This truly has a cast of thousands. All before the age of CGI, there are hordes of costumed people all doing something all the way to the horizon. It is spectacular.
Elizabeth Taylor is supposed to be playing a teenager. No amount of makeup can disguise the fact she is 30. I pegged her as 40 because of her double chin and rather plump back and thighs that she reveals in a massage scene.
Cleopatra is a spoiled brat, and nobody plays spoiled brats better than Elizabeth Taylor.
I thought it would be all costumes and spectacle, but it has an interesting and involved plot.
The violence in the first part of the movie tends to occur off screen
The most jarring scenes were the dancing girls in either Day-Glo bikinis or pasties looking like they had just stepped out of a Texas stripper bar. The real Egyptians were not shy about breasts. Day-Glo colours abound. I am pretty sure they had not been invented yet.
For pure spectacle, Cleopatra's entrance into Rome is indeed amazing. Each stage of it is replaced by something even more astounding.
What makes this movie work are the crowd scenes. The whole screen is alive with action. There is so much going on, you cannot possibly take it all in. These crowd scenes are so much more impressive than anything you see in modern movies.
One of the odd things, though many of the characters lead entire countries, they never spend any time at all in administration. They make no laws, consult with no committees etc.
One scene I found jarring was when the library at Alexandria burned. Cleopatra expressed distress that a Jewish bible had been destroyed. I found that highly improbable. Compare that with the one-of-a-kind Greek and Roman documents lost.
Cleopatra is such schemer. She is so Machiavellian. She is like Lady Macbeth with her snake-like ambition. You would think anyone on encountering her would run in the other direction. Yet we know from history both Caesar and Mark Anthony were ensnared. In the scenes where she tries to be seductive, I just felt creeped out. Perhaps in 1962 that sort of behaviour was considered sexy. Perhaps she was trying to project insincerity.
There is a great scene where Octavian persuades the senate to go to war with Egypt for the silliest reason. The ensuing war is pointless and depressing. The wild excitement at the start of the war contrasts with the sombre actuality.
I normally find battle scenes in movies exceedingly boring. However, here they were interesting, fascinating and original. They were full of terror, sadness and dread.
The language, especially in some of the longer speeches was stilted. I had some trouble understanding it. It was almost Shakespearian.
The musical score has nothing in it that evokes Rome or Egypt. It is like Mantovani soaring strings. It feels out of place.
Elizabeth Taylor is supposed to be playing a teenager. No amount of makeup can disguise the fact she is 30. I pegged her as 40 because of her double chin and rather plump back and thighs that she reveals in a massage scene.
Cleopatra is a spoiled brat, and nobody plays spoiled brats better than Elizabeth Taylor.
I thought it would be all costumes and spectacle, but it has an interesting and involved plot.
The violence in the first part of the movie tends to occur off screen
The most jarring scenes were the dancing girls in either Day-Glo bikinis or pasties looking like they had just stepped out of a Texas stripper bar. The real Egyptians were not shy about breasts. Day-Glo colours abound. I am pretty sure they had not been invented yet.
For pure spectacle, Cleopatra's entrance into Rome is indeed amazing. Each stage of it is replaced by something even more astounding.
What makes this movie work are the crowd scenes. The whole screen is alive with action. There is so much going on, you cannot possibly take it all in. These crowd scenes are so much more impressive than anything you see in modern movies.
One of the odd things, though many of the characters lead entire countries, they never spend any time at all in administration. They make no laws, consult with no committees etc.
One scene I found jarring was when the library at Alexandria burned. Cleopatra expressed distress that a Jewish bible had been destroyed. I found that highly improbable. Compare that with the one-of-a-kind Greek and Roman documents lost.
Cleopatra is such schemer. She is so Machiavellian. She is like Lady Macbeth with her snake-like ambition. You would think anyone on encountering her would run in the other direction. Yet we know from history both Caesar and Mark Anthony were ensnared. In the scenes where she tries to be seductive, I just felt creeped out. Perhaps in 1962 that sort of behaviour was considered sexy. Perhaps she was trying to project insincerity.
There is a great scene where Octavian persuades the senate to go to war with Egypt for the silliest reason. The ensuing war is pointless and depressing. The wild excitement at the start of the war contrasts with the sombre actuality.
I normally find battle scenes in movies exceedingly boring. However, here they were interesting, fascinating and original. They were full of terror, sadness and dread.
The language, especially in some of the longer speeches was stilted. I had some trouble understanding it. It was almost Shakespearian.
The musical score has nothing in it that evokes Rome or Egypt. It is like Mantovani soaring strings. It feels out of place.