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Special Episode – Cleopatra 1963 – Cleopatra and Caesar · The Partial Historians

• Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to the Partial Historians. Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome, Dr Rad 0:23 everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr Rad Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Dr Rad 0:58 Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Partial Historians. And this one has been a long time coming. Dr G. Dr G 1:07 it has I'm very excited to be talking about the epic, grand, magnificent, over budgeted 1963 version of Cleopatra. Dr Rad 1:21 Absolutely we couldn't believe it. We realized that we've talked about this a lot on other podcasts, and then we kind of forgot that we'd never done it for ourselves. Dr G 1:32 We'll go into even more nerdy depths of what is happening in this film and why, and I'm very excited to learn from you. Dr Rad, because I know history on film is your jam, and I'm excited to see what I learned from this whole process. Dr Rad 1:48 I have some film detail for you, Dr G. In fact, I'd like to start with a quote, If I might, from the writer slash director of the film, Joseph Mankiewicz. He said that "Cleopatra was the toughest three pictures I ever made. It was conceived in a state of emergency, shot in confusion and wound up in a blind panic." Dr G 2:12 Well, and that gives us a taste of things to come, doesn't it? Dr Rad 2:15 It really does a bit of a background detail, if I might. Dr G about this film, setting it setting it all up. So 1963 when Cleopatra was released, we are getting towards the end of the golden era of Hollywood, that time when epics were everywhere. Cleopatra is sometimes blamed the end of the public's fascination with epics, but I'm not so sure that that is the case. We'll have to get into a bit of debate about that. Dr G 2:45 I think it's certainly pretty opulent. I'm happy to watch it again and again, not too frequently, though, because it is very long. Dr Rad 2:53 It is very long, and we will get into why that is in a second. But there's certainly been a lot of attention on this film since its release, and that's partly because there was a lot of publicity, obviously, around the film's production, but also since the film's release, people who were involved with the film have published books and memoirs about this movie. So we've got things like my life with Cleopatra by Walter Wanger, who was the producer. We've got the Cleopatra Papers, which was written by some of the publicity men who were involved from the side of 20th Century Fox, Weiss and Brodsky. And so there's just so much material about this film, which I think feeds into the legend itself. Dr G 3:37 Oh, excellent. I'm so glad there's good source material on this film as well, because I have planned for our conversation by thinking only about the historic, historical events and what has happened in the course of the film, and how that matches up to our ancient source material. So I think the combination of your perspective on the film production and me chiming in with little details being like, what about this might lead us down some interesting paths. Dr Rad 4:05 Well, we should perhaps tell our listeners, Dr G that this movie was originally meant to be two epic films, one about Caesar and Cleopatra and one about Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Following in that grand tradition, we think this is going to be a multi-parter special episode for us as well. Dr G 4:26 Which I think makes perfect sense, because when you do look at the film, the first two hours is Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, and then it's set up with the intermission, and you're like, alrighty, then take a short break, and when you come back, it is all Mark Antony and Cleopatra. So you can see how they might have wanted to have two separate films, but for some reason, they ended up sticking them together instead. Dr Rad 4:53 Absolutely. Now let's just go through the basic cast, just for people who may not have seen the film. As Cleopatra,we of course, have the gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor, the most beautiful woman in the world. We have Rex Harrison, veteran actor as Caesar. But Dr, G, did you know that he wasn't meant to play Caesar in this movie? Dr G 5:13 Really? He does a very good job, I think. Dr Rad 5:15 He does do a very good job. But, and this is part of the endless production troubles that plagued this film. The original actor who was slated to play Julius Caesar was Peter Finch, illustrious English-Australian actor best known for his role in Network where he's as mad as hell, Dr G, and he's not gonna take it anymore. Dr G 5:40 Oh, another classic. Okay, but he drops out and we end up with Rex Harrison instead? Dr Rad 5:46 We do, and it's purely because of the timing, yes. He had actually been, Peter Finch, was actually hand selected by Elizabeth Taylor to play Caesar. They had starred in a movie called Elephant Walk together, and she liked him, but because of all the delays, he had to move on to another project. Similar thing for our Mark Antony, of course, infamously played in the end by Richard Burton, but originally was meant to be played by Stephen Boyd, whose name you might recall, because he plays the bad guy in Ben Hur and he also stars in Fall of the Roman Empire. Dr G 6:21 Okay, so this man has been around epic films, and he's looking for his next turn. Is it a timing issue for him as well? Dr Rad 6:29 It absolutely is. Dr G 6:30 Well, I think it's really lucky that we have Richard Burton to be honest, because this is one of the things that sort of goes down in film history, is watching these two on screen together. Dr Rad 6:43 Absolutely. Now, as the producer, we have another veteran, Walter Wanger. Walter Wanger was involved in so many movies in his career, the ones that perhaps stand out, I think that people might have seen these days would be Queen Christina, Foreign Correspondent, Joan of Arc - the one with Ingrid Bergman - I Want to Live, and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He also had two turns as the president of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences in then, well, basically in the late 1930s and the early 1940s. His last film, however, would be Cleopatra. Dr G 7:23 The end of the Wanger is near. Dr Rad 7:27 And then, of course, finally, we have as director a couple of people. We had Robert, sorry, Ruben Mamulian, who was the initial director, but he was replaced with Joseph L Mankiewicz, who was an esteemed writer slash director. I adore Joseph Mankiewicz. He was involved in some of my absolute most favorite classic movies. He was the writer director of All About Eve and also A Letter to Three Wives, which I really, really recommend. If you haven't seen that one. Dr G 8:00 I haven't I'll put that on my list classic films. Dr Rad 8:04 Yeah. And finally, as composer, I couldn't help but mention Dr G, that Alex North is the composer for Cleopatra, because he was also the composer on Spartacus. Dr G 8:15 Ah, all right, another Golden Era film veteran in the wings. Dr Rad 8:23 Absolutely. He also worked on Prizzi's Honor, The Agony and the Ecstasy, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Misfits, The Children's Hour, I'll Cry Tomorrow, Viva Zapata! and A Streetcar Named Desire. Dr G 8:34 Impressive resume. Dr Rad 8:39 Yeah. So we have said, the point of all this, Dr G, is that we've got a huge amount of talent on this movie, and that's just obviously the tip of the iceberg. There'll be other notable names that come up as we go through this detail. But with all these people on board, you would think that we are going to get a priceless example of cinema. Dr G 9:00 I mean, I think we do, don't we? I mean, at the very least it looks so opulent, you can almost see the money dripping off the screen. It's incredible. Dr Rad 9:10 Absolutely. Let's talk a little bit about the money, shall we? Dr G 9:14 Please, let's. Dr Rad 9:14 So to give you a bit of an idea. Few years before Cleopatra came out, there was, of course, the gigantic success that was Ben Hur. Ben Hur cost around $15 million to make, which was pretty pricey for, you know, 1950s movies, but of course, it was a smash hit, lots of Oscars, so money well spent. Cleopatra was not meant to cost anywhere near as much as that. It had a $2 million budget and a 64 day shoot assigned to it, both of which it would blow out of the water, eventually costing $44 million in 1960s money. It's very hard, of course, to adjust for inflation, etc, etc, but it is estimated that in today's money, we'd be talking something in the neighborhood of $400 million. Dr G 10:11 Well, I mean, they're only $42 million over budget. Dr Rad 10:16 A drop in the pan. Dr G 10:17 Yeah, I'm surprised nobody pulled the plug on this film before it got well out of hand, because to spend that much money, somebody at the at the studio has to keep saying, yes, I'll give you another extension on finances for this project. And I am assuming that the film itself, in terms of, like the production days the film, you said it was 64 day shoot? I as a as a lay person who doesn't study film very often, even my understanding is that it took way longer to shoot this film than the 64 days. Dr Rad 10:51 It definitely did. And I think, look, this is why I particularly gravitate towards this movie. Because, as you know, you might have heard, I wrote a little bit on Spartacus in my time, and one of the things that I like about Spartacus is that it's a piece of history that was pieced together by multiple people. It wasn't something that was conceived of and executed by one author. And so I think it's really interesting to consider as a historian, when you've got multiple people who are contributing to the construction of something, particularly when they're doing it, seemingly in a rather haphazard manner, a lot of the time, because it really obviously affects the version that you get on the screen. And I think Cleopatra 1963 is another classic example of how this movie