Titus (movie)
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Titus (1999) is a movie adaptation of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy Titus Andronicus, about the downfall of a Roman general. It was the first film of the play (aside from TV productions). Director Julie Taymor took Shakespeare's script, added various linking scenes without dialogue (while cutting some of the text) and set the play in a anachronistic fantasy world that uses locations, costumes and imagery from many periods of history, including Ancient Rome and Mussolini's Italy. The selection of music is similarly varied.
Apart from the deliberate anachronisms, the film follows the play quite closely. The major departure from the play is the addition of a boy (apparently from the present) at the beginning and end of the film (in the middle of the film, the boy is identical to the character of Titus's grandson). At the beginning of the film the boy's toy soldiers transform into Titus's Roman army. At the end, when Titus's son Lucius avenges his father by condemning Aaron to a painful death, the boy takes pity on Aaron's baby son. That gives the film a happier and more humane ending. It is debatable whether the original play had such a positive ending, since some critics regard Lucius as a "severly flawed redeemer": Lucius was keen to lynch Aaron's baby, and his insistence on human sacrifice started the cycle of violence in the first place.
- LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
- That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile
- Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh
Although the film did not do well at the box office, it was praised for its visual inventiveness.
Cast
- Anthony Hopkins - Titus Andronicus
- Jessica Lange - Tamora
- Jonathan Rhys-Meyers - Chiron
- Matthew Rhys - Demetrius
- James Frain - Bassianus
- Laura Fraser - Lavinia
- Harry Lennix - Aaron
- Alan Cumming - Saturninus
- Colm Feore - Marcus Andronicus
- Osheen Jones - Young Lucius
- Angus MacFadyen - Lucius
- Kenny Doughty - Quintus
- Blake Ritson - Mutius
- Colin Wells - Martius
External links
- IMBD entry (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120866/)
- A review (http://www.gprc.ab.ca/shakespeare/reviews/titusGeorgeReview.html)
- Some screenshots (http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/skina/titus.html)
- Lucius, the Severely Flawed Redeemer of Titus Andronicus, by Anthony Brian Taylor (http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/connotations/TAYLOR62.HTM)
