Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood

The problem with this documentary with such a bold title is its inability to tell us how exactly Cleopatra changed Hollywood. Though the opening minutes promise a look at the broader context (the twilight of the studio system due to the Paramount Decrees and the rise of television), but the film soon switches to “making-of” mode and the emphasis is placed on the production history and stories from filming (while the source of most of the complications, as they are presented, is not the unprofessionalism, greed or wickedness of those involved, but external influences that people can hardly control, such as the weather and illness). In the case of Cleopatra, there was enough of both to fill up a full two hours. Those who don’t know the details of the film’s creation will not be bored. However, it’s a shame that in the case of a film that perhaps didn’t change Hollywood but at least accelerated certain changes, more attention wasn’t given to the state in which the major studios found themselves at the beginning of the 1960s and which later facilitated the rise of the go-getting Movie Brats. (2012.10.29)