So I came across this trailer on youtube depicting a film with Rachel Weisz named Agora. The film is based on real events detailing the life of Hipatia a philosopher and scholar who lived in Roman-Egypt. She was a mathematician, astrologer and scientist! Yes she sounds pretty amazing, particularly considering the time she was living in. Hipatia was born in Alexandria in Egypt at ~ 350 C.E. and was the daughter of the curator of the Museum of Alexandria. Her father tutored her in various subjects from a young age. However when the Christians rose to power she was shunned for being a pagan, and ultimately for . One day when she was in a carriage, she was pulled out of it by an angry group of people, stripped naked and beaten until she died. Her body was then burnt. Sadly all her works were also burnt and destroyed.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Agora.
She is quite an interesting person and it's a shame that we don't have a lot of material about her or written by her! So I'm hoping to watch the movie soon :)
Yags!
xx
Posted by Yags at 2:32 AM
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2 comments:
I saw Agora when it first came out in NYC and loved Weisz' performance as Hypatia. 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 history. If you 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.
thanks for the comment and I will take a look at the biography, because Hipatia seems like a really interesting person. And I also looked at your blog, it's amazing :)
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