Cleopatra

Cleopatra has been portrayed in many different styles on both film and television throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from Theda Bara’s temptress in the 1917 production to Leonor Varela’s warrior-queen in the 1999 film and Lyndsey Marshal’s version in the television series ‘Rome’ in which she uses sex as a political tool. ‘We all create our own version of Cleopatra and what we see in her tends to reflect our own cultural traditions’ (Fear, 2008, p. 24).

The best-known twentieth century cinematic depiction of Cleopatra’s story was the 1963 film that took her name. Cleopatra was played by Elizabeth Taylor, in which, despite being an actress famed for her beauty, the film focused more on Cleopatra’s wit, charm and intelligence. In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s film, Agrippa remarks that Cleopatra is ‘…sharp of wit. Queen Cleopatra is widely read, well versed in the natural sciences and mathematics…one would consider her to be an intellectual’ (Cleopatra, 1963). The fact that Cleopatra was played by a white actress insinuates that she was of European heritage rather than the recent Afrocentric theory that she may have been of African descent.

Likewise, in the 1999 movie, Cleopatra was again played by a white woman, in the form of Chilean actress and model Leonor Varela; this is an example of cinema focusing on Cleopatra’s reputation as a beauty. However, whilst in earlier productions Cleopatra was portrayed as consolidating her power through seduction, in this more modern adaptation she was not only a seductress but also more strong-willed and even sword-trained.

In the British-Italian television series ‘Rome’ Cleopatra is portrayed by Lyndsey Marshal as a pragmatic ruler who happens to be an opium user. This character could be said to have drawn influence from earlier depictions of Cleopatra. Like Varela’s Cleopatra, Marshal’s was strong-minded and resolute and like Theda Bara’s Cleopatra in the 1917 silent movie, Lyndsey Marshal’s character was also a sexual predator (Trevor Fear, speaking in ‘Cleopatra’, 2008, track 1). She deliberately seduced Julius Caesar in order for him to impregnate her and secure her a foothold in Rome through their child. This sheds a different light on Cleopatra that earlier versions of her in film and television had steered clear from.

Twentieth and twenty-first century reproductions of Cleopatra’s life have tended to focus their emphasis on the stereotypical view of her physical beauty rather than her charismatic traits and as a woman of European and not African ancestry by employing good-looking, white female leads in her role. However, her intelligence was hinted at by Agrippa in the 1963 film. Whilst Lyndsey Marshal’s Cleopatra gained political alliances through sexual exploitation which transformed the earlier depictions of her as a more all-rounded character.

References:

Fear, T., (2008) ‘Cleopatra’, in Moohan, E. (ed.) Reputations (AA100 Book 1), Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 1-28

Mankiewicz, J. L. (1963) ‘Cleopatra’, London, Rome, 20th Century Fox

‘Cleopatra’ (2008) (AA100 Audio CD), Milton Keynes, The Open University