, both of these incidents flowing into the history-altering Civil Rights Movement that would rock the U.S. in the 1960s. This start of a new decade brought us the American flag as we now know it—with 50 stars since Alaska and Hawaii had joined the Union the previous year–launched the decade that would see an American man walk on the moon, and witnessed the U.S. fall prey to the Beatles’ invasion.
The Apartment is the child of these changing times. While presenting a more liberated feminine sexuality, it still shows women as objects. As it demonstrates the personal benefits of capitalism, it also emphasizes the negativity of a rat race that dehumanizes us toward our fellow human beings. And, while advocating romantic relationships based on love, it also expects (but not necessarily encourages) men especially to seek only their own well-being and to relegate their familial responsibilities to the sidelines. I think this film is an indication of murkier waters to come. Just more food for thought and fuel for discussion!
For more thoughts on The Apartment and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!
Let’s start with a bit of a name game, a couple of thoughts about the character Judah Ben-Hur. “Ben-Hur” is mentioned in I Kings 4:7 as the name of the district governor of “the hill country of Ephraim” whose responsibility it was to provide provisions for Solomon and his court for one month of the year. That’s interesting, but “Judah” is even more profound in its associations. First, Judah was the name of one of the 12 sons of the Israelite patriarch Jacob; hence, it is also the name of one of the 12 Tribes of Israel. The original Judah was the ancestor of the great King David—who himself was the ancestor of Jesus Christ. When Solomon’s vast kingdom split in two during the reign of his son Rehoboam, the southern kingdom was named Judah. In Roman times, the setting of Ben Hur, land from both post-Solomonic kingdoms became the Roman province of Judea, the Jews who lived there subservient to the efficiently brutal Romans. Judah Ben-Hur, the character, he who shares a name with the tribe of David and Christ as well as with the land in which Christ was born, could represent the Judean province as a whole—in other words, he could be a metaphor for the Jewish people and their relationship with Rome.
Judah’s (the character) relationship with Rome is therefore fittingly complicated in the film. Judah himself is one of the elite and wealthy—possessing a social status that often indicated that one dealt well (politically, financially, etc.) with the foreign occupiers of the land. This is partly true, for Judah’s best childhood friend, Messala, is Roman. The two young men are as close as brothers, even when Messala, now a tribune, returns to Judea after a long absence fighting in Rome’s other foreign possessions. What divides Judah and Messala shortly after Messala takes command of the legion in Judea is their devotion to their people—or rather, Judah’s belief that God will one day free His people, and Messala’s dedication to the violence inherent in Rome’s trampling its enemies. Messala works for promotion and worldly glory. Judah yearns for freedom and for peace. Willing to sacrifice even his most treasured friendship in order to squash rumored Jewish rebellion, Messala makes use of a fateful accident to send Judah to the Roman galleys as a slave and to imprison Judah’s mother Miriam and sister Tirzah. That’s when Judah’s love of peace transforms into a life-long quest for vengeance.
Messala and Judah Ben-Hur, fast friends before Messala’s betrayal.
Judah’s longing and seeking for revenge mirrors the hatred his people hold for Rome. While earlier Judah was content to relegate himself to the sidelines and leave the fate of his people in the hands of their God, now he actively works to survive in order to kill Messala, believing that the murder of his former friend will bring him the peace he longs for. Ironically, in a deeply moving scene, while Judah is part of a forced march to the galleys, he experiences the first of two encounters that will change his life forever. Exhausted and almost dying with thirst, the slaves are driven (chained together) into the town of Nazareth so the Romans and their horses can have a drink break. The prisoners are only permitted to drink once the animals have had their fill; and the Romans are particularly brutal in their treatment of Judah, refusing him water altogether. A local villager, though, quietly defies the Romans and brings Judah water. When Judah looks into the man’s eyes, he is transfixed by what he sees there—apparently gentleness and endless compassion.
