Titus

Titus
by Julie Taymor

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Anthony Hopkins, Dario D'Ambrosi, Jessica Lange, Osheen Jones, Raz Degan
Director: Julie Taymor
Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
Writer: Julie Taymor
Producer: Adam Leipzig
Producer: Brad Moseley
Producer: Conchita Airoldi
Producer: Ellen Dinerman Little
Producer: Jody Patton
Writer: William Shakespeare
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); Latin (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 162 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-18
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox

Movie Reviews of Titus

Movie Review: Over the top production of an over the top drama
Summary: 5 Stars

The critics have historically rated Titus Andronicus as a weak early work of the great Shakespeare. Yet Julie Taymor's film interpretation is startling in its presentation, challenging the viewer with visually shocking scenes and superb acting so as to allow the viewer to reconsider this work. Even though I found the play to be blood thirsty and cruel with rash behaviors contrasted against devious and evil plots, the quality of the acting propels the film forward and the unique set designs and costumes continually keep the eye amused even when the plot becomes preposterous.

The storyline is centered around the mindless violence that humans inflict upon other humans, the desire for revenge which can take on a drive like thirst or hunger, the nature of sarcastic cruelty that objectifies another human being and thus makes it permissible to torture them. It is about power, the consequences for rejecting power, and the consequences of confronting power.

Titus is a man who makes many mistakes. He is superbly played by Anthony Hopkins. He makes a series of mistakes that set the world against him. He selects to make a human sacrifice of the eldest son of the Goth Queen Tamora, setting her on a path of vengeance that does not end. He kills one of his own sons for disobeying him when the sons were making decisions based on genuine regard for the wellbeing of their sister whereas Titus had begun to make decisions in the rare air of honorable loyalty to an Emperor who did not deserve the crown. He is offered the throne by the Senate and yet he gives it to the decadent eldest son of the emperor rather than to his upright younger brother and beloved of Titus' daughter Lavinia. He makes a series of terrible judgments and brings terrible ruin upon his family and himself. The emotions of Titus are not predictable or stereotypical. For he laughs at the death of his sons as he contemplates their severed heads. He is cold matter-of-fact when he encounters the vile tortures inflicted on his beloved daughter. He rashly trades one of his hands in a bad deal that he foolishly and emotionally falls into. But the redeeming aspect of the story is that finally Titus gets smart. He finally becomes cunning and acts like he has gone insane. He finally learns to control and hide his emotions and his revenge becomes as sweet and terrible upon Tamora as her cruelty had been to him. In his final scenes, Hopkins gleefully dances in his revenge as he watches Tamora eat a meat pie made from her two younger sons. And then we see the coldest of calculations as he breaks the neck of his poor tortured daughter whom he knows he can not longer protect.

Jessica Lange is wonderful as Tamora, the Goth Queen, who rises from a poor and dirty political prisoner of Titus, to the wife of the Emperor and thus in a position to carefully plot and execute revenge on Titus and his family for the death of her elder son. Tamora is a wonderful character with an outstanding wide range of emotions displayed. She is the cunning advisor to the foolish young Emperor and seductress to the handsome black slave, Aaron the Moor. I found some of her strongest scenes to be when she begs for the life of her eldest son and when she must deny Lavinia assistance as Tamora's two younger sons rape Lavinia, cut out her tongue, and cut off her hands.

Tamora's handsome black lover, Aaron the Moor, is a fascinating character for he is a slave taken from his people, and having a brilliant and wicked mind, he plots great evil deeds and pits the two warring families together like a master chess player. He finds most of the people in either family to be highly suggestible fools. Harry Lennix is a fantastic actor in a chilling role. I understand that this may be the first black character in English drama. How wonderful that he is a character of shrewd cunning cruelty. The scene where he tricks Titus into cutting off his hand, the scene where he kills the nurse who brings him his illegitimate newborn son, and the scene where he negotiates for his son's life by confessing all his deeds are all three totally superb chilling acting.

All the cast were powerful. Laura Fraser is fragile and beautiful as Lavinia. Michael Gross was outstanding as Marcus, the brother of Titus. Angus McFadyen is masterful and believable as Lucius, the elder son of Titus. Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Matthew Rhys play the parts of the queen's two younger sons, totally wild and decadent and cruel. Alan Cumming's was good as he Emperor Saturnalis, but he screams many of his lines.

This tale of dismemberment, torture, cannibalism, and revenge is blazing hot in this interpretation.

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Summary of Titus

Academy Award winners Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange ignite the screen in a strikingly original "coup de cinema" (The New York Times). "Titus" is a "wild ride" (Chicago Tribune) - a shocking journy into the depths of the human heart - a place where vengeance and passion reign supreme. A film by Julie Taymor, acclaimed creator and director of Broadway's "The Lion King."

Considered by many to be Shakespeare's worst play, Titus Andronicus is a bloodthirsty tragedy full of villainous heroes and bottomless revenge--hardly the stuff of big-screen directorial debuts, it would seem. Yet Julie Taymor dives headfirst into moviemaking with Titus, a spectacular adaptation that manages to find beauty and humor in the piles of carnage.

The story begins simply enough by Shakespearean standards: celebrated Roman warrior Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins) returns from a hard-won victory to bury his slain sons and avenge their deaths by killing the eldest son of his enemy, Tamora, queen of the Goths (Jessica Lange). Tamora responds by seducing the impressionable new emperor and setting all of Rome into a downward spiral of revenge, madness, and death.

Taymor, who won a Tony for her Broadway production of The Lion King, throws all her theatrical sensibilities at the story--armies are exquisitely choreographed, blood is shed so beautifully that it hardly seems real, and characters are costumed in symbolic combinations of ancient Roman and 20th-century garb. She plays up the dark comedy at every opportunity, lending a carnival flavor to the story's most gruesome moments. Excellent performances from Hopkins (whose deranged Titus is more than a little reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter), Lange, and the supporting cast help make the endless treachery credible. --Claire Campbell

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