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!

Royal Stars De-throned?

Why were four Fixed Stars considered "Royal"? Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut retain their regal status to this day among western astrologers. The tradition stems from Arabic astrology/astronomy, which some see as our modern astrology's closest relation. The astrology of Arabia filtered through to Europe from Persia (today's Iran), thousands of years ago.

These stars were accorded such high stellar office by ancient astrologers and astronomers because it is said that in those days their positions marked the four cardinal points, the equinoxes and solstices. Seen on an astrological chart of the heavens these define the ascendant, midheaven descendant, and nadir, which points are  acknowledged as being the most powerful areas of an astrological chart. Any planet or point near to these angles is thought to play a dominant part in personality or events.


The four stars were also referred to as Watchers of the Heavens, looked on as guardians of the Vernal and Autumnal equinoxes, and the Summer and Winter solstices.

The four bright stars formed a huge astrological cross, long before the cross became a symbol of Christianity. Zodiac signs involved were the four Fixed signs: Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. In tarot cards (right) The Wheel of Fortune and The World, you can see depicted in each corner of the cards a human figure, an eagle, a bull and a lion representing the Fixed signs. While the tarot as we know it, with the Major Arcana, didn't originate in Arabia, the four suits probably did, and the number four's significance reflects the four directions, north, south, east and west, and the four astrological cardinal points. The name "tarot" is thought to derive from the Arab word "turuq", which can be translated as "four ways".

The symbolism of the four Royal Stars in ancient times is thus easy to account for and accept. However, it isn't as easy to accept that any astrological interpretation of these stars should retain the same flavour now - their formerly "Royal" positions all changed some time ago.

Fixed stars, of which these are but four out of billions, are so called in order to to differentiate from the moving bodies we call planets. Fixed stars do move, but very, very slowly because of precession. (Explanation here).

The four Royals are no longer at their original sites. Their approximate position today: Aldebaran has moved from Taurus to Gemini (9.55 degrees in 2010). Regulus moved from Leo to Virgo around 2010/11. Antares has moved from Scorpio to Sagittarius (9.54 degrees in 2010), and finally Formalhaut moved from Aquarius to Pisces (4.00 degrees in 2010). Now, all four Royals reside in four Mutable signs instead of their original four Fixed signs.

Some astrologers still see the four Royal Stars as powerful when they appear in very close major aspect to a planet or sensitive point in a natal or mundane chart. The reason for this, I guess, harks back to the stars' early important status. Perhaps there is a question mark here. As the stars moved on over the centuries, ought they not to have shed their royal reputation? It was their position, not their intrinsic properties, I assume, which had originally defined them as highly significant.

A very good piece on Fixed Stars in general by Rob Tillett, HERE.

Mention of fixed stars always brings to my mind those four gorgeous Arabian horses in Ben Hur, their names were names of Fixed Stars: Altair, Antares, Aldebaran and Rigel. It's a pity the horses weren't named for the four Royal Stars; only two of the four are Royal, but all were known as fortunate. Altair (The Eagle), Antares (Heart of the Scorpion), Aldebaran (Bull's South Eye), Rigel (Orion's Foot). In the Ben Hur story, Judah Ben-Hur meets an Arab sheik who owns a magnificent stable of four Arabian white horses. They will compete in an annual chariot race in Antioch...the rest, as they say... .

Re-inventing the (Chariot) Wheel

(Groan)

....Here they go again, trying to re-invent the wheel!

A re-make - I should say "another" re-make
- of Ben Hur is in the works, due for release in February 2016. What is wrong with these people? Re-making old movies can be a good thing, provided that existing versions are either outdated in some way, or were badly made or poorly cast to begin with. Re-hashing a movie of the stature of the 1959 version of Ben Hur has to be classed as sacrilege in my opinion, and foolhardy by any standard.

Reports indicate that this re-make, or "re-adaptation" will have a rather different focus, supposedly staying closer to Lew Wallace's original novel. The early days of Judah Ben Hur and Messala will be examined, their original youthful best-friendship and the way it disintegrated; while also telling, in more detail than the 1959 film, the story of Jesus Christ's ministry and his sentencing to death. That all sounds more like material for a TV mini-series.
(Photograph right: Wheel from a racing chariot used (below) in 1959's epic, Ben-Hur, on show at Planet Hollywood Cafe (from HERE).

Producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey (known for involvement in Son of God and The Bible) are closely involved in Timur Bekmambetov's Ben-Hur re-make. Burnett will produce, Downey will executive produce. The couple are said to be devout Christians, so a more evangelical approach to Ben Hur this time around has to be expected, I guess.

I've always maintained that the 1959 movie was not "A tale of the Christ" as the subtitle of Lew Wallace's book promised, but an adventure story: The Adventures of Prince Judah Ben Hur, who accidentally bumped into Jesus a couple of times in the course of those adventures. That was the way I liked it, and what put it at the top of my favourite film list, where it has stayed since I first saw the movie in 1961. Whether the (metaphorical) wheel will come off the newest re-make's wagon is something we shall discover in time.

 Charlton Heston as Judah Ben Hur and Haya Harareet as Esther

As it's Music Monday, and as it's just a couple of days until my and Anyjazz's 10th wedding anniversary... 10 years ago Ben Hur's Love Theme played as we approached the Registrar, it's as good an excuse as any to listen again to
Miklos Rozsa' s wonderful music from the 1959 movie.

GOOD FRIDAY

Three views of Good Friday, from William Wyler via Lew Wallace; from English author G.K. Chesterton, sometimes called "the prince of paradox"; and from English painter L.S.Lowry.



Lew Wallace's novel Ben Hur, A Tale of the Christ (1880) was to become William Wyler's movie Ben Hur almost 80 years later, in 1959. The movie adaptation strayed from the novel in a few places, it was less "A Tale of the Christ" than "A Tale of the Adventures of Judah Ben Hur" - and, really, none the worse for that. In the movie the scene where Judah Ben Hur first encounters Jesus occurs when Ben Hur was being taken, with a band of other slaves, across the desert. He was desperately in need of water, cruel Roman guards cynically refused it to him. In a village the slaves pass by an onlooker, Jesus, who sees Ben Hur's distress and offers him some water. This scene links to another, later in the movie, when BenHur encounters Jesus and the two thieves hauling their crosses to the place where they are to be crucified. Jesus stumbles and falls, a bystander helps him and BenHur offers him a cup of water....reflecting a reversal of the earlier scene. The crucifixion scene follows later.

In G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man (1925) the author had this to say about the events of the original Good Friday:

All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once; that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly.

In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask:

‘What is truth?’ So in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of his own judgement-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world.

Lastly a northern English painter, L.S. Lowry, in 1946 painted a very different Good Friday scene: Good Friday, Daisy Nook. On 8th June 2007 it was sold for £3,772,000, the highest price paid for one of Lowry's paintings at auction.



Daisy Nook, near Oldham, in Lancashire, has hosted an annual Easter Fair since the 19th century - and possibly even earlier. Traditionally, Lancashire cotton mill workers of the region were confined to just two statutory days of holiday every year, Good Friday and Christmas Day. The fair attracted huge numbers of people. The painting depicts this annual fair in 1946, the year after the end of the hostilities of the Second World War. A local newspaper had reported at the time that there were "Record crowds at Daisy Nook", as people celebrated a return to the fair, which had not taken place for the duration of the war, and a return to normal life. The painting reflects post-war cheer and relief.
(See HERE)

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

Astrological Twins in Fiction

A mention of Jeffrey Archer's novel Kane and Abel set me off on a train of thought. I read the book years ago, and later saw the TV adaptation. Recalling the main thread of the plot - how the lives of two men, born on the same day, on different continents become entwined, I began to think along lines which had, more or less, eluded me years ago.

The two leading characters were astrological twins, or nearly so. We are not told whether they were born at the very same minute of 18 April 1906 - allowing for different time zones - one in Massachusetts, USA, the other in Poland. It's an engrossing tale. I don't intend to spoil it for anyone who hasn't yet read the book or seen the TV adaptation, but anybody curious about the story can read more detail HERE.



I wonder whether Jeffrey Archer had advice from an astrologer when deciding on the birth date of his lead characters? Here's the chart, set for Boston MA. Planet-in-sign positions (apart perhaps from Moon) would have been the same for USA and Poland whatever the birth time.

