Latest / The Next Reel Film Podcast / Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Member Bonus

Transcript

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Member Bonus · The Next Reel Film Podcast

• 0:00
  Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
• 0:06
  Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
• 0:08
  Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends,
• 0:10
  Andy Nelson: our conversation begins.
• 0:13
  Pete Wright: Ben Hur, a tale of the Christ is over. By the three horned goat of Raynor, you are welcome. Seth Rayburn. The silent film, Andy. So you don't know.
• 0:29
  We don't know how it would have been performed. We don't know. That's true. That's true. Yeah.
• 0:34
  I like to think it was that way.
• 0:36
  Andy Nelson: I would like to think so too. I just kept wanting people to I I I picture them like Monty Python characters often, I find.
• 0:46
  Pete Wright: Yeah. That's that is an accurate interpretation. This one, wow. You hadn't seen this? Tell me you hadn't.
• 0:54
  I am I right?
• 0:55
  Andy Nelson: I've only ever seen William Wyler's 1959 Ben Hur with Charlton Heston, of course. Yeah. The ever chesty Charlton Heston.
• 1:10
  Pete Wright: I I haven't seen that movie in a long time, but I do have some some memories of it. And I think watching this movie made a lot of those memories come back in Technicolor, for lack of a better word. There it's an interesting sort of transparency to lay over that movie, this movie is. And I think, you know, the performance of of Ben Hur in both these movies show just what range you can accomplish in a remake of this sort because Charlton Heston is nowhere near, nowhere in the same Circus Maximus as Ramon Ramon Navarro in this movie, who is, as I said to you in a text last night, quite a dandy.
• 1:57
  Andy Nelson: Well, the character is too. Yeah. Like, he's very like, that's like, he's just kind of like this soft hanging out sort of guy. Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:06
  And suddenly, he's thrust into a whole other world, which is fun. Before we really jump into the conversation, though, I'm curious. The it's an interesting exploration of Jesus' time. Right? Yeah.
• 2:21
  My favorite version of this sort of story is, of course, Monty Python's Life for Brian. Again, probably why I think about that movie when I'm watching these stories where Jesus is kind of a cursory side character
• 2:34
  Pete Wright: Yeah.
• 2:34
  Andy Nelson: That and we're watching somebody whose life is kind of living alongside that and journeying alongside that that road. And so, like, I as a kid, I grew up. We went to church regularly when I was young. And so I had a I had a good understanding of just like all of the stuff with Bethlehem and the manger. And although I didn't know it was a cave, apparently, that was a surprise.
• 2:58
  Maybe that's what mangers were back then. So, like, all of that story was just, like, rooted in my my growing up and, like, all the way through the crucifixion and everything. And I'm just curious coming to this story as somebody because I don't think you were a churchgoer when you were a kid, were you?
• 3:17
  Pete Wright: Oh, Andy. Do you know? Not a good one. I was actually I went to church much more as an adult for for several years, about twenty years ago. And that that stopped because of crime, not mine, but others.
• 3:38
  Church church be falling apart. And so I kind of don't do that anymore. But so I did not have church education. Right? Like but I have read the bible.
• 3:47
  I did the audiobook. Wow. And so, you know, I know I know what's in it.
• 3:52
  Andy Nelson: So I guess that's what I'm I'm curious about. Because coming to this story, like, had you heard this story before? Or or was it like, well, know there's something going on with this Jesus guy, but I don't really know what all of these bits and pieces are. Like, I'm curious how how one comes to this if they hadn't really if they weren't familiar with all of that. Because this is a story where you kind of have to be familiar with kind of like, what's going on in that story?
• 4:17
  It's it's like, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. Right? It helps. It it really helps to have seen Hamlet first.
• 4:27
  Pete Wright: Do you know? I'm I'm not sure that it I'm not sure that it helps as as much because it's hard not to know who Jesus is. Right? Like, even if you're not a churchgoer, surely you've you've heard of of Jesus. And Yeah.
• 4:43
  And, you know, the apostles and there are names that are familiar. And once you see the glowing hand or or the hand on the saw of the carpenter doing carpentry work, you kinda get a sense of what's going on in in this movie. I I think. I mean, maybe I had more than I I thought, but I was kinda tuned in pretty early.
• 5:04
  Andy Nelson: Okay. Yeah. Well, good. And I I guess that's it. But it's it's it's curious, like, I mean, they talk about him enough, like this savior and all this sort of stuff, and that he's performing miracles.
• 5:14
