Charlton Heston’s great ordeal ended on Saturday. Our condolences to family and friends. There must be some relief in the knowledge that he’s found rest at last, and there’s no shame in that. They’ve had plenty of time to say goodbye. Now is the time to commemorate an admirable life and a body of work that will live as long as our civilization is remembered.

Alas, I’ll never get the chance to see him play Sigfod Oski in the film version of Wolf Time, as I once dreamed.

“The Ten Commandments” was the first movie I ever saw in a theater (our family had seen “Around the World in Eighty Days” a while before that, but in a drive-in). My folks had to warn Moloch and me not to tell Grandma Walker we’d gone, because she didn’t approve of movies. Biblical movies didn’t make it any better—rather worse; they were a kind of blasphemy.

My major memories of that experience were the quality of the music (I’d never heard anything like it before), and the shots of the red clouds on Mount Sinai.

Later, my mom took Moloch and me (and maybe Baal, I’m not sure) to see “Ben Hur.” So I think I can say I saw both movies in their first runs. In actual theaters.

One of my favorite novelists, Stephen Hunter (who’s also film critic for The Washington Post) wrote an appreciation (hat tip: Powerline). I have to say I have a higher opinion of Heston’s movies, particularly of “The Ten Commandments” than he does.

I’m not one of those who watch TTC every year when they broadcast it on TV, but I did watch it again a couple years back. I recognized a certain stilted, pageant-like quality in the production, but I was also impressed with the way the screenplay (and Heston’s performance) delivered a faith lesson through Moses’ story. First you have the hot-shot young prince who thinks he can change the world with a single, dramatic action. When this fails, and he becomes a refugee, he thinks he’s learned his lesson. A small life and small goals are plenty for him now.

Then the burning bush appears, and he’s faced with the challenge of doing God’s work in God’s way. We feel his fear, his self-doubt and see how much hard work faith is. The powerful way Moses comes through in the end, looking just like Michelangelo’s sculpture (minus the horns) doesn’t diminish the fact that he’s earned his confidence through a series of very hard lessons.

I think it goes without saying that there’s no actor out there today the least bit like Charlton Heston. If they had the audacity to remake “Commandments” or “Ben Hur” today, they’d inevitably have to cast someone with a shorter shadow. But then the moviemakers would make the part smaller too. In the 21st Century, we look for heroes who make us feel better by comparison, not heroes who make us want to be greater than we are.