Judah’s first glimpse of Jesus.
Yet despite his meeting Jesus at Nazareth, Judah lives off his hatred and hope for revenge while a slave in the galleys. The powerful Roman officer Quintus Arrius, upon encountering Judah at his oar, tells him that his “eyes are full of hate” which is “good…[because] hate keeps a man alive. It gives him strength.” But it seems to me that there is something more than hate at work in Judah’s survival. For just as Judah himself insists to Messala at the film’s beginning that God has not given up on his people, so also has God not forsaken Judah—even in his rebellion, hatred, and diabolical plans to kill his former friend. God has a larger purpose at work for both Judah and the Jewish people under Roman domination.
(Spoiler alert!) After some quite ironic twists and turns of the plot (it’s a long story…), Judah is provided with the means and opportunity to take his revenge on Messala—as chariot driver for Sheik Ilderim. Balthazar, one of the three wise men and a guest of the sheik, warns Judah against taking vengeance, assuring him that God will punish Messala for the evil he has done. Judah disregards Balthazar’s shared wisdom and instead offers up an ironic prayer before the race: “God forgive me for seeking vengeance. But my path is set and into your hands I commit my life. Do with me as you will.” God will indeed do what he wants with Judah—even if Judah asks for pardon before he commits the offense!
The chariot race is thrilling but violent. Messala, having rigged his chariot wheels with blades to sabotage the others’ vehicles, eliminates many competitors before he and Judah finally clash head-to-head, physically assaulting each other while the horses sprint on. When his wheel shatters, Messala is dragged by his own black horses and trampled by those of the other racers whom he had tried to harm. Fatally wounded, he waits for Judah to come to speak to him under the arena, knowing Judah must come in order to satisfy his quest for vengeance. But Messala has one more wicked card to play. When Judah (seemingly feeling pity for his broken friend) approaches, Messala stokes his hatred: “Is enough of a man still left here for you to hate? Let me help you…You think they’re dead. Your mother and sister. Dead. And the race over. It isn’t over, Judah. They’re not dead…Look for them in the Valley of the Lepers, if you can recognize them. It goes on. It goes on, Judah. The race, the race is not over.” After ensuring that Judah’s hatred and suffering will continue, Messala dies. But I find it so important to the film’s emphasis on forgiveness that Judah achieves his goal of vengeance and discovers that it does nothing for him. He is just as empty and just as hateful of Rome and Messala (and what Rome did to Messala) as he was before the race. Using the race as a metaphor for Judah’s quest for revenge is quite brilliant—the arena being circular (revenge is endless) and the event bathed in blood and death. So many others were trampled in order for Judah to pay Messala back for what he did to Judah and his family—but those others were innocent. Furthermore, Messala pays with his life. Judah and his family still possess their lives. What Judah requires payment-wise of Messala and Rome is not exactly what he himself has received, even though his agony is significant.
Judah at the death of Messala after the chariot race.
It is at this point in the film when Jesus begins to invade the plot. His presence has overshadowed every moment to this point, but now He becomes more personally real to the characters. Esther, Judah’s love interest (another interesting name choice as it connotes a God-fearing Jew under the control of a foreign power), places her faith in Jesus and cannot help sharing his message of love and peace. Present at the Sermon on the Mount, she encourages Judah with the words she heard Jesus speak there: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Judah has been neither merciful nor a peacemaker, and his lingering thirst for Roman blood has taken over his mind and heart so much so that he only cares for the downfall of Rome. He is blind to what is in front of him—the truth about God and His plan to save those who trust in Him.
