The Most Chaotic Film Ever Made - Cleopatra 1963

Elizabeth Taylor nearly died making this film. The sets were so extravagant they got sold off to a comedy parody. It took four costume designers, 26,000 real costumes, and a budget that ballooned from $2 million to $44 million and somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, one of the most politically brilliant rulers in the ancient world got reduced to a love story. In this video I unpack the making of Cleopatra (1963)…the London disaster, the move to Rome, Irene Sharaff's extraordinary primary-source costume research, and the affair that overshadowed everything alongside who Cleopatra actually was: a scholar, a linguist fluent in nine languages, and a strategist who held off the Roman Empire for over two decades. This is part of The Goddess Project, my ongoing series on ancient goddesses, the history of draped cloth, and why what women wear has always been political. 🔗 Watch/read more from The Goddess Project: 🎙️ Culture of Cloth podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast... 📖 Substack (research notes + essays): https://open.substack.com/pub/veronic... 📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veronicatuc... ✨ Common Era Jewellery — use code VERONIC15 for 15% off: https://commonera.com/VERONICA15 #Cleopatra #GoddessProject #HistoryGotHerWrong #Cleopatra1963 #ElizabethTaylor