came together in such a haphazard way that the history as well, I think, has been affected, and that's why it's such an interesting example for people who were interested in the ancient world on film to consider it was actually originally conceived of in 1958, I believe. It was meant to actually starred Joan Collins at first, but eventually Elizabeth Taylor was the woman who was inextricably tied to this project, and it was Walter Wanger's baby from the get go, the producer, Wanger, who I mentioned before. But it encountered production issue after production issue, and it had such a troubled time, and a lot of it was, to be honest, was also out of their control. So in the very early days, it was weather that was often causing the most issues. Dr G 12:32 Okay, well, that's not anybody's fault. Can't do much about the weather. Dr Rad 12:36 Yeah. Well, basically they start the art director. So you mentioned the opulence of this movie. The art director, John DeCuir, I'm presuming his name is, had started constructing sets in places like Pinewood in England, and the weather did serious damage to these sets. Elizabeth Taylor herself was plagued by illness in the early days of this project. I think a lot of people probably know that she actually almost died during these illnesses. She had to have an emergency tracheotomy, and then she had to have plastic surgery to try and remove the tracheotomy scar. And all this kind of stuff is somewhat out of the control of the people who are working on the production. Dr Rad 12:36 Yeah definitely, these are things that you can't anticipate and you can't plan for and you just have to work around them if you want to bring the whole project to life. So, yeah, if you've got sets that have been destroyed by bad weather, obviously you have to think about where you're going to rebuild or how, and if your lead is, you know, suffering from illness and then recovering from surgery, what are you gonna do? We can't film Cleopatra until we have Cleopatra on set. You know what I'm saying? Dr Rad 12:40 It's funny how it works like that. You know, having your lead actress around, how it assists with the production. Dr G 12:40 And she's basically in every single scene. There are very few scenes which she does not appear in so the load for her, in terms of, like the workhorse nature of her having to be on screen so much throughout this film, means that she's, if she's not in top shape, you're gonna have delays. Dr Rad 12:40 Absolutely. And it's also, I think, partly, and this is where 20th Century Fox has to take some responsibility. There also seems to have been multiple decisions being made about where exactly this production was going to end up being filmed. They kept on debating, you know, are we going to proceed filming in London? Are we going to film in Rome? Are we going to film in Hollywood? Like, what is going to happen with this production? So there were a lot of delays, I think, caused by that, although they were probably responding to the problems. But basically what that means is that we're a few months into the shoot of this film. They've already spent a fortune on the movie, and they only have about 10 minutes worth of workable film. Dr G 14:57 Oh, oh no. I. Yeah, this is gonna be bad guys. I think we need to double down and spend more money. Dr Rad 15:06 Well see, and again, this is exactly it. Right? You raise a very valid point of, why would they proceed with this movie when they've already spent so much and they have very little to show for it? Why not just, you know, claim as much insurance money as they can. I don't think they could even get as much as they spent. I think by the time, I think by the time we're about almost six months in, they'd spent, you know, between six and $7 million and they could only get about 2 million back in insurance costs. So why wouldn't they just pull up stumps and, you know, take it as a loss and just forget about the whole thing. And I think that part of the reason is actually Elizabeth Taylor herself, Dr G, Dr G 15:47 Is she living to play Cleopatra on screen? Is that what's going on here? Dr Rad 15:51 She is keen to play her but I think it's more the fact that they believe in her bankability, because, and this is where we get into some of the scandal behind this particular film, Elizabeth Taylor had something of a reputation by the time she was filming Cleopatra, she'd already had multiple husbands by the time she was cast to pay Cleopatra, and her most recent husband was a guy called Eddie Fisher. Eddie Fisher had been married to American sweetheart of the screen, Debbie Reynolds. Now, if this is sounding a little familiar to some of you, yes, these are the parents of Carrie Fisher or Princess Leia of the Star Wars movies. So essentially, Elizabeth Taylor had been kind of demonized because she had supposedly stolen away Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds. And so she was very much seen as a home wrecker. She was like the evil seductress type, or as Debbie Reynolds was the the good wife, the good mother, the really cute baby faced, you know, sweet as pie actress. That was her image at the time. And this is how these two women were represented when Elizabeth Taylor went off to make Cleopatra. However, the fact that she had then become so gravely ill and then managed to recover, I think, meant that people were ready to forgive her, perhaps for those perceived transgressions, and she was awarded an Oscar, her very first for a movie called Butterfield 8. And so it seemed like this would be the moment to be on the Elizabeth Taylor train. You know, part of her her come back, in a way, not that she was doing badly or anything. She's obviously still making lots of movies, attracting a lot of attention, but it seems like this would be a moment to be part of her - I don't know what's the right word, to be part of her, um... Dr G 17:51 Her rising star. This is a moment to be capitalized upon, potentially. If she is, as you say, recent Oscar winner, then there's obviously that sort of sheen to her as well, where it's like, you're going to get to see a great actress who has a reputation that sometimes leads into the seductress, and she's going to be playing Cleopatra, who, in popular imagination, is known for seducing Roman men. Dr Rad 18:19 Absolutely. And it's always funny how the women who are chosen to play Cleopatra, whether it's real or imagined, they do often have these connotations in their personal life. Sometimes it's entirely manufactured, and it might not be a fair way of looking at them, but I think it's really interesting that they often bring that to the role you think about. Even the Cleopatra set were mooted, but never have been. I mean, Angelina Jolie was supposed to play Cleopatra at one point in time, and that was back when, you know, her personal life was a bit more scandalous than it is these days. There is often that connection with the Cleopatra players. Dr G 19:02 Yeah, let's get a artist whose personal life seems to be mirroring the artistry we'd like to see on screen. Dr Rad 19:09 Yeah. And of course, her personal life during the filming of Cleopatra would then take on a life of its own, but we'll get into that in our next episode. I think, um, now they also, I think, 20th Century Fox, really wanted to cash in on the epic, the, you know, the the genre itself. They knew that the Ten Commandments and Ben Hur, King of Kings, Spartacus, had done really well at the box office, and they were looking for something that would also bring in huge profits to 20th Century Fox. There were internal issues in the company at the time. So a Greek, American guy called Spyro Skouras was the president of Fox at the time, but there were people within Fox who were trying to get him out. That there were factions within the company and that, I think. Also affected the way that decisions were often made with this movie, skuas was definitely on board to try and, you know, wipe out the memories of box office failures that had been in recent years, to restore himself to glory with the huge success of something like Cleopatra. He also, I think, contributed a bit to the indecision about where they were going to film, etc, etc. But Elizabeth Taylor's production company was involved in the Cleopatra filming, and her production company being involved meant it had to be a European filming, which basically meant that they, instead of using Fox's own studio lots they were going to end up filming eventually in Cinecittà the very famous film studios in Italy. Now you would think that that would mean that they might therefore enjoy good weather, because usually in autumn and Rome, it's quite a nice time to be there. But as luck would have it, there was unusually stormy weather in Rome in the autumn where they were meant to start filming, and there was amazing weather in LA, so in some ways, they perhaps should have just been filming in LA. But of course, as we said, you cannot always predict the weather. Dr G 21:16 Yeah, that's unfortunate. And I guess the complexities of having Elizabeth Taylor production company needing to lean in a particular direction, where, obviously it would have been cheaper for 20th Century Fox to do it in their own studios. It's just adding complexity to what is already something that's quite complex already. Dr Rad 21:34 It absolutely is. And also filming in Rome was also going to be good for Elizabeth Taylor's health, the issues that she had had were very much focused on her lungs. London weather wasn't fantastic for that. So moving to a warmer climate was also going to hopefully mean that she wasn't going to become too ill to work again. Dr G 21:59 Very interesting. Oh, very interesting. Now, Dr Rad 22:02 I know we wanted to get into the history. Dr, G, so one of the things that I really like about this movie is that if you look it up on IMDb, whilst you will see a number of screenwriters credited amongst them, you will also find Suetonius, Appian and Plutarch. Dr G 22:18 I'm so glad to hear that, because it is very clear, from what we see in the way that the story unfolds, that somebody, at the very