Ben-Hur ‘Tale of the Christ’ or tale of Rome? : (My thoughts on the paper and thoughts on the movie after reading the paper)

In this article I learned that maybe I should not have skipped the overture for Ben-Hur.  If I had left the overture and waited like the people at that time would have done would my opinion of the movie be different? I did listen to half of the overture until I decided that if I wanted to get through the entire that night I would have to skip the rest of the overture and get started.  In my opinion, I think that by listening to just a minute or half of the overture, is enough time to get into the mindset that you are watching something bigger than just a film.  I feel that if some of the scenes could have been made shorter and left the chariot race the way that it is, maybe the chariot race would of stood out a lot more.  As for the presence of Jesus throughout the film, there were times where I thought that the movie was trying to make Judah a little bit like if he was going through something somewhat similar to what Jesus was going through.  Judah was judged unjustly and was condemned for something that he did not do, while Jesus was also condemned for the sins of everyone.  Also when Messala says, “He is god the only god. He is power, real power on earth Not –that” it made me think to a scene in Titanic when someone, I cannot remember who said that not even God could sink the ship, and what happens the Titanic sinks.  So in this particular case I see a similarity with a defiance of God Messala says that God does not have any power on earth and what happens? Messala is killed very brutally during the chariot race.  When I try to put myself in the position of the people of 1959 I can imagine that seeing a film on a big screen with so many vibrant colors and such a big action sequence I know that if I would have lived in that time era I would have been very impressed and even now that I am so much more used to color film and SGI and so many other “movie magic” I found myself liking the 1959 version of Ben-Hur and reading this paper by Theodorakopoulos really put a lot of things about this film into perspective and I know that if I were to watch this movie again I would probably enjoy it a lot more

Socrates’ Excellent Adventure: (My thoughts on the paper and thoughts on the movie after reading the paper)

At first when I started reading this article I was not completely sure why the article mentioned Plato’s allegory of The Cave, until I remembered what the cave was about that Nisbet gave a little more information as to where she was going with this.  When Nisbet says, “Plato would have hated cinema.” I don’t think that Plato would have really hated the Cinema.  Maybe he would have hated the idea of it but ultimately would have used it for his own advantage.  I think that Plato would of used the cinema to make a film advertising what his ideal world would look like.  Just imagine how much more influence Plato could have had if he would to have used films to his advantage.  What would we think about Greece now if Plato had used films to promote his beliefs? Before I read this article I had just finished watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and I had thought that it was a good movie.  After watching the movie and reading this article, I went back to some of the mentioned scenes from when Bill and Ted go to Greece for Socrates and realized that a lot of the points that were made in the article were right.  Scenes are a second too long and when the scene is just with the people from Athens, it really does not look like a good film.  The moment that Bill and Ted are introduced to that time era all I found myself thinking about was, “Oh boy what are these two going to do next?” throughout the whole film I just kept waiting to see how Bill and Ted were going to be able to pass their history report and not fail.  When Nisbet mentions that Socrates, or ‘So-Crates’ like Bill and Tell like to call him, leaves willingly and happily with Bill and Ted made me realize that even Socrates was playing into the perspective that we have about ancient Greece.  Socrates leaving Athens made me think that ancient Greece was so boring that even he id not want to be there.  Also when I think back to the scene with Billy the Kid, the scene was also a lot longer and with the scene in ancient Greece the scene seemed rush and what was there seemed too long. 

Ben-Hur (1959) William Wyler, dir.: (My opinions and thoughts of the movie)

My first thought after pressing play for the movie Ben-Hur was, “is it working?” I thought that the video player was not working because all I kept hearing was music and I thought that the film had frozen and it was just the audio part that was working.  After I realized that the overture was over six minutes long, I decided to skip the Overture and go straight into the movie.  Since the name of the movie is Ben-Hur Tale of Christ my expectations for the film were that it was going to be more focused on the story of Christ and that Ben-Hur was just going to be another follower of Christ. About a quarter of the way into the movie I realized that I had seen this movie before.  But it was not this version of the movie that I had seen; it was the 2010 mini TV series of Ben-Hur that I had seen before.  The only reason that I had seen it was because, during summer break last year, the television in my mothers house only has Spanish channels and one of the channels was showing that mini series as a film.  I thought that the 1959 version of Ben-Hur was done very well and the adaptation of that film to the 2010 mini series was pretty good as well.  If no one had told me that the film was from 1959 I would of probable have guessed that it was made in the later 1900’s.  This film really is a film for any time era.  A lot of the scenes were a little long for my liking but if you can get past the extremely long film then I am sure that a few long scenes wont be a bother.  One of the best scenes in this film was the chariot race, which also happens to be one of the longer scenes in this film.  The fact that it is a long scene made me enjoy the scene a lot more.  Usually when I am watching more modern films, the action scenes are so short that I am left wanting more, since the chariot scene is so long in Ben-Hur, I was able to fully enjoy the scene and was not left wanting for more spectacle.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) Stephen Herek, dir.: (My opinions and thoughts on the movie)

Funny and Lighthearted are the first words that come into mind when thinking about Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.   This film was a great way to introduce this class, as it is lighthearted and an easy movie to watch. I was entertained all throughout the film and laughed constantly at Bill and Ted’s way of speaking.  I especially laughed whenever they would say Socrates name as So-Crates. I liked the fact that the movie is something that can be simply just watch and have a good laugh throughout the film without having to worry if there is any hidden meaning behind any details in the film, but if I wanted to, I know that I could simply just go back and re-watch the film carefully and could potentially find some meaning behind the film.  Like professor Shelton mentioned in class that the film really does play to what we would expect to see from every historical figure that is introduced in this film.  This film brought back my inner child and made me use my imagination as to how would some of my favorite historical figures would react if they were to come to the future.  I think that the idea of this film was really unique because we will never know how people from the past will think about the world that we live in now but if we were given the opportunity to see what their reactions would be I am sure that we would all take that chance just to see what their opinions would be.  Overall Bill and Ted’s adventure would be an adventure that anyone would want to go on if given the chance and if such technology ever existed, the film did a good job at portraying what the audience would most likely imagine if such thing could be a reality and it was very enjoyable to be able to see what would happen if historical figures were to come back to our present.