What changes for Judah is his second encounter with the man who gave him water several years before—the nameless Nazareth carpenter. Desperate to save his dying sister and his weak mother, Judah and Esther attempt to take them to see Jesus. They are horrified to discover that Jesus has just been sentenced to death, and they are present as Jesus struggles to carry his cross through the streets of Jerusalem to the place of execution. Shocked, Judah recognizes Jesus and is determined to return the kind deed which Jesus did for him. When Jesus stumbles and falls, Judah runs to bring him water; and again the two lock eyes. That is when Judah truly begins to see. Drawn to Jesus, Judah witnesses the crucifixion, later telling Esther what he heard there: “Almost at the moment he died, I heard him say it, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’…Even then. And I felt His voice take the sword out of my hand.” Judah is transformed spiritually just as his mother and sister are changed physically, healed of their leprosy as the blood of Jesus flows down the cross and mingles with the waters of rain washing the land into a newness of hope.
In this second encounter with Jesus, Judah provides the water; but Christ gives Judah more than he had ever imagined.
This story is all about forgiveness. At the beginning, Judah has nothing to forgive and so is willing to live at peace with Rome. After he and his family are so grievously wronged, he refuses to consider forgiveness. He becomes what his Jewish people are as a group—tired of waiting for God to free them from their Roman oppressors. Rather than being still and remembering the battle is the Lord’s, many of the Jews take matters into their own hands and plot violent revolt against their overlords, resorting to bloodshed just like the Romans do. The Jews also look for a savior, the Messiah—but they misunderstand who/what it is that they are waiting for. They want a physical salvation—the annihilation of those who acted out such atrocities against them. They think that this is the highest salvation that can be given to them. But they are wrong.
To the people of His day, Jesus’ commands probably seemed shockingly absurd to many: “Love your enemy. Do good to those who despitefully use you.” Love the Romans? Do good to those who imprison your family until they must live in disgrace as lepers? To Judah, these words are ridiculous—until he witnesses Jesus living them out first-hand—loving his persecutors, forgiving his executioners. How can Judah hate any longer when he has witnessed such a love?
For me, this film could not have come at a better point in my life. Like those first-century residents of Judea, I also frequently find it difficult to internalize and then live out the instructions that God has written in the Bible. It is far, far easier to cherish and act on hatred than it is to dwell on and extend love to those who have mistreated you. I find that, like Judah, I demand reparation for the wrongs that have been done to me. I want selfish people to have to relinquish what they’ve hoarded. I want cruel people to feel what it is like to be abused. I want and I want, endlessly desiring that God give people what they deserve in full and then some.
But He didn’t give me what I deserve, just like how in the film Jesus doesn’t give Judah what he deserves either. Jesus gives Judah grace and the peace (through love!) that Judah thought he could only have once he had put Messala in the ground. Yet not only does literally looking to Christ free Judah of the pain of his past, it also “take[s] the sword out of [his] hand,” removing the need for vengeance and filling Judah’s life with peace. That might be as profound a lesson as any we’ll see in these BPs. So what more can I say in conclusion but that I too need to look into the merciful and loving eyes of Jesus and learn from him how to love those who do wrong to me.
This week I did something that I absolutely abhor. I watched the two halves of this lengthy film on different days. Ugh. I usually try to avoid doing that at all costs, but this week involved the submission of the first section of this English person’s Master’s thesis, and sometimes things just have to bow to the thesis over here—even when those things are as extraordinary as this week’s Best Picture winner, Ben Hur (1959, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer).
This is a movie that I’ve been looking forward to working with since I started this BP mission in the spring. As was the case with Gone with the Wind, exactly twenty years Ben-Hur’s senior, I would have thought that Ben-Hur was “non-remake-able”; however, as last year’s unsuccessful remake proves, I can be wrong. But I’d like to think I’m at least correct in saying that this film is definitely unique. During a decade of huge blockbuster films relating to Christianity, Ben-Hur stands alone as the only one which took home the film industry’s highest honor. It also happens to be the first of a mere three films to ever win 11 Oscars, the current record. If we consider the number of Academy Award nominations and wins as the determining factor in ranking films, then Ben-Hur is the second greatest movie ever made with 12 nominations and 11 wins. Personally, I think there’s more to ranking films than just how much awards-show hardware they accumulate, but it’s an interesting idea to look just at Academy Awards (plus, this ranking method makes Titanic the greatest movie ever made with 14 nominations and 11 wins, and I’m not going to completely argue against that proposition…). Personally, in my movie ranking list, I placed Ben-Hur in second place, beneath Gone with the Wind, because I don’t believe the acting in Ben-Hur can even come close to touching Vivien Leigh’s Scarlett O’Hara and Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler. But feel free to debate me on that; I’m open to other thoughts!
