Titus

United Kingdom, Italy, United States

1999

162 Min

Color

2.35:1

Latin, English

Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
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PROD Conchita Airoldi, Julie Taymor, Jody Patton

SCR William Shakespeare, Julie Taymor

CAST Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Harry Lennix, Laura Fraser, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Angus Macfadyen, Blake Ritson, Matthew Rhys, Kenny Doughty, James Frain, Colm Feore

War begets revenge. Victorious general, Titus Andronicus, returns to Rome with hostages: Tamora queen of the Goths and her sons. He orders the eldest hewn to appease the Roman dead. He declines the proffered emperor’s crown, nominating Saturninus, the last ruler’s venal elder son. Saturninus, to spite his brother Bassianus, demands the hand of Lavinia, Titus’s daughter. When Bassianus, Lavinia, and Titus’s sons flee in protest, Titus stands against them and slays one of his own. Saturninus marries the honey-tongued Tamora, who vows vengeance against Titus. The ensuing maelstrom serves up tongues, hands, rape, adultery, racism, and Goth-meat pie. There’s irony in which two sons survive. –IMDb

Director

Julie Taymor

Julie Taymor (born December 15, 1952) is an American director of theater, opera and film. Taymor’s work has received many accolades from critics, and she has earned two Tony Awards out of four nominations, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design, an Emmy Award, and an Academy Award nomination for Original Song. She is widely known for directing the stage musical, The Lion King, for which she became the first woman to win the Tony Award for directing a musical, in addition to a Tony Award for Original Costume Design. She had been the director of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark before leaving in March 2011, after four months of previews (the longest preview period for any show in Broadway history), following artistic differences with the producers.

Taymor has also worked in film in recent years, directing Titus (1999) and Frida (2002). Both movies received positive reviews for their stylish filming; but Frida… read more

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MarcH

12Nov11

One of my favorite horror films. Julie Taymor is pretty much a mad genius.

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DT

6Nov11

Far from being bombastic, this adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest plays features some amazing choreography and a radical approach to mise en scène, both of which only heighten the drama, which this play is very much full of. Indeed, Titus Andronicus may not be one of the Bard's most elegant works but it’s still very entertaining, and Taymor pleasingly manages to inject her own postmodernist vision and unique cinematic form while still doing it justice.