response 108 of 326:

May 24 03:51 UTC 2000

So I went to see "Titus".  It came out last year, I think, but was
apparently released to a fairly limited audience at the time.  We saw it
at this weird little artsy theatre, so I dont' know if it's playing
nationally or not.

I'd never read _Titus Andronicus_, but I'd read and seen several other
Shakespeare tragedies, so I thought I knew what to expect of this.  Wrong.
It surprised me with how disturbing and bloody and brutal and well,
tragic, it was, even in comparison to others.  Don't go see this when
you're feeling squeamish.

OTOH, it was quite well done, if a bit bizarre in some places.  I
think the film would have been much improved if the director had cut out a
couple of little dream sequence/showing-the-inside-of-the-character's head
bits.  I have no patience for artsy pretention in films, and these scenes
seemed to be full of sound and fury and not much else.  There were only a
couple of them, though.

The director (whose name I can't remember at the moment for some reason)
chose to set the film in both ancient *and* modern times.  Tony, who I saw
it with, found this anachronistic and irritating, so you may too.  I
really didn't have a problem with it, since both ancient Rome and the
modern (actually earlier in this century) world got equal play, so I
wasn't left feeling like one was the "real" setting and one an
anachronism.  They segued fairly fluidly between the two, and used
elements of both to tell the story.  (Come to think of it, this is artsy
pretention, too, but it's the kind I like, so it's okay.  ;))  Throughout,
the costumes, sets, etc., were quite well done, with a lot of attention to
detail.  The photography itself was beautiful, too.

Anyway, the excellent cast (led by Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, and
including lots of other people I'd never heard of, but who were really,
really good)  more than made up for the film's weaker spots.  Almost none
of the characters are really likeable or sympathetic in this story, but
the actors made even the most evil ones charismatic and compelling so
that the audience was fascinated and had to find out what happened to
them.

So yeah, I'd recommend this.  Go see it on the big screen if at all
possible.