least, was reading their ancient sources. And I think this is really ideal, because as I was watching, re-watching, because I have seen this film many times before, I was going through and just making notes about the things that were happening, and just putting asterisks next to things where I was like, things where I was like, I'd like to check if that's a proper historical detail. That's an interesting thing for somebody to have said, or that's an interesting thing for something to have happened. Who are these people? Can I find a reference to them? And by and large, you can. So there's many interesting figures. For instance, Ptolemy, the brother of Cleopatra, is positioned in the opening of the film as having three key advisors, and one of them's the Chief Eunuch, Pothinus. One of them is his tutor Theodotus. And then there is the general who's in charge of his armed forces, a guy called Achillas. And each of these three are attested in the historical record with these names. And I think, you know, this was a great start for me. I was like, Oh, look, Ptolemy surrounded by his henchmen. And while there are some nuance of difference, so for instance, we get the story that when Pompey the great is fleeing from Greece in the wake of the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 he ends up fleeing to Egypt. It is Achillas, the general of Ptolemy and some other Romans who had been previously stationed in Egypt and had stayed that managed to bundle Pompey up and execute him. And one of the early key differences that we see in this film is that when Julius Caesar arrives in Alexandria and he meets all of these advisors of Ptolemy, Achillas is there basically as a foil to the other two advisors, and he seems to be a bit more pragmatic. And it seems that he's aware that Julius Caesar would not have been happy with the execution of Pompey, whereas in the historical record, he was definitely a key player in making sure that that had happened. But yet, what we see is that Achillas' position there's maybe slightly more nuanced in his understanding and appreciation of Roman politics than the other two advisors of Ptolemy. So we see like little differences, coming through, but the fact that they have the same names that we see in the ancient sources, and the fact that they're there at all on screen doing this kind of stuff, which is giving us this richness to what Ptolemies court looked like, I think, is impressive. Like, that's a choice that they have made in the production to be like, let's try and follow the source material for some of this stuff. Dr Rad 25:21 Absolutely and I think that this is perhaps a good moment to perhaps quickly summarize exactly what this movie covers. I mean, to be honest, it's a bit hard to know exactly what they intended to cover all of the time, because so much of this movie ends up on the cutting room floor, because they end up taking the two epics that were meant to be and forging it into one. And we'll talk about why that happened again, probably in a future episode on this. We are essentially focusing on the part of Cleopatra's life where Caesar enters so where Caesar winds up in Alexandria as he's pursuing Pompey as part of the Roman Civil War, and then ends up getting embroiled in the civil war that's going on in Egypt between Cleopatra and her siblings. And we follow Cleopatra all the way through her relationship with Julius Caesar into her next relationship with Mark Antony, and the film ends with her death. Spoilers, everybody. That's where we're going to end up. And it is interesting, I suppose, in some sense, that you could look at this film and I suppose be critical of the fact that it's therefore focusing on the part of Cleopatra's life, which involves Roman men and love affairs. That's definitely what this movie focuses on. And it was actually based on a popular Italian novel at the time by C M Franzero, and there's a little preface from that book that I thought I might read to you, Dr G. says, "women are the most interesting creatures on earth. Men can only be judged in light of their attitudes to women. The love may prompt some men to accomplish great deeds, but in a woman, love is the only motive of life." Dr G 27:02 That's it, that's, what? Dr Rad 27:03 That's, that's a little thought I'd like to read for you. Dr G 27:05 No, okay, all right, so I think one of the ways in which this film suffers is that it does seem to be trying to do two things at once, and, maybe because of the cutting room situation, it's doing neither particularly well. Because we have this sense that Cleopatra is a political animal - that does come through in the film, but it's not done ultimately, in a very nuanced way. And we also see this leaning in on like the seductress element, and this idea of Cleopatra, sort of bringing men into her orbit and then having her way with them. And in some respects, that doesn't go so well either. But what we see in this opening of the film - so to give just a quick sort of like plot summary, here we have Julius Caesar is basically turning up in Alexandria. He is met by Ptolemy the 13th and the advisors, and that's where this whole thing kicks off. And it's not until we get a little bit further into the film that Cleopatra turns up in her rolled up carpet being brought in by her loyal servant, Apollodorus. Dr Rad 28:33 Classic Dr G 28:35 Classic moment in cinema. There is a moment where Apollodorus is holding the carpet and you're like, I know there's not a body in there right now. It's not body shaped. It's just not and then there's then there's a cut, and we switch to the part where he rolls it out, and it's like, oh, there she is. Dr Rad 28:50 Surprise. She's been dieting so that she could fit into that carpet for weeks. Dr G 28:54 Ah, like she was practically invisible. And then there she was. And all of this allows us to bear witness to this idea that Cleopatra is a little bit more savvy than your average Ptolemy. So you know, she immediately does things like point out that his maps are wrong, and these sort of little gestures are a hint towards this idea that she is political, she is strategic, and it's a shame that that I think doesn't get a little bit more play time as well, but we quickly sort of deviate into this storyline where Julius Caesar is kind of forcibly, sort of seduced her to some extent, and she says, You're not going to like me this way. And I think that's a really interesting moment in this film early on, but other things that are happening. So once Julius Caesar has met Cleopatra, she's come out of the carpet, he's very excited about that, and they start working together. She makes the proposition that she should be in charge more so than the brother. And there's fighting in the streets. So Ptolemy's forces have ended up embroiled with the Roman soldiers in various ways, and the fighting that has broken out starts, it seems, on the Nile, but then progresses onto the shorelines, and we have this infamous burning of the Alexandrian library. Dr Rad 30:28 Not the books, Dr. G, anything, but the books. Dr G 30:31 Nooooo. And for anybody who watches this film who loves books, you will obviously be on Cleopatra's side. She is outraged by the burning of the library. She lays into Julius Caesar. She blames him for this, and I think that's an important moment, because it gets you on side with her. But it is also something where we're not quite entirely sure that that is something that historically happened. So people talk about the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and we actually don't know and really what is happening here. So there are some suggestions that the location of the library would have been inside the palatial complex. That's as far as we can sort of take where it might have been, because originally it was established by the early Ptolemies as a way of generating their own power and knowledge. So it should have been pretty well protected. And we don't get a sense that the palace is at any stage under threat, not in the film, not historically. And then, having said that, we've got differences in our ancient source material as well. So we've got later sources who are suggesting that the library is fine, even into the third century CE, the library is there. It is functioning. If it was burnt. It wasn't burnt to such a degree that everybody's like, we can't rebuild it. Dr Rad 32:01 It's just a light singe-ing. Dr G 32:03 It's just over, now it's gone. So if it had burnt, it is revived, or alternatively, it wasn't burnt at all. And we're really just not sure about what is happening here, but touching on it does allow Cleopatra's character to have this sort of moment in the sun with the audience, where it's like, if you like books, you're going to be on her side. Dr Rad 32:25 I think it's also meant to be, as you say, a nod to her being intellectual, that she values this knowledge, and also that she values the heritage of her own dynasty, the Ptolemies. And perhaps also, maybe more broadly, Egypt. But I think you do get a sense of her connection with her ancestors. Dr G 32:48 You definitely do, and that, I think, comes through pretty clearly in this. And the other thing that historically is quite interesting in this early part of the film is the idea that Julius Caesar is visiting the tomb of Alexander the Great. Dr Rad 33:05 I love this scene. I'm so glad you're talking about it. Dr G 33:09 I will come to the beautiful translucency of that sarcophagus. Dr Rad 33:12 Absolutely, Alexander, glistening like a little chocolate. Dr G 33:17 Hmm beautiful. I was like - the money they spent on this! Alexander the Great dies in the east. That's pretty well established. It's sudden. There's controversy about that, and the ancient source material gets really weird, really quickly about this. The idea seems to be that his body was taken quite quickly back to Macedonia, Greece, back into the area of where he came from, and was embalmed there, which I think should be our first question. And then the first Ptolemy took that body, now preserved, to Memphis in Egypt, which is nowhere near Alexandria, just for the