Titus (1999)

This adaptation of William Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, is simply put, a trip. The movie is wildly over the top. It is excessive, gory, immensely overstyled and completely lacking in any message or moral. Why aren't more movies made this way?

I caught this film at the Virginia Film Festival and for much of the showing the audience clearly didn't know what to make of it. About three quarters of the way through you could tell that a lot of them suddenly clued in to the joke. Suddenly they got into it and realized that this wasn't supposed to be some stuffy feature full of dense dialogue and ideas. No, this is a story that was meant to be a big attention grabbing spectacle when Shakespeare first wrote it. Unlike much of his work it really has little, if anything, to say on the human condition. This is a comedy masquerading as a tragedy.

Numerous critics ripped into it, because they took it seriously and clearly you can't do that. This movie is so excessive that taking it seriously indicates the viewer is the sort of person who can't distinguish between cartoon and reality. Don't get me wrong, there is much in the movie to disturb and induce cringing, but they are necessary to set the story's excessive tone. Something horrible must happen for the story to set off on its demented bloody game of revenge.

Further evidence of the film's over the top bent is the literal interpretations Taymor takes with the bard's text. When Marcus finds Lavinia, who has been ravished by Demetrius and Chiron who cut off her hands and tongue, he says "Speak, gentle niece, what stern ungentle hands Have lopp'd and hew'd and made thy body bare Of her two branches." Taymor interprets this literally and actually shows Lavinia with twigs protruding from her stumps. In another scene where the heads of Titus' sons have been returned to him he instructs Lavinia to "Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth." Titus had sent his severed hand to the emperor in return for his boys' freedom and instead receives their heads along with his hand. Since Lavinia has no hands she must carry her father's hand in her teeth. I have no idea how Shakespeare intended that line to play out but it looks pretty ridiculous taken literally.

I'd have to say that for the director and actors, the phrase "Let it all hang out" is in full force here. Alan Cumming plays the newly appointed emperor of Rome, Saturninus. He prances, preens and vamps it up to the max. Harry Lennix plays Aaron the Moor, lover to Saturninus' Goth queen Tamora. He seethes with anger and never skips an opportunity to do a bad deed. "If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul." Lennix seems to revel in the evil, wallowing in it like a pig in mud. Jessica Lange is the ultimate in manipulative. Playing Tamora, former queen of the Goths and now queen of Rome, she has a major grudge against the Roman general Titus and plays Saturninus for the fool and her sons Chiron and Demetrius and Aaron as tools in her quest for revenge. Lange practically vibrates with hatred onscreen as her plans grow wilder and more desperate as the story unfolds.

Hopkins as Titus is the movie's center so it would be hard to accuse him of stealing the show. But he certainly takes over and makes it his own. He shows off much of his range here going from beautifully quiet moments with his daughter and nephew to wild exaggerations as a seemingly mad Titus unveils his own master plan of revenge.

Nearly as impressive as Hopkins are the costumes and sets. Taymor sets a wild style here. The film doesn't seem to belong in any particular time period. In many ways it seems like ancient Rome but the costumes, vehicles and many buildings instead seem to indicate a far more modern timeframe. Car, tanks and motorcycles are used. Video games, pool tables and dart boards exist for entertainment. Yet they still carry swords and ride horses. The visual style of the movie is extremely bold, matching the story tendency to be over the top.

The one thing in the movie that bothered me was the use of a young boy as observer of the proceeding. At the movie's start he is having an all out war in the kitchen with his toys and food. In a strange scene he is yanked away and deposited in the middle of Titus' return from war on the Goths. The child operates as an observer for much of the movie before suddenly becoming part of it, turning into Titus' grandson Lucius. Eventually he becomes part of an ambiguous visual that ends the movie. The kid's use in the film is uneven and ineffective.

Still, that is one minor complaint in a movie that will likely offend more people than it impresses but still stands as one hell of an example of bold movie making. Prior to the screening, Hopkins indicated that he and Taymor would be teaming up again to make Shakespeare's The Tempest into a movie. Based on this movie I will anxiously await the finished product.

- John Shea