Ancient and ArchaeologyÌý permalink
News of a remake of Cleopatra
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by Rachel (U5769524) on Monday, 2nd July 2007
I've been surfing the net and I've seen alot of messages about making a Anthony and Cleopatra movie. It is to have the same production and direction crew that was on Gladiator. These could just be rumours but people are saying that Catherine Zeta Jones would play the part if offered and their thinking of Hugh Jackman to play Anthony.
What do you think about these rumours and who would you want to play the leading roles ? -
Message 2
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Tuesday, 3rd July 2007
If you were going to be authentic about it, you'd be looking for a couple of less than attractive actors! Not to mention them being virtually indistinguishable.
I assume this is just a movie about Cleo, not a film version of the Shakespeare play? -
Message 3
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 3rd July 2007
It does not matter much of who is going to play Cleopatra... at least they should present her a bit more realistically... thus not as an Egyptian, of course not as a black ... she was a greek girl, descendant of the Macedonian aristocratic family of Ptolemey - that had the bad habit of too much intermarriage to be any close to Egyptians, in fact after 200 years in Egypt none of them had learned a word in Egyptian and Cleo was the first to decide for the fun of it to learn some foreign languages including Egyptian.
I also hope that the whole story does not circulate around sex - it gives yet again a bad name to female rulers: for those who know Cleopatra despite her young age and the dodgy way she ascended on the throne, was a very educated woman that took Egypt in a very bad financial and political situation and in a few years made it again a very rich kingdom that could very easily maintain its power in the east fo her and her descendants, unless everyone else in the east had let in the Romans to the point these were inflated so much thus becoming unstoppable.
I think also that Cathrin Zeta Jones is too beautiful to play Cleopatra that had been described as not beautiful, not ugly, a simple girl (with a relatively big nose - well Greeks generally sport such noses) that however was charming due to her character. -
Message 4
Posted by generallobus (U1869191) on Tuesday, 3rd July 2007
I agree Nik, alas tho' I fear that Hollywood will get 'names' and 'faces' to play the roles. Please god not Orlando Bloom. I don't think he'd make a good Anthony either.
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Message 5
Posted by Rachel (U5769524) on Tuesday, 3rd July 2007
If they did make the movie do you think they could film it in Egypt or has it changed to much. I suppose they would use cgi instead. The movie suggests a remake of the classic Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton saga but it will have to appeal to the greater public who are now getting fed up with Hollywoods version of history.
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Message 6
Posted by generallobus (U1869191) on Tuesday, 3rd July 2007
Joxer
Most of ancient Alexandria is now under water so I fear a big CGI fest. -
Message 7
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Tuesday, 3rd July 2007
was charming due to her characterÌý
Not to mention the aforementioned wealth
Apologies, I'm in a cynical mood.
Recently a lot of fuss was made because of the 'discovery' that Anthony and Cleopatra were not exemplars of beauty thanks to a denarius of the pair being uncovered (in vain did the historians and archaeologists point out that they'd known that for ages).
The infamous coin (Cleo is the one on the right, with 'Cleopatra' written next to her. It seems hardly necessary to point that out, but it's astonishing how many people fail to spot it!):
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Message 8
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Tuesday, 3rd July 2007
After Syd James's uncannily accurate (I fear) portrayal of Mark Antony in "Carry On Cleo" I am afraid that any poor sod now asked to follow in Syd's sandals is on to a loser.
Mark Antony: All right, look here Marcus...
Spencius: No, no, I'm Spencius. It's my brother what's Marcus. We're in partnership now, you know. Marcus & Spencius.
Ìý
That film also answers one of history's great imponderables, albeit with the help of Coronation Street etc. All those who wonder what Cleopatra would have looked like had she lived to old age have only to think of Amanda Barrie as Cleo sitting in her bath of asses' milk (aaaaaaahh - oops, pardon me!) and then fast forward thirty years to Barrie as Alma Sedgewick on the Street or as Bev Tull in Bad Girls. Boy was Mark Antony a lucky man to opt out at the ass and milk point! -
Message 9
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 4th July 2007
Info for women (and those dandy men): the donkey-milk thing has been tested and really works for the skin, it makes it really soft with a nice feeling. Cleo and the ones that told her so knew something more.
Now, I do not know how much does it cost to bath every now and then in a small pool of donkey-milk... considering a litre of cow milk = 1 euro but this is produced to scale thus 1 litre of donkey milk must have around 5 euros (do not forget that donkeys were not selectively mated to produced more milk but to carry more!). A woman will need some 100 litres, hence it will cost 500 euros per bath. I do not know if it really worths but 500 euros for Cleo must had been the tip she left for the wine-waiter. -
Message 10
Posted by Helena99 (U8659848) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
"All those who wonder what Cleopatra would have looked like had she lived to old age have only to think of Amanda Barrie as Cleo sitting in her bath of asses' milk (aaaaaaahh - oops, pardon me!) and then fast forward thirty years to Barrie as Alma Sedgewick on the Street or as Bev Tull in Bad Girls. Boy was Mark Antony a lucky man to opt out at the ass and milk point!"
Yeah, like Syd James was SO hunky!!!! (was that man ever young, I wonder?!)
