Summary 
Brilliantly conceived film from a first-time director is imbued with dazzling visuals and an exciting musical score, plus a lush costume design that was nominated for an Academy Award. Memorable performances of colorful characters enhance a vicious tragedy that depicts the escalating cruelty of revenge, told within a well-wrought blend of ancient Rome with a pseudo-modern Fascist Italy. Stunning melodrama, at once beautiful and poetic as well as repellent and vulgar: an imaginatively realized vision, psychically and physically violent, teeming with nudity, rape, dismemberment, murder, and the baking of slaughtered children into meat pies.
Production
Directed by Julie Taymor. 1999. 2:42.
Cast
Anthony Hopkins (Titus), Jessica Lange (Tamora), Harry Lennix (Aaron), Angus MacFadyen (Lucius), Alan Cumming (Saturninus), James Frain (Bassianus), Colm Feore (Marcus), Laura Fraser (Lavinia), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (Chiron), Matthew Rhys (Demetrius), Osheen Jones (Young Lucius).
Analysis
Julie Taymor's impressive directorial debut, this bold adaptation of Titus Andronicus begins with a non-textual prologue that sets the film's sinister overall tone of vengeful violence and black humor. The young Lucius Andronicus, wearing a cardboard gladiator mask, watches television at a kitchen table while playing with battle figures. To the sound of cartoons, Lucius beheads a toy soldier with a butter knife then enacts a ferocious battle, crashing a jet fighter into his bloodied-with-ketchup plate of french fries and attacking the tiny soldiers around a tall slice of chocolate cake. He whoops and hollers, splattering ketchup on more strewn figures. Fantasy becomes reality in a striking moment, and Lucius suddenly covers his ears as real-life war intrudes and the walls begin to rumble, the lights flicker, and bombs whistle in the background. He scurries beneath the table as a fiery explosion rips through the window, sparks and smoke flying into the kitchen. A brawny soldier rescues him, hauling him sobbing from his hiding place. Lucius, carried down a long flight of steps away from the now-in-flames kitchen and out into a Roman coliseum courtyard, retrieves a centurion toy soldier from the rubble at his feet just as the real centurions appear, looking as ash-covered as his toy.
Taymor shoots the ashen-gray soldiers in close-up, their martial marching slow and stylistic, their movements as robotic as Lucius' toy soldiers, as they carry sheet-wrapped battlefield dead amid pounding drums. Chanting dramatic music resounds as the soldiers enter Rome, captured in hazy blue and gray light, wielding broadswords and spears, some of them perched upon visored motorcycles with wolfs-heads, followed by Titus himself riding a four-horse-drawn chariot. Modern mechanized battle tanks follow, as do the captured Goth queen Tamora and her sons within a cage. Anthony Hopkins' stoic Titus then marches down a gauntlet of his gray soldiers like an inspecting general, overseeing a bizarre military exercise that seems part swordsman drill and part modern dance, executed with stiffly mechanical movements by the ash-covered warriors. Hopkins' Titus removes his filthy helmet to cheers and addresses them ("Hail, Rome!") from a panning low-angle camera, urging the battlefield dead be readied for honorable "burial amongst their ancestors."
Taymor modernizes Titus Andronicus, masterfully blending for Titus the military aspect of ancient Rome with the modern Italian city. Returning soldiers are shown seated naked within an old Roman bath house as water gushes down upon them in luxurious slow motion from large open pipes, hissing steam rising from the floor. Hopkins' Titus, now attired in a dress uniform with a flowing red leather cape, descends with an honor guard carrying white-shrouded bodies to the Andronicus crypt. Taymor delves then into the roots of the film - vengeance for the lack of mercy - as Tamora pleads from her knees for the life of her eldest son. Jessica Lange's Tamora - "rue the tears I shed" - implores Titus as he heats knife blades over a ceremonial fire. Tamora decries her humiliation - paraded through Roman streets "to beautify your triumphs" - but Hopkins' Titus disregards her entreaties, pouring wine into the mouth of the kneeling Albarus, who is held by the arms. "Religiously they ask a sacrifice," he murmurs to Tamora, slicing her Goth son across his bared chest and ignoring her pointed declaration that "sweet mercy is nobility's true badge." With Albarus' execution the ruthless cycle of revenge begins, and Taymor marks the moment with the striking close-up image of Hopkins' Titus behind the flicker of flames as Albarus' entrails are dropped into the fire, then a matching shot of Lange's stricken Tamora. Hopkins' Titus lights candles within the shadowy crypt, his spirit seemingly crushed by the losses of this latest war, murmuring with a tired old general's longing for his own sense of peace: "here lurks no treason, here no envy swells, here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms, no noise but silence and eternal sleep."
