Titus

TITUS / (1999) **** (out of four)

By Blake French:

"Titus Andronicus" proves Shakespeare had a dirty, violent mind. The original tragedy, one of Shakespeare's lesser known, plays like a 90's slasher film, with enough blood, guts, decapitations, amputations, murders, and missing limbs for several modern day horror romps. When director Julie Taymor adapted the play to the screen, she proved what a brave, gutsy filmmaker we have working here. It's like watching an on-screen play, with all the guts and glory of Shakespeare; the script does not even feel as if it was rewritten for the screen, but left for a modern dramatization of theater. Her film "Titus," starring veteran actors Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lang, is one of the most bizarre updates of William Shakespeare's work I can remember-and that is a very good thing.

Anthony Hopkins plays general Titus Andronicus, at the heart of the story, who, as the movie opens, returns from conquering the Goths. Ignoring the motives of his mother, Tamora (Lang), and her two lasting sons, Chiron (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), and Demetrius (Matthew Rhys), Titus ceremoniously sacrifices one of the apprehended enemies and supports the scandalous Saturninus (Alan Cumming) who is soon to be emperor.

Saturninus chooses Titus' daughter, Lavinia (Laura Fraser), to be his wife, despite the fact that she has already been plighted to Saturninus own brother (James Frain). The young couple flee after hearing the decision, causing Titus to murder one of his own disputing sons. Saturninus then chooses Tamora as his new bridal choice.

What follows is a series of memorable events that begin as a simple revenge scheme against Titus and his daughter, led by Tamora and her sons, and her secret lover, the sadistic Moor Aaron (Harry Lennix). From that point on, Titus rebels against his alliances and joins his family, including younger brother Lucius (Colm Feore), in a battle against his enemies to seek ever so sweet revenge.

Unlike the modern update of "Romeo & Juliet" in 1996, the actors in "Titus" feel very comfortable with the Shakespearean language. They all do an exceptionally convincing job bringing the beautiful language to life inside their artistic characters. Anthony Hopkins is right at home here, delivering a challenging, particularly involving, and gripping performance. Alan Cumming is perfectly cast as a sleazy slime ball. Jessica Lang takes advantage of capturing such a juicy, extravagant character and is not afraid to overact when necessary.

It is the tone, however, and the atmosphere, that makes the production so captivating. Some scenes feel as if we are in some zany, demented comedy of bleak proportions, often seized by the engaging, although unusual, sound track. In one scene, we feel uncomfortable with the sight of several young men listening to heavy rock music and playing video games in a Shakespearean movie. It is also continuously unique and entertaining. There is an absolutely stunning sequence in an orgy, and the throat slitting, cannibalistic finale seems like something Hannibal Lector would concoct.

"Titus" is a very strange, peculiar picture, often disturbing and cringe-inducing. It is not a movie for everyone. Although the film is made in a way in which I think most intelligent audiences could at least somewhat understand, it is also extremely graphic in its violence and sexual content; it is R-rated and intended for mature audiences only. "Titus" will captivate forbearing fans of its unique genre, but disgust those looking for passionate and a happy ending. I found myself reluctant at first, but once I gave myself over to the characters, story, and motives, I was simply enthralled by the dazzling filmmaking here. "Titus" is one of the year's best films.

The opening of this film had me convinced that I was about to view the most fantastic film I'd ever taken the time to sit through. Between the soundtrack and the visuals I was spellbound. The visuals have so very much be praised for, originality, flair, shock value, beauty, however not knowing anything about this original Shakesperean play I found myself in a constant state of frustration trying to piece together what was happening. My only clues came from the stream of abstract visuals. I received no help what so ever from the dialogue. I should have known better. It's Shakespear.

Enough said. If you have had no contact with this play before, the extraordinary images may hold you all the way through to the end. I didn't make it. If you are interested in taking a look, I would highly recommend you at least investigate the storyline first.

