Thoughtless for the Day

Titus (1999)

I can't believe it took me a decade to get around to seeing Julie Taymor's wonderfully disturbing take on Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. It's a good thing I don't apply that same schedule to showering.

What made me decide to finally spend a Sunday in bed watching Titus? Well, there were a couple of reasons, but the deciding factor was something I like to call the "Salon.com Inverse Ration Review Rule" which states: "the worse the review on salon.com, the better the movie". [For example, I really loved Todd Solondz's Storytelling which Salon critic Charles Taylor pretty much called a crime against humanity]. When looking up reviews of Titus, I came across this panning on Salon, (also by Chuck Taylor) and that pretty much sealed the deal.

So, apart from a crap review in Salon (which should really be enough), what makes Titus, which is generally regarded to be one of Shakespeare's lesser works, such a great movie? Director Taymor understands that the plays of the Bard are not holy relics to be kept under glass and treated with fawning reverence, so she sets her Titus in 400 CE, the fascist Rome of the 1930's, and the present. She's also not afraid to go over the top (Which may have been Shakespeare's original intention), having star Anthony Hopkins occasionally reprise his role as Hannibal Lecter) . It's the same reason why the 1995 version of Richard III, which is set in the 1920's, is vastly superior to Kenneth Branagh's slavishly by-the-book take on Henry V. By transporting King Lear to medieval Japan, Akira Kurosawa gave us his masterpiece, Ran. Sh Luther, you can move Romeo and Juliet from Verona to the OC and it only gains relevance – even with the presence of Leonardo "Say ‘Thank you'" DiCaprio.

By the way, there is a porno version of Macb... the Scottish play, in case you ever wondered about that. Is it better than the Orson Welles version? Well, it's different.

An interview with Julie Taymor can be found here