record, and then hundreds of years after that, the body somehow gets moved to Alexandria and ends up about 1000 kilometers from where Alexander the Great died. So we have this sort of tricky story that happens over centuries where Alexander dies in one place, is embalmed in another place, is then moved a couple of times, ends up in Alexandria. We don't know too much about the tomb itself. Details are pretty thin on the ground. Strabo describes it, but he's also there in the late Republic. So to what extent that carries through into other periods. It might tie in nicely to the Cleopatra moment he's there in the sort of the 10 years after the Battle of Actium. And it seems that the whole complex is also inside the palace, and that the Tomb of Alexander the Great is particularly recessed amongst what might be other tombs of Ptolemies. And that would make sense. The Ptolemies see themselves as very much connected to Alexander the Great and the inheritors of his world. So they would obviously position themselves as being close to his body if they could. It seems that they do that. But if you wanted to see Alexander the Great, there were a couple of caveats. He was brought out to you, not you went to him. Dr Rad 35:30 Well, naturally. Dr Rad 35:33 You wait Dr Rad 35:34 And it's marm in like harm, not man like spam. Dr G 35:38 And so how long he spends in his sarcophagus is anybody's guess, because presumably he's not removed that often. But you know, they wheel him out and they wheel him back. And part of the controversy for that is, why is that even going on? But also, further to that, Alexander the Great had potentially stipulated, and we don't know why that he wanted to actually be buried in the Oasis at Siwa. Now pay attention, everybody. This is a reference to Assassins Creed Origins. So Siwa is where your main character starts in that video game. Great news, Siwa, lovely little oasis place. What would Alexander the Great want to do with that? It is not clear at all. Dr Rad 36:28 Doesn't seem grand enough for Alexander. Dr G 36:30 No, what's going on? So the other source that we have for this, because I was like, do we have any historical evidence that Julius Caesar actually visited the tomb of Alexander the Great? This is hard to track down. Everybody says that he does, but they don't usually provide their source reference, which is frustrating. But Lucan, in his epic poem of the Civil War, does talk about this in a way that is directly critical of Julius Caesar. Dr Rad 37:02 Yeah, Lucans not a fan, from memory. Dr G 37:04 Lucan is not a fan. He sees the whole thing as a disgrace, really. He sees Alexander as a "chance marauder whose sudden death solaced the world". Dr Rad 37:18 Wow. Dr G 37:20 So the idea that anybody is going to visit this particular individual in death does not rate highly on Lucan's radar, and Julius Caesar gets roundly criticized for having done it. So I'm interested in, like, the sarcophagus itself, as it's depicted in the film. What are your thoughts? Dr Rad 37:44 Look to be fair, I have never looked into what Alexander's sarcophagus might have actually looked like, because as far as I'm aware, we have no idea where Alexander the Great's body is, nor do we know where Cleopatra's body is. I'm presuming they're all underwater, like most of ancient Alexandria, but I don't think it would quite look like that. It looks almost like a Swarovski crystal, or something along those lines. What are your thoughts? Dr G 38:14 Look, because we don't know, and every so often, a new news story comes out where they're like, we found it: it's the tomb of Alexander the Great! And it's a bit like the news stories that were coming through a few years ago. Of like we found Pliny the Elder. I'm like, did you? Dr Rad 38:31 Oh, yeah, and the news stories are constantly coming through about finding Cleopatra. Dr G 38:35 So yes, both Alexander the Great and Cleopatra sit in this realm of we would love to have their bodies, because I can only imagine the kind of cheap and horrifying restorations of their faces that people would do if they thought they had that skull. Cleopatra, turns out she had a big nose. Ah, but with reconstruction... Dr Rad 38:59 But how could you tell? The nose is the part that goes first, Dr, G! Dr G 39:04 No, but, I mean, you got to look at the coinage. I think the worst that I've seen is the one that was like, clearly Britney Spears. They're like, this is Cleopatra reconstructed. Wait a minute. Dr Rad 39:16 Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Dr G 39:18 So we have this idea of we don't know where the bodies are, historically, we don't know where the sarcophagi are. And this film has a lot of sort of sarcophagi type scenes, because we've got this tomb of Alexander the Great we also then end up with what appears to be a funeral temple to the deified Caesar later on, and then we also have Cleopatra's own area for her end. But maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. Dr Rad 39:53 I would like to zoom in on what actually happens whilst they are visiting Alexander the Great because I think that this is actually the perfect scene to kind of understand the way that Cleopatra was meant to be in this film, and the vision for her, and the way that it didn't quite manage to be executed. So when they see Alexander's tomb together, Julius Caesar tells Cleopatra that he cried the first time that he came to visit because he had accomplished so little. And that's the part that you're referring to that everybody repeats about Julius Caesar's visit to Alexander's tomb. Cleopatra then urges him to carry on Alexander's dream, which she classifies as one world, one peace, one nation. Now this, oh, and of course, she wants Alexandria to be the capital. Dr G 40:51 Obviously Dr Rad 40:52 Naturally, naturally, she sees that as being the capital. But she's like, You know what? It doesn't even really matter, because we can just all be one people. And it's this moment where she reveals her pregnancy with Julius Caesar's child, which what is an intriguing possibility. Of course, we kind of write off Caesarian, the child that Caesar and Cleopatra actually did have together in real life, because he gets murdered by Octavian in the aftermath of Cleopatra and Antony losing Actium, etc, etc, as you would expect, he's perceived as a rival. However, what a fascinating possibility to have this child out there who does unite Caesar and Cleopatra's families together. I mean, the mind boggles when I consider how the world might have been different if that boy had lived beyond his teen years. But I'm getting distracted. The main thing, I think, is that they really did want Cleopatra to come across as a political, intellectual figure, whilst the love story obviously was important and the sexy stuff was important, because a Cleopatra movie that does allow you to do those things, you know, King of Kings and those sorts of biblical epics like Ben Hur it's a little bit harder to be, you know, so sexy when it's getting on with Jesus, doesn't seem respectful, you know, but Cleopatra always opens the door for a certain level of sexiness and love and passion. But they did also want to have this, and that's also, I think, because, I think that's also why they brought on board Joseph Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz was well known for preferring to write and direct powerful movies about women. So that's why I particularly highlighted his involvement in movies, like A Letter to Three Wives, and, of course, the absolutely phenomenal All About Eve. So he was really interested in women. He got along really well with Elizabeth Taylor. He kind of knew how to work with her. She was obviously huge star by the time she came on board Cleopatra. And one of the reasons, I think, that they also pushed ahead with making this film, when it seemed like all the signs were Stop, stop this immediately, just walk away, was partly because Mankiewicz was brought on board. The first director doesn't seem to have particularly impressed anyone. I don't know that he was handling everything as well as he perhaps could, and apparently he was a bit of a perfectionist. But Mankiewicz was someone who they thought was going to come in with a fresh vision, and they really did want this to be a vision that was centered around a fusion of sort of Elizabeth Taylor and Cleopatra, because obviously it's meant to be about her. And I think he wanted her to be a bit of an Eleanor Roosevelt JFK esque kind of figure. Because lest we forget, this is during JFK presidency that they are writing and conceiving of this movie. And so I think it was meant to somewhat embody, as well, a bit of the the freshness, the hope, I think, that was coming around in that early 1960s era for many Americans. And Joseph Mankiewicz, when he came on board and looked at the script, he thought, Oh, my God, this is an absolute disaster. He didn't like what he saw the one of the guys who'd been working on the early script had never even met Elizabeth Taylor. He was just judging her based on what he'd seen of her on film. And so the biggest issue that Mankiewicz face was the script, and so he desperately wanted time before he started work on actually filming the movie to write an entirely new script, but unfortunately, they wouldn't give him the time that he needed because they'd already started production, which means that people like Elizabeth Taylor were already getting paid to stay on this project. So she was getting about $50,000 per week plus $3,000 for expenses. Dr G 45:03 Oh, hello Dr Rad 45:04 Yeah, and that's just for Elizabeth Taylor. Apparently the expenses to keep the production running, even whilst it was technically shut down, was around $45,000 in terms of their overheads. The insurance company weren't going to cover their losses, and so they only gave him a really small amount of time to try and work on the script before he had to start filming again. So he did his best. There were a few other people he was working with, guy called Lawrence Durrell and Sidney Buchman, who was actually a blacklisted writer who'd moved to London to