For this woman who was very ambitious in the beginning, I couldn't believe she would have real love, just like a certain female emperor in our country, when all she wanted was political power, she always How can you easily fall in love with the same ambitious man when you are in a conspiracy and calculation? It wasn't until she chose not to yield to Octavian and chose to die with Antony that I realized that she might really be in love.
Maybe this is what the director wants to show us. This beautiful appearance and intelligent inner master of a country is actually a simple woman who is fragile and needs protection. She constantly communicated with the Roman rulers to protect herself and the country, and she was seeking a peace of mind for herself. It may really be a luxury for a woman like her to talk about love, but nothing can stop her from loving.
In fact, this is a love story, at least that's how the director handled it. But we see more than that, we see the power of Rome, the wealth of Egypt, the wisdom of Caesar, the beauty of Cleopatra. The director did his best to show us such a grand historical masterpiece, we can see the dazzling palaces of Egypt, the powerful ruling power of Rome, the clothes that Cleopatra never repeats, the passionate Egyptian dance, the old-fashioned And the radical Roman Senate... All this, the director is trying his best to restore, so we can see a real story and be deeply attracted by it.
From the setting to the number of people, it is still a huge production today, let alone in 1963. When the Hollywood director almost devoted 20th Century Fox's family property to complete this work, many people were full of emotion. Indeed, in contrast to today's Chinese film market, influenced by various ideologies and interfered by various market competitions, we are already reluctant to do such a trade that is only for art and history, and it is not profitable. In the box-office-dominated film market, it's hard to produce great films.
Some time ago, I attended the Rear Window Film and Art Film Summit Forum hosted by Xiaoxiang Film, and I heard from every art film creator the pain and difficulty of making art films. It also deeply sees the various contradictions between art films and the market. I don't want art films to change themselves because they cater to the market and audience tastes (of course it does need to change), but we can't change the aesthetic tastes of the broad audience in a short period of time.
For a movie like Cleopatra, I admire the film's financial backer because he deeply understands that what he is doing is a very meaningful thing. Maybe what we need to learn is not only the technology, but also the spirit of making movies.
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