Hacker Cinema
Titus
1999 · Film · 162 min
Directed by Julie Taymor
Titus Andronicus returns from the wars and sees his sons and daughters taken from him, one by one. Shakespeare's goriest and earliest tragedy.
3 positive1 neutralfrom 4 commenters
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7 comments on Hacker News
Did either of you ever try watching e.g. Titus?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_(film)
It's not considered one of his great plays. I enjoyed the film, sought out a solo copy of the play, which I managed to slog through. That was years ago; I don't really remember it. Still revisit the film though.
Absolutely you should watch it. Your comparison is apt; you're missing most of it if you're just reading the script. The sights and sounds of a good performance make it much easier to follow.
Reading the script is an advanced skill. I think we do a real disservice throwing unedited scripts at students.
As for what to watch, there are many great film versions. Branagh's Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing were my gateway. There is a stunning Titus by Julie Taymor, especially if you like horror -- it's an obscure play but Taymor makes a spectacle of it. There have been several very good Macbeth adaptations recently; I need to catch Denzel Washington's because I've heard it's great. There was also a very good Coriolanus recently (another obscure play given a very modern and relevant performance).
I would watch a film, and if you love it, read the play to find out how it works.
For fun, I tried to see how many of the films on their missing movie list are currently watchable on Youtube or from public trackers
http://missingmovies.org/list-of-missing-movies/
Features, 15/23 available
3 legally viewable:
- 1 to be released on Blu-ray in May 2022: Mississippi Masala (1991)
- 2 more on Apple TV: Gal Young 'Un (1979), Angels and Insects (1995)
11 more available 'online':
- 2 HD rips on public trackers from out-of-print blu-rays: Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), Titus (1999)
- 3 others have full DVD rips on public trackers: Home of the Brave (1986), I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
- 4 others have SD rips on Youtube: The Savage Eye (1959), Black Girl (1972), Deadhead Miles (1972),
- 4 others have low-res VHS rips: Angelo My Love (1983), Baby Face Nelson (1957), Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972), Eat the Document (1972)
3 more not yet 'online':
- 2 have OOP DVD releases: True Love (1989), Union City (1980)
- 1 other has an OOP VHS release: Household Saints (1993)
5 others have no home media releases I can find:
- Annihilation of Fish (1999), The Cool World (1963), The Marijuana Affair (1975), Nothing but Common Sense (1972), Lanton Mills (1969)
Documentaries, 3/9 available
0 legally viewable
3 available 'online':
- 1 has an HD rip on a public tracker: The Memory of Justice (1976)
- 2 others have SD rips on Youtube: Angela Davis (1971), My Architect (2003)
4 more not yet 'online':
- 3 have OOP DVD releases: Ali the Fighter (1975), Image before my Eyes (1981), The Weavers (1981)
- 1 has an OOP VHS release: Weapons of the Spirit (1987)
2 others have no home media releases I can find:
- Agee (1980), That Rhythm Those Blues (1988)
Well, the plots are really bad, even by Shakespeare's standards. Cymbelline is a mess of mistaken identities and increasingly arbitrary subplots that require a literal deus ex machina to resolve: Jupiter himself shows up and just tells everybody how to end the play. Pericles started life as a collection of unrelated short stories, crammed together haphazardly. The Winter's Tale has a terrible main character, so the plot just goes completely elsewhere for 17 years, followed by a completely unmotivated and really bizarre quickie "redemption". In each case you leave the theater having no idea how to feel about anything. They weren't funny, but neither have they resolved dramatically. They just kinda stop.
That said... two of the films I mentioned are of plays considered barely better than these. Titus is literally a horror play, but Julie Taymor was the director of the Broadway Lion King, and turned it into achingly beautiful and horribly tragic art. The Coriolanus is less of an artistic achievement, but they resolved the play's terrible pacing problems to make it a thrilling political action movie.
The real reason the plays I listed are rarely performed isn't the plot, but the fact that there isn't anything else great to recommend them. They don't have great poetry or engaging characters. They're just kinda limp.
But who knows? Maybe they just need somebody to find the magic in them. A couple of years ago I had a wild success with a production of Timon of Athens, a kind of reverse Chrismas Carol where the Scrooge starts off as a good, generous man who spends the whole second half of the play complaining about how badly he got screwed over. Then he kills himself. I edited it to keep the pace up, found the dark comedy in it, and people said that they didn't know why it's not performed more often.
So any of these plays could have a great rediscovery at some point and change how people think about them. But we're also very aware that even the best of Shakespeare's plays have deep flaws, both intrinsically and in the way expectations have changed in 400 years. We find that they mean something to us, and even the terrible ones contain something that adds to the work as a whole. I can report what most people think, but the real wins come when somebody takes a fresh look.
I don't think a plain English adaptation is very helpful. His work isn't about the story, but the language. The work is poetry, both literally and figuratively, and a plain English adaptation is like somebody telling you about their favorite song.
Better, I think, is to see a good film adaptation. Shakespeare was never intended to be read, but to be performed. There's a lot in the text that isn't apparent until you've studied it closely, but a good performance will bring it right out in the open.
A few films that I'd suggest to get started with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V_(1989_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Much_Ado_About_Nothing_(1993_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(1995_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolanus_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_%2B_Juliet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet_(2000_film)
These are all good, accessible versions of his plays. You don't need to be an expert to understand and enjoy them. (They're very roughly in order of my favorites, if that matters to you.)
I won't guarantee you'll like them. There's really nothing wrong with that. People get snobby about Shakespeare, and they shouldn't. It's OK to say, "Yeah, it's not for me". But under all the snobbery, there really is great text and great performances that people genuinely enjoy. If you're interested in that, these films are the places I'd start.
Star Wars is a mess for the past has tech more advanced than the future. Blade Runner is still watchable though and never laughable because it seemingly has been placed in an intentional anachronistic SciFi setting: the 1940's hairstyle and dress Rachel wears, a 1950's "Raymond Chandler" slice of life story, a computer that is more "steampunk" than plausible. The films "Brazil", Marie Antoinette", "Titus", Jesus Christ Superstar, adopt that anachronistic style as well.
Taking it from a more political point of view rather than neurological, Shakespeare did a political play on this subject which was summarily all about blow-back or stone cold revenge — "Titus Andronicus." (A movie by Julie Taymor of the play "Titus" is quite powerful)
In politics and war The dirtiest fighter makes the rules and now that the United States tortures people, I suspect we will be "one-upped" in the next war.