I agree with Richard's analysis of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. However, he left out some information and did not go into great detail on some of the subjects he presented. An inaccuracy I noticed was that he mentioned Jesus was only represented by his hands or feet, when in reality he was also portrayed as a beam of white light. Also the aforementioned limbs were also bright white in color. Plus he did not go into any background information on why they might have only shown Jesus as bright white floating limbs or just a bright beam of light. While Richards compares the 1925 Ben-hur to the 1959 version heavily, I cannot say if I agree or disagree with any of his opinions he has here, as I have never seen the 1959 version. I also wanted to mention that I looked at a few of the earlier posts where another inaccuracy others mentioned was that Esther's bird was a dove, not a pigeon as Richards mentioned. But, it was indeed a pigeon in this film, a white pigeon. In the film it actually says its a pigeon in one of the intertitles during the scene. I quote from a website that is all about pigeons so you do not feel bad for calling all dove looking birds doves, "White Pigeons are, in fact, very beautiful and are quite often mistaken for doves by the public. There are types of white colored pigeons that can be purchased as companions..." as probably the one that Esther purchased.
White Pigeons: http://www.pigeonweb.net/white-pigeon
Thanks for adding this interesting link on the pigeon vs. dove question. In any case, a dove would just be a type of pigeon anyway. I think it's as legitimate to call a dove a pigeon as it is to call a grey (horse) a horse.
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