Living in the cinematic boonies as I do, I will probably not see Agora until it comes out on DVD.
Here is a long dissection of it, from period-incorrect Roman armor to its avoidance of exactly what Hypatia taught:
But because the film never bothers to make her neo-Platonist asceticism clear – exactly what her philosophical views might be is never explored except in the vaguest terms – this incident doesn’t really make much cultural sense – she comes as a modern career academic “married to her job” rather than a disciple of the school of Plotinus.
Writer Tim O’Neill also notes that the conflict in the movie is not Pagans versus Christians so much as it is non-theistic philosophy (rational) versus religious people (fanatical).
Nevertheless, it is tempting to read Hypatia’s story as (not hostile to science) Pagans versus (book-burning) Christians. I nudged it that way a little bit myself in the entry I wrote on Hypatia years ago in the Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics. I had a little fun with the telling.
But is that how the conflict should be framed?
Hypatia is portrayed as being obsessed with the deficiencies of Ptolemaic astronomy, and the reliance on epicycles in particular. Eventually this leads her to first embrace the heliocentric solar system model that had been proposed six centuries before by Aristarchus of Samos, and then (2) to discover the elliptical shape of planetary orbits.
There is no evidence whatsoever for any of this. And this is what 90% of Hypatia’s character in the movie is based on! It’s pretty much all she thinks about or talks about.
We know a great deal about late-antique Platonic philosophy – but absolutely nothing of this is communicated, even in some dumbed down movie-script form. One of our best sources for the Platonic philosophy of this period is Synesius of Cyrene, one of Hypatia’s students. But his character is also completely misrepresented. He is portrayed as a Christian from his youth, when, in fact, he only “converted”, and then very reluctantly, 15 years AFTER the destruction of the Serapaeum. And why did he convert? Because he was offered the job of Bishop of Ptolemais. Even after that there is little evidence of his truly being a Christian — but the movie has him challenging Orestes as to the sincerity of his Christian belief. Orestes, another one of Hypatia’s students, had agreed to be baptized only once he was offered the job of Prefect of Egypt (not quite sure when that happened — but it was before 415).
In the movie, Synesius eventually shames Orestes into become a more sincere Christian. There is no evidence that either one of them were ever sincere in their Christianity.
Also, I believe that pretty much everything concerning the character of Theon, Hypatia’s father, is simply made up (and some of it directly contradicts what little is known about him).
And the slave who is madly in Love with Hypatia is invented out of thin air.
Also, the massacre of Christians committed by the Pagans, which serves as the catalyst for the Christian assault on the Serapaeum is a crude attempt by Amenabar to make sure everyone thinks that all religions lead to irrational violence, even if some do so more egregiously than others. There was violence between Christians and Pagans in Alexandria, but only the most biased sources (if any them) claim that a group of armed Pagans launched a surprise attack against unarmed Christians, as we are led to believe in the movie.
I was going to say, “don’t get me started.” But now I realize it is too late for that!
Two last things: (1) the accuracy of astronomical measurements was very limited 1800 years ago. The Ptolmaic system allowed for predicting where the planets would be as accurately as any model could have with the technology available at the time.
(2) Ptolemy was a scientific genius who, in whose work on Harmonics a systematic philosophy of experimental science, in which the rigorous empirical testing of theory-based hypotheses, is spelled out in great detail.
Chas,
I didn’t see the movie, my wife did. Based on what she told me and the trailers I assume that the plot is atheists vs. the religious, not Pagans vs Christians. For an example, consider what Hypatia says in this trailer at 1:35. This is not how a Platonist philosopher would speak about her Gods. Or how about her reply to someone who told her she believed in nothing: “I believe in Philosophy”?
It looks like atheists “borrowed” a martyr.
Chas,
If you have not already, read all the comments to O’Neill’s post, and follow the links therein. It’s a gold mine.
Apuleius: Perhaps it is enough to show the contemporary audience that the ancients were thinking about scientific topics?
Denis: No, I doubt we will get much of a picture of refined, intellectual Platonism.
Tam: Indeed, I have followed some of them.
I saw Agora when it first came out in NYC and loved Weisz’ performance as Hypatia. It’s a beautifully shot film. But, I felt the moral was more about anti-fanaticism in all its forms. Amenabar with his choice of costume and casting, seemed to say “black-shirted, bearded, middle-eastern fanatics are destroying civilization”–more a fable for our times than ancient history.
I read O’Neill’s posts and agree that Amenabar distorts some history in service to his art (the Library didn’t end that way and Synesius wasn’t a jerk), but that’s what artists do. I don’t go to the movies for accurate history or science. For people who want to know more about the historical Hypatia, I highly recommend a very readable biography “Hypatia of Alexandria” by Maria Dzielska (Harvard University Press, 1995). I also have a series of posts on the historical events and characters in the film at my blog – not a movie review, just a “reel vs. real” discussion.
Chas: “Apuleius: Perhaps it is enough to show the contemporary audience that the ancients were thinking about scientific topics?”
The problem is that Amenabar has chosen to focus on only one specific scientific issue, namely that of planetary motion. And he does so in a way that is crudely propagandistic. Amenabar wishes to portray the ancient Pagans as hobbled by superstitious beliefs and slavish adherence to received tradition. It is very revealing that Amenabar can only do this by blatantly misrepresenting ancient science and ancient scientists.
Anyone who reads the first 10 pages of Isaac Asimov’s little popular science masterpiece “The Universe: From Flat Earth to Quasars” will learn, literally, infinitely more about ancient science than they will from Amenabar’s movie.