Jonathan Melville: Time to look at the bigger picture and make me an epic

Published on Tuesday 14 July 2009 09:49

WHERE have all the epics gone? That's the question I found myself asking this week after watching the new DVD of Biblical-era epic Ben-Hur, a film which redefined the public's perceptions of cinema on its original release and saved a film studio in the process.

But where are today's equivalents?

The late 1950s saw a war taking place in Hollywood between widescreen and 3D. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) had a slate of films stockpiled that had been made in formats other than 3D and couldn't risk releasing them if the public wouldn't watch them.

Ben-Hur was made to save MGM from going bankrupt. It took a gamble on the widescreen format and leading man Charlton Heston, hoping that by putting every penny of the dollars 15 million budget on the screen, viewers would flock to the cinema and make them their money back.

With 100,000 costumes, 8000 extras and more than 300 sets, Ben-Hur was one of the biggest films ever made. Using a new filming process, director William Wyler took his cast (including one-time Morningside choirmaster, actor Finlay Currie) and crew to Italy for a year while the studio executives in Los Angeles waited. And prayed.

They needn't have worried. The ambitious story of Judah Ben-Hur (Heston) and his rise from Jewish merchant to Roman charioteer, all set against the backdrop of tales from the Bible (Jesus is glimpsed throughout the film, though never mentioned by name or his face seen) was both well told and stunningly shot by Wyler.

On its release, MGM promoted the film heavily, encouraging viewers more used to watching their tiny black-and-white TV sets to try something different at the cinema. Audiences were blown away by the size of the new cinema screens, MGM earned dollars 75 million and the epic was born. Eleven Oscars cemented the film's popularity.

In the years after Ben-Hur's release, others tried to copy its scale with films such as The Fall of the Roman Empire, Lawrence of Arabia and more recently, Titanic.

When times are harsh, people tend to want to escape into their local cinema, though today, apart from the odd CGI-fest aimed at a young audience, we're bereft of anything big and bold enough to rival Ben-Hur and its ilk.

Of course, it might just be that film studios are feeling the pinch like the rest of us, investing in low-budget pictures that might make them a greater return on investment rather than taking risks.

The recent Edinburgh International Film Festival showed that small films are alive and well, even if quality is variable.

Still, I can't help hoping that one day soon someone decides to take a chance like they did back in the 50s. Make something that's entertaining, intelligent and above all epic, and there's a good chance we'll set aside episodes of Location, Location or Holby City to see what all the fuss is about.

It happened once, it can happen again.

Ben-Hur: The 50th Anniversary Edition is released on Monday.

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