Cleopatra (1963)

The film Cleopatra is an interesting story that follows a large sum of Cleopatra’s life up to the point of her untimely demise. The first part of the film covers Cleopatra and Julius Caesar’s relationship. With the help of Caesar, Cleopatra is named queen of Egypt. Cleopatra starts to plan for a future with Caesar. She fantasizes about the two of them ruling the world together. Cleopatra and Caesar ultimately marry, and Cleopatra gives birth to their son. After returning to Rome, Caesar becomes the dictator. He extends an invite for Cleopatra to join him in Rome. Shortly after this Caesar is assassinated. When his will is read, however, it recognizes Caesar’s adopted son to be his heir rather than his and Cleopatra’s son. Cleopatra leaves Rome to return to Egypt.

Eventually Antony and Cleopatra begin an affair. This affair is ruptured when Antony must marry Octavia to prevent political unrest. Cleopatra is furious and eventually Antony divorces Octavia and marries Cleopatra. This sparks controversy and through a series of events Rome declares war on Egypt. At the end of this war Antony is tricked into believing that Cleopatra has killed herself, which he responds to by ending his own life. Cleopatra’s son is killed during the war. Eventually, Cleopatra is then offered by Octavian that she might rule Egypt but now as a province of Rome. The film ends with Cleopatra, with the the help of her assistants, taking her own life.

Despite some obvious dramatization, this film did a great job of showing some of the absurdities of Roman politics. I had no idea how deep Cleopatra’s involvement in some of these later Roman political moments was. I also had no clue what the actual relationship dynamic between Caesar and Cleopatra was before this. I feel as though it can sometimes be undersold as a brief affair in which Caesar spent a bit of time in Rome, but it was ultimately a fling. This film showed that that was very much not the case. Because our class mostly covered the time period up to this point, I also didn’t know much about Mark Antony. It was very interesting to learn about his involvement/relationship to all of these moments in history. I had also somehow missed in history that Cleopatra took her own life. I feel like this movie filled a lot of gaps in my historical knowledge about this era, while also being very entertaining.