To get a foretaste of the likely controversy, have a look at the 154 often tetchy (not to say ill-tempered)comments following Tim O'Neill's Hypatia post at Armarium Magnum.
I saw Agora when it first came out in NYC and loved Weisz' performance as Hypatia. The Christian blogs have been in a bit of a tizzy, but I felt Amenabar was presenting a fable for our times with an anti-fanaticsm message. He did distort some history in pursuit of his art (the Great Library didn’t end as he depicted and Synesius wasn’t such a jerk.) However, that’s what artists do. I don’t go to movies for accurate history or science.
For people who want to know more about the historical Hypatia, I highly recommend a very readable biography by Maria Dzielska called Hypatia of Alexandria (Harvard Press, 1995.) I also have a series of posts on my blog on the events and characters from the film - not a movie review, just a "reel vs. real" discussion.
I reviewed it last February, while it still had not found a North American distributor. It is worth watching.
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To get a foretaste of the likely controversy, have a look at the 154 often tetchy (not to say ill-tempered)comments following Tim O'Neill's Hypatia post at Armarium Magnum.
ReplyDeleteI saw Agora when it first came out in NYC and loved Weisz' performance as Hypatia. The Christian blogs have been in a bit of a tizzy, but I felt Amenabar was presenting a fable for our times with an anti-fanaticsm message. He did distort some history in pursuit of his art (the Great Library didn’t end as he depicted and Synesius wasn’t such a jerk.) However, that’s what artists do. I don’t go to movies for accurate history or science.
ReplyDeleteFor people who want to know more about the historical Hypatia, I highly recommend a very readable biography by Maria Dzielska called Hypatia of Alexandria (Harvard Press, 1995.) I also have a series of posts on my blog on the events and characters from the film - not a movie review, just a "reel vs. real" discussion.
You may not have seen this post at Armarium Magnus, which tackles some of the controversy (and indeed fans it)...
ReplyDeletesounds exciting!
ReplyDeleteIt looks great! Thanks for the link.
ReplyDelete