Julie Taymor’s Titus: A Cinematographically Successful Reanimation
Shakespeare’s written manuscript of Titus Andronicus is the literary vessel through which readers experience the play solely with their imagination. Every reader is left to their own creative freedom while conjuring up images that makes sense to them, and that helps them better engage with the written work. A downside to this, and one that modern adolescent to adult readers complain about, is how can one create their own images when there is little to no means of socio-cultural or linguistic relatability? This is where the cinematic storytelling style helps to buttress Shakespeare’s cultural legacy. Although cinema takes away the individual’s creative experience, and only…show more content…
Viewers see this fuel her pleas, her desperation, and this helps to solidify her despise for the Roman empire. The film also amplifies the humiliation of the Goths in this scene by having Alarbus’ pre-sacrificial ritual done in front of other members of the Roman empire. Juxtaposing this idea with Lavinia’s rape in the film, one is forced contemplate their individual definition of civility and its antithesis-- barbarism. Lavinia is horribly disgraced, and Taymor makes no effort to minimize this truth in her adaptation, but the act of her rape is done where only the forest is third-party witness.
The second theme that Taymor successfully renders in her adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is motherhood. She does an excellent job of creating a visual understanding and contrast into the emotional manipulative measures a mother takes to get her children to do something in comparison with the moral obligations a father uses. To say that she only successfully rendered this theme would be to diminish the creative spark Taymor ignites for her viewers. When Tamora says to her sons;
Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?
These two have 'ticed me hither to this place:
…
And, had you not by wondrous fortune come,
This vengeance on me had they executed.
Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,
Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children
Shakespeare’s written manuscript of Titus Andronicus is the literary vessel through which readers experience the play solely with their imagination. Every reader is left to their own creative freedom while conjuring up images that makes sense to them, and that helps them better engage with the written work. A downside to this, and one that modern adolescent to adult readers complain about, is how can one create their own images when there is little to no means of socio-cultural or linguistic relatability? This is where the cinematic storytelling style helps to buttress Shakespeare’s cultural legacy. Although cinema takes away the individual’s creative experience, and only…show more content…
Viewers see this fuel her pleas, her desperation, and this helps to solidify her despise for the Roman empire. The film also amplifies the humiliation of the Goths in this scene by having Alarbus’ pre-sacrificial ritual done in front of other members of the Roman empire. Juxtaposing this idea with Lavinia’s rape in the film, one is forced contemplate their individual definition of civility and its antithesis-- barbarism. Lavinia is horribly disgraced, and Taymor makes no effort to minimize this truth in her adaptation, but the act of her rape is done where only the forest is third-party witness.
The second theme that Taymor successfully renders in her adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus is motherhood. She does an excellent job of creating a visual understanding and contrast into the emotional manipulative measures a mother takes to get her children to do something in comparison with the moral obligations a father uses. To say that she only successfully rendered this theme would be to diminish the creative spark Taymor ignites for her viewers. When Tamora says to her sons;
Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?
These two have 'ticed me hither to this place:
…
And, had you not by wondrous fortune come,
This vengeance on me had they executed.
Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,
Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children
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Julie Taymor’s Titus Andronicus Shakespeare's first tragedy has been a topic of discussion since the day it was written. Titus Andronicus "was staged on 24 January 1594 by the Earl of Sussex's Men at the Rose Theatre" (Welsh 1). Though this tidbit of information seems somewhat irrelevant to Titus, we must note that there are certain standards and practices established by a play from its first performance. It is also important to establish the general attributes that audiences attribute
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