a99kitten's Musings

Watched Cleopatra today. Besides the obvious fact that Elizabeth Taylor is beyond beautiful, the costuming, the sets, the filming of such extravagant scenes, make this movie so gorgeous to watch.

What is sad is that today, this movie would made almost entirely of CGI. Now, I love CGI special effects when sci-fi, aliens, etc call for it. Definitely. When imagination takes you to places that reality cannot.

But when you watch movies like this, like Gone With the Wind, The Ten Commandments, you see the spectacular effort made in making these movies. Reality can still be in place. You can make these movies with people, the right actors, sets, costumes, etc. But it is cheaper not to. Easier not to. But I find that sad. I think if you want to make a movie with majestic sweeping scenes then you need to commit.

This movie is now known for it’s pop culture references to Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and the cost. The character of Marc Antony is actually not as big as Caesar (rightfully so.) So it is kind of funny that this is known as their story when, time-wise, it doesn’t monopolize the movie. And frankly, I love Richard Burton for sure, but James Purefoy made a hotter Marc Antony in HBO’s Rome. But he is Richard Burton and that is enough.

Brutus is portrayed as a little whiny bitch as he should be. And Octavian as well (played by Mordred from Camelot so that makes sense.) Funny how the character of man can be drawn so clearly in these characters of history. There have always been people who DO and then those that are simply jealous and petty and ultimately wish those that do harm. Sad really.

What this movie definitely does do is display the beauty of Elizabeth Taylor, the beauty of movie-making from the “old days” and make me a bit sad that gone are these days of extravagant real-life movie making…