Titus - the movie

This movie really gets under my skin. In a good way- very effective.

Visually arresting, especially when Lavinia is left to die in the desert.

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I've got this movie on DVD. I think Laura Fraser is wonderful in it and Anthony Hopkins is pure deliciousness. It also solidified my belief that Jessica Lange is a goddess and James Frain is a freaking hottie.

Wasn't this one of the earliest plays that Shakespeare wrote? It's definitely not his best, but I think this movie brings the bad parts out and accentuates them with campy sequences (as Calvin said) rather than trying to hide them or de-emphasize them and I think that worked really well for this film. Julie Taymor truly embraced the play with all its faults and really brought something spectacular to the screen for all of us to enjoy.

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Updated On: 3/29/06 at 03:10 PM

Ironically, TITUS ANDRONICUS was Shakespeare's most successful play of his career. It was his big populist hit. With its over-the-top melodrama, he was trying to outdo Kyd's seminal play THE SPANISH TRAGEDY, which is similarly violent and features an old man descending into madness.

I loved the movie, and I thought Taymor really understood the material, its strengths and weaknesses. It IS a highly flawed play -- it's not as poetic as Shakespeare's other work, and some of the dialogue is atrocious -- but it can be incredibly moving, and you can see various character types and themes that he would refine later in his career.

When I was in Rome, I tracked down the Palazzo della Civilita, or the "Square Coliseum" building that was featured in the film. It's quite a surreal sight!

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This play is only flawed in the sense that it was shocking to it's audience at that time, but is hard to update. Flawed in the same way that all of Shakespeare is flawed -- what happens is universal, but somehow hightened to fracture: very Elizabethan in scope, really.

Julie really got the essence of the show -- namely, exploring the multitude of violence(s) that exist. This flick is real proof that Julie is one of the best (if not the best) directors working.

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The play is flawed in its contradictory narrative and its strange character motivations: why does Titus admit to writing a letter indicting his own sons? Why does Titus, a man of great political and martial savvy, express his support for Saturninus as emperor, when Bassianus is clearly the better choice? Taymor did wonders trying to provide explanations for these incongruities, but they're still present in the text.

The play depends more on visual symbolism than Shakespeare's other works; if you ask me, watching TITUS ANDRONICUS (and not just Taymor's version) is a bit like admiring an expressionist painting. But the imagery is rather heavy-handed and overwrought (even for Shakespeare); for example, the scene where Lavinia picks up Titus' severed hand with her mouth. That's why most people call the play a tragicomedy (even though it doesn't really quite fit that genre and is written before tragicomedies became popular), because it borders on macabre humour. Taymor was brilliant enough to latch onto that and combine high tragedy with lowbrow farce.

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Updated On: 3/30/06 at 12:49 PM

See, if the "problem" is internal stability of character, then you should criticize Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and all the others. All of these people do brash things for little-to-no reason. All of these folks engage in bloody moments of melodrama. All of these plays have multiple styles in the same play. And all of these plays center in on a theme and explore it wonderfully -- including Titus A.

I understand why modern audiences have issues with the play, but for me, it will always be one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.

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