From Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus to Julie Taymor's Titus:

A Film Review by George Hanna

Rating: R (MPAA)

Titus (1999), director Julie Taymor's recent adaptation of Shakespeare's early revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus (1592-94), might seem a questionable choice for a major new production. Until quite recently, Shakespeare's most violent play was either neglected as peripheral to the Shakespeare canon or reviled as too horrible to be staged. Accordingly, T. S. Eliot dismissed Titus Andronicus as "one of the stupidest and most uninspired plays ever written, a play in which it is incredible that Shakespeare had any hand at all . . . ." (cited by Sylvan Barnet). Critical consensus, however, has clearly established that Shakespeare wrote this disturbing work. As well, ever since Peter Brook's brilliant 1955 stage production at Stratford-upon-Avon - with Laurence Olivier cast in the title character role - Titus Andronicus has enjoyed a higher stature among Shakespeare scholars.

Notwithstanding its belated respectability among post-war academics, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus still remains suspect. The eminent scholar Harold Bloom, for instance, points out that audience members attending the celebrated Peter Brook production, "never quite knew whether to be horrified and when to laugh" (cited by Alan A. Stone). To Bloom, then, Shakespeare's gory play is best understood as "a bloody farce" or perhaps as a parody of the Elizabethan revenge tragedy (Stone). As recently as 1993, Norrie Epstein, in The Friendly Shakespeare dismissed Andronicus - a tasteless exercise in "gratuitous" violence (p. 312) - as Shakespeare's "worst play" (p. 313). To counter these negative views, Julie Taymor decided to direct Titus, a daring new film version of Shakespeare's much maligned, long misunderstood play. To cite Taymor, "I think the play has been terribly underrated and unappreciated. I find it so beautiful and powerful. For 200 years it was discarded as tasteless and over the top, but I think it is exactly right for our times - outrageous humor juxtaposed to potent tragedy" (cited by Alessandra Stanley). As in other recent Shakespeare film productions, the setting is predominantly modern; Taymor's film, however, is not tied to any precise historical era; instead the setting shifts from the excesses of ancient Rome to the brutality of fascist Italy, which in turn mirrors the cultural decadence of the 1990s.

In her determination to make Titus relevant to today's world, the director explicitly draws too many strained parallels between the violence of Shakespeare's Rome and increasing violence in the late twentieth century: ethic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia; mutilations on the killing fields of Rwanda; random street violence in American cities; bombings in Northern Ireland; premeditated school shootings; gang rapes, and the corrosive effects of racism. To her credit, however, Taymor brings an active intelligence to her direction of Shakespeare's play. As Taymor observes in her Production Notes, the more carefully she considered Titus Andronicus, the more convinced she became that

the play was ripe for adaptation to film, speaking directly to our times . . . For "Titus" is not a neat or safe story, where goodness triumphs over evil, but one in which through its relentless horror, the undeniable poetry of human tragedy emerges in full force, demanding we examine the very root of violence and judge its various acts.

This clear-cut organizing principle redeems this fine film from its worst cinematic excesses. Far from having been written as an Elizabethan potboiler glorifying violence, Shakespeare's most violent play constitutes a searching critique of the nature or psychology of violence.

Like certain film audiences aghast at the excessive violence of Taymor's film, many readers encountering Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus for the first time will also be deeply shocked. After all, this is a play in which ritual sacrifice of a captured prisoner, murder, rape, dismemberment of a rape victim's hands and tongue, slitting of throats, decapitation and cannibalism occur with nauseating frequency. Even so, Julie Taymor, interviewed by Douglas Eby, vehemently denies that her film wallows in violence: "I . . . explore violence in many different ways . . . . But there's not tons of blood. It's not as graphic as other people could have made it." To interviewer Elizabeth Sneed, she declared: "This is not a violent movie. . . . It's a black comedy about the vicious cycle of violence. . . . Where is the blood? You never see the knife go in. You never see the hands cut off. I stylized the violence to make it approachable for audiences." Yet film critic Rhys Southan insists that Shakespeare's play itself "doesn't have anything relevant to say about revenge . . . ." Today, most leading scholars would be inclined to agree with Julie Taymor's position that the play subjects the Elizabethan revenge code to penetrating ironic scrutiny. According to David Bevington, for example, in Titus Andronicus "Shakespeare is interested throughout in the ethical problems generated by revenge, and the play's relentless horror may be a commentary on the self-defeating nature of a revenge code."

