It is one of the best Shakespeare films I've seen. It offers something different over the pyrotechnics adaptations or the word salad of Kenneth Branagh's, that he shouts everything in the same tone ale Will Ferrell. Charlton Heston has a way of both stepping back and stylizing it at once, in the process of honoring it; they say filmmaking is a young man's game but here is showing the virtue of mature, seasoned filmmaking. That brings us to its strength, it is a canvas of performance. It is like everyone is right at home in this universe on screen. At its worse it feels stretched thin as actor-directors sometimes struggle in creating a focused vision, but it not being an over-the-top visionary cinematic spectacle works to its favor, we have seen too many of those. The film really resonates in the days after, due to the acting and mood. It has one of the great, dramatic movie scores, and these women actors calling to mind great italian cinema, one of the best Cleopatras I've seen. Heston is always only interested in the iconic, they say he acts for statue-sculptors, not for the screen, but who has ever done it like him? It is glorious. Of course we have seen the story, the scenarios, so many times, the familiarity really hurts it, you have to see this version as its own thing.
Review of Antony and Cleopatra