Hopkins' and Lange's anchoring lead performances establish the dramatic core of Titus. Hopkins' Titus is a squat old army general with short-cropped gray hair and a stiffly dignified bearing, speaking with the quickly-clipped poetic polish of a highly intellectual patriarch. Titus' tragically heightened sense of duty and honor, so apparent in Hopkins' gesture and tone, sparks the escalating vengeance that ends in bloodbath. His adversary in Titus is Lange's voluptuous Tamora, an earthy and passionate queen of the Goths with fire in her eyes and tattoos across her flesh. Later, when the smitten Saturninus leans toward the bedroom-eyed Tamora in a tight close-up, Hopkins remains in the background between them, watching but saying nothing.
Taymor continues 1.1 by evoking a modern Rome with a Fascist bent, as young Lucius sits in a long low-angle shot on the steps of Mussolini's Square, the seat of the 1930s government, reading from the headline of a newspaper he has captured in the breeze: "thousands mourn the death of Caesar." Modern swing music plays - a jazzy trumpet riff - as a row of black banners unfurl from the top windows of the office building behind him. Lucius runs into the teeming streets to witness a pair of rival political rallies led by Caesar's sons - Saturninus in a yellow-and-red flag motorcade like Mussolini himself, then Bassianus in an open convertible like JFK with megaphones in white-and-blue flag motif - each followed by riot police soldiers on horseback. Taymor shoots the collision of the two rallies from directly overhead in a remarkable crane shot, the supporters of each faction clashing and fighting beneath their soccer-team colors while the modern swing music blares. In bright sunshine, Marcus Andronicus addresses the crowd, white-clad tribunes gathering behind him, shot by Taymor from a very low angle. Hopkins' Titus is implored to accept the empery and "help to set a head on headless Rome," but, squinting in the glaring sun, Titus refuses due to his "age and feebleness."
Alan Cumming's weasel-like Saturninus, slight and pale in a red-fringed black leather overcoat, smirks with self-satisfaction as he is crowned Emperor, the sometimes bland character masterfully played by Cumming as a wicked combination of Pee Wee Herman with Der Fuhrer, his jet-black hair cut like that of Adolf Hitler. At the senate, he reclines frail and feminine within an oversized metal throne beneath the huge silver head of a roaring lion. Cumming's Saturninus chooses the lovely Lavinia as his bride, if just to spite his brother, yet seems enamored with Lange's Tamora. Saturninus is drawn to her in an uncomfortable blend of sexual lust and the psychological need for a mother figure, and Lange's pragmatic Tamora - stunning in bare-shouldered golden torso armor and glittering golden eye-make up - seizes the opportunity to rise from captured war criminal to empress of Rome. When Bassianus spirits Lavinia away with his black-clad supporters, including Titus' sons, Tamora kneels to kiss Saturninus' hand, now in a position to pursue her vengeance; and Hopkins' Titus is summarily dishonored and suddenly vulnerable. Titus defends the Emperor from his family, stabbing his son Mutius: "nor thou nor he are any sons of mine," he tells them. Taymor later captures Titus in a revealing shot as he half-staggers away from the camera down a dingy Italian alley way - silently passing ghastly prostitutes - toward the family tomb. When his sons confront him, wishing to inter Mutius with honor, Hopkins' Titus advises them, "my foes I do repute you every one," but ultimately relents, with a sense of weariness: "and bury me the next."
