TITUS

William Shakespeare’s tragic plays are often full of violence. Just look at MACBETH, the ending to HAMLET and parts of KING LEAR. Nowhere is this more true, however, than of his first tragedy, TITUS ANDRONICUS. In fact, the violence of this play is so extreme that one famous critic, Yale scholar Harold Bloom, believes the play’s dialogue should be viewed as a parody. In the 1800s, Victorian critics considered the play to be one of Shakespeare’s worst, partly because of the violence, which includes mutilations, decapitations and cannibalism. The play, however, was a very popular one in Elizabethan England, where violent revenge plays were a popular theatrical motif. It has gained renewed appreciation in the latter part of this century, which is, of course, the bloodiest century in recorded history.

It is no surprise, therefore, that TITUS, the new film version of TITUS ANDRONICUS, does not balk at recounting the violent acts which propel the plot of this revenge tale. (It is also not surprising that the movie adds an orgy scene which does not appear in Shakespeare’s original text.) What is surprising, and disappointing, however, is that TITUS fails to appreciate all the dramatic and thematic subtleties in the play. Furthermore, even though it is directed by Julie Taymor, who brought Disney’s THE LION KING to Broadway with such acclaim, the movie also fails to complement Shakespeare’s complex text with the kind of visual style that would bring out those dramatic and thematic subtleties.

For example, the premise of the play can be stated in at least two ways: Revenge is irrational, and Justice must be tempered with Mercy. In the story, Roman General Titus Andronicus comes home to Rome after defeating the Goths in a 10-year war. During that war, 25 of Titus’ sons lost their lives. Now, Titus returns with Queen Tamora of the Goths and her three sons as prisoners. Also prisoner is the Queen’s secret lover, a black-skinned Moor named Aaron. One of Titus’ four remaining sons, Lucius, asks Titus if he can sacrifice one of Tamora’s sons to appease the ghosts of his brother. Titus gives him Tamora’s eldest son, ignoring her fervent pleas for mercy. Tamora, her own remaining sons and Aaron vow revenge against Titus and his family. In a plot worthy of Machiavelli, Tamora’s sons, Demetrius and Chiron, murder the son-in-law of Titus, and Aaron frames Titus’ sons Quintus and Martias for it. The sons then rape Titus’ daughter, Lavinia. To keep her silent, they cut out her tongue and cut off her hands. Titus fails to save his sons from the executioner’s block but eventually finds out who raped and mutilated Lavinia. Feigning madness like Hamlet, Titus plots his own gruesome revenge, which involves more murder and even cannibalism.

According to Jonathan Bate in THE ARDEN SHAKESPEARE edition of TITUS ANDRONICUS, the Elizabethans in Shakespeare’s time were familiar with such violent, macabre revenge tales as this. Tamora and her gang’s revenge on Titus and his family is so grotesque that Titus can barely find the words to describe the sorrow he feels. Instead, he is struck dumb with laughter and his revenge takes on a darkly comic theatrically. “When language no longer works for him,” Bate says, “he takes to literalizing metaphor: instead of crying to the elements and the gods, as Lear will do, he writes his message about universal injustice down on arrows and shoots them in the air; instead of talking about ‘consuming sorrow,’ he makes Tamora consume her own children.”

In a sense, therefore, Titus’ revenge does indeed become almost a parody of revenge tales, and the play is full of literary puns and jokes about it. As Bate points out, however, Titus’ public revenge restores a kind of justice to Rome. Early in the play, Titus’ distorted sense of Roman honor forces him to decline the crown of Emperor and offer a young man named Saturninus the Emperor’s throne instead. This sets off the chain of events which help give Tamora, her sons and Aaron the opportunity for revenge. Titus’ sense of honor also leads him to ignore Tamora’s pleas for mercy, which becomes the reason for Tamora’s revenge against Titus. Here, the themes of irrational revenge and distorted justice become intertwined in a literal death grip.

Julie Taymor’s shallow cinematic production of TITUS fails to exploit these moral themes or even the visual possibilities inherent in the play. For instance, the staging directions in the original text reveal much about the relationships between the characters, whereas Taymor’s staging does not seem carefully thought out, sometimes resulting in confusion. She also changes the opening, omitting a couple minor but important points that help audiences follow the story. Taymor also fails to exploit the political implications in Shakespeare’s original text, which Bate says support the republican sentiments of the Protestant Reformation. Of course, Shakespeare’s native land of England became the highest symbol of the Reformation movement, and the Goths, after all, are the ancestors of the German reformers who helped separate England from another tyrannical Roman hierarchy. Their Reformation exerted a tremendous influence on the republican sentiments in America for limited, mixed government.

Taymor seems to have given little thought to any of these things, or even to the acting. Thus, only Anthony Hopkins as Titus, and especially Harry Lennix as the Moor, really stand out in the movie. Furthermore, Alan Cumming as Saturninus gives a lackluster performance that almost wrecks the movie completely. Finally, Jessica Lange is too old and too disappointing in her role as Queen Tamora the temptress, while Laura Fraser underplays her role of the tortured and sympathetic Lavinia.

Meanwhile, director Taymor’s additions to the play, the brief orgy scene in the Roman baths and her concentration in the first and last scenes on Titus’ young grandson, contribute little to the themes, character relationships or political implications in TITUS ANDRONICUS. These additions seem vaguely oriented in favor of the politically correct and the secular humanist. Happily, Taymor is still either too confused or too subtle a filmmaker to forge any lasting impression with these misguided, false ideologies. Even so, her TITUS contains enough strong violence, sexuality and nudity to warn viewers strongly of its content.