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forceful, almost fanatical, speeches that define him and set him on a separate
path from Judah:
“Be wise, Judah. It’s a Roman world. If you want to live in it, you must
become part of it . . . I tell you, Judah, it is no accident that one small
village on the Tiber was chosen to rule the world . . . It wasn’t just our
legions. No, it was fate that chose us to civilize the world – and we have.
Our roads and our ships connect every corner of the earth. Roman law,
architecture, literature are the glory of the human race.”
“I believe in the future of my people.”
“Of course you do.”
The intense emotional relationship between Messala and Judah, how it
is irreparably broken and then devolves further into violence, becomes the
central focus and driving force of the film. Thus Ben-Hur continues a
cinematic trend in films about ancient Rome by focusing on the “problematic
relations between men” to explore “the paradoxical emotions
generated by the cruel realities of the Roman world” (Fitzgerald, 39). In
their reunion scene in the Roman garrison, Messala and Judah embrace
and share laughing memories, and with arms entwined, they toast each
other’s happy futures. Later, Judah gives Messala an expensive Arabian
horse, anticipating the climactic chariot race scene where they will work
out their mutual antagonism. Realizing his proposal will be hard for Judah
to accept, Messala relies on their longtime bond: “It’s an insane world, but
in it there is one sanity: the loyalty of old friends. Judah, we must believe
in one another.” But Judah is repelled by Messala’s plan for him to collaborate
in betraying his people, and rejects the idea of absolute Roman
dominance: “No, I warn you! Rome is an affront to God! Rome is strangling
my people and my country, the whole earth! But not forever: and I
tell you the day Rome falls there will be a shout of freedom such as the
world has never heard before.” After Messala offers an ultimatum that
Judah refuses, Roman and Jew are irrevocably sundered. The turning point
occurs when Messala has Judah arrested on trumped-up charges and sent
to the galleys as a slave. In doing this, Messala is motivated by two powerful
emotions: his ambition and desire for power, as well as his sense of
personal betrayal by his onetime friend.
Their seething enmity is ultimately played out in the famous chariot
race. At the starting gate, a brash Messala, with black clothes to match his
black horses, calls out to him: “This is the day, Judah. It’s between us
now.” “Yes,” agrees Judah, his rage at its peak, responding through the
famously clenched Hestonian teeth, “this is the day.” One of the greatest
76 BEN-HUR (1959)