Ben-Hur (1959 Film) - Production - Production Design

Production Design

Italy was MGM's top choice for hosting the production. But a number of countries—including France, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom—were also considered. Cinecittà Studios, a very large motion picture production facility constructed in 1937 on the outskirts of Rome, was identified early on as the primary shooting location.

Zimbalist hired Wyler's long-term production supervisor, Henry Henigson, to oversee the film. Henigson arrived in Italy in the spring of 1956. Art directors William A. Horning and Edward Carfagno created the overall look of the film, relying on the more than five years of research which had already been completed for the production. A skeleton crew of studio technicians arrived in the summer of 1956 to begin preparing the Cinecittà soundstages and back lot, and to oversee the construction of additional buildings which would be needed to house the production team. The largest Cinecittà soundstage was not used for filming at all, but rather converted into a vast costume warehouse. Another soundstage housed a dry cleaning facility, a traditional laundry, a sculptors' workshop, and a shoe repair facility. Pre-production began at Cinecittà around October 1957. The MGM Art Department produced more than 15,000 sketches and drawings of costumes, sets, props, and other items needed for the film (8,000 alone for the costumes); photostatted each item; and cross-referenced and catalogued them for use by the production design team and fabricators. More than a million props were ultimately manufactured. MGM location scouts arrived in Rome ("yet again", according to the New York Times) to identify shooting locations in August 1957. Location shooting in Africa was actively under consideration. In mid-January 1958, MGM said that filming in North Africa (later revealed to be Libya) would begin on March 1, 1958, and that 200 camels and 2,500 horses had already been procured for the studio's use there. The production was then scheduled to move to Rome on April 1, where Andrew Marton had been hired as second unit director and 72 horses were being trained for the chariot race sequence. However, the Libyan government canceled the production's film permit for religious reasons on March 11, 1958, just a week before filming was to have begun.

The Ben-Hur production utilized 300 sets scattered over 148 acres (60 ha) and nine sound stages. It was filmed largely at Cinecittà Studios. Several sets still standing from Quo Vadis in 1951 were refurbished and used for Ben-Hur. By the end of the production more than 1,000,000 pounds (450,000 kg) of plaster and 40,000 cubic feet (1,100 m3) of lumber were used. The budget called for more than 100,000 costumes and 1,000 suits of armor to be made, for the hiring of 10,000 extras, and the procurement of hundreds of camels, donkeys, horses, and sheep. Costume designer Elizabeth Haffenden oversaw a staff of 100 wardrobe fabricators who began manufacturing the wardrobe a year before the cameras rolled. Special silk was imported from Thailand, the armor manufactured in West Germany, and the woolens made and embroidered in the United Kingdom and various countries of South America. Many leather goods were hand-tooled in the United Kingdom as well, while Italian shoemakers manufactured the boots and shoes. The lace for costumes came from France, while costume jewelry was purchased in Switzerland. More than 400 pounds (180 kg) of hair were donated by women in the Piedmont region of Italy to make wigs and beards for the production, and 1,000 feet (300 m) of track laid down for the camera dollies. A workshop employing 200 artists and workmen provided the hundreds of friezes and statues needed. A cafeteria capable of serving more than 5,000 extras in 20 minutes was also built. The mountain village of Arcinazzo Romano, 40 miles (64 km) from Rome, served as a stand-in for the town of Nazareth. Beaches near Anzio were also used, and caves just south of the city served as the leper colony. Some additional desert panoramas were shot in Arizona, and some close-up inserts taken at the MGM studios, with the final images photographed on February 3, 1958.

The film was intended to be historically accurate. Hugh Gray, a noted historian and motion picture studio researcher, was hired by Zimbalist as the film's historical advisor. A veteran of the Hollywood historical epic, it was the last film he worked on. Even the smallest details were historically correct. For example, Wyler asked a professor at the University of Jerusalem to copy a portion of the Dead Sea Scrolls for a scene that called for parchment with Hebrew writing on it.

