Booking It

If I'd read of this before it must have slipped out of memory! Ben-Hur (2016 film)

Wiki:

Ben-Hur is an upcoming 2016 American historical epic action film directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Keith Clarke and John Ridley. It is based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace and has been termed a "re-adaptation", "reimagining" and "new interpretation" of the novel....The film stars Jack Huston, Morgan Freeman, Toby Kebbell, Nazanin Boniadi and Rodrigo Santoro.... The film is scheduled to be released on August 19, 2016 in North America in 2D, 3D, RealD 3D and Digital 3D.

Coincidentally, I'm currently in the middle of reading the 19th cenury novel Ben Hur, by Lew Wallace. I bought the book, an old library copy, at a book sale some weeks ago. I'm finding it, quite amazingly, a good read! It probably helps that I know the 1959 movie Ben Hur back to front and every which-way, it has long been my all time favourite movie. Ask me why and I don't know, because I'm not religious.

It's pleasurable to find the plethora of extra detail Lew Wallace included in his novel, most inevitably cut out from the film, due to time consideration. One difference in book and film I've come across are the ages of Judah Ben Hur and Esther. Esther is just 16 when he first meets her, well after his adventures in the galleys and in Rome. He is just a youth as the story begins, with the accidental fall of a tile - nowhere near as mature as Charlton Heston was depicted in the movie.

Wallace describes many scenes in intricate detail, his style reminds me, a bit, of Victor Hugo's in Les Miserables, and Frank Herbert's in Dune.

There's one location Wallace described in detail, The Grove of Daphne, which propelled me to Google to discover whether it was a figment of Wallace's imagination; it was not. The Grove wasn't mentioned in the 1959 movie, nor, I understand in the older 1925 version. Judah Ben Hur seeks out the Grove during a visit to Antioch (Syria), after his time in Rome. It is variously described in websites around the net, dedicated to Daphne a nymph changed into a laurel tree to escape the amorous advances of Apollo.

Here's one description

DAPHNE: A suburb of Antioch on the Orontes, according to Strabo and the Jerusalem itinerary, about 40 furlongs, or 5 miles distant. It is identified with Beit el-Ma' on the left bank of the river, to the Southwest of the city. Here were the famous grove and sanctuary of Apollo. The grove and shrine owed their origin to Seleucus Nicator. It was a place of great natural beauty, and the Seleucid kings spared no outlay in adding to its attractions. The precincts enjoyed the right of asylum. Hither fled Onias the high priest (171 B.C.) from the wrath of Menelaus whom he had offended by plain speech. To the disgust and indignation of Jew and Gentile alike, he was lured from the sanctuary by Andronicus and basely put to death (2 Maccabees 4:33-38). It sheltered fugitives dyed with villainy of every shade. It was the great pleasure resort of the citizens of Antioch; and it gained an evil repute for immorality, as witnessed by the proverbial Daphnici mores. In Tiberim defluxit Orontes, says Juvenal (iii.62), indicating one main source of the corruption that demoralized the imperial city. The decline of Daphne dates from the days of Christian ascendancy in the reign of Julian. The place is still musical with fountains and luxuriant with wild vegetation; but nothing now remains to suggest its former splendor .

From Lewis's descriptions I got the impression of a huge area of both cultivated and natural beauty, with fountains, statues, glades, etc, mystics, seers, and lots of erotic or sexy stuff going on; an ancient version of 1960's hippiedom, Summer of Love an' all that, but with a tad more erm...classical class.

Anyway, on I go, slowly relishing these old scenes. Next will come the horses and chariots, the excitement of the race with Messala, and hoped for vengance.

Awaiting the new movie version of Ben Hur, I'm not optimistic that it will improve on the 1959 version - in spirit - but it might correct one or two mis-representations and omissions I guess, or perhaps it'll just make a few more!