This looks somewhat promising. The usual cinematic portrayals of Cleopatra – from the Elizabeth Taylor version to the bizarre treatment in the usually more reliable Rome miniseries – turn her into a gorgeous but vapid sexpot. The reality was far more interesting; Plutarch said of her:
[H]er actual beauty … was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter; to most of them she spoke herself, as to the Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians, and many others, whose language she had learnt; which was all the more surprising because most of the kings, her predecessors [= the Ptolemies, i.e.Greek-speaking Macedonian conquerors], scarcely gave themselves the trouble to acquire the Egyptian tongue ….
In short, she was essentially a female analogue of Julius Caesar: brilliant, charismatic, and ruthless. Her ambition was Caesar-sized too – to carve out the entire eastern half of the Roman Empire as her own separate domain. And she almost accomplished it. (As for her alleged promiscuity, if it matters, there’s no ancient evidence for that either. We know that she had longterm relationships with two men, Caesar and Antony. Beyond that we know nothing about her sex life whatsoever.)
Now I’m not putting Cleopatra forward as an especially admirable character, any more than I would Caesar. They both had tremendous positive qualities, but they both put those qualities in the service of the business of conquering, ruling, and killing people. Not my bag. But I do claim that she was a lot more interesting and impressive than the usual simultaneously-sexist-and-Orientalist stereotype of a corrupt, languid seductress (a stereotype vigorously promoted by Augustus Caesar for political reasons of his own, incidentally). This movie project looks like we might see something closer to the actual Cleopatra.
Fascinating.
How could she be stereotyped in an “Orientalist” way when she was Macedonian? I’m not even convinced that she’s stereotyped in a (especially) sexist way: the Taylor-Burton film is a creature of its time, but even there she’s portrayed as more than a seductress but as a politcally-savvy player. And anyone who reads Plutarch knows that there’s a lot more to her than seduction. But even conceding some sexism in the popular conception of her, I don’t see any evidence of “Orientalist” stereotyping. Have you been reading Burnal again?
Aeon J. Skoble, have you ever read “Orientalism” by Edward Said? Because I’m pretty sure that it was in that sense of the word that he was talking about, not referring to the geographic region that is “the Orient”.
Well, one version of Cleopatra that I’m fond of is June Allyson’s in “Till the Clouds Roll By”. In that case, the complete lack of historical accuracy is actually sort of appropriate, since it occurs in a biopic that’s notorious for having almost nothing to do with the actual life of its subject (it was one of the old biopics that took a songwriter or composer, in this case Jerome Kern, and was concerned more with putting their songs in the soundtrack than telling a compelling life story).
sister cleo spoke troglodyte?
sister cleo spoke troglodyte?
Excuse me, you have a problem with that?
[...] 4) And speaking of Egyptians, let’s mention Cleopatra. She, of course, was not an Egyptian, but, she actually bothered to learn the language of the people she governed- a first in the 300-plus years of her family governing Egypt. The series, of course, turns her into a bimbo, using sex to keep Antony in line. The reality was far different. Some time ago, Roderick T. Long of the blog Austro-Athenian Empire has posted Plutarch’s description of her (and thus saved me the effort of going through my books, and typing it up). You can find it here [H]er actual beauty … was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter; to most of them she spoke herself, as to the Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes, Parthians, and many others, whose language she had learnt; which was all the more surprising because most of the kings, her predecessors [= the Ptolemies, i.e.Greek-speaking Macedonian conquerors], scarcely gave themselves the trouble to acquire the Egyptian tongue …. [...]