Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren attempt to humanize 10th century Spanish mercenary Rodrigo Diaz in the 1961 epic "El Cid".
It seems like only a few weeks since I reviewed the Cantar del mio Cid, and the real life of Rodrigo Diaz, on which this very long epic is based. But El Cid (1961) is its own animal, presenting us with a noble, tolerant character for Rodrigo that treads a line between real life and legend while not quite honoring either one.
The film has a lot of promise. The cinematography is stunning; Charlton Heston as Rodrigo and Sophia Loren as his wife Ximena are well cast for the way that the characters are written. But it never quite reaches the heights of Ben Hur (1959), or even The Ten Commandments (1956). Heston's role resembles more the smaller, rather simplistic science fiction characters that he would play later and the story wanders a lot.
Part of the problem is the introduction of a romantic subplot that swallows up everything else early on, then disappears, only to reappear and be resolved in anticlimactic fashion. This leaves the film rudderless, except for Rodrigo's didactic quest to unite "Spain" against the "Muslim" invasions. In the subplot, Rodrigo and Ximena ("Jimena" in the film, for some reason) love each other. But for not very clear reasons, Ximena's father challenges Rodrigo to a duel, which Rodrigo wins. They marry, but Ximena, in classic Hollywood fashion, then feels honor-bound to avenge her father's death on the man she once loved. Yes, it's that "la belle dame sans merci" cliché we saw in "The Black Knight" again. Only once Rodrigo is driven into exile does she choose to follow him and reconcile with him. It doesn't help that they're both too old for their characters at the beginning of the film and too young for them at the end.
There is some fact in here--Rodrigo did go into exile (twice), for example. But the conflict between him and Ximena is pure Hollywood, found in neither Rodrigo's real life nor his medieval-era legend. Nor would a medieval wife have acted in such a way, let alone a medieval husband tolerated it. Similarly, the film's attempt at showing Rodrigo's tolerance of the Muslims, which anachronistically divides Christians and Muslims along nationalistic lines (good Spaniards versus bad North Africans), means well, but ends up patronizing, not inspiring.
A tighter storyline, and a greater commitment to either the reality you would find in today's book review or the legend, might have helped. As it is, El Cid is flawed, but at 182 minutes, still grand.
