SHAKSPER 2000: Julie Taymor's TITUS

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 11/15/00 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.2097  Wednesday, 15 November 2000.

From:           Sam Small <samsmall@globalnet.co.uk>
Date:           Tuesday, 14 Nov 2000 19:40:18 +0000
Subject:        Julie Taymor's TITUS

The trouble with Julie Taymor is why she wanted to make "Titus" in the
first place.  It is a very stubborn play to produce - in some ways
impossible.  To modern audiences Marcus' speech standing over the
freshly mutilated Lavinia is laughable.  But of course Elizabethans
would have appreciated it as a rhetorical tableaux as they would have
seen plenty of them before.  This is an early play with Shakespeare
being quite clear in his moral intention - "mutual revenge will take us
all to hell".  However, Taymor tries to mix reality with the surreal and
does neither convincingly.  Roman armies are choreographed like a Las
Vegas floor show whilst Lavinia's hands are replaced by twiglets.  And
why do Shakespeare art directors feel that mixing and matching the
centuries is something that simply has to be done?  We know Will is a
man for all times, but Roman legions backed up by Harley Davidsons and a
1960s multi-story car lot doubling as a the Senate is a
Shakespeare-to-film cliché.

How to handle the violence in "Titus Andronicus" is a more serious
problem.  Transferring the play to film gives the film-maker the ability
to create near perfect violent enactment.  Taymor chose to hide almost
every act.  The result was soporific, not horrific.  We were not afraid
of Aaron or Tamora and Anthony Hopkins got more sympathy than poor
Titus.  Without seeing the violent acts we just couldn't feel the horror
and fear of the main characters.  That is why there were just two people
in the cinema when I saw it (one was me) and a friend told me they
walked out half way through.

Anthony Hopkins was, well, Anthony Hopkins.  He always seems as if he
has something more important on his mind.  On this occasion he probably
did.  The other actors were, for the most part, coping.  And why must
teenage rapists always behave like chimpanzees on speed?  Why do the
grateful participants in a sex orgy always lie on the floor eating
grapes?  Why did Julie Taymor make this film?

SAM SMALL


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