Charlton Heston is incapable of playing a mere mortal. He always has to be someone. Like Ben-Hur. Or Michelangelo. Or bloody Moses.
But tonight, he was Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar, or El Cid.
El Cid is kind of like Lawrence of Arabia (which came out in 1962, while El Cid came out in 1961) except not nearly as excellent, and set in Spain in 1080. But there's a Christian white man who allies himself with some Moors (code for MUSLIM) and there's a lot of talk about unity and honor and scenes of men in costume on horse back in the sprawling wilderness, so that's kind of the same. But Peter O'Toole is so much better than Charlton Heston. El Cid also features Sofia Loren, but before she could act--so she's gorgeous, and sporting the best poker face of all time. Also, her lips look ridiculously large, but I'm getting off topic...
...We watched El Cid for my Movie Medievalism class (I have mentioned that I adore that class, right?) and it was three hours long. I spent much of the movie checking the time, waiting for it to be over, because it was essentially a sprawling epic with Charlton Heston playing a man with dignity and honor who sacrifices everything for king and country blah blah blah. Boring.
The film ends with Charlton Heston, who has amassed an army of moderate friendly Muslims and loyal Spaniards, defending the city of Valencia against a group of extremist Muslims waging jihad in the name of Allah (I know, right?) The Spaniards are basically only loyal to Charlton Heston (who is ridiculously loyal to his king who is a pussy until the end of the film) and he is their beating heart or whatever. The crazy jihad Muslims lay seige to Valencia, and Charlton Heston (for God and Spain!!!) has a stroke of bad luck. See, for the majority of the film he has been glory victorious but now, gasp, he is struck by an arrow!
So Charlton Heston is in bed with his arrow and Sofia Loren as Chimene, his wife, at his side. And he refuses to have the arrow removed because he'd lose too much blood and wouldn't be able to lead the army for the next battle...but if the arrow stays in he will die. For some absurd reason--honor, or something--Charlton Heston decides to let the arrow remain. He says to Sofia Loren: "Alive or dead I must be on my horse, leading my men, tomorrow morning."
Following this is a scene of sweat and blood and tears and protestations and then Charlton Heston fucking dies.
And that is when I start to laugh, because I realize his dead body is going on a horse.
Next scene. The army is waiting in silence, led by the king who has finally stopped being a pussy. There is a shot of several servants strapping Charlton Heston to a white horse. He's propped up with some iron bars and they've strapped a flag to his hand and it's fairly convincing except he is dead (and it is clearly a wax figure of Charlton Heston but that is another story). And then this white horse, with Charlton Heston's dead body, rides to the front of the line. The ex-pussy king shouts: "For Spain! And El Cid!" The army charges off to battle. The white horse goes with them!
The end five minutes of the movie is essentially the camera following dead Charlton Heston on his white horse as he miraculously rides over the crazy leader of the psycho Muslim jihadists and various other enemies while he is dead. At this point I have forgotten respect and am laughing, laughing, laughing (I am not alone...a few Weekend at Bernie's comments were heard). The last shot of the movie? The white horse with dead Charlton Heston riding off into the fucking sunset. With dead Charlton Heston. I officially lost it...and El Cid officially redeemed itself.
Awesome. There are no other words. For El Cid!
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