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Monumental Cleopatra: Hollywood’s Epic Film as Historical Re-imagination

2013; De Gruyter; Volume: 131; Issue: 2-3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1515/anglia-2013-0033

1865-8938

Elisabeth Bronfen,

Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis

Taking Nietzsche’s discussion of monumental and critical history writing as its theoretical point of departure, this article discusses the double voicing and self-reflexivity of the Hollywood epic film. Even as Scott’s Gladiator (2005), DeMille’s Cleopatra (1934) and Mankiewicz’ Cleopatra (1963) bring grand events of the ancient world to the screen, they appropriate the past for the present. The excessive visual style typical for Hollywood’s monumentalism, furthermore, explicitly foregrounds the cinematic medium, exceeding and transcending any verifiable past so as to produce an affective, visceral historical re-imagination. At issue is a re-appraisal of the past through its subsequent cinematic recyclings.