Personally, as long as they get someone as unlike the appalling Liz Taylor as possible, I'll be grateful. Even so, I expect, depressingly, they'll still have her played as a sex kitten and then as some kind of dominatrix hooker, making a patsy out of MA.
They'll inevitably say she was 'Caesar's mistress' (wrong - a mistress is a woman financially dependent on a married man - Cleo was only politically dependent. The financial obligation went the other way!). Then they'll 'forget' to point out she actually MARRIED Antony.
I seriously doubt the role can be adequately cast at all - Janet Suzman wasn't bad on stage donkey's years ago, but they still played it for sex, alas. -
Message 11
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Janet Suzman wasn't bad on stage donkey's years ago, but they still played it for sex, alas.
Ìý
That little apostrophe between "donkey" and "s" is vital, ain't it !!!!!!!! -
Message 12
Posted by Helena99 (U8659848) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Sorry you've lost me! Guess it should be 'donkeys' years'?
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Message 13
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
No, I think you were right first time - I was simply contemplating the sentence's meaning without an apostrophe there at all, which in turn prompted some rather alarming and graphically bizarre fantasies involving Ms Suzman, the stage, and a member of the species Equus Asinus (I hasten to insert that JS is a lady who I have always admired from afar, but more for her thespian skills, I must confess, than her bestiality proclivities).
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Message 14
Posted by Anglo-Norman (U1965016) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Nordmann, if I might say so, you have a knack of making perversion sound elegant.
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Message 15
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Crude perversions might be adequate fare for the hoi polloi and those who deserve the insertion of a large "common" between their "lowest" and their "denominator", but some few of us try to rise above such aggregation while plumbing the depths of our depravities.
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Message 16
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Fnrr, Fnrr. you said Plumbing. Fnrr, Fnrr
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Message 17
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Must you always impersonate a 1970s telephone when you encounter the word 'plumbing'?
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Message 18
Posted by Backtothedarkplace (U2955180) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Fnrr, You said it again, Fnrr
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Message 19
Posted by Rachel (U5769524) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
So who do you think could play the main parts?
If I could've made this movie years ago I would've had Christopher Plummer as Anthony. He's a top actor. I can't think of any top actors to play the parts with justice. Who do you think would be perfect for the movie past and present ? -
Message 20
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Thursday, 5th July 2007
Mark Anthony was by all accounts a rather stocky surly thug-like creature who was getting on a bit, while Cleo is anybody's guess. Contemporary descriptions aren't too clear and the coin image can't be relied on, but the consensus is plain-featured, with a Greek nose (ie. one that ends at some point two inches above the forehead) and a rather unfortunate addiction to cosmetics applied witha trowel, but with oodles of charm that lent her an attractiveness that worked for men (well, at least two that we know of).
I'd plump for Ray Winstone (without make-up) and any female wearing Star Trek Deep Space 9's old Bajoran prosthetics and blacked out teeth. -
Message 21
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Friday, 6th July 2007
Of course this famous "greek nose" that ended some miles above the forehead existed only in stylised artistic work - in anthropologic findings in the area there is nothign to set a basis in that and even in the descriptions we have about Greeks in general they are described as average height, most often brown or black hair/eyes, large heads, large eyes, large noses (not long noses). Usually in more realistic statues we see that description and none of that elongated "greek nose".
It is interesting that the anthropologic tribes that are closer to that style of nose can be found in Caucasus from the Asiatic side of it (Persian-related tribes etc.).
However, Cleopatra most probably had simply a large ugly nose that however did not reduce her charm that was mainly boosted by her witty character. -
Message 22
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 6th July 2007
Nah - the Greeks have them alright Nik. I've seen them. I've even held a mirror up to the odd disbelieving Greek to show them what they have. But they just can't see past their own noses those people!
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Message 23
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 9th July 2007
That Greeks have a particularly large and long nose that indeed starts from high above the lower part of the eyes that it is true (like that they are the most hairy tribe on earth and they have of the highest percentages for bald men also etc. etc.) but then that is our charm - what I am saying is that the exact "prototype", the nose that begins above the line of the eyebrows was never a main feature of Greeks, and in fact it is a very rare human feature. Greeks like so many other people, in the statues of their Gods they had to put some uncunny style thus they put such features. In later Hellenistic times they put more realistic types of noses, while in mid-Byzantine times the prototype had been rather a more curvy - Armenoid style nose.
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Message 24
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 9th July 2007
Oh come on Nik! You're talking to people who have been to Greece too you know! We've all seen the 'special opticians' where Greeks can buy spectacles with telescopic bridges in them, not to mention the separate passport control channels in Greek airports with the extra high ceiling for Greek nationals and the little yellow line on the floor set the crucial few centimeters further back from the booth (with the extra hole cut in the glass two inches above the one you hand your passport through). Or for that matter the Greek newspapers with a similar aperture ready cut in the centre between the staples 'for readers' comfort' when reading said periodicals in constrained places like buses and trains. It's nothing to be ashamed of - and denial is a very destructive thing, you know!
I agree about the Greeks having the hairiest bodies on the planet (while ironically being the baldest on top). And the men are even worse!
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