escape that HUAC era, and they sort of hold themselves up in a hotel for a while and tried to pump out the best scripts that they could. Mankiewicz wasn't thrilled with everything that he was getting from the other writers. They weren't the people I don't think that he had wanted to work with. But nonetheless, they also got a guy called Ronald McDougall who also worked on the script. So as you can see, we've already got, you know, many people coming together working on this script. It is a total mess. And what ends up happening is that they have to go into filming without a finished script. And this is a very similar situation to what happened on Spartacus, like they have a basic idea of where it's heading, obviously, and they have got multiple drafts and scenes and that sort of thing, which have been pumped out by these various writers, but they do not have one script that they know that they're going to be working from. And what that means is that Mankiewicz is signing up to not only direct the film and shoot all day, but he's then committing to writing the script at night, so in the very first period of filming. So filming resumes in September in Rome, where they kick off with the filming. He is producing and directing by day and writing at night, six days a week, and then on Sunday, that's his entirely writing day. Dr G 47:12 That sounds exhausting, and I'm not even trying to do it. Dr Rad 47:15 It is. And essentially what ended up happening was they had to make a few adjustments, as you can imagine, during the shooting, I think eventually they switched to sort of starting at around midday with the actual filming. But certainly, what Mankiewicz was doing, he ended up being propped up entirely by drugs. Basically, he was being given drugs to help him to stay awake and complete his work, and then he had to be given drugs in order to be able to sleep at night. Dr G 47:44 This is the classic tragic Hollywood studio story from this period. Dr Rad 47:49 It absolutely is, and Mankiewicz said of the strain of this film on him, I'm not biting my fingernails. I'm biting my knuckles. I finished the fingernails months ago. Dr G 48:02 Buddy. Nothing's worth this. Dr Rad 48:06 But yeah, it is. It is absolutely crazy. And this, I say this, I say all of this because I feel like it is relevant in terms of, just like with Spartacus, you don't really end up with a clear version, perhaps, of who Spartacus was, and what his rebellion was meant to be about, and all of that kind of stuff. I feel like that's why we get a slightly mixed portrayal of Cleopatra in this film, because the script was always such, you know, such a such a mess. Basically, it was always being worked on, and it was way too long, and this is one of the reasons why. Again, it sort of blew out in terms of in terms of the way that not all scenes are brilliant. I mean, even though I think Mankiewicz was a fantastic writer, definitely his writing was not always up to scratch. Rex Harrison even asked him to rewrite some of his scenes as Julius Caesar, because he wasn't really happy with them, and that's really because Mankiewicz was working under such time pressures that he would just write to get something down and didn't have time to edit them, a feeling I know well from our own projects. Dr G 49:17 I think it is pretty clear from what we see on screen, that there are ideas about how Cleopatra will be, and they're executed variably. And there's also a sense in which you, at times, are watching these performances, and you feel like the actors are being sort of pushed in a particular direction as well. There are times where all of a sudden, characters are shouting at each other. It doesn't necessarily seem like there's been an appropriate build up to that, and part of that can be put down to like filmic style of the period, but some of it also feels, feels like maybe there's some confusion about what is required in a scene. There's maybe conflicts between actors and director about what should happen, and for the actors themselves trying to maintain a sense of the continuity of the character when they're being presented with such varied material, it shows a little bit on screen at times, and not to a positive end. Dr Rad 50:27 Absolutely and certainly there was sometimes a bit of tension on the set because of those sorts of issues. Apparently, Elizabeth Taylor would often turn up late on the set, even when the starting time was noon, when they switched to what are apparently called French hours in November of 1961 so that's about, I guess, they were filming for about, what, two to three months before they switched to those different hours, and Rex Harrison kind of resented the fact that she was just turning up late and didn't really make apologies or get into any trouble for it. She also had all these special conditions as a part of her contract, like she didn't have to work for the first two days per menstrual cycle, which Rex Harrison kind of resented that she got this slightly diva-ish, I suppose, treatment. Dr G 51:14 Uh hello, has he ever had a menstrual cycle? Does he know what the first two days are like? Dr Rad 51:19 No, that's what I mean. Like as someone who is, you know, at this particular stage of my life, I'm like, well, yeah, Dr G 51:26 Like, don't ask me to be in front of a camera. Dr Rad 51:29 But just to give you an idea of Mankiewicz schedule during like these, these periods, although it did dig a little bit better with time. So after those first few months of real horror. Taylor Burton and Harrison all agreed to take salary cuts in order to try and shorten the working working week for Mankiewicz because he was just so exhausted, but he would basically be working at about 5:30 to 6am - he would take something called Dexedrine. He would then have a shot after his lunch to keep him going through the afternoon and another shot after dinner to keep him writing until around 2am and then at 2am he would be given a shot so that he could get about three to four hours sleep. Dr G 52:10 It's just dehumanizing. Dr Rad 52:13 I know it's crazy. It's amazing, actually, in a way, that they finished this movie, I can't understand how Mankiewicz managed to get through it. I mean, I think the thing is, for this particular movie, it is the end in the road for a lot of the people involved. Skouras will be replaced as the president of 20th Century Fox. Walter Wanger will also not make another movie after this. And Mankiewicz also will be kind of done in the film industry after this movie. Dr G 52:41 Yeah, everybody's going to be burnt out, that's for sure. Dr Rad 52:43 Well, some of them, they were forcibly removed. But yeah, sure, let's go with burnout. That's nice. Let's say burnt out. Yeah. It basically wasn't until the end of May in 1962 I believe that Mankiewicz had finished enough of the screenplay that he wasn't writing at night after filming all day. So, but that's, if you think about it, September to May. That's still quite a long time that he was having to work like this. Dr G 53:11 That is intense. Dr Rad 53:12 It is. Dr G 53:14 Oh boy, oh boy. All right, so some historical details. So there is a mention early on in the film that Caesar doesn't have enough legions in Alexandria to deal effectively with Ptolemy's forces. And we're reminded that Caesar only has two legions in Alexandria, and everybody's pretty sure that that's not going to be enough to deal with Ptolemy's army, particularly if Ptolemy takes a turn, which he does. And this whole situation is alleviated at a certain point by the arrival of the forces of Mithridates. And this is an exciting moment, and I immediately put an asterisk next to it, and I was like, Mithridates, what's he doing over here? This is not where he belongs usually, what is going on historically? And this is where we start to get into the broader politics of like, what is the Roman Empire at this point in time? Because they have a lot of influence throughout the whole Mediterranean. And this guy was a real figure, and he did turn up in Alexandria and support Caesar in this moment. So all of this is lining up very nicely with our historical material, this particular Mithridates, because we need to emphasize that there were many of these people with this name. He was the illegitimate son of Mithridates, the fifth Euergetes, the king of Pontus, and he grew up in the Royal Court of Pontus, not only that, but his career is bumped along throughout his life by Caesar's support. So these two know each other, and he secures a whole bunch of privileges. He's in Rome from Caesar in the 50s BCE, so before Caesar goes on his like, really long jaunt to Gaul, Caesar is playing the political field and helping this guy out with furthering his career. So when Caesar needs some help in Alexandria. Mithridates comes along and plays at the table. He is able to bring a certain amount of armed forces with him, and that helps against Ptolemy the 13th. So he gets rewarded for his support. He ends up being given some additional territory around Pontus, which he goes back to, and all of this works out very nicely for him. So this sort of stray reference in the film to this figure from the east and Caesar, playing it up as like, you all told me, two legions wasn't gonna be enough. I had a plan. Mithridates. I talked to him before I got here, everyone's like, ohhh. And we get a sense that Caesar is politically savvy. Has anticipated everything that's going to happen and already had a plan in place that he wasn't revealing to people, because that's the way he does business, and that's how he gets to be in charge of stuff. We also have the moment where Caesar acknowledges Caesarion as his son. Dr Rad 56:24 Absolutely. Dr G 56:25 This is not something that we necessarily feel like we're on a firm footing on in terms of the historical sources. Definitely, Cleopatra claims that this is Caesar's child, and the dates do line up in the sense that he is in Egypt in 47 and when he leaves later that year, he's there in 48-47 when he leaves to go back to Rome, Cleopatra does bear a child, and it would make sense that it would be his. Dr Rad 57:04 Oh, I