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TITUS Send This Review to a Friend
Julie Taymor's "Titus," based on Shakespeare's play "Titus and Andronicus," is a dramatic example of a director trying to put a personal stamp on a classic, and if you've seen Taymor's colorful "The Lion King" on Broadway or her previous stage production of "Titus Andronicus," you know how individual her stamp can be. Does the film work? It surely is arresting, as she mixes present and past in telling the bloody story and doesn't stint on the bloodshed. For my taste the film is best when closest to its classical roots, but there's no denying that some will cotton to her wilder concepts.
For starters a boy is violently smashing toys in a rage of destruction in a contemporary scene. There is an explosion outside, and a Roman soldier enters and whisks the boy--and us--back in time to the Roman Coliseum, where the boy becomes Lucius, the grandson of the general Titus. Taymor then depicts dirt-encrusted soldiers returning from battle, and she choreographs their marching in a stylized fashion, as if they were in a Broadway musical.
And so the grisly tale of violence begetting more violence is launched, the ancient mixed with the modern by means of sets, props and costumes. From my perspective Anthony Hopkins is the best the film has to offer as Titus, renowned as a general who has been engaged in war with the Goths and is about to be plunged into a carnival of vengeance. Jessica Lange plays Tamora, Queen of the Goths, taken prisoner along with her three sons, one of whom is to be ritually killed according to Roman tradition. Despite her pleas, Titus has her eldest slaughtered, and she and her two other sons vow revenge. Lange's performance throughout is an odd mix of dramatic effectiveness and histrionics. She's no match for the acting brilliance of Hopkins, whose performance thunders in a series of great moments.
The cast includes Alan Cumming, over-the-top and theatrical as the emperor Saturninius. Cumming, who is in danger of becoming a cliché, acts as if he is still playing the emcee in "Cabaret." He takes Tamora to be his wife, and in an argument that rages, Titus kills one of his own sons. I won't detail the plot, but one of the most harrowing crimes is the rape and mutilation of Titus's daughter Lavinia (Laura Fraser), whose tongue is cut out and whose hands are cut off and replaced with tree branches.
Ready for more? At one point Titus has his own hand chopped off. But the most evil scene, which Taymor plays for sick comedy, has Titus wearing a chef's outfit to deviously serve a very special human pie he has concocted for Tamora, who has no clue as to the ingredients. Enough said.
Taymor's film is a two hour and forty minute spectacle, and the violence is thoroughly justified as it stems from Shakespeare's play. I find that her extravagant, in-your-face ideas, while undeniably original and dynamic, detracts from the basics rather than enhances them. But I can guarantee that others will disagree and find what she has done a massively entertaining coup. Take your choice. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release.
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