Cecil and Cleopatra : a showman examines antiquity amidst the depression

The advertisements for Cleopatra (1934) suggested that the film would not be a routine survey of Roman history. Rather, it would be “one of the most stupendous and exciting productions ever seen on screen…made as only Cecil B. DeMille could make it.” In this thesis, I explore how DeMille created his incarnation of the Egyptian pharaoh. The great showman always emphasized the authenticity of his historical pageants. Yet I propose that Depression-era conditions affected DeMille’s depiction of Cleopatra. While he consulted contemporary scholarship about the sovereign, he conceived a version of the queen that would appease Hollywood’s newly empowered censors. DeMille incorporated artifacts from the tomb of Tutankhamun into his sets, but he also drew on grand nineteenth-century paintings of antiquity. Furthermore, he adorned Cleopatra’s Alexandrian palace with modish Art Deco motifs. I argue that DeMille’s anachronisms do not indicate his disregard for history, but instead evince his bold experiment. The director believed that he could bridge the divide between the past and the present-day. By combining the classical and contemporary, DeMille could create a Cleopatra for the cinema, a queen who possessed all her storied glory, but who was au courant enough to hold her own in the most modern art form—the movies. If DeMille was successful in this endeavor, his production would be truly “stupendous” and “exciting.” While watching Cleopatra, audiences could appreciate the grandeur of Rome, the glamor of Egypt, and the grand sweep of history.Art Histor