Cleopatra Scene

 At the beginning of the Cleopatra movie, Julius Caesar came to defend Alexandria and the scene I want to focus on was the scene when Julius was on the castle wall and called out to his army to form the "turtle" and they marched out. This was a large scale shot some the Camera angle was backed out so you could see the whole battleground and the army or platoon marched out into a crowd of enemies. It cut from shot to shot. It started out far but they got close to add more intensity and showed some people die to give you the feeling that you are on the ground watching it happen. The Scene took place at night and they wanted to create an ominous aura to the scene because most humans have some fear of what is lurking in the dark. This is the same reason why in scary movies they always have the victims or characters in dark places, to create a scarier vibe. It wasn't all black though, there were fires scattered around the battleground so you had just enough light to still understand what was going on. The mise-en-scene was collected of smaller infantry soldiers but they add some big objects that were the catapult that was firing on the walls of Alexandria. The director used those catapult to bring more order to the viewer. They made it clear to the viewer that those catapults were the object and that once the catapults were destroyed the conflict what somewhat resolved. They could not have a long and drug out fight scene they needed to show the military excellence that Caesar had. All of these attributes of the scene gave the mood of conflict and intensity. The message was to show all the viewers that Julius Caesar was a great leader and a very powerful commander.