Titus is Julie Traynor's adaption of one of Shakespeare's bloodier works, Titus Andronicus. It's set in a surreal land where ancient idiom is mixed with modern dress and customs. It's not normally a form I like because I prefer my Shakespeare traditional. However in the case of Titus Andronicus though the setting is that of ancient Rome, the characters and plot incidents are an amalgamation of several stories out of Rome, so there is no real history for it to compete with. It's not like doing Julius Caesar in this kind of setting.

Titus Andronicus is a Roman general whose legions can make or break the next emperor. Rather than claim the crown himself he says give it to the eldest son of the last emperor Saturninus. He soon wishes he hadn't been that magnanimous.

The other strand of the plot involves Titus in insisting a blood sacrifice be made to the Roman Gods of the eldest son of the captured Queen of Goths Tamora. She begs and pleads for her kid's life, but to no avail. After that she starts planning revenge and she's got two other sons and a Moorish man toy named Aaron to both help her out and pour gasoline on her fires for revenge.

Watching Titus Andronicus I thought of Hamlet which also about what turns out to be a bloody quest for vengeance where nearly every principal character winds up dead in the end. But in Hamlet's case the deaths were by sword except in the case of the father of Hamlet, already dead by poison. This one is a whole matter.

And how singularly appropriate that the man who won an Academy Award for playing Hannibal the Cannibal plays Titus Andronicus. We've got rape, mutilation, throat cutting, decapitation, being buried alive, and finally what the play is most noted for, the serving of up of a tasty meat pie with the flesh of two of the characters.

Anthony Hopkins of course is the caterer and he's magnificent in the title role. He goes almost as mad as Hannibal the Cannibal in Titus. From a man who generously gave a crown away, to a blood crazed animal, Hopkins deterioration in character is truly something to behold.

He's matched every step of the way by Jessica Lange as Tamora. Lady MacBeth has nothing on this woman, she makes Lady MacBeth look like Mary Poppins. Lange brings some real passion to this part, in some ways it's a more substantial role than the title character. I would venture to say it is one of the best roles for a woman that the Bard ever wrote.

Titus Andronicus is one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays. Quite frankly it's too bloody for most tastes. I doubt it will ever make a high school English syllabus. But it's a fascinating tale of revenge, just taking hold of people until that's all they live for.

"The ideas that Julie has might to some executives seem very radical, and the play itself might be indigestible, when in the same moment they can do Armageddon 2, 3, 4 and 5 and blow all kinds of stuff up, and kill countless numbers of people! Yet chop off one hand, you rape one girl in a poetically powerful way where it actually hits - oh, no, sorry we don't do that kind of stuff. And we're certainly not going to you millions of dollars to do it." -Colm Feore, Marcus Andronicus, "Titus"

Shakespeare's tragedy Titus Andronicus is basically a formula for violence, in order for Shakespeare to gain popularity over his contemporaries. It also uses the overflow of violence to draw some pointed conclusions about the elegance and civilized society of ancient Rome. But never mind that, it's just needlessly violent...right? Of course it's violent - and "Titus" became perhaps his most popular play. But to criticize this film for being nothing but violent is to miss the point, and run the risk of hypocrisy. Feore was right in his little diatribe which I included above.

How many people were killed in Independence Day? Armageddon, anyone? Kill Bill? Kill Bill VOLUME TWO? Pulp Fiction? Batman? Hero? Spiderman? Catwoman? Just about any other Tarantino film? Gladiator? Die Hard? Terminator? Jurassic Park? Just about any big-budget film made since Gone With the Wind? There is needless violence in just about EVERY MOVIE MADE these days. And forget about television. The American Medical Association recently published a report claiming that children in the United States, living in a home with cable television or a VCR, typically witness around 32,000 murders and 40,000 attempted murders by the time they reach the age of 18.

How many of those deaths actually made us feel the desperateness and terror that would actually result from a violent death, of either someone we love or someone we just met moments before? How many of those films had a message that could not have been achieved without all the blood? For all the above films, the deaths involved were there to invigorate us because we've grown accustomed to watching violence, and our version of the Coloseum is now the "action" film genre. We think seeing someone torn in half by two dinosaurs (which were cloned from age-old DNA in order for all of to enjoy the violence as if there weren't enough instruments of violence still living) is really fun. We don't want to be repulsed by murder, which of course we ought to be, but we find it entertaining nonetheless. That's a little sick if you ask me, and THAT is the point of Julie Taymor's film version of "Titus."

