Cleopatra is a film that highlights the struggles the Egyptian queen experienced during her ruling. Julius Caesar was a leader for the Roman Republic in the film and had an affair with the young queen. Cleopatra conspired against him and manipulated him in order to gain power. The Roman became infatuated with Cleopatra along with another suitor, Mark Antony. Caesar is assassinated and Antony takes his affair with Cleopatra and marries the queen. The film shows a scandal in Rome when Antony married Cleopatra and his rival Octavian started a war over the political dispute. Octavian defeated Antony and was misinformed that Cleopatra was deceased, he then took his own life. Shortly after, Cleopatra took her own life as well.
The film is credited with its beautiful set and costume design thanks to the million dollar budget that the producers had to develop such an epic film. Cleopatra’s costumes were lavish and exotic along with other characters in the film presenting Roman culture and Egyptian culture altogether as one. Because she was a Nile queen she had a high position of power in her country, Hollywood sexualized her to present this. In some scenes she was nude presenting the ideal body of a young queen. She had many costumes in the film, and it was very difficult to keep note of them all. She is seen in the first scene wearing a sleeveless dress with a V neckline to emphasize the Egyptian queen apparel. The fabric appears to be silky and red and white which is bold and pure, this is almost characterizing her throughout her costumes. Red is also a color that is related to the Romans and symbolic in wealth. She is also seen wearing a sky blue gown in a scene that embodies her royalty. She is also clothed with headdresses that represent ceremonial elements. The jewelry she wears is almost all gold because of her royalty, but in an art view her not wearing the symbolic necklace with Caesar’s face on the gold coin, when her affair with Antony begins she no longer continues to wear it. Many of these costumes were steered to present the ancient art that are known about the Egyptians. The famous sculpture of Cleopatra is evident to try to represent her character in the movie and based on the costume design. The crown that Cleopatra is seen wearing is the ceremonial scenes I researched to be based off the sculpture of Nefertiti. She is also shown wearing a bracelet that resembles two snakes; snakes were significant in the Egyptian empire.
Cosmetics is a form of art, it consist of different tools and techniques to establish what others may perceive of someone. In relation to Cleopatra, the ancient Egyptian women wore heavy eye liner and used elements of minerals and animal fat to color their lips and eyelids. Cleopatra’s character is shown wearing heavy eyeliner and colors on her brows that are blue or green. Gender roles for makeup was not something Egyptians were concerned with. Men also wore cosmetics to adhere with their beauty standards. They also wore wigs and powdered their faces. This was clearly inspired by the history of the Egyptians.
The construction of the set also was a large part of the budget for the film. The interior design of Cleopatra’s palace was made of stone and some statues were present in the scenes to be marble. The term used to define it was a “barge” because it floated on the sea. There was an abundance of plants as well to design it to fit the climate of the geographical setting of her palace. Her temple was highlighted with gold and had statues of mythical creatures on the walls. When they were dining they used gold and jeweled goblets. The film detailed her embassy to be very wealthy, which is how historically it most likely was represented. The Egyptians were proud of their wealth and these factors are symbolic in representing their wealth. Another example that relates to Egyptian history was the feline statues on the throne, the Egyptians had believed that felines were godly. There were many presented elements of snakes on the door handles of the temple and ram heads on the furniture. The ram heads were correlated with Amon, an Egyptian god. The snakes were represented to reveal rebirth in Egyptian culture. The sphinx was also presented in the film to show more history. In one scene Cleopatra is shown in a large bathtub, which is true to the historical context because wealthy Egyptians were known to bathe than most Europeans. When Rome is presented on screen, the forum is shown which was a significant architectural design from the Roman Empire.
Although this was not quite revealed in the film, the Romans learned and gained interest in the Egyptian art. After the conquest of Egypt, Rome was provided with architecture and sculptures in the Roman forum based off Egyptian styles. According the metmuesum.org the wealthy Romans were inspired by the dress of the Egyptians which led to a new style of clothing inspired by their fashions. Long silk dresses and jewelry were brought into their culture and more enhanced in creative detail. Egypt was abundant in deserts that contained minerals and fine stones, these were traded to the Roman empire to use for their architecture. Egypt was also rich in gold, which led the creation of gold coins in Egypt. In the film, Cleopatra wears a gold coin with Caesar’s face on it.
The film Cleopatra was produced in the early 1960’s to appeal to the audience Hollywood wanted. It is not completely historically accurate but the the set and the props used to fulfill the Egyptian beauty was done in detail. They highlighted the wealth of the Egyptians in power and submerged the Roman empire into their culture. They provided an example of Cleopatra to portray their ideal beauty standards and sexualized her to the audience of this decade. The colors in the film were done symbolically to depict the difference of the Romans and the Egyptians. This film was beautiful, and the budget allowed them to fulfill the producers vision to portray an important part of history.
