Ben-Hur, Seen That: Why I Love Film

The summer after I graduated high school, my parents left on a week and a half road trip to Canada.   I was then working as a YMCA Day Camp Counselor and though a little bit bummed that I couldn’t go, I was also excited to have the house all to myself.  Some kids my age would have probably looked forward to a plethora of unapproved parties with no parental supervision.  I however used the time a bit differently.  Instead of going to Wal-Mart to pick up some party favors, I would go to the local library to pick up something much more appetizing to me: classic movies.

I have a theory that everyone has their own secret hobby of sorts that they really, really love but yet are hesitant to tell others about it because they feel as if they we would be judged for it.  Maybe your friend are hardcore rap fans while you really like listening to country music.  Maybe your friends are all jocks but you like a certain online game that they think is for nerds.  Maybe you like blasting Broadway songs when most of your friends are the skateboarding type.  For me it was watching old movies and not just one’s from the 1980’s.

This very feeling of secrecy is what motivated me to get as much movie watching done as I could with the house to myself.  I watched such classics as, Casablanca, 2001: A Space Odyssey, City Lights, and one of my personal favorites, Sunset Boulevard.  While old movie’s ability to capture the long-gone past enamored me, for a very long time I never quite could get the courage to talk about.

“No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.” -Ingmar Bergman

Now I realize that my love for classic film isn’t as weird or looked down upon as I once thought.  Yeah, not everybody when they have down time on a Thursday afternoon goes to the library and watches a Marx Brother film all by themselves to wind down but there are far worse things to do.  I have come to appreciate more and more just what film means to me and what the medium of film can do to each one of us.  So much so that I am now minoring in film here at BYU.

One such film that has not just influenced many filmmakers and succeeded at both the box office but also touched me I was able to re-watch recently.  Ben-Hur was being played at BYU’s International Cinema so I brought along my sister and brother-in-law to enjoy it as well.  While taking advantage of the latest and greatest filming techniques of its day and the brilliant vision and talent of director William Wyler, it more importantly addresses a story even closer to my heart than film.

Judah Ben-Hur after being convicted of a crime he didn’t commit finds himself sentenced to a dismal life rowing the Roman battle ships.  While chained to dozens of other men with the same fate being transported through the dry deserts of Syro-Palestine they stumble across the humble abode of Nazareth.  Parched and only thinking about getting a drink from the well, Judah is kept from drinking by the Roman soldiers.  At this moment, Judah collapses from dehydration in a moment where he has given up the desire to continue living.  Just at that moment, a local carpenter’s son hands him a ladle of water for him to drink out of.  This man, who Judah does not know is Jesus, gave him the hope to keep on living as he stays alive in harsh conditions for three years before being able to return to his home town of Jerusalem.

Once he returns, he finds himself again in need of help, this time not for him but for his sick mother and sister.  He hears of a man named Jesus and his miracles and teachings and takes his mother and sister to go see him but sadly he is too late, the Jews have already commended Jesus to death on the cross.  As Judah stands watching along the roadside as Jesus carries his cross on his back, he utters, “I know this man.”  At that moment he realizes that this was the very man that gave him the hope to live just by giving him a drink of water and later, through His own death, gives hope and healing not just to his family but to all on the Earth.

I believe we have all felt drained and stranded in the hot deserts of mortality before.  We have all given up at times and can find no reason to go on.  It seems to me though at these very moments that all of us have experienced times where we were lifted up from despair, when we are given hope.  It could be just running into an old friend randomly or hearing something motivating in class or at church.  Often times we don’t realize just how important these moments are in our life until long after they happen.  We often don’t realize as well where this help comes from.

I believe that many of us will realize just as Judah Ben-Hur did that Christ is the one behind those much needed doses of hope and encouragement.  That us too will find as we seek for divine help that Christ not only bared the cross for us but also was there for us in the little things as well.  The times when we were alone, heartbroken, betrayed or slighted He has always been there for us.  No pain, no trial, no moment of despair we experience goes unnoticed by Christ and He having suffered all for us is now here for us as we go through the same things He did to give us hope and encouragement.

That is why I love film.  It gives us such simple and uplifting messages that can inspire us to keep going in our everyday life.  Far from random contrived characters on a screen, often times film portrays us, the viewer.  Film invokes soul searching and invites us to find the answers to our problems through the eyes of another.  That is exactly what Ben-Hur does for me whenever I watch it.  It leads me closer to Christ and reaffirms the ever solid truth that Christ is the living water, not the kind that satisfies our temporary thirsts but instead heals us as we seek to follow him.  It helps me rediscover my relationship with Christ and reminds me that He has risen and lives.  And that is something I’ve never really before been ashamed to like.