have no doubt that it is his child. It's more that I don't think he ever publicly acknowledged him as such. Dr G 57:10 And we have this whole scene in this film where he does this public acknowledgement, which I think is fascinating, because then we get to cut almost immediately to a scene of the senators in Rome talking about Caesar and what's happening in Egypt, because bad news travels fast. And I think what's really interesting about that moment is that Octavian is already positioned as being a senator in Rome. He's there, he's in the crowd. He's making his grumpy faces that will become so classic in this film, but we see sort of a compression of Octavian's career to the point where he is already a powerful figure in Rome. Dr Rad 57:56 Which doesn't really add up with what we know. Dr G 57:58 Yeah, in this very early 40s period where that is not possible. He won't be old enough. Dr Rad 58:06 Yeah Dr G 58:07 Just not old enough. The maths is not mathing right now, but he's there, and it works from a filmic perspective. So I can see why they've done that. But this whole situation also compresses what is some pretty intense movement around the Mediterranean for Julius Caesar, which the film doesn't capture. The film kind of gives us a version of Julius Caesar's movement as he leaves Greece after the Battle of Pharsalus, goes to Alexandria, stays there for ages, has a baby with Cleopatra, gets the word that he should take up the dictatorship in Rome, and at that point, goes back to Rome. And it's a little bit more complicated than that, because he does a whole extra few trips in there. So after the Battle of Pharsalus, yes, he goes to Alexandria. By the time we get to mid-47 he sets off for Rome, and it's later that month where Cleopatra has the son. So he's not there when Caesarian is born. But he doesn't go directly back to Rome. He goes via Asia Minor. So he confronts a guy known as Pharnaces the Second at a place called Zela. And it's a shame to skip over this moment in the film, because this is Caesar's fastest victory, and is the one that prompts the phrase that we get in Plutarch, "veni, vidi, vici", I came, I saw, I conquered. Dr Rad 59:38 Nice. Dr G 59:40 That's when he does it, and then he gets to Rome. Ultimately, in October of 47 doesn't stay there for very long. Things are not great for Caesar in Rome. I mean, he's in the middle of a civil war, which he's a major player in. So he leaves in December, and he heads back to. Africa, not Egypt. So he's heading south, basically, and that is where he's recruiting new men. And in then, in early 46 of that year, he wins a victory at Thapus, which is in Carthaginian territory. And a little bit after that, Cato the Younger, one of his opponents commits suicide in Utica, also in Carthaginian territory. So it's all of this activity which then leads Caesar back to Alexandria, and then because of his role in defeating some of his Roman opponents in North Africa, that's when the dictatorship stuff starts to happen. So there's discussions of that. And so we've got this real complexity of what's going on for Julius Caesar at this point in time, which is really smoothed over by this film. As far as we can tell from the film, he's hanging out with Cleopatra, having a great time defeating Ptolemy, being at her coronation, both crowning her and then kneeling, which I think is a great move on his part. But yeah, so there's some things going on here that we don't get to see in the film, and also some things that a little bit anachronistic, but I can see why they've done them. Dr Rad 1:01:15 I completely agree with you in the sense that obviously there has been a gigantic compression. However, I guess this is where, if I was arguing from the film side of me, that is that you have to compress events often to make them fit into a film. And if we consider this to be the movie that it is Cleopatra, it's about her, not about him. And so whilst, yes, it's complicated, because obviously in trying to set her up in a particular way in the movie, they are obviously going against historical fact, and they are misrepresenting Caesar to a certain extent. I'm kind of like, what would you do? I mean, this film is already so long. How could you deal with all of this stuff that Caesar is up to and still be addressing what the film is meant to be about, which is Cleopatra's life and relationships. Dr G 1:02:08 Yeah, exactly. And we get a sense from our source material as well that what Julius Caesar really wanted to happen in Egypt is for the co-rule to go ahead as it was supposed to. He wasn't really supposed to be taking sides, and didn't really seem to want to until he had to. So the fact that he hesitates on the whole Ptolemy situation historically is not useful for this story at all, and positioning his immediate interest in Cleopatra at the forefront of what is going on here is an important device to give her the leverage, initially, that she needs in order to push herself into power as sole ruler. I mean, obviously, Cleopatra has many siblings, as you noted earlier. It's not just Ptolemy the 13th. There are others who are also trying to find their way into sole rule, and those complexities are also glossed over. So there would be a way, I think, to create a Cleopatra film that really does focus intensely on the familial politics that she's dealing with and how Julius Caesar becomes an instrument within that. But that's not how this film navigates any of this situation. Dr Rad 1:03:27 No and that's where you come back to sort of what I was saying earlier in that this film was obviously chosen to essentially kick off with Caesar entering her life and Anthony exiting it with her. And so it is very much focused on what is Cleopatra up to whilst the Roman men are in the picture a lot of the time. However, I do understand that at the time that this movie was created, I feel like they would have been less comfortable about making a movie that started before that, because, let's face it, even these days, even taking into account the wider range of source material that we have where, finally, you know, a lot of the Arabic sources about Cleopatra in translation and all of that kind of stuff. At the same time, we don't know a huge amount about Cleopatra's early life. A lot of what we can piece together about her early life we're piecing together from the movements of her family members. What's her dad doing? And what does that mean for Cleopatra? What are her brothers and sisters up to as they scheme to take the throne from their father? And so we we do know a few things, but there's not a ton of insight into her life in this time period. So I can kind of understand filmmakers in that era before second wave feminism, or all of that kind of stuff, not perhaps feeling comfortable to do that, but it does obviously craft her in a particular way. However, I think the reason why I like the Cleopatra and Caesar part of the movie more is that I like the interplay between Rex Harrison's Caesar and Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra. Obviously, it's not perfect, but I do think they have kind of a fun dynamic. I mean, it's not sexy at all, but then again, should it be? This is the thing, right? Caesar was an awful lot older, you know, several decades older than the teenaged Cleopatra when they first met. Most academics believe that whatever union these two had was largely political in nature. Sure, they might have got along. Okay, she was smart, he was smart. She's a good politician. He's a good politician. But at the end of the day, the reason that they are together is for political reasons. So I can kind of forgive the lack of sexual tension between Taylor and Harrison in this part of the movie. Dr G 1:05:52 Yeah, it does make sense, and I think we start to see a shift in the way that they are operating in political alliance with each other. When this film shifts to Cleopatra in Rome, this sort of sets up a new dynamic for them, because up until this point, it's been Julius Caesar in Alexandria, so he's had to be sort of stepping his way carefully through the local politics, as well as dealing with whatever is being thrown at him from the Romans from afar. But now we see a whole reversal of this situation, with Julius Caesar in the place where he's supposed to be, even though maybe it's more tense than we would imagine, and Cleopatra is entering into a different political sphere. I love the arrival scene of Cleopatra in Rome. I think it's one of the greatest, the greatest cinematic scenes of all time. Dr Rad 1:06:58 And, not surprisingly, a nightmare to shoot by all testimony. Dr G 1:07:03 Of course. I mean, it looks like it was done outdoors, so I can only imagine the weather. But also, Ceasarion is much older than he's supposed to be. Realistically, he should have only just been born, but he's a small child. Now, don't worry about that. He's five or six. Now, some time has passed, and we have this grand entrance where Cleopatra is gradually, slowly approaching the Roman Senate. Dr Rad 1:07:33 She's getting closer, hope she doesn't fall. Dr G 1:07:38 Is that a sphinx you brought with you? I really enjoy this whole moment, because there, there is an element of historicity about this. We do know that she goes to Rome to negotiate an alliance, becoming one of the "allied kings and friends of Rome", so that's essentially why she's there. And it's also the case that Caesar is now in a position where he's effectively won his Civil War, and he's able to conduct his great triumph. And we see a lot of white horses just putting it out there. Dr Rad 1:08:20 Hmm controversial. Dr G 1:08:21 Is it okay? That's a reference for listeners to our narrative side of the show. Dr Rad 1:08:28 That's what I was going to say, to understand why we're flagging that, see episodes on Camillus. Dr G 1:08:33 Yes, see the Camillus episodes for why that might be a problem. Caesar is now in this position where he's quite powerful in Rome, he has won this civil war. Cleopatra turning up is acceptable because there needs to be an alliance negotiated. She's now the top dog in Egypt, so she's got to