"Titus" was directed by Julie Taymor, a brilliant stage director (and for whom this film is her first) worlds away from James Cameron, and about as far removed from Hollywood as you can get. Taymor is renowned for her stage direction, and based this film in part on her recent off-Broadway production of "Titus Andronicus. She also directed and designed the costumes for a musical you may have heard of, called "the Lion King," for which she she was awarded several Tony awards. So her unique and self-consciously absurd visual style, combining modern and ancient design elements in order to suggest that violence has been one of man's favorite past times throughout the ages, really shouldn't be that surprising.

But it is that style which points to the fact that this is not a typical Hollywood film. A typical Hollywood film would be a romantic comedy or a drama about drug abuse and sex. Producers have to take major risks on these films, because most people don't know that Shakespeare can be riveting, or even fun. It isn't better or more worthwhile than any other type of cinema, but it does happen to be one of the underdogs.

Taymor directed this picture with the obscenity of today's culture of violence firmly in mind. Why did the film begin with a deranged, yet oh-so-normal eight year old boy playing with menacing action figures, watching television and killing and destroying everything in sight? Seems out of place, right? Except his appetite for violence creates ratings for television producers which perpetuate the whole phenomenon. So in an abstract way, he conjured up the violence - which then becomes "Titus," and he's made an active participant for the remainder of the story. Perhaps if someone had taken Arnold Schwarzenegger into the Roman colloseum after he finished making "T2" he would've felt a little differently about his actions, too.

In other words, it's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.

PS -

As for the ridiculous notion that Shakespeare "reads better than it sounds," any ounce of credibility left in the angry critique of "Titus" which inspired this message was pretty much wholly obliterated by that comment. I suppose we have been force-fed infantile dialogue with more expletives than adjectives for too long, and have now decided to hate and reject screenplays that appear to be smarter than we are. Or smarter than we have been led to think we are...shouldn't we welcome the challenge of deciphering more mature language?

Taken from the Shakespeare play 'Titus Andronicus', A very dark humored and brutal work originally, Julie Taymor isolates and drives upon the very force that brought William Shakespeare to his immortal success: Shock your audience.

A Roman General(Titus) after loosing many of his sons as soldiers in battle returns to a war-hungry Rome days after the death of Julius Ceasar. You're introduced to the story as the two sons of the Emperor petition to succeed their Father. Superficially this story is an all-out-tragedy. Underneath, however, it's a causticly ironic tale to see a man forge the tools of his own suffering through his own arrogant and selfish misdoings, then to eventually find shame and humility.

This movie is so packed with metaphor most viewers find it intimidating. It's an amazingly seamless telling of a story using time-specific visual references to outline the characters and events. i.e. the nazi-esque motorcade, biker costumes appear similar to the Italian fascist movement, evident paranoia. While the rival motorcade appears symbolic of John Kennedy and symbiotic trust.

The costume design is fabulous, obvious 1960's Glam/GlamRock design influences carefully illustrate the vanity and narcissism of Roman culture at the time using flashy wool-lined synthetics. I openly covet the cape Titus wears. Shakespeare took particular pleasure mocking a society with conveniently and easily deniable Gods, such that the Gods themselves treat their fates as tragic playthings.

And I digress... my main point is Shakespeare built his fame on being what has always been considered taboo and edgy: sex, violence, death and profanity. Julie Taymor having not missed a beat with the visuals, which are terrible and powerful at times, only seek to punctuate tragedy, much unlike its 1999 counterpart 'Titus Andronicus' which focused more on hate and revenge making for very unreasonable 1 dimensional characters.

My advice: Watch this movie more than once. Every time I do I glean more from it. Tony Hopkins and Alan Cumming both give some of the best performances of their careers, Moreover one of the best directed films ever IMHO.