El Cid
Reviewed by Dr Jonathan Phillips, senior lecturer in medieval history, Royal Holloway, University of London.
RATING: 6
Italy/US, 1961
Director Anthony Mann
Screenwriters Philip Yordan, Fredric M Frank, Ben Barzman
Cinematography Robert Krasker
Music Miklós Rózsa
Production design Veniero Colasanti, John Moore
Cast Charlton Heston (El Cid), Sophia Loren (Jimena), Raf Vallone (Count Ordóñez), Geneviève Page (Princess Urraca)
El Cid stands as one of the epic films of the last century. With its charismatic stars, a cast of thousands and its grand themes of love, loyalty and justice, it perpetuates a glowing image of one of the greatest heroes in Spanish history.
Charlton Heston’s Cid is a towering and talismanic figure – the perfect chivalric knight, devoted to his wife and children, a magnificent warrior, unerringly true to his word and merciful to his opponents. Most of all, he is sworn to the service of God and dedicated to saving Spain from the fearsome Moors (Muslims) of North Africa.
In reality, of course, no one could match up to this template and the life of Rodrigo Díaz de Bivar (c. 1043-99) – known to us as ‘El Cid’, from the Arabic sayyid, ‘lord’ – differed from this in many respects.
Drawing parallels
One aspect of the film that will seem especially pertinent to modern viewers is the relationship between the Cid and some of the Spanish Muslims. Today’s audience has become accustomed to the parallels drawn between a medieval world ravaged by the Crusaders and the present-day struggles between Islam and the West. In fact, following the Madrid bombings in March 2004, an al-Qa’ida spokesman drew an explicit link between the medieval Crusades and the decision to bomb the Spanish capital.
In this sort of atmosphere, the positive images portrayed in El Cid may appear odd. In this aspect, however, the film is, broadly speaking, true to history. The Cid’s generosity to some of his Muslim opponents and his alliances with local Muslims against other, more fundamentalist Islamic armies are based on fact, and are not the result of an early Hollywood attempt at political correctness or a sense of hopeless idealism.
Inflexible rhetoric
Three centuries before the Cid lived, the Muslims of North Africa had conquered Iberia, today divided between Spain and Portugal. Slowly, the Christians regained control of the top fifth of the peninsula and the two faiths established a rough modus vivendi. As the Christians grew stronger, they began to take tribute from their neighbours as a way of preserving the peace – in other words, there was not a state of constant warfare.
The crucial point here is one of timing: El Cid lived just as the age of the Crusades was beginning. (By an interesting irony, he died in July 1099, the very month that the armies of the First Crusade brutally slaughtered the Muslim defenders of Jerusalem.) In the age of the Cid, relations between the two faiths in Spain had yet to be sharpened by the inflammatory and inflexible rhetoric of crusade and jihad (the Islamic holy war). Furthermore, it was entirely commonplace for local groups of Christians and Muslims jointly to fight other Christians and Muslims.
Warrior for hire
El Cid was a part of this world, and the film is correct to show him having Muslim allies, even though it carefully omits the numerous occasions when he acted for Muslim paymasters against Christians. In the circumstances of the time, however, this was unremarkable. The Cid was, in short, a warrior for hire, who spent much of his career fighting for whosoever cared to pay him. Although perhaps the less attractive version, this is the reality. To be fair, one of the ‘extras’ on the El Cid DVD is a brief historical guide that acknowledges the fact that the Cid fought for pay.
The film also pays tribute to Rodrigo Díaz’s formidable military prowess. His finest hour was the capture of Valencia in 1094, shown here on a huge scale, complete with siege towers, cavalry charges and the full clash of arms.
Yet much of the Cid’s career is obscured or distorted on screen. In part, given the constraints of making a feature film about such a long and eventful life, this is entirely understandable. The need for Hollywood glamour – hence the unforgettable (and entirely fictitious) ending with the Cid’s lifeless body leading his men to victory – also contributes to the distortion.
Flawed
There is, however, another reason why El Cid exists in this form. The explanation lies in the identity of its historical consultant: Ramón Menéndez Pidal, the foremost Spanish historian of his age and author of the standard biography of the Cid, first published in 1929.
Despite Pidal’s eminence, the portrait of the Cid he suggested to the movie-makers was flawed in two ways. First, in the evidence he used: Pidal gave substantial credence to the Poema de Mio Cid, a work written at the height of the crusading age and, crucially, almost a century after the Cid’s death. Then, the Cid’s valiant deeds against Muslims made him a suitable exemplar to inspire a generation of holy warriors, and his life quickly moved into the realms of legend. Of course, the less palatable aspects of his career – serious disagreements with several of his Christian lords and employment on behalf of the forces of Islam – were omitted.
Other historians – such as Richard Fletcher in his excellent The Quest for El Cid (1989) – now use the Poema with extreme caution and have studied other evidence to uncover a more complex character than the hero of the epic poem.
For Spain?
The second reason for Pidal’s characterisation of the Cid lies in the overlap between the historian’s version of medieval Iberia and many of his own perceptions about the Spain of his own lifetime. To him, the notion of a patriotic hero uniting his troubled country was highly attractive and one that fitted the aspirations of Spain between the world wars.
Hence Heston’s El Cid repeatedly demands a victory ‘for Spain’, but Spain as a national entity was of little relevance in the 11th century. ‘For Castile!’ – one of the kingdoms of the peninsula – would have been a more likely rallying cry.
Epic events
Overall, El Cid gives broad insights into the man’s life, most particularly his trust in God and his co-operation with Muslims. The portrayal of these epic events is compelling, if over-imaginative. Contemporaries of all faiths admired the Cid’s fighting skills, although the single-combat scene looks like a standard Hollywood tournament, and in truth, its representation dates from a far later age than the 1080s. It would be tedious to list the numerous errors in the detail of armour, fortifications and clothing. In any case, they do little to detract from the enjoyment of the film.
Religious motivation
Perhaps more importantly, El Cid makes a fair attempt to recognise the importance of religious motivation for all the combatants, something often left out of films of the medieval period. Furthermore, it does not (as far as this reviewer noticed) use the word ‘crusade’ – an obvious trap for the scriptwriters to fall into, given the nature of the conflict.
What we see here is a film based on the later legend – the hero of the Poema de Mio Cid, further glamorised by Hollywood. Within this framework – and, of course, in its prime aim as a work of entertainment – it should be counted as a resounding success, albeit one portraying a man and an age that modern historical scholarship has now left behind.
The wide-ranging Wikipedia entry for El Cid is well worth a look, especially its extensive bibliography.
