Cleopatra
Joseph Mankiewicz / US, 1963 / 250 min.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz’ spectacular film version of the story of Cleopatra, with its Shakesperean undertone, is a gargantuan budget-devouring Hollywood production in the tradition of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra) and Richard Burton (Marcus Antonius) steal the show as the cunning, seductive queen and the lovestruck general respectively.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve, Guys and Dolls) really went to town when he took over the director’s chair from Rouben Mamoulian. In the early sixties, the Hollywood studios were looking for an answer to the growing popularity of television. Box office sales were declining considerably. More spectacle, brighter colours and heightened drama were the recipe for attracting couch potatoes back into the cinemas – and this is exactly what Mankiewicz served up.
Longest version
Eye shows the special 251-minute version, which was made in honor of Cleopatra's 50th birthday in 2013.
Cleopatra contains a 15-minute intermission at 117 minutes.
This is part of
Special screenings
Details
Director
Joseph Mankiewicz
Production year
1963
Country
US
Original title
Cleopatra
Length
250 min.
Language
English
Subtitles
NONE
Format
DCP
Part of
Feat or Failure
Magnum opus or flawed masterpiece? No film divided opinion at the last Cannes film festival as much as Francis Ford Coppola's latest epic, Megalopolis. To accompany the première, Eye is screening a selection of other films that turned out to be way ahead of their time – in spite of not being well understood in their own era.
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