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dangermousieI love Epic movies. Larger than life characters, larger than life angst, neat costumes and spectacular battles. What more could a girl want?
My latest favorite is an oldie-but-goodie (made in 1961) epic, "El Cid." It stars Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren.
Reasons to watch:
1. It's a rare Medieval movie that is done well. Really well. A happy medium between "everyone is buried under mounds of dirt so you can't tell characters apart" and "Disney-clean"
2. The battles. The battles are spectacular
3. It actually has a fairly complicated plot. First there is El Cid's fight against his fiance's (Sophia Loren's) father and the huge reprecussions thereof. Then there are political machinations by King Alfonso who does not like him. Then there are fights against invaders. Etc etc etc.
4. Charlton Heston. One of the few larger-than-life actors who didn't get lost in epics.
5. You want messed up ship? You got messed up ship. After Heston kills her father, Loren does the utmost to have Daddy avenged: hiring assassins, soliciting a Champion to fight in her stead. All despite the fact that she still loves Heston. But hey, Medieval honor calls. And that is only the beginning.
6. Grim. Grim. Grim. Grim. No HEA here
7.
8.
9.
10.
This review from IMDB (not mine) sums up why it's so good:
Grim, Ponderous, Moving, Magnificent
I'm a girl and have a girl's taste in movies. If I'm going to watch a movie with a lot of sword fights, oppressed peasants, and corrupt kings, I want it to be a swashbuckler, preferably one starring Errol Flynn. Swashbucklers bring a lot of humor to otherwise unbearable dramatic situations.
"El Cid" presents unbearable dramatic situations, and it is not a laugh riot. I saw the three-hour plus, uncut version and never felt tempted to laugh once. This is the Middle Ages without Monty Python, without the levity of an Errol Flynn - Olivia De Haviland romance or comic relief of a Little John.
Boy oh boy was this grim. And long. You could have almost filmed the entire film with three colors: white, black, and red. Lots of red.
But "El Cid" did to me what it wanted to do. I really believed in Rodrigo and Jimena as star-crossed, larger-than-life lovers. I really believed that the little girl who leads them from her well to her farm house lived a thousand years ago. I really believed that something like the mouth of hell itself was opening up as Ben Yusef invaded. I really believed in Rodrigo's relentless nobility and heroism. Neither Charlton Heston's strangely artificial looking hair nor the obvious non-Arab status of a couple of the "Moors" (Douglas Wilmer, who later played Sherlock Holmes, was one especially unconvincing Arab) interfered with my willing suspension of disbelief. I cried. Several times.
There's a lot to cry about. In almost every scene, someone is either crying, usually Sophia Loren, or gritting his teeth, often Charlton Heston, but others grit their teeth a lot, also. Actually Loren doesn't so much cry, but, rather, huge, luminous tears quiver, poised, on her lower eyelid. In her final scenes, the teardrop dancing on her right eyelid is so huge, black and luminous it begins to look like a second pupil.
If the sound of horse hoof-beats does something for you, you will love this movie. There are many horses. Many, many, many. And they are always thundering off to somewhere, more often than not, over cobblestones. Lots of horse hoof-beats on this soundtrack.
Some viewers found the plot hard to understand; they, perhaps, saw the cut version. Having seen the uncut version, I found the plot entirely comprehensible.
"El Cid" is like a ballad. There is one grim face-off after another, escalating in gravity, in which the hero proves that he is growing into his own heroism, through every choice he makes. Each choice is harder than the last one, until his final choice, which is truly impossible, but which he fulfills anyway. If you like medieval ballads, you may love this movie. It has the same grim beauty and power and inexorability, the same insistence on throwing whatever is divine in naked human character up against the impossible demands of earthly life.
For such a long movie, there is scant dialogue. With few words, people prove their true character through their actions, just as characters in ancient epics did.
One viewer complained that this movie bore no relation to the "real" El Cid legend. If that is true, the movie is all the more remarkable. The filmmakers managed to create, from scratch, a convincing and moving medieval narrative.
My latest favorite is an oldie-but-goodie (made in 1961) epic, "El Cid." It stars Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren.
Reasons to watch:
1. It's a rare Medieval movie that is done well. Really well. A happy medium between "everyone is buried under mounds of dirt so you can't tell characters apart" and "Disney-clean"
2. The battles. The battles are spectacular
3. It actually has a fairly complicated plot. First there is El Cid's fight against his fiance's (Sophia Loren's) father and the huge reprecussions thereof. Then there are political machinations by King Alfonso who does not like him. Then there are fights against invaders. Etc etc etc.