Bare bones of the plot include a rags-to-riches tale, a born-with-silver-spoon (in appropriate orifice) tale, a common thirst for power and wealth, a common passionate love of respective offspring, and a whole lot of misunderstanding.

Giving the guys Sun in Aries was a good move - especially for the Polish character who had to really pull out all the stops of his Sun's Mars rulership to escape a dreadful scenario in the country of his birth. Giving them Mars and Venus in Fixed Earth Taurus was appropriate too. They are both very fixed in mindset, extremely stubborn, and enthralled by possessions and property.

Of course, it's fiction, but still interesting to think on these points. Those thoughts led me to ponder on another work of fiction, Ben Hur. I haven't read the book, but the 1959 movie is my favourite film of all time. This might be thought an odd choice for an atheist (agnostic on a good day) like myself, but I love its epic quality, its adventure and scope, but most of all its messages, clean and unsullied by the powerful organised religion which came after. Anyway.... I may be wrong, but I feel certain that right at the start of the movie there's some indication that Judah Ben Hur and Jesus were born at or around the same time. I can't find any evidence of this having been stated in the book, so my memory might be faulty and/or astrology-ridden these days. It's unlikely that author Lew Wallace, in the late 19th century, would have entertained thoughts about astrology, so this is probably just my memory playing tricks. It is mentioned (I think) that both Jesus and Judah Ben Hur were around Judea at the same time though, and were about the same age. Their lives did touch at two or three points in the storyline. This isn't a good example of astrological twins in a novel, but it's one which sprang immediately to mind.

Mark Twain wrote The Prince and the Pauper, a novel about astrological twins, identical in appearance but from very different backgrounds. They change places in the England of 1547. I haven't read this book, but the Prince of the title is Prince Edward who at the tender age of 9 became King, on the death of his father Henry VIII. Edward's date of birth, was 12 October 1537 - Sun in Libra. Pauper Tom Canty's would have been the same. Libra the sign of balance seems rather appropriate for these two boys who each found out what life was like on the other side of the scale.

If a passing reader knows of any other novel or movie with a theme involving astrological twins (born the same day, different parents, different place, maybe at the same time of day), do please drop a comment below.

Charlton Heston, Lew Wallace & "Ben Hur"

Charlton Heston died at the weekend. He was born 4 October 1923 (some sources say 1924). I'll not guess which is correct. I've recently read a few less than kind comments about this man. In real life he held some opinions which are opposite to my own, but this really is no time to throw stones. His name, back in the news, brought my favourite movie to mind.

"Ben Hur" originated as a novel by Lew Wallace, a military man born 10 April 1827 in Brookville Indiana. The novel has been adapted as a movie on several occasions, best known of these is the award winning 1959 version starring Charlton Heston. It seems appropriate to me that the tale's author was a Sun Aries. The epic movie's story is very Aries in flavour. It chronicles the adventures, trials and tribulations of Judah Ben Hur a prince of Judea at the time of Roman occupation and Jesus Christ's ministry. The movie concentrates more on the adventures of its hero than on the more religious aspects of the book, but it still tells how Ben Hur's life is mystically touched by that of his contemporary, Jesus.








There is Aries courage and resilience in the character of Judah Ben Hur. There's also a great driving hunger to revenge the wrong done to his family - a heaped spoonful of Scorpio! There's a love story too, secondary to all else. Yet though romance is missing in much of the film, the audience is always aware of an underlying longing, and rightly suspects there may be a happy ending. The love theme appealed to me a lot, so much so that when himself and I tied the knot, the Love Theme from Ben Hur was one of the two pieces of music played at our civil ceremony.

Charlton Heston's towering persona dominates the movie. I can think of no other actor who had persona huge enough to take on that character and carry the plot almost single-handed. It wasn't a case of his acting skills, which were not nearly as huge as the image he was able to portray, nor as well-honed as some of the character actors in the cast. We can't be sure of his birth year, so it's not useful to surmise, but I can't help wondering if Jupiter and/or Pluto are somehow prominent in his chart, perhaps near the ascendant, producing a larger than life, very powerful image, not only as Judah Ben Hur, but in starring roles in other epic movies.

RIP Charlton Heston, and thanks for "Ben Hur".