Titus (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Titus


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Julie Taymor
producer = Conchita Airoldi
writer = William Shakespeare (play)
Julie Taymor (script)
starring = Anthony Hopkins
Jessica Lange
Alan Cumming
Harry Lennix
Angus Macfadyen
distributor = Twentieth Century Fox
released = 26 December 1999
runtime = 162 min.
country = ITA
USA
language = English
budget = $20 million
music = Elliot Goldenthal
awards =
imdb_id = 0120866
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"Titus" is a 1999 film 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). The film was made by Overseas Filmgroup and Clear Blue Sky Productions and released by 20th Century Fox. It was the directorial debut of Julie Taymor who co-produced and wrote the screenplay. It was produced by Jody Patton, Conchita Airoldi and executive produced by Paul G. Allen.

Background and production

Director Julie Taymor took Shakespeare's script, added various linking scenes without dialogue (while cutting some of the text) and set the play in an anachronistic fantasy world that uses locations, costumes and imagery from many periods of history, including Ancient Rome and Mussolini's Italy. The opening scenes commence with a heavily choreographed, stilted and chilling triumphal march of the Roman troops, complete with motorcycle outriders. The selection of music is similarly diverse. [ [http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/563 BFI | Sight & Sound | Titus (1999) ] ]

Apart from the deliberate anachronisms, the film follows the play quite closely. One of the experimental concepts in the film was that the character of Young Lucius (Titus' grandson) is initially introduced as a boy from the present who finds himself transported to the fantastical reality of the film. At the beginning of the film his toy soldiers turn into Titus's Roman army. At the end, when Titus' 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 more humane and hopeful ending. It is debatable whether the original play had such a positive ending, since some critics regard Lucius as a "severely 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. [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3768/is_200201/ai_n9057295/pg_3 "Now is a time to storm": Julie Taymor's Titus (2000) | Literature Film Quarterly | Find Articles at BNET.com ] ]

cquote|"Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths, That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile AD MANES FRATRUM sacrifice his flesh. -Lucius."| [ [http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/titus-script-transcript-julie-taymor.html Titus Script - transcript from the screenplay and/or Julie Taymor movie with Anthony Hopkins ] ] The film was shot at Cinecittà, Rome and on location at the EUR in Rome, Pula, Croatia and Tampa, Florida, USA.Although the film did not do well at the box office, it was praised for its visual inventiveness. It is, so far, the only theatrical film based on a Shakespeare play in which Anthony Hopkins plays the leading role (he played Claudius in the 1969 version of "Hamlet", as well as "Othello" on television).In the film's dinner scene, Hopkins mimics the characteristic delivery of the three great British theatrical knights, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120866/trivia Titus (1999) - Trivia ] ]

Cast

* Anthony Hopkins as Titus Andronicus, victorious Roman General who declines a nomination for Emperor upon his return to Rome. Following a post-war ritual of executing the proudest warrior of his enemy, the vanquished Goths, Titus draws the ire of Tamora, unaware of her inevitable appointment as the Queen of Rome.
* Jessica Lange as Tamora, defeated Queen of the Goths, who swears revenge against Titus and the Andronicus family for the atrocities visited upon her eldest son, an executed prisoner of war, using her newly-claimed powers as Queen of Rome
* Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Chiron, one of Tamora's sons.
* Matthew Rhys as Demetrius, one of Tamora's sons.
* James Frain as Bassianus, one of the deceased emperors sons and brother to Saturninus.
* Laura Fraser as Lavinia, daughter of Titus and fiancee of Bassianus
* Harry Lennix as Aaron, servant and illicit lover to Tamora, and the chief architect of her vengeful plans against the Andronicus family
* Alan Cumming as Saturninus, brother to Bassianus and newly-crowned Emperor of Rome. Spurned by his attempts at claiming Lavinia as his new bride, he forsakes the Andronicus family and turns instead to Tamora as his new bride.
* Colm Feore as Marcus Andronicus, Roman Senator and staunch ally of his brother, the ailing Titus.
* Osheen Jones as Young Lucius, Titus' grandson and a key-character in the sense that he observes most of the key events.
* Angus Macfadyen as Lucius, Titus's eldest son and loyal soldier. Following his failed attempts at freeing his condemned brothers, Lucius is banished from Rome and defects to the Goths, where he rallies a sizeable army to challenge Saturninus.
* Kenny Doughty as Quintus, one of Titus' figurative "sons".
* Blake Ritson as Mutius, one of Titus' "sons".
* Colin Wells as Martius, another of Titus' "sons".
* Raz Degan as Alarbus, Tamora's eldest son who is sacrificed, setting the drama into gear, at the beginning.

oundtrack

The score to the film was created by Taymor's long-time friend and partner Elliot Goldenthal and is a typical Goldenthal soundtrack with an epic, inventive and dissonant feel.

Reception

The film received a generally good reception, hailed for its daring and brave artistic flair yet critisiced for being a bit too much on the senses at times. It, as of Feb 2008, has a 67% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes with other various newspaper (including "Critics Pick" by the "New York Times"), magazine (Rating|3|5 by "Empire") and BBC website reviews being fairly positive. [ [http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/titus/ Titus Movie Reviews, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes ] ] [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/08/31/titus_review.shtml BBC - Films - review - Titus ] ] [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9C00E0D71539F937A15751C1A96F958260] [ [http://www.empireonline.com.au/reviews/review.asp?FID=6155 Empire: Film Reviews, Movie News and Interviews ] ]

Misc.

*In the bath scene, the wall behind the soldiers, from which the water flows, is a copy of the Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker
*The microphone on the podium during the election scene near the beginning of the movie has the call letters "SPQR" on it. SPQR stands for "Senatus Populusque Romanorum", which is Latin for "The Senate and People of Rome." The letters were used as a sigil for Rome (as a republic as well as the later empire), the abbreviation "SPQR" can still be seen in many parts of Rome to this day.
*Saturninus' and Bassianus' banners, and animal symbols, show the colours of the two roman football teams: Saturninus' red and gold and the wolf for A.S. Roma , Bassianus' azure and white and the eagle for S.S. Lazio
*A number of musical cues from the film "300" bear a striking resemblance to Titus' "Victorius Titus" and "Finale" from the score (see the separate article on the film's soundtrack).

External links

* [http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/563 An in-depth review from the British Film Institute]
*
* [http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/skina/titus.html Some screenshots]
* [http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/connotations/TAYLOR62.HTM Lucius, the Severely Flawed Redeemer of Titus Andronicus, by Anthony Brian Taylor]

References