El Cid

The film grossly distorts historical events and portrays Yusuf ibn Tashfin, who was a great and cultured leader, He was a lover of science and religiously tolerant, and he wasn't as dark-skinned and evilly disfigured as this film portrays him, a film that promotes the innocence of the West even though they were savages in the literal sense, and we all know the crimes they committed.

I watched this on the big screen when I was very very young, but this epic film left an indellible impression on me. I have to consider this to be one of the best films I ever watched. Heston and Loren made a beautiful pair in this epic. The transformation of Loren's hatred to love for Heston was a highlight of the show. A few scenes that stood out in my mind was: 1. The jousting scene 2. The scene where Heston catapulted buns into the besieged city and won the heart of the people. 3. The epic fighting scene at the beach where arrows rained upon the shielded soldiers ...and who can forget the famous riding scene at the very end with the already dead Rodrigo tied to the mount riding out of the city that one last time. Combined with the underlying score, that was one of the most moving scenes of all times. Years later, when I happened upon the show on TV again, I still could not help but felt a little misty in my eyes when I watched that last scene.

El Cid was an interesting film to watch. It provides some great moments of grandeur and scale during it battle sequences but falls short on characters. I found almost all the characters in the film pretty forgettable and not really worth investing in, they all managed to have something off about them. Yes people are flawed so why shouldn't their characters be? But there was something else slightly intangible going on as well. The film is an unnecessary 3 hours long, I like a good epic but the story didn't shirt that much nor provide intricacies that required such a long running time. It is enjoyable to watch but could have been a lot better :)

The fifties and sixties saw a number of big, hard ticket, over three hour movies looking for historical spectacle amongst a range of great historical figures, in order to draw audiences away from 'I Love Lucy' on TV. El Cid rates as the best for its grand sweep, great acting, emotional involvement, and deeply layered plot. Not afraid of complexity of motivation and background, the film is absorbing as well as great to look at. Of course, to modern audiences the concepts of honour and sacrifice of self only appear in great Chinese films or those based on comic book stories - eg the latest Batman boreathon. Forget today's mock superficiality and celebrity and immerse yourself in great deeds and people of legend!