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Bluray was first experience with this film about a year ago.
I cheated though and saw the wonderful "Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood" making of first. I don't know why but this makes older films easier to approach. I did this with GONE WITH THE WIND as well.
As for the film....its fucking GORGEOUS but that isn't enough although it nearly got me there to really liking it but I found it to be OK. It really was like nothing I'd ever seen especially because of how REAL it all was. The supporting cast was spectacular [and really, what a cast!] and the three stars all shined well enough but Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Rex Harrison are well...awful at generating heat or passion or romance for one another. I never ONCE bought the chemistry at all and it was even more jarring how ALIVE they were in other parts of the film.
Am I the only one who saw this or do I need to visit it again?
Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor were amazing in THE MALTESE FALCON and Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw were blistering in THE GETAWAY but these three didn't do it for me.
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Posted: |
Aug 11, 2014 - 8:03 PM
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By: |
pp312
(Member)
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As for the film....its fucking GORGEOUS
Well, I don't think that activity occured in films in 1963, and it probably isn't even necessary in a post in 2014.
As for Cleo, the biggest (of many) problems with the film is the advance publicity the Taylor/Burton affair generated. I don't mean expectations; I mean editing. The story is fascinating, and the romance angle (there probably wasn't that much historically) is about the least interesting take on it. Vastly more interesting is the way it split the Republic, which perhaps it what Cleo intended all along. I'm sure without the Burton/Taylor scandal the film would have been edited much more along political/military lines and been the better for it. In Oz it was edited just a few days before the premiere to a blueprint from Fox USA, and I'll warrant some great battle scenes went on the cutting room floor in favour of lingering shots of Liz on massage tables, Liz in the bath, Liz and Dick face sucking etc.
Despite being the titular star, Liz should have been minimized. She was never a great actress (that voice!), and at this level, with dialogue occasionally striving for Shakespearian dignity, she was utterly out of her depth. In fact she reminds me now of Jason Robards in the 1970 Julius Caesar, and that's a genuine insult.
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... and the score of course is beyond words.
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Dear REAL -
One of the contemporary reviews -- was it TIME Magazine? -- remarked on the lack of ardor and excitement in the clinches between Liz and Burton, adding words to the effect of, "Maybe because they were tired from too much rehearsing."
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A couple of irritants in the film:
Someone refers to Sosigenes as Sisogenes.
I would pronounce it as soe-SI(short "i")-gen-eeze, but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ6CMN6VmDs
I wouldn't worry about the video Greek, George. I see it's spelt:
'S?s??????'.
The guy on the vid is modern Greek, pronouncing a MODERN name and he says 'Sossyjennees', like those dogs that can be trained to say 'sausages'.
But in 1st Century Greek, the gamma was always a hard 'G' and the 'eta' was like 'AY', not 'EE' though the omega was indeed a long 'o'.
So it's really 'Sowsiggenase' (with the 'ase' as in 'case', and a hard G as in goat).
They're always going to Anglicise these names in a script. In 'Troy' people kept using 'correct' pronunciation and Menelaus became 'Mennylouse' (which is correct but absurd), and Priam became 'Preeam' (which is also correct but absurd). But if there's an old long-standing theatrical pronunciation in English, then that's what's needed for an English-language film. For years (and indeed in Robert Wise's film earlier) actors said 'Menelayus' and 'Pryam', not correct but good in English. Obviously some Germans on 'Troy' didn't see it that way. I'm surprised O'Toole didn't sort them out.
P.S. Here we go again: no Greek script on the pages. Sorry about the above ????? thing.
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Dear REAL -
One of the contemporary reviews -- was it TIME Magazine? -- remarked on the lack of ardor and excitement in the clinches between Liz and Burton, adding words to the effect of, "Maybe because they were tired from too much rehearsing."
LOL
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Posted: |
Aug 13, 2014 - 7:32 AM
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By: |
Rozsaphile
(Member)
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I think the film's reception was a significant chapter in the evolution of journalistic movie reviewing. After all the hullabaloo, the critical verdict was eagerly awaited. Bosley Crowther's notice in the NY Times sounded a positive note: "FORGET the fantastic sum that "Cleopatra" is reported to have cost. Forget the length of time it took to make it and all the tattle of troubles they had, including the behavior of two of its spotlighted stars. The memorable thing about this picture, which opened last night at the Rivoli, is that it is a surpassing entertainment, one of the great epic films of our day." Of course there were lots of similar notices from the low-grade hack reviewers who abounded in those days. This was to be expected. Newspapers feared that the movie companies might pull valuable advertising if their reviewers dumped on important studio product. It took an upstart writer in the rival NY Herald Tribune, Judith Crist, to tell a different tale: "I must report that this film is at best a major disappointment, at worst an extravagant exercise in tedium. . . . All is monumental – but the people are not. The mountain of notoriety has produced a mouse." I can't recall whether Fox did in fact retaliate against the Tribune. Within a few years there were plenty of other young Turks, like Pauline Kael, who were unafraid to speak truth to power.
Was Crowther sincere at the time or had he withered under pressure? I don't know. But it did seem curious at the end of the year when "one of the great epic films of our day" did not rank among his ten best of the year.
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I always thought Crist's review of CLEOPATRA was a career move, an intentional effort to bring herself into the spotlight, make people aware of her. Interesting, because in later years, she reputedly reversed her opinion of CLEOPATRA, saying it wasn't as bad as she'd originally announced.
With her review, in effect, Crist was presenting herself as the mouse, standing up against the elephant, Fox and the established studios. The review was actually more about her, and less about the movie.
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