Cleopatra (1912)
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Cleopatra Movie Review
Cleopatra is a 1912 silent historical drama film directed by Charles L. Gaskill and starring Helen Gardner. It’s a movie that is very much a product of its time.
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“I shall begin to live when I die“
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In a series of elaborately staged tableaux, it depicts Cleopatra and her love affairs, first with handsome fisherman-slave Pharon, then with Mark Antony. When this movie was released, it was still a period in Hollywood history that was fueled by the production of short films. This was one the first full-length American movies that was intended to bring to the US public the style of Italian epics of the time.
Though it did not quite succeed in that quest, it needs to be admired for its historical value as one of the firsts. The main issue here is that this came before the likes of DeMille and Griffith, meaning that the technical craftsmanship simply wasn’t there, at least not when it comes to its cinematography.
The movie genuinely feels like a stage play and not a feature film due to its fully static camera used throughout. This limited style prevented the audiences to fully connect with the protagonist as we rarely see here up close. Tableaux is a great word to describe this movie as it really should not viewed in the context of modern cinema.
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Thankfully, the other technicalities were significantly better. The costumes, though far from elaborate, are actually quite strong and visually appealing, especially in the title character. The overall production design is very good and the sets are excellent. I just wish there were more of them as the film focused way too heavily on making each scene ridiculously long to the point that we have a movie that basically consist of 5 or 6 extremely long sequences with no breathing room in between.
Cleopatra is simply not an engaging time to be had. In fact, it’s quite tedious and lifeless given its technical limitations and stagey qualities. There were also too many times when the characters were talking at length and no intertitles were being added, resulting in a lot of puzzling dialogue. The intertitles that were used were solid and the opening was particularly terrific, but the rest of the movie failed to properly acquaint you with what was really going on.
This project was one of the first truly big ones for Helen Gardner, an actress who’d opened her own production company previously in a truly daring, admirably feminist move for the time. And the movie was her pet through and through. She delivered an over-the-top, but admittedly very strong and memorable performance in the context of the silent era. She is quite striking in her looks and her acting style and she commanded the screen effortlessly even at a longer distance.
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The issue here is that other characters left a lot to be desired. The movie heavily focuses on Pharon to the point that those scenes became repetitive and annoying. It needed many more moments with Marc Anthony, a much more impactful and important figure obviously. The overall storyline is clearly not historically accurate, but it’s also not particularly cinematic nor romantic as was intended. It’s not even all that tragic either. It’s just rather dull unfortunately.
1912’s Cleopatra was one of the first full-length American movies and it obviously was a product of its time. Helen Gardner commanded the screen effortlessly, but other actors were quite forgettable. The movie has excellent sets and costumes, but primitive cinematography as it focuses on static shots that made the whole movie feel extremely stagey and lifeless. It has its historical values, but otherwise it fails to properly engage the viewer.
My Rating – 3
