Ben-Hur (1959 Film) - Production - Writing

Writing

Wyler, like Zimbalist, was also unhappy with the script. He felt Tunberg's draft was too much of a morality play overlaid with current Western political overtones, and that the dialogue was too modern-sounding. Zimbalist brought in playwright S. N. Behrman and then playwright Maxwell Anderson to write drafts. Behrman spent about a month working on the script, but how much he contributed to the final version is unclear. Both a contemporary account in the British magazine Films and Filmmaking as well as Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan claim that Anderson was ill and unable to work on the script. But the New York Times reported in June 1957 that Anderson was at work on the script. (The newspaper would later informally retract this statement, and admit in 1959 that Anderson had been too ill to do any writing.) Gore Vidal said that, by spring 1958, the script largely reflected Anderson and Behrman's work and nearly all the dialogue was in Anderson's "elevated poetic style." Kaplan describes the script at this point as having only a "modest to minimal" understanding of what the ancient Roman world was like, dialogue which veered "between flat Americanisms and stilted formality", and an ill-defined relationship between Judah Ben-Hur and Messala.

There is confusion in published sources about the next writer to work on the script. Films and Filmmaking magazine, a source contemporary with the picture, claims that British poet and playwright Christopher Fry was brought in next. Fry crafted some critical scenes, the magazine said, and then left the film—at which point Vidal was brought in to finish the script. However, most sources (including Vidal himself) state that Vidal followed Anderson, and that Fry did not come aboard until Vidal was close to leaving the picture. Vidal biographer Fred Kaplan states that Fry was hired simultaneously with Vidal, and that Zimbalist knew Vidal would be able to work on the script for only a short time. Zimbalist hoped that Fry would begin work on the end of the script and that the two writers would "expeditiously meet in the middle. Somewhere about the halfway point they would sink the golden spike." Vidal was hired as a screenwriter because Zimbalist liked him and was very confident in his skills. Vidal said that preproduction on the film was already under way in Italy when he flew to Rome in early March 1958 to meet with Wyler. Vidal claimed that Wyler had not read the script, and that when he did so (at Vidal's urging) on his flight from the U.S. to Italy, he was upset with the modernist dialogue. Vidal agreed to work on the script for three months so that he would come off suspension and fulfill his contract with MGM, although Zimbalist pushed him to stay throughout the entire production. Vidal was researching a book on the 4th century Roman emperor Julian, and knew a great deal about ancient Rome. Wyler, however, knew almost nothing about the period, and spent most of March having nearly every Hollywood film about ancient Rome flown to him in Italy—where he spent hours screening them.

Vidal's working style was to finish a scene and review it with Zimbalist. Once Vidal and Zimbalist had come to agreement, the scene would be passed to Wyler. Vidal said he kept the structure of the Tunberg/Behrman/Anderson script, but rewrote nearly all the dialogue. Vidal admitted to William Morris in March 1959 that Fry rewrote as much as a third of the dialogue which Vidal had added to the first half of the script. Vidal made one structural change which was not revised, however. The Tunberg script had Ben-Hur and Messala reuniting and falling out in a single scene. Vidal broke the scene in two, so that the men first reunite at the Castle Antonia and then later argue and end their friendship at Ben-Hur's home. Vidal also added small character touches to the script, such as Ben-Hur's purchase of a brooch for Tirzah and a horse for Messala. Vidal claimed that he worked on the first half of the script (everything up to the chariot race), and scripted 10 versions of the scene where Ben-Hur confronts Messala and begs for his family's freedom.

Vidal's claim about a homoerotic subtext is hotly debated. Vidal first made the claim in an interview in the 1995 documentary film The Celluloid Closet, and asserted that he persuaded Wyler to direct Stephen Boyd to play the role as if he were a spurned homosexual lover. Vidal said that he believed that Messala's vindictiveness could only be motivated by the feeling of rejection that a lover would feel. Vidal also said he suggested to Wyler that Stephen Boyd be told to play the role that way, and that Heston be kept in the dark about the Messala character's motivations. Vidal further claimed that Wyler took his advice. Whether Vidal wrote the scene in question or had the acting conversation with Wyler, and whether Wyler shot what Vidal wrote, remain issues of debate. In 1980, Wallace biographers Robert and Katharine Morsberger said that Vidal's contribution to the script remained unclear. Heston has asserted that Wyler felt Vidal did not solve the problem of motivation, that Wyler shot little of what Vidal wrote, and that Vidal made little contribution to the script. Wyler himself says that he does not remember any conversation about this part of the script or Boyd's acting with Gore Vidal, and that he discarded Vidal's draft in favor of Fry's. Film critic Gary Giddins also dismisses Vidal's claims, concluding that 80 percent of the script had been written "years before" Vidal came aboard the production. But Jan Herman, one of Wyler's biographers, asserts "there is no reason to doubt" Vidal's claim, and that Wyler's inability to remember the conversation was just part of the director's notorious caginess. Vidal questioned Heston's own honesty and claims about Wyler, and asserted that Wyler wanted Vidal and Fry to share credit for the script. Vidal also wrote in March 1959 (decades before the dispute occurred) that he had been on the set and that he personally watched Wyler film everything from the reunion scene to the quarrel (pages 12 to 31 in the script). There appears to be some contemporary support for Vidal's assertions. Morgan Hudgens, publicity director for the film, wrote to Vidal in late May 1958 about the crucial scene, and implied there was a homosexual context: "...the big cornpone really threw himself into your 'first meeting' scene yesterday. You should have seen those boys embrace!" Film critic F. X. Feeney, in a comparison of script drafts, concludes that Vidal made significant and extensive contributions to the script.

The final writer on the film was Christopher Fry. Charlton Heston has claimed that Fry was Wyler's first choice as screenwriter, but that Zimbalist forced him to use Vidal. Whether Fry worked on the script before Vidal or not, sources agree that Fry arrived in Rome in early May 1958 and spent six days a week on the set, writing and rewriting lines of dialogue as well as entire scenes, until the picture was finished. In particular, Fry gave the dialogue a slightly more formal and archaic tone without making it sound stilted and medieval. For example, the sentence "How was your dinner?" became "Was the food not to your liking?" By early June, Fry (working backward from the ending) had finished the screenplay. Film historian Daniel Eagan, however, claims that Fry did not finish the screenplay. Rather, as time went on, Wyler stopped seeking improvements to the script in order to finish the picture.

The final script ran 230 pages. The screenplay differed more from the original novel than did the 1925 silent film version. Some changes made the film's storyline more dramatic. Others inserted an admiration for Jewish people (who had founded the state of Israel by this time) and the more pluralistic society of 1950s America rather than the "Christian superiority" view of Wallace's novel.

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