Taymor, Hopkins Empower The Bard's 'Titus'
Anybody who experienced Tony Award winning director Julie Taymor's stage version of "The Lion King" knows that her talent for creating stunning visuals is nothing short of spectacular. Couple that vision with the brilliance of Shakespeare, and you'll likely never look at the Bard's work the same way again.
Having first staged it on Broadway in 1994, Taymor has brought her own adaptation of Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" to life as the feature film, "Titus," which marks her debut as a director.
Currently on the West coast staging the L.A. production of "The Lion King," Taymor is brimming with excitement and anticipation over the release of the film on video and special edition DVD. A graphic tale of vengeance, madness, power and passion, "Titus" features the gripping talents of Anthony Hopkins in the title role, a general who returns from a war with the Goths only to find himself at odds with the new Emperor of Rome, Satruninus (Alan Cumming). However, it's the revenge in the heart of the queen of the Goths (Jessica Lange) that ultimately casts Titus' life into utter chaos.
A great many filmmakers have strived to make Shakespeare accessible to modern day moviegoers, but with "Titus," Taymor felt she didn't have to -- the relevancy was inherent.
"That's why I did it as a film -- because when I did it as a play, I was shocked at how contemporary it felt," Taymor told me in a recent interview. "So I didn't update it, I made my own time very much like Shakespeare did, which is to say I blended time.
"This is not a history play, like 'Richard III.' This was a reflection. Shakespeare used another era (Rome) to reflect upon his own time, and I feel I'm following in the same vein."
The result is a melding of violence and hatred past and present, with each character essentially representing a different time period.
"To put everybody in Roman garb and make it seem such a distant piece seemed inappropriate," she described. "There's no reason to. It poetry, it's in English, it's his idea of history of people. So it feels that if he did it that way it should be done that way."
Tony As 'Titus'
The DVD version of "Titus" features many diverse special features, from audio commentary by Taymor and composer Elliot Goldenthal, a Q&A session with Taymor, to a costume gallery that features the film's striking array of apparel.
But perhaps the most brilliant part of the disc, aside from the film itself, is incredibly insightful documentary on the making of the film. It includes an in-depth look at Taymor's three-work rehearsal process for the film, which reveals sides of Hopkins and Lange that you've likely never seen before.
A longtime friend and contributor to this column, entertainment journalist Bill Carlson, has interviewed Hopkins on several occasions. Fascinated by his incredible portrayals, he's often asks the Oscar winner what makes him tick. You'll likely be surprised to learn that Hopkins' method is rather simple: It's all about learning the lines and hitting the marks.
But Taymor's challenge to her actors in "Titus" required a bit more than that. She didn't want her company to merely show up with their lines "memorized" every day, but instead implored that the language of the Bard get under their skin. As a result, she's confident Hopkins threw himself in a role deeper than ever before.
"He tore himself open for this role," Taymor told me. "I'm going to be quite frank here, Hannibal Lecter is nothing for him to do. He may not agree, but I feel that he could walk through that part. 'Titus' is a part that he had to embrace and become totally. It's so difficult. It has so much range, you get to see so much more of Hopkins in his humor, his power his paranoia, his goodness, his strength. You see all aspects in this character.
"That's why this is such an extraordinary role. You see this great man, this general, become an absolute monster but you understand this journey. What a journey. Most films don't have the sort of character development that 'Titus' does."
Theatrical Energy
As a director used to the energy born of live performance and audience reaction, first-time director Taymor faced a significant challenge in the staging of "Titus" as a film. Since the process of filmmaking is an incredibly slow and fragmented process, she used her theater sensibilities to establish the tone.
"This is my feature, and that's why I had to use the rehearsal period so people were able to understand that if they were only on the set three minutes before cutting, they had an understanding of where they were going, and where they came from," Taymor said. "In a piece that is this intense, it was absolutely essential to give them that through-line by rehearsal without somebody interrupting them every single moment."
Having experienced staging "Titus" on both stage and screen, Taymor feels the ultimate setting for play is the latter. If any of Shakespeare's works were meant to become a film, she says this is it.
"I like the film better than being on the stage because I was able to choose and create environments to support the imagery," Taymor said. "The film makes Shakespeare's piece even clearer, because when you've got language like 'Rome is a wilderness of tigers,' you can create that kind of language. Sure, the audience can use their imaginations in the theater, but film, after all, is a literal medium."
And having Taymor's imagination to interpret the work makes 'Titus' all the more exciting to watch.
"Creating a crossroads to show that Titus was at a crossroads in his life, I think that helps an audience, to use scenery as metaphor," Taymor concludes. "The swamp representing Lavinia (Titus' daughter) totally destroyed, burnt and cut up -- all that imagery is so incredibly powerful in its language, that it inspired me when I did the screen adaptation."
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