When I was young --like maybe 10 or 12 -- I remember watching a movie about some cool knight named Rodrigo who went around Spain getting into fights with everyone. He fought a bunch of Moors (Muslims living in Spain), but refused to hang them after he beat them. This led to him getting mad respect from them and getting called "Cid" which meant "Lord". He fought his girlfriend's dad and killed him, which kind of put a damper on their relationship, as you can imagine. He fought fellow spaniards, he fought African invaders... he even fought the law, but the law won, if you can believe that.
This was of course Anthony Mann's EL CID, starring my main man Chuck Heston in the title role, and the lovely Sophia Loren as Chimene, the love of his life.
Well, when I found out that they were releasing this bad boy on DVD, I just had to get myself a copy. I watched it again this week for the first time in twenty years.
Is the movie as good as I remember it being as a twelve year old? I'm happy to write that it is.
Not only did I find it hugely entertaining, I would actually say it stands head and shoulders above some of the other gargantuan historical epics from that era (the Fall of the Roman Empire, Cleopatra), and it compares favourably with the best of them, including Spartacus and Ben-Hur, two of my favourite films.
The tone is set at the very beginning of this film, when we are introduced to the main baddie played by Herbert Lom: the Fanatical Ben Yusuf, poster boy for the Jihad (11th century edition). Here he is going to town on the Emirs of Al-Andalus:
The Prophet has commanded us to rule the world. Where in all your land of Spain is the glory of Allah? When men speak of you they speak of poets, musicmakers, doctors, scientists.... Where are your warriors? You dare call yourselves sons of the Prophet? You have become--women! Burn your books! Make warriors of your poets! Let your doctors invent new poisons for our arrows--let your scientists invent new war machines! And then--Kill! Burn! Infidels live on your frontiers--encourage them to kill each other. And when they are weak and torn--I will sweep up from Africa--and the empire of the One God--the True God, Allah--will spread, first across Spain, then across Europe, then--the whole World!How odd... how unfamiliar... Can you imagine any movie including that kind of character speaking dialogue like that nowadays? What a grotesque unrealistic caricature!
Uh, maybe not, actually. Although fictionalized, the character is based on Yusuf ibn Tashfin, a Berber Almoravid who invaded Spain in the 11th century seeking to conquer new territories for the Umma and bring orthodoxy and a puritanical version of islam to the muslims already inhabiting the peninsula, who had up to that point been busy doing silly stuff like creating a civilization, and preserving culture and knowledge.
Come to think about it that does seem familiar!
Of course, Ben Yussuf represents one side of the Islamic coin, and the presence of many honourable and noble Moorish characters in this movie, including Al Kadir and Moutamin, who were allies of the Cid and vassals of the Spanish King, reflects the reality of the time, just as the existence of moderate muslims is a reality today, notwithstanding the bad press the entire religion tends to get as a whole. Largely thanks to the Ben Yusuf types.
But lets be honest, here, you aren't going to watch this movie because you want a history lesson or treatise on relations between the religions in 11th century Spain, you are going to watch it because you want an old fashioned epic full of pomp and spectacle, romance and adventure.. and this flick delivers on all those counts. In fact, the climax of the movie is one of the most memorable bits of filmaking I have ever seen. It is the one scene in the movie that has stayed indelibly etched in my memory for the past 20 years.
Behold, the climax:
Tell me you don't get a shiver down your spine when the Cid rides through the gate and the organ begins to play!