Julie Taymor's Titus is framed by opening and closing scenes involving a seemingly ordinary young boy; as the film's main action unfolds, this curious, observant child first watches passively, then participates more actively. As the director has herself observed in her Production Notes, "it is through his eyes we witness this tale of revenge and compassion." Very gradually, the boy assumes the role of Young Lucius, grandson of Titus. During the opening kitchen scene, this figure - easily recognizable as a contemporary child living in the present - is playing with plastic toy soldiers. Carried away by his imagination and by the momentum of his power fantasy, the boy destructively hurls toy soldiers, other bright, shiny objects and sticky, brightly coloured desserts in every direction, turning the domestic kitchen into a mock battleground. Abruptly, an explosion occurs, and as the smoke clears, a muscular figure from another era appears, searching out the now terrified, cowering child, carrying him away from his safe, secure, familiar, late twentieth-century world. Outside, when the boy opens his eyes, he finds himself raised aloft, like a sacrifice, in an ancient Roman coliseum, hearing the applause of thousands of (curiously absent) spectators. When the boy picks up one of his plastic soldiers lying on the coliseum grounds, we realize that - through the magic of cinematic metamorphosis - "his toy Roman soldiers have become armored flesh and blood" (Taymor). In effect, time and space have dissolved; the setting is now largely that of Shakespeare's play, the era of ancient Rome, when the triumphant general Titus, having subjugated the warlike Goths, leads home his victorious military forces.

Taymor's depiction of ancient Rome, however, is not meant to be uniform or historically accurate in any sense of the term. Like Shakespeare, the director deliberately creates an anachronistic world where past and present are intermixed. In Taymor's Rome, horse-driven chariots, motorcycles and cars speed through the streets. The actors wear period costumes ranging from Roman togas to red frock coats, snowy white trousers and elegant, stylish dresses from various historical periods. In the world of Titus loud speakers blare, modern newspapers are circulated, beer is chilled in refrigerators and big band orchestras play jazz music at political rallies. Roman senators and aspiring politicians like Saturninus address huge crowds by speaking through microphones labeled S.P.Q.R. Literally, this famous Latin abbreviation, often seen on Roman military standards, means "Senatus Populusque Romanus," or simply "the Roman Senate and People." By implication, Taymor's Rome is a recognizably modern political world; with tight control of mass media technology, the rich and powerful manipulate the masses by appropriating the language and rhetoric of democracy and egalitarianism.

In this multi-layered, timeless era, the calculating black villain Aaron (Harry Lennix) plays pool, while Tamora's evil sons Demetrius (Matthew Rhys) and Chiron (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) sport punk hair cuts, sip bottled beer and amuse themselves playing electronic games at video arcades. This bizarre mixture of ancient and modern elements works surprisingly well. As Taymor explained in an interview, the film's weird juxtaposition of images from different time periods is both deliberate and necessary: "The time is a created time. . . . it's a blend of time" (cited by Sasha Emmons). In another interview the director elaborated: "The film is really ancient Rome . . . . and then the 30s, 40s, 50s and the present. . . . And cars and costumes are a reflection of character. So Saturninus [Alan Cumming], who's the kind of mad emperor, drives in Mussolini's car, I mean it really is of that period. Then his brother [Bassanius, played by James Frain], who's more of a 1950's straight sort of guy, very conservative, he drives in a 50's convertible" (cited by Douglas Eby).

