On February 2nd, the shooting of the most anticipated Ben-Hur’s remake, directed by the Kazakh Timur Bekmambetov, started in Matera, Basilicata.
The so-called “Subterranean City”, whose center, named “Sassi”, was declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1993, has been repeatedly chosen as movie location for its realistic, rocky look as ancient Jerusalem.
After a first stage in the southern city, the epic film’s shooting will move forward in Cinecittà backlots, in Rome. History repeats itself: in fact, the original 1959 multiple Academy award-winning, William Wyler’s Ben-Hur was filmed in the same Roman studios.
Perhaps not everybody knows that the first attempts in adapting for the screen Lew Wallace’s novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), were two silent movies: a 15-minutes long Ben-Hur (1907), codirected by Sidney Olcott, Frank Oakes Rose, H. Temple, and an epic version (1925), titled as the novel and directed by Fred Niblo.
The first short-film is best known as a precedent in copyright law. Indeed, upon its infringement of the novelist’s and publishers’ rights – a common practice back then – and the suit that followed, it was stated the obligation of securing the film rights of published works, before commissioning any adapted screenplay based upon them.
The newest remake, announced to be released on February 26th 2016, has been based more faithfully on the original novel than the ’59 version, by the screenwriters Keith R. Clarke and John Ridley. In fact, they have developed the subplot, involving Jesus Christ, which was told in the 1925 silent film, but ignored in the very famous Wyler’s blockbuster.
As far as the cast in the current film, British actor Tom Hiddlestone and half Brit Jack Huston have been candidates for the eponymous lead role, until the latter, grandson of John Huston and nephew of Anjelica Huston, won the competition.
Taking a look at the other parts, most of them are played by interpreters with Italian blood, the likes of the same Jack Huston, whose paternal grandmother Enrica Soma was an Italian-American dancer; the Jewish-Italian Sofia Black D’Elia as Tirzah; the Italian-Brazilian Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus; the British-Italian Gabriel Farnese as Elijah.
Two Italians, Denise Tantucci as Avigail and Nico Toffoli as the Warrior are also casted in the film.
Among all, the only US movie star is Morgan Freeman, who is going to play Ildarin, the coach who trains Ben-Hur to become a chariot-racer champion.
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