Completing a centennial tribute to the late William Wyler, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art concluded by screening Ben-Hur. Introducing the film was Charlton Heston himself, greatly indebted to Wyler for casting him and working with him sufficiently to gain an Academy Award for Best Actor. A stickler for detail, Wyler works more effectively in smaller films but this epic gained Wyler the most notoriety by winning a record 11 Academy Awards. Illustrating Wyler's attention to detail, Heston told an anecdote about a brief scene where Judah merely walks across a room upon his return from slavery. Despite its simplicity, Wyler had Heston do eight takes before Heston finally asked what he was missing. It turns out that Wyler liked the first one where Heston kicked a piece of pottery to give the scene its only sound and was hoping he'd do it again while Heston had assumed that the director didn't like the broken pottery take and had been avoiding it.

Wyler never criticized his actors, and often didn't give much feedback, but he would film several “takes” before going on to the next scene. He knew what he wanted and that was all that was important. Should we believe the stories of writer Gore Vidal (as recorded in the Celluloid Closet), Wyler kept other secret thoughts from Heston with screenwriting subtext that sailed right over his head. Any gladiator movie is suspect for homoerotic moments, and Ben-Hur certainly has some blatant bare-torsoed Roman bath house scenes to lend additional credence to Vidal's claims that he re-wrote the reunion scene between Judah Ben-Hur (Heston) and Messala (Stephen Boyd) to include sexual tension. Only Boyd was let in on the subtext, and Heston was left in the dark—Wyler knew Chuck would explode over homosexual undertones. Judge for yourself, but the looks that Boyd gives Heston, his lack of interest in Judah's sister, and his anger over rejection make Heston's adamant denials comical. Add to that Messala's telling line, as he gazes into Judah's eyes, "Is there anything so sad as unrequited love?"

The story plays straightforwardly. Set in the time of Christ, the Romans set out to govern Judea, but have difficulty controlling the freethinking Jews who follow a single God and have a number of rabbis and prophets predicting a messiah. Messala returns to Judea as a tribune, seeking his boyhood friend Judah Ben-Hur (now the richest and most influential Judean citizen) as an ally to govern the unruly province but is rebuked. An accident gives the evil Messala a chance to show ruthless power by sentencing his former friend to the galleys and tossing Judah's mother and sister into prison.

A sentence to slave labor in the galleys equates to death within a year for normal men, but of course Judah will have none of that. His hatred of Messala grows, and fates intervene to return him home to face his nemesis. Along the way we have incredible spectacle with thousands of extras in the unevenly paced drama that includes battles at sea, exotic dancing, chariot racing, and bouts with leprosy.

After you've seen Ben-Hur a few times, looking for homoerotic subtext becomes part of the fun since we have to wait about two and a half hours before the unsurpassed chariot race. Often shown around Easter, Lew Wallace's novel is subtitled “A Tale of the Christ,” and the origins of Christianity are sketched briefly to parallel the life of Ben-Hur. Yet Christ is never seen from the front close-up, and many of the scenes are reminiscent of passion plays where key moments of Christ's life are staged—his birth, the Sermon on the Mount, the trial, the Crucifixion. By avoiding direct focus on Christ, the film avoids Christian cliché and controversy since no artistic portrayal could be universally accepted. Bringing such a 3-½ hour epic to life requires a movie star with the stature of Moses—so Charlton Heston is a perfect fit.

Once again, Charlton Heston plays Charlton Heston, but his charismatic macho woodeness carries the film like no other actor of his day. Wyler demands that Heston hit his marks, and so he does. Of the meticulous Wyler, Heston states that "doing a picture for Willy is like getting the works in a Turkish bath: you damn near drown, but you come out smelling like a rose." One thing Wyler could never get Heston to do is to cry on film, so watch Heston cover his eyes and heave his chest as if weeping during those scenes… He soon gains control afterwards. Control is important for the Heston persona. His lines are delivered with authority and power, often shouted. But Wyler is able to make them work with the ensemble cast until Heston has a love scene. Judah's scenes with Esther (Haya Harareet) seem far too theatrical and melodramatic to ring true, and the stage kisses lack real passion. Give credit to Harareet for balancing Heston's theatrics. Mysteriously, she will only act in a handful of films after Ben-Hur.

Stephen Boyd gives a fine nuanced performance as Judah's antagonist, and rightfully could have gained a supporting Oscar nomination. That award goes to Hugh Griffith as the relatively small but memorable brown skinned and hook-nosed Sheik Ilderim, who provides a welcome respite from the serious and ponderous tone.

Above all rides the spectacle of Wyler's epic masterpiece. The chariot race is unsurpassed, and adding a great deal to its pleasure is the fact that both Boyd and Heston worked hard at racing, performing most of the stunts themselves save the really outrageous ones that flip Chuck over the top of his chariot and the gruesome trampling scene that Messala suffers. Contrary to popular belief, no one was killed during this exciting sequence—seamless editing skillfully tricks us on that matter. Though watch carefully as one of the extras does steal a Roman helmet in the chaotic aftermath of the race. If it were only for this one superbly choeographed set piece, Ben-Hur would be worth watching, but there are other smaller pleasures that come from the performances and the clash of wills that dominate the theme. Although Heston will deny implications of a homoerotic subtext, examining the film for such content helps pass the time during less exciting sequences and gives a few chuckles.