How successful is Titus as a modern adaptation of a largely unknown Shakespeare play? Even though Julie Taymor's film has proved unsuccessful at the box office, it remains a bold and experimental work, infused with a wealth of strikingly visual details. Not only do the actors wear period costumes from different eras, but their weaponry ranges from cross-bows to rifles and tanks, while the camera reveals a cross-section of technology drawn from different historical periods. Saucily irreverent, Titus risks alienating viewers and sinking into incoherence. Doubtlessly this film will offend traditional-minded Shakespearean scholars. Admittedly, Taymor's first full length feature film is flawed by its awkward use of a twentieth-century boy to serve as the movie's framing device; to provide a child's eye perspective on the events taking place; and to overstate the case that it is primarily innocent children who are victimized by violence. Even more perplexing is the director's distracting use of five dream or fantasy sequences known as "Penny Arcade Nightmares." Even so, for a film produced at a relatively modest cost, Titus has deservedly received high acclaim from many film critics. It counterbalances scenes of graphic violence, presented naturalistically, with other scenes, notably the appearance of the raped, mutilated Lavinia, in which violence is stylized. As well, exquisite touches of black humour intensify the horror of all the carnage, which culminates in the cannibalistic dinner party where Titus, dressed as a modern chef, avenges the atrocities committed against the Andronici by serving up an unpalatable meat pie to Tamora.

Shakespeare's Titus is not altogether a heroic or tragic figure. Nevertheless, Taymor's film at least presents him as a sympathetic character. Trapped by his deeply ingrained commitment to the barbaric practice of human sacrifice, Titus ignores Tamora's pleas for mercy and dutifully orders the Goth prisoner Alarbus (Raz Degan) to be slain, thus setting in motion a destructive cycle of revenge that decimates the Andronici family. Given the rigidity of the Roman code of honour, with its requirement of unflinching obedience to one's superiors, the noble general remains dangerously imperceptive about the threat posed by a corrupt, unjust emperor like Saturninus As an experienced military leader, Titus lacks sound political instincts. A military hero out of his depth, Titus is played to devastating effect by the accomplished actor Anthony Hopkins, an actor eminently suited for the role. Even in the depths of his sorrow and disillusionment at the near-destruction of his entire family, Hopkins' Titus remains acutely human and vulnerable. He performs convincingly the role of a victorious, noble-minded Roman general who, maddened by grief and the shock of betrayal, deteriorates from a selfless patriot into a bloodthirsty avenger with a macabre sense of humour.

With the director's deliberately sustained "tension between the real and the surreal" (Taymor), Titus proves an intriguing, courageous film. Following its release in video and DVD format this summer, I am confident that it will reach a much wider audience. Meanwhile, Taymor renders Titus as a credible, sympathetic figure and depicts violence and bloodshed as a headlong descent into savagery and unrelieved horror. To this end, Titus reinforces the idea that violence-prone civilizations become self-destructive. Following the abrupt catapulting of the boy from a late twentieth century kitchen into an ancient Coliseum, the film presents a memorable scene of stylized pageantry, in which the seasoned Roman troops, led by Titus, march home victoriously. Like plastic toy soldiers, these battle-weary soldiers march uncertainly into the ruined Coliseum, in an eerily mechanical, dance-like movement. With this intriguing scene, Julie Taymor's Titus brings back to life Shakespeare's neglected, underrated play, Titus Andronicus.

References:

Barnet, Sylvan, ed. Titus Andronicus. Toronto: Signet Classic, 1989 (p. xxi).
Bevington, David, ed. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Updated Fourth Edition. Don Mills, Ontario: Addison Wesley Longman, 1997, (p. 939).
Eby, Douglas, Interview, "Julie Taymor: On Making Titus." http://members.aol.com/douglaseby/jtaymor.html
Emmons, Sasha, "Having words with Julie Taymor," Citysearch.com.
Epstein, Norrie. The Friendly Shakespeare. Toronto: Penguin / Winokur / Boates, 1993 (pp. 312-313).
Sneed, Elizabeth, "Julie Taymor's "Pulp Shakespeare,"USA Today, August 2, 2000.
Southam, Rhys, "Titus Exploits Shakespeare," Daily Texan (February 16, 2000).
Stanley, Alessandra. "Taymor's Encore (It's Not Disney)," The New York Times, December 20, 1998.
Stone, Alan A. "Shakespeare's Tarantino Play." Boston Review, 1993-2000.
Taymor, Julie, cited from the director's "Production Notes," Twentieth-Century Fox, http://www.foxsearchlight.com/titus/film.html
 
 

Copyright 2000 George Hanna. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced or duplicated without the written consent of its author.

George Hanna
Department of Arts, Commerce and Education (ACE)
Grande Prairie Regional College
10726 - 106 Ave.
Grande Prairie, Alberta
T8V 5B1 Canada
(780) 539-2090

hanna@gprc.ab.ca