Initial Reaction....WHEW!!!

Can I just say that Antony and Cleopatra was way more complicated, and a lot longer than I thought it would be?! There were so many subplots in the reading of the play that I was so thankful for online scene by scene summaries so I could make sure I was reading the play correctly!

Let's just say that in the midst of their complicated and blossoming love, Antony and Cleopatra have to deal with war! I'm not gonna lie I was often confused by motivations of characters and I think I will have to go back and examine more of why they do what they do.

While I was reading I also found themes that I would like to go back and examine. These include the following:

~Poison references
~Manipulation of others
~How the characters choose to perceive their reality
~Nature references
~Ambition versus Passion

I actually didn't find in my initial reading as many reality crisis as I thought I would find but I want to go back and examine those. I didn't see too much of this is in the movie either actually. What really interested me why how quickly the characters are to believe things that may or may not be there.

A quick thought on the movie Cleopatra is simply, wow. It was four hours long and the first two hours actually portray a plot that happens before the play even begins! In face it is more a movie about Julius Cesar and Cleopatra at first! Not only that but Cleopatra at first had such ambitious motivations and she didn't seem as cruel or cold as the play seems to make her out to be. I just thought that was such an interesting choice to do those things. In some ways it really added to the dynamics of the relationship Antony and Cleopatra had, but it also took away. I was ready to get to the point and have the movie end after the first two hours.

Yep, those are just my first thoughts after looking at the two versions of the story so just wait for the in depth analysis to come next week!!