Talk:Ben-Hur (1959 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Ben-Hur (1959 film) article.
Article policies
Christianity
Christianity Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page to become familiar with the guidelines.
B This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
Assessment comments
Film Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Films. This project is a central gathering of editors working to build comprehensive and detailed articles for film topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B
This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Top
This article has been rated as Top-importance on the priority scale.

Contents

[edit] FilmsWikiProject

Does anyone have a citation for the "largest film set ever" statement? I have seen plenty of conflicting reports over this claim. Shipguy 04:43, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] fullurl and other magic variables

* {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}
* {{FULLPAGENAMEE}}
* {{PAGENAMEE}}
* {{localurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}}}

* Please never use:
: {{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}}}
: {{fullurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAMEE}}}}
: {{localurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE}}}}
: {{localurl:{{NAMESPACE}}:{{PAGENAMEE}}}}

generates:‎

  • Please never use:
http://en.wikipedia.org../../../../articles/b/e/n/Talk%7EBen-Hur_%281959_film%29_9fbd.html
http://en.wikipedia.org../../../../articles/b/e/n/Talk%7EBen-Hur_%281959_film%29_9fbd.html
../../../../articles/b/e/n/Talk%7EBen-Hur_%281959_film%29_9fbd.html
../../../../articles/b/e/n/Talk%7EBen-Hur_%281959_film%29_9fbd.html


[edit] 21:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

* {{subst:FULLPAGENAMEE}}
* {{subst:PAGENAMEE}}

generates:‎

  • Talk:Ben-Hur_(1959_film)
  • Ben-Hur_%281959_film%29


[edit] comments

  • It seems that {{FULLPAGENAMEE}} and {{PAGENAMEE}} render differently. Best regards Gangleri · Th · T 21:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional island? It's called a spina

I corrected and softened the language regarding the 'island,' since the spina is well-known as a feature of most circi.--TjoeC (talk) 17:41, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 33 million today

I removed the "33 million today" bit because what's "today" mean in an undated encyclopedia? And where was this information from.. a 10 year old source maybe? It's at best meaningless without context, at worst misleading. A cited source and date for this trivia would make it worthwhile. -- Stbalbach 14:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Don't use IMDB trivia page as a reliable source

This page had a few citations to the Internet Movie Database's trivia page as a source for information. However, these pages are not trustworthy: they are made the same way as Wikipedia, through contributions by anon users, and are often inaccurate and half-remembered, or even untrue. DVD commentaries, documentaries and books are much better sources. Cop 633 18:20, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hortator

Currently the article says of the word hortator, "(Curiously, the word hortatator, although known to everyone who has seen this movie, and actually defined in the eponymous book, does not appear in either the American Heritage Dictionary or the Random House Dictionary." It may be in the Oxford English Dictionary.""

It is sort of in the OED. It is not in my fourth edition (1993) Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, although it is possible that it was included in the fifth, I suppose. It is in the electronic OED, where the only reference given is to the book of Ben Hur. I can't think how to reword the article at the moment. The OED definition is not "drum-banger" or "speed-setter" or anything you might guess from the film, btw, but "one who exhorts". Skimming over the chapter "At the oar", the definition seems to be "chief of the rowers".

Telsa (talk) 09:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hortator

If you check a Latin dictionary, you'll find that the word hortator means inciter; encourager, exhorter; urger which is completely in keeping as a descriptive title for the person who gives the time for rowers. The Latin stem is: hortator, hortatoris N (3rd) M.

See the online Latin lexicon Words by William Whitaker URL is http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe?Hortator

4.153.248.63 16:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)Lucia

[edit] Ben-Hur and Messala... Lovers?

I've seen Ben-Hur several times. It's quite a good film -- if you can ignore Charlton Heston's wretchedly stiff performance. It's hard to understand how anyone as self-deprecatory as Heston can be such a bad actor.

Anyhow, the story given here that Gore Vidal posited an earlier affair to motivate Messala's hatred of Ben-Hur is not only unlikely (given the Romans' discomfort with homosexual behavior, and the Jews' detestation of it), but psychologically implausible. As strictly heterosexual men can and do have intense emotional relationships with each other, it's perfectly natural for Messala to be upset -- even outraged to the point of hatred -- when his close childhood friend refuses to do as he asks. There's no need for sex.

And this story is almost certainly untrue -- we have Gore Vidal's word on the matter! In a interview in the supplementary material for the multi-disk edition of Ben Hur he says that the story is a misrepresentation -- that what he really suggested was that Stephen Boyd play the part as if Ben-Hur and Messala were lovers or spouses who'd had a falling out. This is hardly the same thing as them actually having been sexual lovers.

As for whether this is visible in the film... I don't see it, and I'm looking for it! Stephen Boyd was an actor of minimal talent; I doubt he had the skill to convey anything so subtle.

Regardless, someone should review the DVD interview and update the material accordingly. I don't have the time, and I don't really like to make such substantial changes to someone else's work.

WilliamSommerwerck 17:58, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


I agree that Vidal's opinion can be kept. However, I advise to people to stop commenting on each other's opinions, per WP:TALK. Alientraveller (talk) 13:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Why does it seem like every single article that is even remotely related to stories in the Bible (especially Christ) has a section on a possible homosexual subtext? Is this really necessary since no sources are cited? 68.205.145.219 (talk) 20:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It does cite sources: the book and film of The Celluloid Closet. And I recall the DVD liner notes on CC provides most of this stuff verbatim; unfortunately I don't have a copy on me. As to all Christ articles having stuff about gay subtexts, I think you're exaggerating. Cop 663 (talk) 00:34, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Crucifixion Scene

210.213.140.244 (talk) 14:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)I would like to know why the cross used for Ben-Hur's passion scene was shaped like capital T, instead of the usual Latin cross (used commonly for King of Kings, Passion of the Christ, etc).

[edit] Jesus's Face

The "Casting" paragrpah states (last line) "Out of respect, and consistent with Lew Wallace's stated preference, the face of Jesus is never shown. He was played by opera singer Claude Heater, who received no credit for his only film role."
However, Lew Wallace (the author) died in 1905 according to his Wiki bio. How or why would Wallace stipulate that Jesus's face not be shown, given that Wallace died some time before the proliferation of movies? Was he talking about plays? And what is the source for his having stated this? Engr105th (talk) 17:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)