Summary:
Titus returns from war victorious, only to offend enemies that will cause him greater turmoil.
My Thoughts:
As much as I love Shakespeare’s plays and adaptations (Polanski’s “Macbeth” is wonderful; Kurosawa’s “Ran” is amazing), I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not well-versed in all of the Bard’s works, and some of his ‘lesser’ plays aren’t really stories I’m familiar with at all. I knew nothing about “Titus” going into it; in fact, the only reason I watched this movie was because someone posted about it in a Facebook group, saying the film was incredibly strange. As I looked at said post, I realized that I had seen the poster for the film at Scheuler Books multiple times when I was a teenager, and had always thought it looked, well, strange. However, because I was a teenager living in a (very conservative) Christian household, I wasn’t ever able to see the film due to it’s R rating. Seeing the cover again prompted a flashback of sorts, and I immediately went out of my way to track this film down, and I’m incredibly glad I did.
Labeling this film as strange is appropriate; it is very strange. It’s also the most imaginative adaptation of a Shakespeare play I’ve seen, and though I’ve learned that the play ‘Titus Andronicus’ is apparently widely regarded as one of Shakespeare’s lesser plays (and also the most violent), I honestly think this is one of the best adaptations.
“Rome is but a wilderness of tigers.”
General Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins, “The Two Popes”) returns to Rome victorious from war shortly after the death of a Roman Emperor. Titus brings with him from war a procession of prisoners including Tamora the Queen of the Goths (Jessica Lang, “Rob Roy”) and her sons Alarbus (Raz Degan, “Alexander (2004)”), Chiron (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, “Ride with the Devil”) and Demetrius (Matthew Rhys, “The Post”). Because Titus is angry about how many of his own sons he has lost in the war, he unjustly murders Alarbus, and Tamora swears revenge of Titus and his household. Meanwhile, the late emperor’s sons, Saturninus (Alan Cumming, “Battle of the Sexes”) and Bassianus (James Frain, “The Count of Monte Cristo”), argue over who will succeed the emperor while Titus refuses to give up the throne, while Titus’ daughter Lavinia (Laura Fraser, “A Knight’s Tale”) is betrothed to Bassianus.
I really wasn’t aware who the director of this film was until I IMDbed her (Googled is used as a verb all the time- I can’t extend that to other sites?), and I realized I’d actually seen a couple of Julie Traymor’s films (“Across the Universe”, “Frida”), and taking it a step further, I was also somewhat familiar with the Broadway Adaptation of ‘The Lion King’, which she helmed. From the opening scenes of this film, Traymor’s stage and theater background is on full display.
The actual first scene depicts a little boy playing with war toys at a modern dining room table- pitting plastic army men against each other, making ‘pew-pew’ noises- when suddenly, his pretending starts to invade reality, and bombs start to drop outside; the house begins to shake. The boy ducks under a table, as debris and detritus rain from the ceiling, kicking up clouds of dust; and suddenly a man dressed in armor rushes in, grabs the unnamed boy, and pulls him through a door that leads to a Romanesque village square. From here, the boy witnesses the return of Titus; a glorious procession of men donning cerulean armor, with their faces painted a similar shade of azure. As the men march back into Rome victorious, they do a kind of rhythmic victory dance that is as hypnotizing as it is rousing.
From that first scene, I was freaking hooked. I also didn’t quite grasp what it was that the boy playing with army toys was supposed to represent until after I did a bit of reading into the criticism of this play (criticized for being the most violent of Shakespeare’s plays- it’s also one of his earliest), and then I realized that, perhaps, Traymor was sort of hinting at the toxic masculinity that is infused in boys from the time they are young and the inherent violence that can breed in some people; maybe Taymor was hinting that Shakespeare, in his youth, was trying to work through his violent fantasies with this play. I also think that, because of the production design of this film (more on that below), Traymor is trying to say that these violent tales and themes are just as relevant if you apply them to bickering boys in a sandbox, or a Nazis overseeing minorities in a concentration camp, or an overbearing chef to his subordinates in a kitchen; Traymor wants us to realize just how universal the themes Shakespeare infuses into his plays are, and this is the best film I’ve seen to illustrate that point.
The best way Traymor illustrates the universal range of Shakespeare is through her production design, which pulls from all sorts of times and cultures throughout history. The best way I can describe this film is that it’s set in a place outside of time, and all around, elements of history rush in and out at will. Most of the production design is focused around Romanesque design, but there are elements of modern day life everywhere; people ride motorcycles and drive cars; they wear suits as well as armor; they speak into microphones that have SPQR flags that look like NPR knockoffs. It’s impossible to tell when this film takes place or what’s going to happen next, so I was constantly engaged.
Because this isn’t one of Shakespeare’s more famous plays, I was completely unfamiliar with the storyline. Diving into any Shakespeare story for the first time is a treat, but I honestly wasn’t expecting what I found here. This story is FREAKING DARK. You thought Hamlet was dark when Ophelia killed herself? You thought Macbeth was dark when he goes insane from guilt and murders those close to him? You thought Romeo and Juliet was a tragedy because they died at the end? Well, in this play there’s a scene where Tamora the Queen of the Goths commands her sons to viciously rape Titus’ daughter, cut our her tongue, cut off her hands and stuff sticks into her stumps, and tie her to a tree in a swamp; she lives for another few acts after that. Yeah. This story is dark, and that scene was only a very small portion of Act Two. There are so many betrayals, so many familial killings, so much blood… and it’s all pretty great, if you like that sort of thing.
Honestly, my only issue with this film was the way that Tamora’s sons were handled. Most of the time they were shirtless, and ran around doing incredibly homoerotic things (like writhing about together in a bed of furs), and I honestly didn’t see the relation between the text and that kind of direction. It was just kind of awkward and uncomfortable. I also don’t think it was entirely Traymor’s fault; I think John Rhys Meyers and Matthew Rhys’ acting really suffered during those scenes. I’ve never really been impressed with Rhys Meyers, but he was particularly awkward here.
Verdict:
This is a great movie; it’s honestly one of the most memorable and inventive adaptations of Shakespeare I’ve seen (still can’t beat “Ran” or “Macbeth”, in terms of overall quality, but this is still great). As I researched this film I learned that Traymor actually put out two other Shakespeare adaptations that I have yet to see (“The Tempest”, “Midsummer Night’s Dream”), so I hope to see those soon.
Review Written By: