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TITVS ANDRONICVS

 

We can find hundreds of films based on William Shakespeare’s plays. There are lots of film adaptations of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, etc., but we can find few films based on Titus Andronicus. Why? If we read the play we can see that it is too violent. Probably it is too much for the audience. There are mutilations, murders, too much blood, etc. In fact, one of this film adaptations is a gore movie, exploiting this violence and blood.

 

Deborah Cartmell (2000: 11) says:

 

Arguably, the most filmic of all Shakespeare’s plays is Titus Andronicus (…). However, to date, there is no major film version of the play – at the time of writing, Titus directed by Julie Taymor, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, is in the production stages and expected to be released in 1999. It has taken considerably time for the play which was probably the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays in his own lifetime (…) to reach the screen.

 

Until today, there are six films adaptations of Titus Andronicus, unfortunately there is not much information about them. Probably the most well known is Titus, with Anthony Hopkins and directed by Julie Taymor, since it is a Hollywood production and it had great publicity. Of course, there is a BBC production based on this play included in The BBC TV Shakespeare Collection. It was aired in 1985 and directed by Jane Howell. The other film adaptations are almost unknown, for example the Finnish version of this play in 1970; and the Lorn Richey’s version in 1997. We only know the name of the directors and the year they were released.

 

Regarding the two most known adaptations of this play, Kenneth S. Roswell (2000:119) talks about Howell’s film:

 

By rediscovering the possibilities of Gothic thrills in Shakespeare’s strange Senecan tragedy, Titus Andronicus, Jane Howell spawned a Rocky Horror Picture Show in minimalist guise. Gripping performances by Trevor Peacock in the title role and Anna Calder- Marshall as the ravished Lavinia make credible the incredibility of the Ovidian/Senecan rhetoric in Shakespeare’s grotesque but compelling Roman history play.

 

If we watch Taymor’s film “we can find in Taymor’s Titus a personal vision of the director through the extensive use of metaphorical associations” (Roswell, 2004: 30). There is also a contrast between old and new, for example in suits and weapons. Metaphors are based on the themes of bodily dislocation and bestiality.  We can see body parts during the film. Also animals are used as metaphors to describe the characters. (Roswell, 2004: 31) Another especial characteristic we can find is that violence is emphasized in Taymor’s film with the use of slow-motion (Roswell, 2004: 63,64)

 

As we have seen the films have different important points of representation of the play. In Howell’s case the story relies on the actors, the performance of the characters to tell the story. While in Taymor’s film it is the setting and the visual impact of the film what is important to understand the story. 

 

Finally, there is a last adaptation released in 2000 directed by Richard Griffin, in which the story of Titus Andronicus is settled in our time.

 

 

REFERENCES

 

-Cartmell, Deborah. Interpreting Shakespeare on screen. Hong Kong: Macmillan Press, 2000.

-Rothwell, Kenneth S. A History of Shakespeare on Screen. A century of film and television. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

 

 

 

 

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Academic year 2007/2008
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Carolina Esteban Munera
Universitat de Valčncia Press
caesmu@alumni.uv.es