4. Charlton Heston. One of the few larger-than-life actors who didn't get lost in epics.
5. You want messed up ship? You got messed up ship. After Heston kills her father, Loren does the utmost to have Daddy avenged: hiring assassins, soliciting a Champion to fight in her stead. All despite the fact that she still loves Heston. But hey, Medieval honor calls. And that is only the beginning.
6. Grim. Grim. Grim. Grim. No HEA here
7.
8.
9.
10.
This review from IMDB (not mine) sums up why it's so good:
Grim, Ponderous, Moving, Magnificent
I'm a girl and have a girl's taste in movies. If I'm going to watch a movie with a lot of sword fights, oppressed peasants, and corrupt kings, I want it to be a swashbuckler, preferably one starring Errol Flynn. Swashbucklers bring a lot of humor to otherwise unbearable dramatic situations.
"El Cid" presents unbearable dramatic situations, and it is not a laugh riot. I saw the three-hour plus, uncut version and never felt tempted to laugh once. This is the Middle Ages without Monty Python, without the levity of an Errol Flynn - Olivia De Haviland romance or comic relief of a Little John.
Boy oh boy was this grim. And long. You could have almost filmed the entire film with three colors: white, black, and red. Lots of red.
But "El Cid" did to me what it wanted to do. I really believed in Rodrigo and Jimena as star-crossed, larger-than-life lovers. I really believed that the little girl who leads them from her well to her farm house lived a thousand years ago. I really believed that something like the mouth of hell itself was opening up as Ben Yusef invaded. I really believed in Rodrigo's relentless nobility and heroism. Neither Charlton Heston's strangely artificial looking hair nor the obvious non-Arab status of a couple of the "Moors" (Douglas Wilmer, who later played Sherlock Holmes, was one especially unconvincing Arab) interfered with my willing suspension of disbelief. I cried. Several times.
There's a lot to cry about. In almost every scene, someone is either crying, usually Sophia Loren, or gritting his teeth, often Charlton Heston, but others grit their teeth a lot, also. Actually Loren doesn't so much cry, but, rather, huge, luminous tears quiver, poised, on her lower eyelid. In her final scenes, the teardrop dancing on her right eyelid is so huge, black and luminous it begins to look like a second pupil.
If the sound of horse hoof-beats does something for you, you will love this movie. There are many horses. Many, many, many. And they are always thundering off to somewhere, more often than not, over cobblestones. Lots of horse hoof-beats on this soundtrack.
Some viewers found the plot hard to understand; they, perhaps, saw the cut version. Having seen the uncut version, I found the plot entirely comprehensible.
"El Cid" is like a ballad. There is one grim face-off after another, escalating in gravity, in which the hero proves that he is growing into his own heroism, through every choice he makes. Each choice is harder than the last one, until his final choice, which is truly impossible, but which he fulfills anyway. If you like medieval ballads, you may love this movie. It has the same grim beauty and power and inexorability, the same insistence on throwing whatever is divine in naked human character up against the impossible demands of earthly life.
For such a long movie, there is scant dialogue. With few words, people prove their true character through their actions, just as characters in ancient epics did.
One viewer complained that this movie bore no relation to the "real" El Cid legend. If that is true, the movie is all the more remarkable. The filmmakers managed to create, from scratch, a convincing and moving medieval narrative.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 06:01 pm (UTC)CGI really made epics affordable today and I hope they continue making more (Alexander debacle notwithstanding). I hope all the epics coming out this year do well, merely because I want to see more made.
And speaking of epics: love that icon!
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 06:08 pm (UTC)Alexander just didn't seem to be thought the whole way through. I'm not sure what the deal with that one was, but it just didn't capture my attention.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 06:29 pm (UTC)Re: Alexander. As soon as I saw the trailers I knew that was not a movie for me. It just felt "off"
Besides, epics are generally better when they follow fictional characters (or those about which little is known). That way the script can be written with an eye to the drama and interest and not bound by historical accuracy.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 06:34 pm (UTC)I remember seeing the trailer and thinking "that's just not going to work".
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 06:43 pm (UTC)I saw the 50s version of "Alexander" with Richard Burton and it was deadly dull. Maybe that story is just cursed :)
no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-28 07:04 pm (UTC)In fact, mullets of any hair color should be banned from the screen. The world will be a better place.