The sea battle was filmed using miniatures in a huge tank on the back lot at the MGM studios in Culver City, California. More than 40 miniature ships were built for the sequence. Shot in November and December 1957, it was one of the first sequences created for the film. The script contained no description of or dialogue for the sea battle, and none had been written by the time the production schedule got around to filming the live-action sequences. According to editor John Dunning, screenwriter Christopher Fry looked at the miniature footage which Dunning had edited into a rough cut, and then wrote the interior and above-deck scenes. Two 175-foot (53 m) long Roman galleys, each of them seaworthy, were built for the live-action segment. The ships were constructed based on plans found in Italian museums for actual ancient Roman galleys. An artificial lake with equipment capable of generating sea-sized waves was built at the Cinecittà studios to accommodate the galleys. A massive backdrop, 200 feet (61 m) wide by 50 feet (15 m) high, was painted and erected to hide the city and hills in the background. Third unit director Richard Thorpe was hired on July 17, 1958, at the request of William Wyler to film the above-decks sequences, but a directing commitment back in the United States required him to leave the production with filming still incomplete. Dunning says he then directed most of the below-decks scenes, including the sequence in which Quintus Arrius' flagship is rammed. To make the scene bloodier, Dunning says he sought out Italian extras who had missing limbs, then had the makeup crews rig them with fake bone and blood to make it appear as if they had lost a hand or leg during the battle. When Dunning edited his own footage later, he made sure that these men were not on screen for long so that audiences would not be upset. (There was so much footage of the sea battle left over that Charlton Heston used it in his 1972 film Antony and Cleopatra.) The above-decks footage was integrated with the miniature work using process shots and traveling mattes.

Dunning says that he directed most of the critical scene in which Quintus Arrius first confronts Judah Ben-Hur on the galley, as well as the following segment in which Arrius forces the slaves to row at high speed. Some of the dialogue in the scene, he says, was shot by Wyler, but most of the rest (including the high-speed rowing) was shot by Dunning himself. Dunning has stated that he spent several days on the high-speed rowing segment, shooting the sequence over and over from different angles to ensure that there was plenty of coverage. He then edited the immense amount of footage down to obtain a rough cut that matched the script, and then re-edited the footage to be more cinematic and work emotionally on screen. The galley sequence is one of the few scenes in the film which is not historically accurate, as the Roman navy (in contrast to its early modern counterparts) did not employ convicts as galley slaves.

One of the most sumptuous sets was the villa of Quintus Arrius, which included 45 working fountains and 8.9 miles (14.3 km) of pipes. Wealthy citizens of Rome, who wanted to portray their ancient selves, acted as extras in the villa scenes. Among them were Baroness Lillian de Balzo (Hungary), Princess Carmen de Hohenlohe (Spain), Prince Cristian Hohenlohe (Spain), Countess Nona Medici (Italy), Count Marigliano del Monte (Italy), Count Santiago Oneto (Spain), Count Mario Rivoltella (Italy), Prince Emanuele Ruspoli (Italy), Prince Raimondo Ruspoli (Italy), and Princess Irina Wassilchikoff (Russia). To recreate the ancient city streets of Jerusalem, a vast set covering 0.5-square-mile (1.3 km2) was built, which included a 75-foot (23 m) high Joppa Gate.

The sets were so vast and visually exciting that they became a tourist attraction. Tour buses visited the site hourly, and entertainers such as Harry Belafonte, Kirk Douglas, Susan Hayward, Audrey Hepburn, and Jack Palance traveled to Italy to see the production. The huge sets could be seen from the outskirts of Rome, and MGM estimated that more than 5,000 people were given tours of the sets. Another 25,000 tourists stopped by the studios to see the production in progress. The New York Times reported that thousands more viewed the sets without entering the grounds.

Dismantling the sets cost $125,000. Almost all the filmmaking equipment was turned over to the Italian government, which sold and exported it. MGM turned title to the artificial lake over to Cinecittà. MGM retained control over the costumes and the artificial lake background, which went back to the United States. The chariots were also returned to the U.S., where they were used as promotional props. The life-size galleys and pirate ships were dismantled to prevent them from being used by competing studios. Some of the horses were adopted by the men who trained them, while others were sold. Many of the camels, donkeys, and other exotic animals were sold to circuses and zoos in Europe.