All these people whining that Julie Taymor has 'distorted the text' by presenting a Roman story in modern dress should prepare themselves for some shocking news: Shakespeare did the same thing. A drawing exists from the 1590s of a production of 'Titus'. It is the only surviving contemporary illustration of a scene from Shakespeare. And what does it show? It shows Titus wearing a toga, Tamora wearing a medieval dress and a medieval crown, and two guards wearing Elizabethan soldiers' outfits. Now try reading 'Julius Caesar'. There you'll find a character who describes how he "plucked open Caesar's doublet". In the same play, you'll find characters who wear "hats and cloaks" - in Ancient Rome! And this isn't some weird pecadillo of Shakespeare's. This blurring of historical eras is a quality of Renaissance literature, art and drama across the board .
Those who decry the excesses of 'postmodern' directors should wake up. The 'traditional', 'accurate' productions of Shakespeare were invented by the Victorian theatre, not the Elizabethans. And this po-faced Victorian literalism has been stifling Shakespeare's plays ever since. Elizabethan dramatists were not pedantic history majors, fussing over historical accuracy. They knew that the stories they enacted were ALIVE, and that the events they depicted were just as much a part of their own culture as that of Ancient Rome. And they knew that by mixing the past and the present they would KEEP those stories ALIVE by refusing to allow their audiences to view the stories as an ancient tale from a vanished past. That's what Julie Taymor is doing in this film. She isn't 'accidentally' muddling up Imperial Rome, Mussolini's fascism, and the adrenalin-craving violence of modern youth culture. She is rubbing your noses in the fact that they are the SAME, and that we cannot complacently brush off 'Titus Andronicus' as cheap senationalism divorced from reality. Because it isn't. You don't believe me? Try reading an Amnesty International report. Or try watching the news one day.
Yes, the film has its faults. But don't criticise its eclectic postmodernism. Shakespeare would have had no problem with it, because Taymor's vision is derived from the very theatrical practices that Shakespeare was steeped in. It's the dry-as-dust Victorian literalism hankered after by some of the reviews below that would have offended Shakespeare.
More films like this, please!
Those who decry the excesses of 'postmodern' directors should wake up. The 'traditional', 'accurate' productions of Shakespeare were invented by the Victorian theatre, not the Elizabethans. And this po-faced Victorian literalism has been stifling Shakespeare's plays ever since. Elizabethan dramatists were not pedantic history majors, fussing over historical accuracy. They knew that the stories they enacted were ALIVE, and that the events they depicted were just as much a part of their own culture as that of Ancient Rome. And they knew that by mixing the past and the present they would KEEP those stories ALIVE by refusing to allow their audiences to view the stories as an ancient tale from a vanished past. That's what Julie Taymor is doing in this film. She isn't 'accidentally' muddling up Imperial Rome, Mussolini's fascism, and the adrenalin-craving violence of modern youth culture. She is rubbing your noses in the fact that they are the SAME, and that we cannot complacently brush off 'Titus Andronicus' as cheap senationalism divorced from reality. Because it isn't. You don't believe me? Try reading an Amnesty International report. Or try watching the news one day.
Yes, the film has its faults. But don't criticise its eclectic postmodernism. Shakespeare would have had no problem with it, because Taymor's vision is derived from the very theatrical practices that Shakespeare was steeped in. It's the dry-as-dust Victorian literalism hankered after by some of the reviews below that would have offended Shakespeare.
More films like this, please!