Lange's Tamora pretends to play peacemaker in the public courtyard - "pardon what is past" - but glares at Titus and almost spits his name. Lange looks directly into the camera in a fierce aside - "I'll find a day to massacre them all" - but turns to disarmingly laugh, earning a perfunctory smile from Hopkins' Titus. Taymor, in the first of a series of psychedelic nightmare sequences, visualizes the murderous conflict: Hopkins' Titus stands left facing Lange's Tamora at the right, and flames rise between and around them. The image of Albarus' severed limbs emerge from the flickering fire, as does his dismembered torso, to the sound of breaking glass and rattling chains. The surreal imagery suddenly disappears and the two turn away from each other without having said a word.
Taymor culls a fourth exceptional performance from her cast: Harry Lennix reprises his role as Aaron from Taymor's off-Broadway stage production, and his well-spoken narrator often speaks directly to the camera in casual asides, revealing his villainy, as do his final words ("if one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul"). An outsider at Saturninus' indulgent bacchanal, Aaron stands apart. Taymor cuts to a cork-pop from a champagne bottle at the lavish party, panning to reveal Saturninus in a white suit and heavy make-up, reclining beside Tamora, who coyly feeds him. A swing band plays beside an enormous swimming pool, with fountains gushing water from stone animal maws. Tamora's punkishly wild sons - Chiron and Demetrius, called "sanguine, shallow-hearted boys" by Aaron - wear modern club gear and puff cigarettes, one throwing a tray of food into the swimming pool, the other pinching the cheeks of a servant and flicking ashes into the hair of a lady guest. Taymor pans for more shots of wild dancing, colorful costumes, and platters of delicacies, the disgusted Aaron remaining aloof. Lennix's charming and handsome Aaron, indeed the fuel to the fire that already exists between Titus and Tamora, employs Chiron (in silver) and Demetrius (in black) within his 2.1 plots. The boys argue over the love of Lavinia, chasing each other throughout Saturninus' expansive household, taunting each other, feigning sexual intercourse, and devolving into a brawl with crotch-grabbing, head-butting, and the drawing of knives. Aaron must separate them on their bed of pillows, and he reveals his plot to have Lavinia ("this dainty doe") raped and Bassianus murdered, while framing Titus' sons for the crimes. In 2.3, Taymor reveals the depth of the relationship between the Moor and the new Empress, showing Lange's Tamora stripping away her red riding suit and pulling Aaron down atop her ("sweeter to me than life!").
Taymor's always moving camera spins round and round the 2.3 confrontation from a variety of perspectives, showing Chiron and Demetrius circling menacingly before they stab Bassianus. They laugh as Lavinia weeps, but when Lavinia begs for mercy - just as Tamora had done of Titus earlier - Lange's Tamora, like Titus, refuses. In the first escalation of the cycle of revenge, her sons drag Lavinia into the woods, and Taymor depicts the assault in another remarkably visual nightmare sequence: Lavinia, in white, stands atop a tree stump in pale blue light, struggling to hold her skirt down as the two Goth punks leap from the muddy ground at her, merging into the shapes of ravaging tigers.
Hopkins - his Titus now ironically seeking mercy for his own incriminated sons - delivers his finest scene in a 3.1 expertly realized by Taymor. Within murky daylight a rainstorm gathers, and Hopkins' Titus stands on a stone path leading to the city, appealing to tribunes who push past him and refuse to slow or even listen. Taymor's camera begins from a high angle but drops lower as it pans around to show Titus' sons in the back of a horse-drawn cart, chained within a cage much like Tamora's sons earlier. Hopkins falls to his knees then to his belly, still imploring as men stalk past him and wagons roll over him. In sudden silence, Hopkins' Titus lies prone, alone on the path, and he endures a nightmare sequence that hints at his brimming madness. An angel with a trumpet approaches, fire burning in the background, and reveals a lamb tied to an altar for slaughter, but the lamb bears Titus' son Mutius' face. Hopkins' Titus - unshaven and glassy-eyed - laughs when approached by the elder Lucius, then teeters ("Rome is but a wilderness of tigers") as Marcus arrives with Lavinia in his arms. Taymor cleverly depicts the state of the Andronicus family: the four Andronici are shot from ground level by Taymor's camera, the four of them peering down into a puddle of water; Taymor then cuts to an overhead shot of them gazing at their reflection, but the image distorts with the fall of droplets of rain.
