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Titus (1999)

Posted By: Someonelse
Date: 1 Jul 2011 13:03:27
Titus (1999)

Titus (1999)
DVD9 | ISO | NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | 2:42:18 | 7,84 Gb
Audio: English AC3 5.1/2.0 @ 448/192 Kbps + 3 Commentary tracks | Subs: English, Spanish
Genre: Drama, Fantasy | Nominated for Oscar | Italy, USA, UK

One of William Shakespeare's lesser-known plays, Titus Andronicus was staged in New York by award-winning theatrical director Julie Taymor in an acclaimed 1995 production, before her widely praised Broadway version of The Lion King. Taymor revisits that production for her first motion picture, with the addition of a star-studded cast. Roman General Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins) has returned from defeating the Goths in a bloody battle, but the victory has left him with mixed feelings, as the war took the lives of several of his sons. Titus is reminded by his first-born son Lucius (Angus Macfadyen) that their faith demands the sacrifice of an enemy prisoner as a gift to the gods for their victory. Titus chooses the eldest son of Tamora (Jessica Lange), the Queen of the Goths, who has since been taken hostage by Titus's troops. Tamora pleads for her son's life, but Titus goes ahead with the sacrifice. She then becomes the lover of the new emperor of Rome, Saturninus (Alan Cumming), a weak-willed and corrupt man. Tamora uses her connection to the throne for her own ends: in retaliation for the death of her son, Tamora and her surviving sons, Chiron (Jonathan Rhys Myers) and Demetrius (Matthew Rhys), brutally rape Titus's beloved daughter, Lavinia (Laura Fraser). This act sets in motion an ever-tightening spiral of revenge and retaliation that leaves few of the participants unscathed. The supporting cast includes Colm Feore as Marcus, Harry Lennix as Aaron, and James Frain as Bassianus.

IMDB

Best known for her groundbreaking costume design on Broadway's The Lion King, Julie Taymor brings equally arresting visuals to Titus, her take on William Shakespeare's bloody tragedy Titus Andronicus. In her directorial debut, Taymor displays a bag of tricks one might expect from a seasoned auteur, making for a grand, lush production that feels very much of the moment. Starting with the blue war paint smeared on Anthony Hopkins' face, Taymor splashes color throughout locales that better resemble a timeless fantasy world than ancient Rome, such that the film pulses with life. Taymor even uses the freeze-and-spin camera effect popularized by The Matrix during the film's violent denouement – yet another of many indicators that the play's themes are divorced from a specific place and time. She doesn't shy away from the extreme bloodiness of the play, which scholars consider one of Shakespeare's weakest, perhaps because the excessive murders, rapes, and tortures aren't redeemed by memorable dialogue. It's not always an easy film to watch – near the play's end, two characters are butchered and served in a meat pie – and it's definitely not appropriate for children. Less an exercise in interpreting a play than bringing a painting to life, Titus is worth seeing not only for its visual sense, but for typically strong performances from Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Angus MacFadyen, and particularly Harry Lennix, who seethes hauntingly as the villain Aaron. It also marks a splashy debut from a director who proves herself master of multiple media.
Derek Armstrong, Rovi
Titus (1999)

Titus opens with an unexpected scene: a young boy is playing with toy soldiers in an increasingly frenzied manner, when strange figures burst into the house and snatch him away; they reappear on the floor of the Roman Coliseum, where a legion of ancient Roman soldiers march in, moving with the slow rhythm of a dance. These are the soldiers of the Roman general Titus, bearing home his dead sons from a war against the Goths. And from here the movie progresses onward from stateliness into the darkest depths of the human soul… and back again.

Titus (1999)

The child, who eventually becomes identified with the boy Lucius in the play, acts as a stand-in for the audience. Drawn in unwillingly, the boy is at first an outside perspective on the events, horrified by the cycle of violence that the characters are caught up in. Gradually he becomes more and more involved, just as the viewers do.

Titus (1999)

Taymor’s Titus is staged with an original and startlingly effective form of modernization. The setting is a surrealistic version of the modern day, with hints of ancient Rome in the architecture, clothing styles, weapons, and so on. There’s no attempt whatsoever to set the film in the real historical period of ancient Rome; neither is it “updated” to our own current society. What we have is a world of its own, where elements like cars and arcade video games serve not as anachronisms, but as reminders that the events of Titus could be today’s events. Taymor’s innovative staging reminds us that the core issues of the film (revenge, justice, madness, humanity) are issues of human nature and will always be with us in the modern day just as in Shakespeare’s time. As an enthusiast of accurate period drama, including Kenneth Branagh’s more historically accurate Shakespeare films, I was perhaps slightly biased against Taymor’s experiment… but she handles the material with a clear, consistent artistic vision, and won me over wholeheartedly.

Titus (1999)

The heart of the film, of course, lies in Shakespeare’s gorgeous language, which Taymor presents unchanged except for the necessary editing out of some scenes to bring the length of the play down to movie length, and in the complex characters. The acting is top-notch, which is no mean feat considering that Shakespeare’s dialogue is, though beautiful, also very difficult to deliver in a natural way. Anthony Hopkins is perfect as Titus, taking the character from a stiff-necked warrior who sees duty as the be-all and end-all of his life, to a tormented, all-too-human father on the verge of madness. Jessica Lange as Tamora, Queen of the Goths and Alan Cumming as Saturninus also turn in memorable performances. The supporting cast is also excellent; really, there isn’t a weak performance in the lot.

Titus (1999)

I was initially concerned that I’d have difficulty following the story of Titus, since this was the first Shakespearean movie I’d seen in quite a while without having read the play first. However, there was no need for concern, as it was entirely watchable without knowing anything about the story beforehand. The play itself is fascinating; in many ways it feels quite different from Shakespeare’s other plays. Titus Andronicus is in fact one of his earliest plays, and draws on the popular “revenge tragedy” genre of the Elizabethan period. But while its pacing and sheer bloodiness is somewhat unlike his later plays, there is the same creation of complex characters and the same dedication to tackling difficult themes as we see in his later plays. Throughout the play, and thus throughout the movie, supported by the visual imagery, are woven the themes of justice and mercy, of duty and reasoned obedience, and of revenge and forgiveness. There is no easy resolution to any of these opposed themes in Titus; drawing conclusions is left to the audience.
Holly E. Ordway, dvdactive
Titus (1999)

Disc features:
- Director's Commentary
- Scene Specific Commentary
- Isolated Score with Commentary by Composer Elliot Goldenthal
Titus (1999)

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