Titus (1999) – DVD

***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Colm Feore
screenplay by Julie Taymor, based on William Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus"
directed by Julie Taymor

by Bill Chambers Soldiers bedecked in Roman fighting garb, blue warpaint icing their faces. Marching. Drumming. And then, the motorcycles.

As Titus composer Elliot Goldenthal points out in a remarkable documentary that supplements the film on DVD, the ancient and the recent are a permanent juxtaposition in Italy, where Lamborghini drivers negotiate the roads between ancient Roman architecture. The filmmaking debut of innovative theatre director Julie Taymor, Titus is a rare and inspired adaptation of Shakespeare's tragicomic play "Titus Andronicus" that spins off from this duality and is validated by it.

While Taymor's approach to history as a malleable concept may sound completely new, off the top of my head I can think of at least one other film in which the art direction is not a slave to the period setting: Alex Cox's biopic Walker. There, the nineteenth-century world of mercenary William Walker is peppered with twentieth-century conveniences–extras can be glimpsed buying cigarettes from a vending machine, and the Nicaragua-stranded Walker himself is retrieved, in a satirical denouement, via military helicopter. These "wrong" details make explicit Walker's utility as an allegory for the then-current political scene, just as the Elizabethan dialect and signifiers of Titus are rendered less impenetrable by the modern allusions.

Take the introduction of Saturnius (Alan Cumming): Dressed to the nines in bondage leather, he hoards the WWII-era mike at a postwar celebration, conveniently positioned before an intimidating square monolith that was in real life erected at the behest of Mussolini. Would we have so immediately perceived him as a fascist dictator had he arrived for the event in Roman-classic apparel? In light of such visual cues, some viewers may accuse Taymor of being reductive, but need symbolism be subtle in order to be valid? That's one argument; another is that "Titus Andronicus" is so morally complex it resists total subversion through style. I've rarely found Shakespeare this accessible, and, consequently, I quickly became swept up in the story's confluent mixture of joy and sorrow–after the period of adjustment (common to every filmgoing experience, when all's said and done) to its unconventional approach passed.

General Titus Andronicus (Anthony Hopkins) returns from war to Rome victorious and with prisoners: Tamora the Goth queen (Jessica Lange) and her three sons. According to religious ritual, he sacrifices the eldest of them while Tamora looks on desperately. Cut to: Titus, having refused emperorship, and having killed one of his own boys in an unsuccessful attempt to promise his daughter Lavinia (Laura Fraser) to the new ruler, Saturnius, discovers himself in a position of vulnerability after Tamora weds Saturnius instead. With apathetic Moor Aaron (Harry Lennix) as an accomplice, Tamora plots her revenge against Titus beat by wicked beat, first by siccing her surviving, sadistic offspring (Matthew Rhys and Jonathan Rhys Meyers) on Lavinia.

Gruesome images suddenly abound. Lavinia is left for dead by a swamp, her tongue removed and her fingers replaced by bundles of gnarled sticks, which will ensure a reciprocation of cruelty. I must say, I haven't been this shocked by gore for countless movies now, because Taymor concentrates on the aftermath of violence, the part we can't escape from or into. She has a secret weapon in cinematographer Luciano Tovoli, Dario Argento's frequent lensman, who knows from disturbing images. Indeed, this tableau is indelible, and the residue of ghoulish melancholy it leaves on the film transcends the material as much as any of the anachronistic flourishes do; one doesn't need any more context for the characters' subsequent behaviour.

Lennix also excels here, playing Iago's racially-inverted forebear, while Lange's ferocious matriarch makes Lady Macbeth seem like a doormat. (Much of "Titus Andronicus" can feel like a dry run for more familiar Shakespearean archetypes.) Perhaps the most ingenious casting of all is that of Hopkins, whose performance cannily merges his theatrical roots with his latter-day Hannibal Lecter persona, especially in the scabrously funny climax that finds him having some guests for dinner, if you know what I mean. I have friends and family who've found the movie "sick," and I have to think it's because it mines the text for laughs it intends as cathartic at the end of a gruelling ordeal.

It is young Osheen Jones's observant Lucius through which Taymor's many strategies become clearest. A prologue suggests that a modern-day boy is a Dorothy or an Alice whose unchecked rage against his toy soldiers has manifested tumult beyond his influence; later referred to as Titus's son, he comes to represent the film's moral compass, as well as the potential collateral damage of all this violence. Titus ends on a surprisingly hopeful note as Lucius ascends the throne, well aware of–and suitably appalled by–the bloody cost of rape and revenge and poised to pass those lessons on to the next generation.

Taymor, the mind behind Broadway's kabuki rendition of The Lion King, is an ambitious artist, to put it patly. Titus has the kind of scope, imagination, and hubris that some film directors spend half their careers building up to, as well as a pleasantly contrary emotional directness (often assisted by heartfelt arrangements from Goldenthal that bind us to the characters) legions more could never hope to achieve. Taymor only really betrays her neophyte status in nightmare sequences that are superfluous and masturbatory in an already lengthy film. Titus is a purposeful and powerful abstraction that revalidates themes implicit in its source. Experimentation doesn't always lead to rapture–sometimes, it is its tired substitute. But that's not the case here, and Taymor's passion is both obvious and contagious.

THE DVD
Fight Club DVD producer David Britten Prior has once again surpassed the standard of excellence he established for himself on Ravenous. Let's get the standard stuff out of the way: the 2.35:1, 16×9-enhanced video shines, despite mild print wear. Contrast and black levels are spot-on, resulting in awesome shadow detail. Shimmer and other digital artifacts are not an issue, even in scenes rife with chrome objects. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix has been championed elsewhere; unfortunately, dialogue sounded overly compressed–crushed–on my system, and I thought the rear channel use peculiarly uninspired, although that isn't the fault of the disc. On the other hand, bass extension is solid, and Goldenthal's score, additionally assigned a dedicated track (more on that later), give the impression of being in the orchestra pit.

Taymor provides a feature-length audio commentary that really gets to the bottom of her method in a welcomely unpretentious manner. Lennix and Hopkins–individually recorded and spliced together–contribute a second, chapter-specific commentary (helpfully indexed) that is equally fun. Lennix and Taymor often overlap in their remarks because the actor generously discusses the production surrounding his input, while Hopkins is forthcoming and allusive towards future projects. Now, for the isolated music: Goldenthal speaks between passages, and sometimes bleeds into them. Those wanting to hear that beautiful climactic theme will find a cleaner rendition of it in the movie proper. That's it for Disc One's content.

DISC TWO

A 34-minute Columbia University Q&A with Julie Taymor is akin to an abridged and better-organized version of her commentary and leaves few potential queries unanswered. The aforementioned documentary–taking us inside the bowels of pre-production, for the most part–makes for a terrific companion piece to her interview, and its candid, offhand nature recalls Mark Rance's brilliantly voyeuristic making-ofs for New Line's best Platinum Series releases.

Kyle Cooper, designer of Se7en's memorable opening titles, explains what went into creating the special effects for Titus in a section called "Penny Arcade Nightmares." Aside from two trailers ("If you think revenge is sweet, taste this!") and four commercials, it's the last of the live-action bonus material. A pair of lengthy AMERICAN CINEMTOGRAPHER articles (don't worry, the layout is easy on the eyes), a gallery of costume stills, and an uneventful Easter egg, plus a foldout containing a trenchant NEW YORK TIMES essay by Jonathan Bate, top off the dessert menu.

162 minutes; R; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English Dolby Surround; CC; English, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9 + DVD-5; Region One; Fox