The stunning chariot race scene which took six months to film!
Oscar-wise, then, the 11 trophies that Ben-Hur took home were: Art Direction (Color), Costume Design (Color), Sound, Film Editing, Cinematography (Color), Special Effects, Music (Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture), Actor for Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur, Actor in a Supporting Role for Hugh Griffith as Sheik Ilderim, Directing for William Wyler, and Best Motion Picture. The Academy Award for Directing was William Wyler’s third win in that category. He was previously recognized for his work on Mrs. Miniver (1942) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Though his Ben-Hur win would be his last competitive Oscar victory, Wyler remains one of the greatest directors of all time and the only one to direct three Best Picture winners.
Judah witnesses the ceremonial majesty of ancient Rome.
Ben-Hur the film is based on Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel entitled Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. From an early age, Wallace found himself fascinated by the story of the wise men who followed the star to find the young Savior. Though he wasn’t a Christian believer himself in his younger days, the story lingered in Wallace’s memory through his time in service as a soldier in the Mexican-American War and the Civil War and during the early years of his marriage and fatherhood. Wallace, still basically agnostic regarding religion, at last decided to write a story about the wise men and submit it to a magazine. However, he randomly met the famous atheist Robert Ingersoll and became dismayed that Ingersoll, a professed unbeliever, possessed greater biblical knowledge. Ashamed of his wishy-washy stance on religion, Wallace began to study the Bible in earnest and came to “see God through the eyes of his character,” Judah Ben-Hur. Wallace’s entire worldview changed while writing the novel: “Long before I was through with my book, I became a believer in God and Christ.” Ben-Hur became a phenomenal success and one of the best-selling books of the nineteenth century. Its message of forgiveness in the aftermath of brotherly betrayal and unspeakable trials resonated with an America still trying to heal the hurts of the Civil War.
In his torment, Judah sees Jesus for the first time. For most of the film, to Judah, Jesus is the nameless man who gave him water in his time of need.
But, what connection can we make between the events of the 1950s and a vengeful Jewish man living in Roman-occupied Judea in the first century A.D.?
Eric Johnston, then-president of the Motion Picture Association of America made an interesting speech at the 1960 Oscar ceremony while handing out the award for Foreign Language Film. In addressing how movies can teach people about ourselves and others, he stated: “It is a simple fact that we must all understand that we are not automatically just going to do the right thing.” In my mind, the 1950s seem to be about as “right” as one culture could get. I think poodle skirts and soda fountains and Elvis, Route 66 and church on Sundays and the Fonz. It seems like it must have been wholesome all the time. Untrue. Johnston made his statement about morality after playing a pretty significant role in blacklisting many in Hollywood; and as the film industry rolled, like the rest of the world, into the chaos of the 1960s, the Cold War was already raging, to prove his integrity Nixon had already given a national speech about his dog, and Jim Crow and Brown v. Board of Education had already started having it out over whether separate was the same as equal. It was a messed-up world then as it is now. Johnston was correct in declaring that we won’t all just do the right thing, and we see this truth as well in Ben-Hur. When Judah tries to take the high road in the conflict, he gets stabbed in the back. When he opts for vengeance, he just reaps more pain. It is in mercy and forgiveness that Judah finds real peace and contentment and meaning. And those ideals are pretty timeless, I would say.
For more thoughts on Ben-Hur and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!