Canter Bridge

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The actual events that led to the siege of the Alamo and the establishment of the short-lived country called Texas lie shrouded in the fog of contested legends. Like the Middle East today, two peoples necessarily tell the story of the same land in far different ways. It is often said by Texans today that Mexico is achieving through immigration and fecundity what Santa Ana could not.

Under such circumstances, there is room for a dramatic retelling of one side’s story. The Alamo does that, and superbly. Jettisoning the attempt to see events from the Mexican point of view – it would have made for more textured history but a failed film – this movie simply tells the story of a heroic stand that many of its heros must have known was doomed from the start.

In the end, Mexican General Santa Ana’s Napoleonic ambitions die in an eighteen-minute battle at a place of Sam Houston’s choosing.

I work with leaders. Successful leaders usually have far more opportunity to draw on patience and fortitude than heroism. Yet in the heroism of this film and in Houston’s patience, there are many lessons.

David (or was he Davey?) Crockett wearing his legend lightly. Houston refusing to be drawn in to battle when blood and anger were running hot. A young Lieutenant Coronel being told that ‘sometimes it’s just the way you say things’ and discovering that stooping to burn his own hands on a hot cannon ball that someone else could have carried provided the elevation that had eluded him by command.

These are the film’s enduring lessons. They can be told even when the history is sketchy, because somewhere, right now, some human being whose knees are shaking is becoming a hero in just this way.

A brilliant film, well shot, cunningly told, sincerely acted. Even Santa Ana would have admitted that much.