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Not to denigrate Varese's excellent new release in any way, I too think 'Cleo' the more rewarding musically, even if the film itself is flawed. Actually, the main problems with Cleo editing could have been zapped by cutting it for release as a widescreen epic TV series (a la HBO) but that simply wasn't on the cards with 1960s technology. The 'Spartacus' music is visceral and a mix of ecstasy and frustration, but also quite intimate in places. It's masculine, and appeals to testosterone and male energy. That's great, but it of course doesn't lend itself to a story about a woman. 'Spartacus' is a great immediate attention-grabber score, whilst Cleo grows on the listener with repeated hearings. (The idea that Alex wasn't 'emotionally involved' in Cleo's material is ludicrous. Not everyone's emotional sum is angry rhetoric.) I think the key with Cleo is that whilst it's not so perfectly psychologically or politically spelt out as 'Spartacus', it nonetheless tries to capture a tragic tale re a flawed woman caught up in the twilight of an age, and to make her sympathetic. Now how exactly did you do that in the early 1960s? It's a TRANSITION film from the 1950s style of epic cinema to the new decade. It's an IDEA to turn the thing into soap-opera (HBO did that rather more entertainingly), for a soap-opera-minded generation, and as an IDEA, that's worth the experiment. Consequently, Cleopatra and Burton come across as a narcissistic pair in a modern (then) potboiler. But that was surely part of the idea. No-one knew then that the Richard Lesters and Pasolinis and Polanskis and Bogdanoviches, and Richardsons, and Scorseses and Godards and Leonis etc. were about to totally change everything. It was a BET that this was a Cleo for a new generation. With hindsight, it wasn't, but who knew that? It's always a risk. In a way, the film could have quite feminist undertones, about women survivors in a dangerous world. It never went there though really, because feminists then were too busy advocating women should revolt from men entirely, and Cleo was certainly more of a Mary Queen of Scots than an Amazon. It had nowhere to go in a new world. But the music for Cleo is subtler than that of Spartacus, in the way that Ptolemaic art is far subtler than earlier Egyptian 'colossal' art. The higher profile of the jazz element was surely part of that 'modernisation for a sopa-opera' that was part of the experiment. I've always felt the 'Spartacus' score as a SEPARATE LISTENING EXPERIENCE is ruined by the ballast of the Overture that doesn't ease us into the film, is irrelevant out-of-context bombast cut'n'paste, and should have been replaced by North's original. It throws off the entire film.
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Posted: |
Jul 27, 2010 - 2:30 PM
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By: |
Ed Nassour
(Member)
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That preview was televised on June 12, 1963 as part of The Tonight Show when Carson did it out of NYC. As things became worse for Parks he kept saying "Back to you Johnny" which Carson would say "No Bert. It's all yours!" It was very funny. Red Buttons quipped "I was in The Longest Day and now I'm in the Longest Night." While I'm sure that accurately reflected Mankiewicz's thoughts, I do have to wonder if the whole context for that was some kind of comedy stunt staged by Carson's writing staff. Johnny was not the kind of person to do a gimmick like live coverage of a movie premiere unless he was going to mine some comedy out of it, and having the usual cliched kinds of interviews of typical previews I think was not something he would have done, but if there was a routine in which the arriving guests would say the *opposite* of what the audience was used to hearing, then that would be funny and a natural for what his writers could come up with. No stunt. Executives at Fox were pissed by Mank's remarks. You must understand that Mankiewicz went through a living hell on that film. He was hired after the original director Rouben Mamoulian was fired. At one point Mankiewicz was fired. But was quickly hired back. Later on, he wanted to quite, but Darryl Zanuck who had just returned to take over the reins of the ailing studio talked him into remaining and finishing it. It was Zanuck who, after temporarily shutting down the entire production, demanded that the big battle sequence be reshot. Zanuck actually directed some of it. I knew two people who worked at Fox in editorial and on that film, one being Dorothy Spencer who cut it and the other a fellow who was one of several assistant editors on the lengthy project. He took Zanuck's notes which he said took up two entire legal pads. Zanuck could watch a film and then with his photo-memory could discuss scene-by-scene what he felt needed to be improved. Unlike other studio moguls, Zanuck was extremely involved in the editing process.
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Posted: |
Jul 28, 2010 - 7:13 AM
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By: |
Les Jepson
(Member)
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I don’t believe the scores to SPARTACUS and CLEOPATRA are really comparable. The films themselves have little in common, other than they are both set in the Roman Republic, both are refreshingly free of religiosity, and both end in tragedy for their respective titular characters. SPARTACUS deals with individuals on the lowest rung of the social ladder standing up to their cruel oppressors, and has a score reflecting this good-versus-evil gist. CLEOPATRA, on the other hand, follows the fortunes of three (four if you count the brilliant Octavian) incredibly wealthy, selfish, grasping individuals who invite very little sympathy, and has a suitably cooler approach to its scoring. I like both pictures, neither of which is a masterpiece. I adore both scores, either of which is a masterpiece.
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Posted: |
Jul 28, 2010 - 3:34 PM
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By: |
RM Eastman
(Member)
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I don’t believe the scores to SPARTACUS and CLEOPATRA are really comparable. The films themselves have little in common, other than they are both set in the Roman Republic, both are refreshingly free of religiosity, and both end in tragedy for their respective titular characters. SPARTACUS deals with individuals on the lowest rung of the social ladder standing up to their cruel oppressors, and has a score reflecting this good-versus-evil gist. CLEOPATRA, on the other hand, follows the fortunes of three (four if you count the brilliant Octavian) incredibly wealthy, selfish, grasping individuals who invite very little sympathy, and has a suitably cooler approach to its scoring. I like both pictures, neither of which is a masterpiece. I adore both scores, either of which is a masterpiece. "Spartacus" is a true masterpiece(the music), "Cleopatra" is second rate North.
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I still remember one line from a review of Cleopatra shortly after its premiere: "Cleopatra may not be a turkey, but it sure has hen-house ways."
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"Spartacus" is a true masterpiece(the music), "Cleopatra" is second rate North. Prove it.
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