If agoraphobia means fear of the marketplace, then "Agora"-phobia is fear of the long-winded sword-and-sandal religious epic. This "Agora" is an expensive-looking update on an old De Mille-style extravaganza. It has many new and provocative ideas, certainly, but the same British accents and the same stodgy execution. Read more
"Agora," which opens in New York on Friday, is a big-budget two-hour Roman epic that features Ms. Weisz as Hypatia, the Neo-Platonist philosopher and astronomer-mathematician sometimes credited with inventing the hydrometer and the plane astrolabe. Instead of being set in the 20th century among the pharaohs' tombs and temples, like "The Mummy," much of the story takes place in fifth-century Alexandria, when the rising faith of Christianity is aggressively challenging traditional Greco-Roman learning and values. Read more
Plot Summary: 4th century A.D. Egypt under the Roman Empire... Violent religious upheaval in the streets of Alexandria spills over into the city's famous Library. Trapped inside its walls, the brilliant astronomer Hypatia and her disciples fight to save the wisdom of the Ancient World... Among them, the two men competing for her heart: The witty, privileged Orestes and Davus, Hypatia's young slave, who is torn between his secret love for her and the freedom he knows can be his if he chooses to join the unstoppable surge of the Christians.
Hypatia of Alexandria was a 4th century philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. Of her scientific accomplishments, little remains. She is remembered for the sadism of her murder, at the hands of Christian monks, who dragged Hypatia from her chariot and carved the flesh from her body with oyster shells. Jane Montgomery Griffiths' one-woman show delves into Hypatia's legacy, from the crater in the moon named after her to her inclusion (against the Pope's wishes) in Raphael's famous fresco The School of Athens. Read more
Amenabar Interested in Making More Astronomer Movies
I had the chance to speak with writer and director Alejandro Amenabar last week - the full interview will be up tomorrow - and he mentioned some ideas for continuing on with more astronomer based movies. Read more
Democritus's atomic theory and Aristarchus's heliocentric model of the universe are not subjects that can often be said to delight audiences at the Cannes film festival. But Alejandro Amenabar's Agora did just that in its premiere today, with Rachel Weisz starring as the 4th-century mathematician and astronomer Hypatia, who was killed by an angry Christian mob in Romano-Egyptian Alexandria.
The change of plans was not the result of any time travel, but a consequence of the transformation that the city is undergoing to serve as a filming location for the latest blockbuster to be shot in Malta. On Monday morning, the films crew were adding the finishing touches to a number of streets which have been given a complete makeover for the historical epic Agora. Read more