Abstract
A lavish moment of cinematic desire follows Antony and Cleopatra’s first kiss in Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra (1934). The extended single shot that composes this desire combines extreme depth of field with a compelling sensuousness at the surface plane of the image. It is a moment suggestive of the rich interpretative interventions of Shakespeare film adaptation, both rethinking concerns central to Shakespeare’s language and seeming almost to reach forward in time in the way in which it anticipates issues important to contemporary sensuous cinema theory.
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Mad in pursuit, and in possession so, Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe; Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
Sonnet 129: 9–12
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© 2014 Simon Ryle
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Ryle, S. (2014). Body Space: The Sublime Cleopatra. In: Shakespeare, Cinema and Desire. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137332066_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137332066_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46154-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-33206-6
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