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Julie Taymor's Titus Andronicus

416 Words2 Pages

Right from the beginning of “Titus” director Julie Taymor sets the scene for a splendid feast of visual effects and scenery. Yet the splendid feast grows rancid within the first scene with the evisceration of Alarbus. This sacrifice sets the main theme of the gruesome destruction of entire families throughout the entire play.
The movie is Taymor’s modern adaption of William Shakespeare’s macabre play “Titus Andronicus.” One of the best choices the director made was to cast Sir Anthony Hopkins in the title role. At the time of production, he was about eight years post-Hannibal Lecter, so I am sure that aspect of characterization was tantalizing for the audience. My movie exposure of the actor has been limited to The Silence of the Lambs and in the back of my mind, I expected during the bloodbath for the actor to break the fourth wall and offer up fava beans and a nice chianti.
Julie Taymor took liberty with her direction intermingling Roman chariots with automobiles. Both of which …show more content…

Throughout the movie, the characters maneuvered between dark and some caricature creations. The abstract images throughout the movie are not for the easily distracted. The original “Titus Andronicus” was deemed by Samuel Johnson to be barbaric and history has shown that the stage performances are usually controversial and over the top (Bate). Taymor did not let history down with her production
The movie was too fast and shaky. Julie Taymor is trying to create a performance of Titus Andronicus that would be perceived by filmic historians as the most outrageous performance of Titus Andronicus. Her ambitions are noble. They do fall weak because the very fact is she presents many ideas too fast and quickly in too many different settings. As a viewer, I was not able to keep up with the storyline because of the distraction of the schizophrenic time reference’s and chaotic scene

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