  But by the time he's actually performing miracles at the end of the film, you know, it just it does make you wonder. And maybe it's more for somebody who just wasn't as familiar with the story. Like, who's this guy? Like, this this guy who's, you know, supposed to be a king, and now he's Imagine people. Yeah.
• 5:30
  Yeah. Like, it's Right. Yeah. So it's an interesting perspective, though, to take. And I guess just before we jump in, like, the book itself, I thought was kind of an interesting, thing to read about because this book was the the author, Lou Wallace, who had been a general.
• 5:49
  He actually was, you know, befriended somebody who had been an atheist, and he didn't grow up going to church. And so he was like, this is an interesting story. And so he kind of, like, dug in and, like, learned about all this and decided, oh, I think I wanna write this. But he decided that he couldn't just tell the story of Christ because Christians probably would look at that as blasphemous. Right?
• 6:17
  I mean, look at what where Martin Scorsese ended up when he did his tale of Jesus. Right? Right. It Catholics protesting and everything. And so what he said is the Christian world would not tolerate a novel with Jesus Christ as hero, and I knew it.
• 6:34
  He should not be present as an actor in any scene of my creation. The giving a cup of water to Ben Hur at the well near Nazareth is the only violation of this rule. I would be religiously careful that every word he uttered should be a literal quotation from one of his sainted biographers. And so that's the reason that he chose to tell the story through a fictional character, which is Judah Ben Hur. I mean, how does all of that play for you?
• 7:00
  Do you like the way that we're seeing this? I mean, it's it's in the title, a tale of the Christ, but everything is told through Ben Hur's story, really.
• 7:11
  Pete Wright: Yeah. I think it plays just fine. I mean, first of all, come into it. What I come into it with is not a lot of the the story of Christ baggage because I don't remember much of that from the Heston version. It seemed so so it seemed much more secondary, tertiary to the story of the Ben Hur that I have seen, that I think we we get the Christ we get much we get more Christ toward the end, but there isn't this, like, Christ is gonna dip his toe into the story
• 7:42
  Andy Nelson: throughout He does. He does.
• 7:44
  Pete Wright: Get this. Really?
• 7:45
  Andy Nelson: He gives him he gives him the cup of water early on. We see the
• 7:48
  Pete Wright: He does?
• 7:49
  Pete Wright: I don't remember any of that. Yeah. It's all there. Alright. I gotta watch it again, clearly.
• 7:56
  What I remember most about that, Ben Hur, is that I think Ben Hur and Messelia were hot for each other. Masala.
• 8:03
  Andy Nelson: Masala. Well, yeah. And there was a whole rumor that when Gorevidal did a pass on the script that he added a homosexual subtext between those characters, which of course, Charlton Heston completely denies. Who really knows? Yeah.
• 8:19
  His performance doesn't deny it. Boink. Well, it's it's it's the one who's playing Masala in that one who supposedly was playing it that way per what Gord Vidal had done, and Charlton Heston was none the wiser. Makes me laugh. Yeah.
• 8:35
  Makes me laugh.
• 8:36
  Pete Wright: So it it does. I mean, I think functionally, does work because the story I really care about is the Ben Hur story. That's why I showed up. I'm not really in it for the story of the Christ, mostly because I know the story of the Christ. I know it really well.
• 8:46
  I don't need to see it. And and I think the first half hour of this movie is kind of devoted to birth of Christ, wise men, the interconnectivity of their stories, the prince of the house of her, you know, and and how those connect. And I'm I I feel like, you know, it was fine to keep a little bit hands off. So once we get into the story of Ben Hur, that's where I'm that's really where I'm connected.
• 9:13
  Andy Nelson: You're more more engaged. Yeah.
• 9:15
  Pete Wright: For
• 9:15
  Andy Nelson: sure. I suppose, you know, being this story that's based on this very very famous book from 1880, and so it's only forty five years later. So it's like making a a a an adaptation of a very, very famous book from 1980 right now. Right?
• 9:31
  Pete Wright: Yeah. That is a weird thought.
• 9:45
  Andy Nelson: Hail citizens and lovers of the cinematic spectacle. It is I, Andius Maximus, and I come bearing a proclamation that shall stir your very souls. If the mere sampling of our discourse on the epic tale of Ben Hur, a tale of the Christ, has set your heart ablaze with the fires of passion, then it is time to pledge your allegiance and join our legion of devoted followers. When you enlist in our ranks, you shall gain access to a veritable treasure trove of exclusive content, including monthly bonus episodes that shall transport you to the grandest realms of the cinematic world. As a loyal member of our legion, you shall revel in the privilege of early access to all our shows, free from the vexing interruptions of mere advertisements.
• 10:28
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• 10:54
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• 11:27
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