The middle portion of Taymor's Titus is characterized by the blackest of black comedy. Hopkins' Titus argues with his family as to whom should chop off a hand to pay Saturninus' ransom for the framed Andronici, and they race through their house, amid bursts of lightning and thunder, in search of sharp implements to do the deed. Later, carnival music accompanies Saturninus' messenger and his red-haired daughter, who arrive in a smoke-belching novelty truck to set up chairs as they dance and sing in gypsy-like vaudeville. They reveal Aaron's treachery by unveiling the severed heads of the accused sons as well as Titus' severed hand. Hopkins' Titus rocks with amused laughter, despite Marcus' urging "now is a time to storm." They oddly retrieve the body parts, each taking a head in a jar, with Lavinia "helping" by picking up Titus' hand with her teeth (although young Lucius visits a prosthetics shop in the next scene to outfit her with useable "hands").
Taymor cuts to Aaron shooting pool 4.2 on a scarlet-felt billiards table as his two demented allies cavort, one in leather pants and pigtails dancing and pretending to play drums, the other smoking and swilling beer while playing a motorcycle-biker video game. Lennix's Aaron - "pray to the devils; the gods have given us o'er" - fawns over the Emperor's bastard child, "a joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue." He dispatches the child's nurse ("a long-tongued babbling gossip") with an abrupt stab to the belly, his disconcerting brutality opposed to Titus's honor-based actions, and Taymor inspires empathy for the addled Titus in the subsequent scene. Dramatic military music accompanies Hopkins' Titus and young Lucius as they madly march ("hep! hep!") through the lamp-lit Italian streets, Titus now wearing a red bathrobe over his armor. Taymor backlights them as they march down an alley toward the camera, slowing their movement to dramatic slow motion. Marcus directs arrow volleys to shoot written appeals to the gods into a roof opening and down upon the debauched revelers within Saturninus' court. The arrows puncture a big-breasted plastic mermaid sex doll and interrupt sexual acts as naked and half-naked party-goers flee. Cumming's Saturninus, curled up submissively astride the bare-breasted Tamora, storms out of his bedchamber, his angry ranting, with sudden moments of smiling calm, also smacking of mental illness.
The 5.2 visit from Revenge, with her sons Rape and Murder, is the last of Taymor's psychedelic nightmare sequences, with reality seeming to bleed into fantasy for Hopkins' bewildered Titus. Taymor shows Titus sitting within a tub in a darkened bathroom, lit in bluish moonlight only from a window, splashing water and hissing as he draws blood as if ink from his gory stump so he can write and draw. He hangs one childishly drawn picture on the wall next to him, spitting on it twice before flinging a book across the room directly toward the camera in a jarring shot. Taymor blurs the focus on Hopkins' gleeful expression as he rises from his tub to see Tamora's Revenge call him from the yard below. Hopkin's Titus is wild-eyed as his vision becomes hallucinatory - Chiron and Demetrius merge into leaping tigers, and Revenge's voice becomes distorted - and he slaps one boy across the face and barks at him before humping him and kissing Tamora. Taymor concludes 5.2 with Titus now chillingly soft-spoken in his explanations to the captured Chiron and Demetrius, who hang naked and upside down from chains, gagged with duct tape and trembling within a dark kitchen. Taymor's camera finds Titus' face between their inverted hanging heads, looking from one to the other ("inhuman traitors") as he coldly explains his gruesome intent: "I shall grind your bones to dust...and make two pastries of your shameful heads." Hopkins' Titus, now decidedly like a Romanesque Hannibal Lecter, makes biting gestures at each boy, then ushers Lavinia into the kitchen to "receive their blood" as he nonchalantly slits their throats and drops the knife with a loud clatter. Taymor's camera studies Titus' expression between the chains as their bodies wriggle, and Hopkins' Titus exits with a slam of the door to go "play the cook."
