Antony and Cleopatra (1972)

          Though he probably thought of himself as an actor in the classical sense, Charlton Heston was inextricably linked with a florid performance style. Whether he was fighting postapocalpytic vampires, parting the Red Sea, or telling a damn dirty ape what to do with its stinking paws, Heston’s best lines were often screamed at ear-splitting volume. Like Spinal Tap’s customized amps, Heston went to 11. This preamble should calibrate expectations for Heston’s directorial debut, Antony and Cleopatra, adapted from Shakespeare’s immortal play. The movie doesn’t work, for myriad reasons, but it speaks to an interesting mixture of misguided artistic ambition and pure thespian ego. Watching the movie, one can actually feel how badly Heston wants everything to coalesce.

          Set in ancient Rome and Egypt, the story takes place after the death of Julius Caesar, and it depicts the tragic romance between Caesar’s second-in-command, Mark Antony (Heston), and Caesar’s former lover, Queen Cleopatra (Hildegard Neil). When the tale begins, Antony is part of the triumvirate ruling the Roman empire, but he becomes so obsessed with Cleopatra that he merges his armies with her forces in Egypt. War among former allies ensues, and the whole situation is complicated by Cleopatra’s caprice—although she betrays Antony’s trust more than once, he keeps returning to her. Quite literally, this is the stuff of legend, so Heston’s grandiose style isn’t inherently incompatible. Had an experienced filmmaker taken the reins and kept the star focused on acting, Heston’s interest in the material could have delivered stronger results.

          Alas, Heston the director is the worst enemy of Heston the leading man. In addition to silly indulgences, such as gigantic close-ups during macho speeches and a semi-nude scene showcasing the actor’s burly physique, Heston displays a stunning lack of visual imagination. Antony and Cleopatra is shot roughly in the style of the leaden ’50s Biblical epics that first made Heston a star, even though the flat lighting style and ultra-wide compositions of the ’50s had become boring clichés by the early ’70s. Additionally, Heston took erratic liberties with the text. (He’s credited as the principal screenwriter.) Heston excised a huge swath of the play’s opening passages, making it impossible to track how Antony and Cleopatra became involved—and yet he retained massive speeches that could easily have been trimmed, notably Cleopatra’s final monologue.

          And while Heston delivers basically competent results with intimate scenes, since the mostly British supporting cast is adept at handling Shakespeare’s language, the battle scenes are laughably disjointed and old-fashioned. Damning the whole enterprise to mediocrity is the casting of Neil as Cleopatra. While she’s attractive and skillful, she’s nowhere near magical enough to persuade viewers of her character’s power to change the course of history, and her pale English features seem ridiculous whenever she occupies the same frame as dark-skinned extras.

Antony and Cleopatra: FUNKY

Macbeth (1971)

          Roman Polanski’s intense adaptation of Shakespeare’s legendary “Scottish play” arrived in theaters with unwanted baggage. On a superficial level, the project raised eyebrows because it was the first feature film financed by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, and some critics made sniggering connections between the picture’s startling nude scene (more on that later) and Hefner’s skin-trade notoriety. On a deeper level, however, Macbeth was the first movie Polanski made after his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, was murdered by crazed followers of Charles Manson. Accordingly, a lot of critical ink has been spilled analyzing the parallels between the bloody style of Macbeth and Polanski’s presumed need for catharsis after a horrific tragedy.
           Both attempts to draw a line between real life and reel life probably have some basis in validity, but it’s equally fair to simply say that Polanski found a gritty style suiting the morbid nature of Shakespeare’s play—after all, Macbeth traffics in such dark subject matter as betrayal, guilt-ridden hallucination, lethal ambition, and witchcraft. So, while there’s no question that Polanski made the material very much his own (lest we forget, he was making creepy movies before the Manson massacre), it’s wrong to marginalize this powerful film by relegating it to the status of a salacious historical footnote.
          Adapted for the screen by Polanski and Kenneth Tynan, the movie stars brooding UK actor Jon Finch as Macbeth, the nobleman who fulfills a supernatural prophecy by seizing the Scottish throne after murdering a king. Fierce and lean, with deep-set eyes and a honeyed voice he uses to spit daggers of dialogue, Finch gives an extraordinarily committed performance. He’s matched in potency by beautiful leading lady Francesca Annis, who portrays the scheming Lady Macbeth; the aforementioned nude scene, one of Polanski’s boldest directorial flourishes, features a deranged Annis sleepwalking while she delivers the play’s famed “Out, damned spot!” speech.
          Right from the beginning of the film, Polanski immerses viewers in a gritty vision of 17th-century Scotland. Clothes are tattered, skies are gloomy, and terrain is wet with mud. Combined with the shadowy cinematography by Gil Taylor and the churning score by The Third Ear Band (whose music employs instruments and modalities extrapolated from the story’s historical epoch), Polanski employs his unglamorous realism to create a world where death and intrigue feel commonplace. Yet the director also employs his special gift for cataloguing the madness of men by accentuating the fevered quality of speeches that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth deliver; one gets a sense of two people driven mad by exploring the outer edges of avarice. Macbeth isn’t a pleasant film to watch, aside from the gorgeous music of Shakespeare’s words, but it deserves a place among the most distinctive screen treatments of the Bard’s work.

Macbeth: GROOVY

Julius Caesar (1970)

          Although the idea of Charlton Heston playing classical roles always inspires trepidation, Heston is quite potent as Marc Anthony in this lusty adaptation of the Shakespeare classic. Instead, it’s the usually impeccable Jason Robards, playing treacherous senator Brutus, who underwhelms. Whereas one might expect Heston’s distinctly American persona to be an impediment in this milieu, his flamboyance fits the grandeur of Shakespearean English; conversely, Robards’ internalized moodiness is too quiet for director Stuart Burge’s muscular approach to the text. Screenwriter Robert Furnival hacked a few passages from the play, shortening the running time and making room for flourishes like an elaborate battlefield finale, but the core of the piece is intact. In 44 B.C., Roman emperor Julius Caesar (John Gielgud) cements his power through military victories, sparking fears among senators like Brutus, Casca (Robert Vaughn), and Cassius (Richard Johnson) that Caesar will seize absolute control. Brutus and his fellow conspirators murder Caesar, triggering a civil war between the conspirators and forces led by Caesar’s best friend, Marc Anthony.

          Burge gives the picture a standard sword-and-sandals look, with extras in flowing robes flitting across soundstages crammed with columns and staircases, so the piece doesn’t really take flight until Burge moves onto location for the climactic battle. That said, he builds an insistent pace and employs enough movement in his blocking to avoid filling the screen with long stretches of static talking heads. Plus, with its scenes of assassination and civil unrest, it’s not as if Julius Caesar lacks for inherent drama. Among the supporting cast, the standouts are Geilgud, bitchy and grandiose as a leader drunk on adulation; Johnson and Vaughn, calculating and cruel as men whose ambition trumps their loyalty; and Diana Rigg, sexy and sly as Brutus’ wife. Ultimately, however, the movie hinges on the interplay between Brutus and Marc Anthony. Robards seems uninterested throughout most of the picture, though his performance gains vigor after the assassination, but Heston is on fire from beginning to end. Clearly relishing the chance to play one of the great roles, Heston attacks monologues with the same animalistic energy he usually brings to the physical aspect of his performances, so he’s magnetic even though his performance choices are obvious and simplistic.

Julius Caesar: FUNKY