A movie review by my reader and occasional guest blogger, Jean Claude Volgo:
The film Agora deals with the life and times of Hypatia of Alexandria, arguably the most illustrious woman in the history of Greek science. The scant historical accounts of her life dwell on the gruesome death she is reported to have suffered in the hands of a Christian mob. Yet this part of her story (tragic as it is) is less compelling than her reputation as a leading mathematician and astronomer at the twilight of ancient pagan culture.
A beacon of the Hellenistic Age, Alexandria in the late C4th was becoming the epicenter of escalating social tensions between various religious factions vying for political power. The authority of an impartial Roman governor was under constant challenge by Jews and Christians. Yet in spite of the political turmoil, Greek science flourished in the Library of Alexandria under the mathematician, Theon. Hypatia, his daughter, would have been well versed in Geometry and Astronomy under her father’s tutelage. To understand how she became memorialized as a Martyr of Science, we need to step back to an earlier period.
Greek Astronomy was based on a geostatic and geocentric cosmology. A complex system of interlocking circles had been proposed by Ptolemy (c. 150 AD) to explain what seemed to be erratic planetary orbits. The system was designed to preserve the Greek geometric ideal of uniform circular motion. Although generally accepted, this astronomical model was weighed down by its unwieldy complexity. Could Hypatia have raised doubts about the Ptolemaic system? This is the intriguing question underlying a pivotal theme in Agora. The film speculates that Hypatia toyed with a simpler heliocentric model and may have even proposed elliptic orbits for the planets (a theory in keeping with her own publicized study on conic sections). Furthermore, we know that she was schooled in Neoplatonism, which assigned a prominent role to the Sun in a universe guided by intelligent design. In short, could Hypatia — an avowed Neoplatonist — have been perplexed by the incongruity between Ptolemy’s inelegant theory and her own ideal image of a heliocentric system?
Agora is a courageous film: intellectually, for its bold imaginative leap; visually, for the meticulous depiction of ancient multicultural Alexandria with its famed Library. Rachel Weisz is an intrepid Hypatia, unmoved by ardent suitors, and defying a superstitious mob. The film dramatizes the clash between pagans, Christians, and Jews. Amenábar deserves credit for his unapologetic exposure of the savage horde that brought down the Library of Alexandria and extinguished the life of one of its most celebrated luminaries.
Agora broke box office records in Spain, but failed to get wide distribution in the USA.