Taymor's cinematic sense impresses, especially her eye for memorable visuals. The cinematography is consistently striking: Hopkins' Titus seated next to a wild dog by a fire in an Italian street; Cumming's Saturninus clicking a remote from atop a long flight of steps to brightly light the stone courtyard; Marcus discovering Lavinia standing upon a tree stump, her hands severed and left in stringy stumps; Aaron hanging Titus' severed hand in a plastic baggie from his rear-view mirror ("Aaron will have his soul black, like his face") as he races off to a blackout; and Lennix's Aaron pulling a noose away from his head, then leaping down to somersault to the elder Lucius and attempt to strangle him.
Taymor opens the 5.3 feast scene with a sickening close-up shot of meat pie, thick and steaming on a platter, cooling by an open window to a pleasant Italian song. Marcus seats the guests at a long banquet table, Saturninus and Tamora at the head and foot, black-clad men on one side, and white-clad men on the other. Hopkins' Titus then enters with a flourish, yanking apart scarlet curtains, dressed all in white with a wobbling chef's hat atop his head. He graciously smiles, cutting slices of meat pie with a knife embedded in his stump, first serving Tamora then running with the wheeled cart to serve Saturninus next. Taymor serves up close-ups of Hopkins' Titus licking his lips then closer shots of his guests enjoying the ghastly food with lip-smacking relish.
As the dinner music ends, Titus achieves his vengeful pinnacle as he snaps Lavinia's neck and kneels with her to close her eyes, Taymor's camera with them on the floor. Titus then accuses Tamora's sons of the rape - screaming, "why there they are, both baked in that pie!" - and dances gleefully to Lange's Tamora ("'tis true! 'tis true!"), who shoves her plate away in horror. The Hamlet-like bloodbath continues as Titus plunges a butcher's knife into Tamora's neck and Saturninus, captured in a long shot in the background at the other end of the banquet table, swipes the table clear and leaps atop. Cumming's Saturninus yanks Hopkins backwards onto the table with him, pulls candles loose from a candelabra with his teeth, and as Hopkins watches almost gratefully, plunges the three-bladed silver into Titus' chest. In turn, the elder Lucius seizes Saturninus by the collar and drags him the length of the banquet table, upsetting cups and plates and platters and flatware. Lucius stuffs the Emperor into his seat, then shoves a big serving spoon down his throat and upends the chair. Taymor freezes the moment with Saturninus in mid-fall, tipping backward with arms out, her camera quickly panning around to the other side of the freeze frame for a closer angle of an execution. Still within the freeze frame, Lucius spits upon Saturninus, then draws a pistol and fires, killing the Emperor as normal speed action resumes. Taymor's camera then shows Titus sprawled on the banquet table, pulling far back quickly in a crane shot to reveal the banquet outdoors within the Coliseum, silent spectators watching the graphic violence in passive silence.
Taymor's Titus concludes with Marcus then Lucius addressing the crowd, decrying the "ravenous tiger Tamora" and claiming the empery for Lucius. Taymor ends, surprisingly - after all the madness, bloodlust, and lack of mercy - with a hopeful image of renewal: young Lucius goes to Aaron's crying infant son as birds caw and bells toll, pulling the child free from his cage and cradling him, then walking off into a lightening sky away from the Coliseum. As the two boys move farther away, music begins to rise and the bright orange of the sun kisses the horizon, concluding Taymor's Titus, a superbly directed vision of Titus Andronicus, visually breathtaking and artfully created, buoyed with four compellingly colorful performances.