get the paperwork sorted out for that. And we also know historically that this is when Caesar is starting to spend a lot of money on building programs, which includes a statue to Cleopatra. So it's all sort of happening in the right kind of way. It's not strictly historically accurate. Dr Rad 1:09:10 Yeah, historically, we know that Caesar did set up a statue of Cleopatra in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, I believe. Dr G 1:09:19 Correct. He did, and she's placed her statue is slightly smaller than the goddess's statue, but they're next to each other, cute. Dr Rad 1:09:29 Symbolism. I think this is perhaps a good point for us to perhaps start wrapping up. I think definitely the part this part of the movie, the Caesar and Cleopatra part, is the one that intrigues me most, in terms of the way that Cleopatra's identity is conceived. I'm going to ignore slightly Julius Caesar's just because, as I say, I feel like the main point of this movie is to make a movie about Cleopatra. And first of all, I think it is interesting that there actually is a nod to the fact that she is a blend of things, that she is not just one thing, because historically, Cleopatra is often conceived of in terms of her race and gender first and foremost, and those aspects of her identity and gender often reflect the context in which they are made and the anxieties of the time in which the film is made. And so we often do see quite orientalized versions of Cleopatra in very early conceptions of her, even going beyond film looking at artwork and that sort of thing her race is, is definitely something that shifts with the discourse around race at the time that something is made. And I think similar things go for the way that her gender is represented. You know, is she hyper feminine? Is she hyper sexualized? All of those kinds of things. I think what is interesting about this movie is that the whilst obviously the the way that she's dressed, the makeup, and the way that she refers to herself often does play up the typical aspects, which is the highly Egyptianized version of her playing into this idea of her as a foreigner, which I might add, Dr, G, thanks to Augustus, he was the first one to really lay up her foreignness, because it was convenient to do so when they became enemies and in the propaganda war that he ended up fighting with, Mark Antony but I'm not going to get dragged into that. Dr G 1:11:35 Save that for the next episode. Dr Rad 1:11:38 Yeah. So we have her talking to Caesar about herself being, as, you know, as fertile as the Nile, that she will bear him many sons and and certainly with the this idea of her being, being Egypt, you know, and we definitely see lots of references to her being particularly tied up with the cult of Isis, and the goddess Isis, which, again, I actually don't have a major problem with, because we know that that was also the case, and Isis is a deity who has particular connections, obviously, to Aphrodite. By this point in time, Aphrodite obviously having connections to Venus. It's all coming together with Caesar's connections with Venus as well. So all of that kind of stuff. I actually can appreciate why they're doing it. But there are also these references to her Greekness, to the fact that she is part of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Caesar himself, when she is berating him for being a barbarian in her eyes, which, I think, again, is really interesting to see Cleopatra actually spinning that racial narrative back on Caesar. He starts talking about her being, you know, the product of, you know, inbred, incestuous generations. And so he's talking about her family's practices. He's talking about her in connection with her relatives and her ancestry, which absolutely, very important to Cleopatra. We can't conceive of her without the Ptolemaic dynasty. She's absolutely drawing on what previous Cleopatras, previous Arsinoes, previous Berenices, have done in the hundreds of years that the Ptolemies have been ruling over Egypt. And we do also see these references to her Greekness, the fact that she is from this Macedonian background, which is really interesting, because you don't generally get any reference to that being made in a film whatsoever. And whilst you do also get the sensualness of Cleopatra in these representations, and you obviously the way that she interacts with Caesar, you know, the whole rug thing when he comes to visit her, bath the way that she carefully stages it. You do also get to see Cleopatra as a mother, which is generally not something that is incorporated in many versions of Cleopatra, and I think that's because as a society, we tend to conceive of motherhood as being inherently unsexy, that once you have had a kid, that's it, that part of your life is over. The sexy part was meant to just lead you into motherhood, and now that you're there, that's it. It's all about nappies and, you know, and bedtimes, nursery stories, and you don't get to have both, whereas Cleopatra's motherhood in this particular instance, it's obviously conceived of as being very political and and you definitely see only a strengthening of that bond with her and Caesar through this child, particularly because we're explicitly told that Calpurnia is barren and that Caesar doesn't have any children through her. So I actually think it's really interesting, the way it comes around, and even the fact that Cleopatra is very self conscious in the way that she stages that bath scene when Caesar comes to visit her, so that she's having just, you know, like a regular kind of little, you know, spa day or whatever. And then when she hears Caesar is coming, she's like, let's put on a show. Romans will have certain expectations, and I can't disappoint them. And so she's deliberately playing up to that idea, which, in a way, I think is kind of making fun of us a little bit in the audience, in a kind of wink wink, nudge nudge sort of way, because let's face it, we also have ideas about what we want to see from a Cleopatra movie, and often the makeup, the hairstyles, the costumes, all of that kind of stuff is is geared to meet our expectations, even though the filmmakers might know it's not necessarily the most accurate version, they know that they need to deliver something that the audience is going to accept as this is Egypt on screen. This is what Cleopatra on screen looks like. And so they know they have to hit those classic moments. Of these are in Cleopatra meeting with the rug, Cleopatra's baths. Dr G 1:15:44 Is she bathing in milk? Check. Dr Rad 1:15:49 Yeah. And in the next film, there also be those classic moments, like Cleopatra's barge coming in to meet Antony. There are those classic moments that have to be hit because they have become the real standout moments of Cleopatra and so, yeah, I kind of think it's fascinating the way that this film, actually, I feel, is playing a little bit more with her gender identity than is often given credit for. Dr G 1:16:09 Hmm, yeah, we definitely get to see her opting in to building part of the myth, if you like. I think the bath scene that you've mentioned is a really good one, because she has been spying on Julius Caesar, so she has overheard the sorts of things that he's been saying about her when she's not around, so she knows exactly what he's expecting to see in the same way that when he in another conversation that they have slightly earlier on, I think she does mention to Caesar that she knows that he went to the tomb of Alexander the Great. This is prior to them going together. And he was like, oh. It's in that moment where he realizes that she has a spy network, and she has ways of finding out information, and she's across far more than he may have previously given her credit for, and it's in that sort of exchange where you seem like, oh, maybe she is a savvy political player. Maybe I should be paying attention to this side of things. And he kind of suspects that he would be spied on, but he's not expecting the extent to which she has the information. And I think that's interesting as well, because it does put her in the powerful position in that relationship, like, you're on my territory. There's nothing that happens around here that I don't know about. Dr Rad 1:17:35 Absolutely. And I think that the way that they position it, I kind of can appreciate because it is natural that Caesar has sometimes more insight into certain political phenomena because he is so much older he's been around the block many, many times. And Cleopatra is meant to be a young woman at this point in time, sure, a young woman who's managed to survive the Ptolemaic court, so let's not underestimate her political savvy either. She's already seen her father lose his throne because of her sister's actions, and then her father take it back and execute her older sister. So I'm not trying to downplay the fact that Cleopatra obviously has grown up in perhaps even a more troubled environment than Julius Caesar has, but certainly I don't mind him being the older statesman in in this particular movie, it's done in a way that doesn't ick me, like it does in the Vivien Leigh version of Cleopatra and Caesar, where it is, it is disgusting, the relationship between them at times, and it's so patronizing, whereas in this case, I think you do get a Cleopatra who is very politically savvy. I mean, like the fact that she knows when there's, like, an attempted assassination against her, you know, she's actually sitting around being quite casual. She notices that her taster hasn't properly taken care of something, and she just very calmly, is like, drink it, drink it again, and the woman dies, you know, because it was an assassination attempt. She does have that savvy, and she does give Caesar, you know, she does talk back to Caesar. She's bold, and she shows her intelligence, but there are those moments sometimes when Caesar, obviously, can also bring in some, you know, some insight into a situation. So I do kind of like the dynamic, the fact that, you know, it is tit for tat. It's playful, but in a way that isn't disgusting, like in the Vivien Leigh version. Dr G 1:19:26 And we also see, particularly when they're in Rome, there's a scene where Julius Caesar is in council with some of the other senators, and it seems like a fairly private moment, but Cleopatra is also present, and he starts to express what he really wants, and that is to be in charge of everything. And obviously this is a little bit dramatic, and not in keeping with what we know from the historical sources, but the fact that Cleopatra is present, and the fact that towards the end of that scene, Mark Antony accuses her of being the product of this change in Julius Caesar is an interesting sort of moment, because it does lean into this idea of, can a woman sort of prompt a man in his ambitions in a particular way, which is a very stereotypical kind of seductress vision. It's a very Lady Macbeth kind of thing. But we've also just witnessed Julius Caesar off his own bat say these things, and nobody has prompted him, nobody has prompted him to say those things. He's just gotten himself worked up, and he's revealed something about his own truth that has made everybody in that room uncomfortable. She just happened to be there. Well, I think that's interesting as well. Dr Rad 1:19:26 Yeah, exactly No. I completely agree. It's like, this is what the men are seeing, but they're not really appreciating the whole picture, because it's easy to blame the woman, which is absolutely what happened. Cleopatra cops a lot of the blame. I think actually, she's kind of perfectly summed up in one of Julius Caesar's lines to her back in that scene in front of Alexander's sarcophagus, Caesar says to her, "you have a way of mixing politics and passion, but where does one start and the other end?" I think that is kind of how Cleopatra is operating. I mean, it is often seen as a, I suppose, a bit of an unfeminist thing to say that Cleopatra might have used sex in a political way, but maybe we can also say, well, these are also used sex in a political way, in this particular sense. And the advantage of being a woman, and I'm citing Dr Kara Cooney's work on this, the advantage of being a woman is that you can solidify your relationship through sex. And a child, obviously, you could absolutely solidify any relationship through sex, no matter the gender of the participants, but in this day and age, biologically, it's only possible to actually fuse that together in a child if you're a man and woman. So in a way, that is potentially an advantage that Cleopatra has in dealing with these men. And it's really nice to see a movie that actually allows that part to be included in the story, because, I say so often the focus is just on the sect, the romance, the passion, and they forget about the motherhood that is a key part of Cleopatra's identity, particularly because Caesarion ends up being someone that Cleopatra promotes herself, as far as we can see with, like the Temple of Dendra and that sort of thing, as a kind of co-ruler. She's obviously setting him up to take over the dynasty in the future, I would say. But one thing I would like to quickly highlight before we completely leave, and what reminded me about the bath scene. Elizabeth Taylor's body attracts a lot of attention and commentary, both at the time and subsequently, because Elizabeth Taylor did notoriously fluctuate a lot in her weight during the filming of Cleopatra, and that's partly because, as we've said, the filming goes on a lot longer than was intended. And look, she wasn't well. She was going through a lot, which we'll probably get into a little bit more later on, but certainly, her fluctuating weight has attracted a lot of attention, and that has also been, I think, subsumed into this idea of the excesses of Cleopatra in a way that is obviously not enjoyable, but it is also connected to the conditions that Elizabeth Taylor herself had on this particular film, which were record breaking at the time, particularly for a woman in Hollywood. Now, it's not unusual for studios at the time to want to promote a movie by combining a little bit of the character with their actress, you know, having them become sort of one and the same. So it's no wonder that Elizabeth Taylor has become so connected with this particular character that she played. And this is not the first time that this had happened to her. At the time that she was involved with Eddie Fisher and getting involved in, I was gonna say breaking up the marriage, but obviously it takes many people to break up a marriage at the time that she was involved in that triangle, let's say, and I should perhaps say, that she was friends with Debbie Reynolds, by the way, by the time she was involved in this triangle with Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, and she was recovering from the very tragic death of the love of her life, Mike Todd, who had died in a plane crash very unexpectedly. And she apparently actually sort of saw Caesar in this movie as being like Mike Todd. So, yeah, Mike Todd, being her, her Caesar, basically. She had been in a movie called Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which is about a woman of loose morals, to put it in the time, the vocabulary of time seducing somebody else's husband. So Elizabeth Taylor has has known this sort of treatment from Hollywood studios before, but her body the film itself, they all become sort of emblematic of the excesses of Hollywood, and that connects really well, obviously, with this idea that Cleopatra was supposed to be excessive. We have stories of her extravagance that are preserved to us, like the famous one from Pliny the Elder of her dissolving this amazing pearl in a glass of vinegar so that she can drink it and say she has drunk something insanely expensive that doesn't seem to be possible physically. But those stories are very popular. If you look at portraiture of Cleopatra, often, pearls are a big symbol of hers, and so Elizabeth Taylor showing off her body in this particular bath scene has definitely attracted commentary because of the way that people have had no problems talking about her weight losses and gains throughout this movie, and the way that she sometimes has, you know, abundant cleavage showing, or she often has abundant cleavage showing in all of her costumes, which were tailor made for her by Irene Sharaff, one of the big designers in Hollywood. And I'm going to finish up by telling you a bit about her salary, Dr. G. Dr G 1:20:39 Just a minute, I mean, her, her costumes are incredible. There are some in particular, I'm just like, Oh, I wish I had a body that would look that good in a costume. That's so, you know, the costume designer did an amazing job, I think. Dr Rad 1:20:39 Oh, and she look, she complained a little bit about the fact that she had to keep altering them, because Taylor's weight did fluctuate, but she had 60 costumes. Elizabeth Taylor made it very clear that she planned to steal them all because she thought that they would - she actually could see that they were going to start a trend like the Taylor-Cleopatra trend. In terms of the fashion. Apparently, Elizabeth Taylor also was allowed to sometimes do her own makeup. So some of those makeup looks might have actually been Elizabeth Taylor's own kind of invention, which seems interesting. But she attracted a million dollar fee for this, and this was the first time that any actress had received such a salary from a studio. The way that this was broken down, it was meant to be about $125,000 a week in salary, as well as other expenses, such as $3,000 a week in living expenses. Plus her food was paid for, plus where she was staying was paid for, plus she received first class round trip airline tickets for any movie location shoots for herself, three other adults and her three children that she had at the time, she needed two penthouse suites at the Dorchester in London, a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud limousine at her disposal at all times. And also, as we've talked about, her production company was involved in the production of this film, so she was also benefiting from that, which meant that the movie had to be shot in Europe, not the USA, for tax reasons, she also made sure that the movie was going to be shot in Todd-AO. Now, Todd-AO was something that she had inherited from her husband Mike Todd when he died, who had pioneered this particular widescreen technique. Now this was important because 20th Century Fox had their own widescreen technique called CinemaScope that was particularly famous, which means that she got royalties from the use of Todd-AO, and they couldn't use CinemaScope, and it meant that the sets had to be built in a certain way, because that's the way that widescreen works. You have to make sure that's going to look a certain way on the screen. So she would end up making around $7 million from this particular movie. So even though she later bad mouthed it and said that she didn't like her own performance, she certainly made a mint from it. And let's face it, she wasn't doing too badly when she entered she was already famous for being wealthy, for having had multiple marriages and love affairs and that sort of thing. So the fusion of her own identity with that of Cleopatra, the excesses of Hollywood and the studio system at the time, and the fact that those excesses seemingly lead to a downfall. Dr G 1:25:08 I do like a little bit of life mirroring art. And you know, these things are all going together. I mean, the perfect casting for Cleopatra. Dr Rad 1:29:15 I would think absolutely so. That perhaps seems like a good moment for us to wrap up. Dr G, as I predicted, this episode has become as bloated as the movie itself. Dr G 1:29:28 It is time, dear listeners, for an intermission. Dr Rad 1:29:34 We will be back to talk all about Cleopatra, 1963 and the second half of the movie with a focus on Richard Burton slash Mark Anthony, next time. Dr G 1:29:49 Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes over at partialhistorians.com You, we offer a huge thank you to you, if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. 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